THG fic: "Spin Control" [24/24] (wheeeew!)
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; anorexia and exercise addiction
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.
Chapter 24: Odds And Ends
In the days between the Games and the crowning ceremony, the Trophy led with a feature on District Twelve: Haymitch Abernathy and Finnick Odair - The True Victors Of This Hunger Games. Every other Games-related paper followed suit. The 74th Games had been exciting, but the victory of Thresh had ultimately let Panem down. People were looking for alternative news material with more entertainment value than the boy who’d sat it out.
Everybody with Games credence knew that Thresh would be forgotten in two years; he’d suffered through his victory interview with an unreadable face, answering Flickerman’s and the other journalist’s questions in monosyllables. So Katniss and Peeta were all over the victory tape, brilliant and colorful and so alive that it hurt. This Games’ story was a tragedy, and Thresh starred only as the witnessing survivor; he’d be remembered as the one who had been there to see. If the boy was smart, he’d eventually figure out how lucky he had gotten.
Finnick could have told them all that the media were wrong when they praised Twelve’s rise to power. There could have been a change, but there hadn’t been. The Games would continue, the same they’d always been. Nothing was different.
Not as far as the public eye was concerned, anyway.
Finnick and Haymitch sat at a corner table in the Training Center bar the evening before they’d all go home, not talking, just tired, moodily holding onto their glasses of iced tea, both longing to get drunk in that moment, albeit for different reasons. The victors tended to gather here at this point, even if they didn’t feel like talking to anybody, just in case someone had a last message to relay before everybody went home for a year. A small part of Finnick was missing the days of getting hopelessly wasted with Johanna, but he didn’t want to smell of alcohol in Haymitch’s presence, especially not on the last day of the Games season.
A heavy thud made them look up.
Chaff had slumped onto the chair across from Haymitch. He’d brought with him an elaborately arranged green and red cocktail, little sugar umbrellas sticking out of it, which he now put on the table and pushed towards Haymitch in a deliberate way that made a point out of the gesture.
Finnick tensed.
Haymitch eyed the drink with a dubious, guarded look on his face, obviously searching for words that might start with something like, “I really don’t think…” Finnick immediately developed a bad feeling that there was almost nothing Haymitch could say that wouldn’t damage his friendship with Chaff even further.
Chaff watched him with a hard face, in the way one might watch an ugly insect die.
Then he said edgily, “It’s made of kiwi and cherry or something like that. No alcohol involved, all right?” And after an uneasy beat, he added defensively, before Haymitch had time to react, “Gotta find something if we’re ever gonna go for drinks again, right?”
An unfamiliar, hesitant look crossed Haymitch’s face. It took even Finnick a moment to realize that this was what Haymitch looked like when he was touched.
Then, Haymitch awkwardly hooked his finger around the stem of the glass and pulled it closer, as if it were something delicate that needed to be protected.
“Uh,” he said, uncomfortably clearing his voice. “Listen, it’s not like I don’t appreciate the sentiment or anything, but that bottle I had sent to you…”
“…was a filthy scheme to keep me out of the Games, yeah, I get it,” Chaff said with a huff. “Guess what, we still made it. So I guess that leaves me on the moral high ground for a change.” He eyed the glass as if he hated the fact that he had to have this conversation, nodding at it as if it had personally insulted him. “Now drink it and shut the fuck up.”
Haymitch huffed a laugh.
But he tipped up the glass and downed its contents like it was a shot glass, except that he was coughing a moment later, managing, “What the fuck?” and, “You get this at a candy store?” and Chaff looked like he hadn’t previously considered that this would get hilarious so quickly, but that he might laugh at Haymitch anyway.
“How the fuck would I know one pansy water-drinker cocktail from another?”
“I’ll leave the two of you to it,” Finnick announced and stood up.
Then he paused, because he’d brushed his hand across Haymitch’s shoulder without thinking; maybe he’d gotten a little careless about public displays of affection here amongst the victors crowd. However, nobody seemed to have taken any special note of it, and Haymitch had turned to look at him, not starting, just with that automatic beat of, don’t go on his face. It vanished when his mind caught up, however, and although he still looked drained, this off-guard expression crossed his face - momentarily relaxed, as if that one burden were suddenly gone; he and Chaff had been friends for over twenty years.
Haymitch nodded at Finnick slightly. Only then did Finnick let go of his shoulder, turning to face all the other victors in the room.
He decided to go check on Johanna.
“So, you and Odair,” he heard Chaff’s voice before it was drowned out by the chatter in the bar. “How the fuck did that even happen? Not that I didn’t appreciate the fucked expression on Conny’s face…”
Finnick knew there was a chance that Chaff’s forgiveness never would extend to him. Haymitch was his oldest friend, but Finnick had threatened him a year ago; he’d cheated him in a worse way than Haymitch had, and he might have been permanently cast in the role of the bad guy for Chaff.
There were worse things, though. This wasn’t about Finnick.
Finnick did appreciate Thresh’s victory, in a way that most of the rest of Panem never would be able to. Katniss and Peeta might have died. But District Eleven had deserved just as much new hope as District Twelve. And in a strange way, he felt like he had gained some new hope as well this Games - not for their odds to bring home a child, but for himself, as if both he and Haymitch suddenly knew so much better who they were and who they wanted to be.
***
A new, eerie stillness covered District Twelve when Finnick and Haymitch arrived home.
Their train had arrived around noon, just past shift-change at the mines: The workers were making their way from the facilities towards their homes in the Seam, passing through the downtown. When Haymitch and Finnick went to give the Mellarks their condolences, the merchie market was littered with half-washed, tired faces of men and women dressed in workers’ rags - the adult variation of oppression in Panem. Nobody approached them, which was normal. But there were eyes following them, a new expression in those faces. At first, it made Finnick’s skin crawl. Then, he realized that the reason it felt different was the way it lacked open hostility. It might even have looked a bit less distrustful. An air of tentative expectancy was hovering in the district. Hope.
They’ve seen Katniss and Peeta shine, too, Finnick understood. They’ve felt that marketing pull as well. We could as well have won this one, and if we almost did it once, that means we might do it for real some-day soon.
Katniss Everdeen had been unique; there was nobody like her left who could get reaped, now that Gale was too old. But if that hope meant that children would join Games school, that tributes would enter the Games with the slightest sense that they might get out alive, something almost as important as victory had been achieved.
The Mellarks’ eldest, Hue and Dane, were holding down the fort at the bakery when Finnick and Haymitch entered, both brothers having donned carefully blank faces, despite the dark circles under their eyes. It was as if they were determined to present a wall between the district and their little dysfunctional private world. From all that outsiders could glimpse, from hints Peeta had dropped, it was a shitty family, but it was probably all they had. A victory at the Hunger Games would probably have been Peeta’s only way to ever escape that world.
The young men called their parents into the shop. The four of them stiffly lined up behind the counter. Mr. Mellark looked so discolored that he might have been sick right there. Mrs. Mellark kept up the mask of gratitude and politeness that befitted her two richest customers in town, but it was so brittle that Finnick thought it might crumble the moment they turned their backs. Then it did: The door fell shut and the bell rang when they stepped back onto the street, and they’d made it only a few steps before Finnick could distantly hear her screaming at somebody about a ruined cake, in a muted, angry, desperate way that dissolved into sobs.
Next to him, Haymitch flinched a little bit when it first started, but he didn’t say anything, his eyes on the road, so they just left that place behind.
Finnick wondered if he’d want to keep buying cakes in screaming colors to make Haymitch laugh now that the boy who’d excelled at them was dead.
They knocked at the Everdeens’ house down in the Seam, but nobody opened, the house carrying an unwelcoming air of emptiness. Finnick hoped that Katniss’ mother was at a relative’s or friend’s who could take care of her at a time like this. However, when they walked up the only street of Victors’s Village fifteen minutes later, at least they found out where little Primrose had gone.
Gale Hawthorne stepped forward from where he’d been waiting for them on Finnick’s porch. The girl trailed in his wake.
She looked white as a sheet and as if she just hadn’t stopped trembling ever since her name had been called and her big sister had volunteered to sacrifice herself so she would live.
Gale put a heavy hand on her shoulder.
There was a streak on his face that Finnick had never before seen on him - an ancient-looking, dangerous, hardened edge, even angrier than he’d previously been. This one was the kind that wouldn’t ever go away; it was a permanent scar.
The last time Finnick and Gale had spoken to each other, Gale had demanded that Finnick bring home his best friend, that he do whatever was necessary. He’d told Finnick he needed him to not fuck his way through the Capitol this time, but of course, Finnick had.
Finnick took a deep breath, knowing that Gale’s fury would always feel deeply deserved.
But then, it looked like Gale had followed this Games from a new point of view. He’d always been a realist, unusually quick on the uptake.
His hand on Prim’s shoulder visibly tightened.
“Prim will be joining Games classes again,” he said. “Her family is okay with it now.” His voice shook on that last bit, betraying that it had been an incredibly hard thing to say, acknowledging Katniss’ absence in that unspoken way. He looked away, then refocused on Finnick. His face was drawn. “She’ll need to do it on her own from now on. I’ll teach her how to hunt and gather food. You teach her how to survive.”
Primrose tightened her arms around her chest, her lips very firmly pressed together. She neither looked at Finnick and Haymitch, nor at Gale. But she also wasn’t pulling away from him or running away.
Nothing and everything had changed all at once. Finnick wondered, with a start, how long he’d have to be friends with Gale before he would be able to reach out and take Haymitch’s hand in the young man’s presence. Life didn’t stand still. Maybe someday, down the road, there’d be a point when he could.
***
When the door of Haymitch’s house closed behind them and it was just the two of them, Finnick turned and buried his face in the crook of Haymitch’s neck.
“Are you alright?” he muttered, wanting to add, Because I’m not.
Haymitch sighed.
“No,” he admitted, arms tightening around Finnick in a way that was probably supposed to soothe himself as much as Finnick.
The grief and misery and guilt they both felt didn’t ebb off. Though Finnick guessed it was good that at least now they knew that it would eventually, a little bit.
***
On the surface, nothing much had changed. Noreen and Fallon knocked at their respective doors the morning after their return and reported that they’d been over twice to dust during the Games. And there was a stray cat that had set up camp in Finnick’s yard that they didn’t know what to do with. And by the way, Noreen was pregnant again, though there was still no father in sight, which didn’t seem to fill her with a lot of concern. She was congratulated, after some careful verbal negotiation on whether or not she found that this was reason to celebrate, and looked quite satisfied when Haymitch attempted a very awkward pat on her shoulder.
The summer grew hotter, but their houses stayed cool, the curtains keeping out the heat. They reached a silent mutual agreement to stay in and leave the world be in those first weeks after the Games. For a time, they were even too listless to flee the district and visit the lake. They didn’t even avoid the surveillance devices, figuring that they had nothing to say that Snow didn’t already know. Most of the things they said to each other weren’t anything new; others didn’t have to be said again or aloud.
They shared space a lot, staying close, and eventually they started touching in a more intimate way again as well, rediscovering each other.
Equilibrium returned.
***
“Up to anything interesting?” Finnick asked Haymitch one morning when he’d visited his house after a morning run. At first, Haymitch had been nowhere to be found. Hearing footsteps in the far wing of the house that Haymitch never used for anything, Finnick had called his name, and eventually Haymitch had shown up. His sweater had been dusty. His eyes had been a little red in a suspicious way. He’d looked a little embarrassed.
“Just cleaning up some stuff,” he’d said in a tone that meant he wouldn’t talk about it now, but whatever he’d been doing, he felt like it could be a good thing.
That evening, after Games class, when the children were just helping Finnick and Gale putting away the dummies, Haymitch snapped his fingers at his namesake, little Mitchy. Mitchy had recently turned eight, still a little too young and much too sickly to join in. He’d been coughing all throughout winter.
“You,” Haymitch commanded as if talking to a recruit in boot camp. “With me, now.”
Finnick usually had very strong feelings about respecting privacy, but found himself bitten by the curiosity bug. He knew that Haymitch wouldn’t mind if he snuck after them in this instance. He found them upstairs, skinny Mitchy dwarfed next to Haymitch in the entrance of an unused room. Mitchy’s eyes were round as saucers.
“Can’t walk around in those rags through the winter, you’re gonna freeze off body parts.” Haymitch was nodding gruffly at whatever Mitchy was staring at in the room. Then: “Take anything. Clothes should be roughly your size. And for fuck’s sake, take some of those toys off my hands. I can’t have this shit lying around.”
When first Mitchy, then a number of the smallest Games school children started running around in sweaters twenty years out of Capitol fashion and others carried home bed sheets and toy Hovercrafts and children’s puzzles, Finnick realized that the room meant for Haymitch’s kid brother Jackson had to have been sitting there unchanged for all these years. It had still been filled with all the clothes and brand-new kid stuff delivered after Haymitch’s victory, except Jackson had been executed before he could have played with any of them. Of course, Haymitch hadn’t cleaned those rooms out, having nobody to give these things to in his life of self-imposed solitary confinement. He’d had nobody who could have done it for him, either. Jackson and Mrs. Abernathy’s rooms had been a morgue, the door closed but the ghosts still inside.
Now, Haymitch could be seen standing with his hands in his pockets and a drawn expression on his face while he watched the last remains of Jackson’s life re-assimilating into the district, becoming part of other children’s existences.
Finnick stepped up to him casually, watching the last of the children go home. Gale had left early that day, having taken some of the older boys to the forest where they were learning to shoot with Katniss Everdeen’s old bow.
Haymitch gave him a fleeting look and grimaced.
“It just… it was time, alright?” he said defensively, as if he felt like an idiot for saying such a thing aloud.
“I gathered as much,” Finnick replied easily. Haymitch snorted audibly, and Finnick smirked at him in reply. “It’s cold. Let’s go inside.”
***
They had the Twelve tailor fashion new sheets for Haymitch’s bed to replace the stiff and dusty ones that he’d been using since he’d won. They were cozy and soft and unlike any fabric used in either the Capitol or Twelve. They’d lie down on those sheets, and Haymitch would allow Finnick to touch him wherever he wanted. Sometimes, he’d close his eyes for a bit, trusting that Finnick would keep talking to him while he did so. They were learning to use words during sex, slowly, mapping out minefields; Finnick couldn’t stand even a subtle demand to do this or touch like that, and they both weren’t fond of being told what they looked like, each for different reasons. But talking about what they liked doing worked, or why they liked doing it, or what something felt like. They got a little further every time.
Autumn arrived, then winter fell upon Twelve. Soft, fluffy snowflakes were careening down outside the window, while bright sun reflected on the ice outside. Inside, however, it was warm, a small film of sweat just on the brink of forming on the back of Finnick’s neck.
Further up, Haymitch was fisting the sheets, muttering, “Fuck,” reduced to shivers as Finnick swallowed him down, working his cock with his tongue in that firm way that Haymitch liked best. Haymitch made this throaty, helpless sound sometimes when they did that that would just never get old.
Haymitch’s thighs felt hot under Finnick’s hands, and he could feel the muscle in them twitching as Haymitch tried to keep still. Caressing his ass, Finnick felt how Haymitch was reangling his leg, giving him better access and a subtle cue. Making sure to telegraph the motion, he reached to gently rub his thumb against Haymitch’s entrance. Applying a little pressure did it, pushing in just so, and Haymitch started coming, deep down Finnick’s throat.
A minute later, Haymitch’s breath was calming down, and Finnick had let go of him, slumping down next to him into the crook of his arm. Haymitch pulled him closer, getting comfortable; Finnick leaned in, and they kissed. It felt warm and familiar and satisfied. There were still what felt like a million little things that Finnick, and sometimes Haymitch, wasn’t willing or able to do. But there was a routine to the caution: they knew the things that worked, and whether they’d feel good about doing them that day.
After that catastrophic attempt at sex in the Capitol, when Haymitch had proven to be prone to trigger reactions after all, Finnnick had been cautious, almost panicked. He’d questioned everything they did together, afraid that this time would be the time that another thing went wrong because he hadn’t considered all angles and problems. It had taken him a long time to wrap his head around what Haymitch had admitted that night for the first time, that he liked Finnick making the calls. Even after Haymitch surprisingly started complaining that Finnick wouldn’t do that position anymore, it took him a while. It had been the Capitol, Haymitch had grumpily said, not the position, and he’d wanted to keep doing it; he missed it. He’d have to have been quite fed up with the situation to even say that aloud; the fact that it had been about something that he already knew Finnick liked doing, too, had probably gone a long way.
It had taken a lot of anxiety for Finnick to understand that the reason Haymitch usually didn’t have any negative reactions to what they did was because he truly enjoyed the sex the way they had it. It wasn’t a compromise; it worked for him. Haymitch had learned to fear decisions the hard way; he’d learned that any seemingly obvious choice could explode in his face. That didn’t mean he wanted Finnick to take the reins in any other part of their relationship; he was too natural a decision maker for that. But in the bedroom, it felt safe to leave decisions to Finnick. It meant he could relax, and he didn’t have to worry or feel selfish about requesting things. He’d never admit it, not even to himself, but Finnick had eventually figured out that Haymitch longed for somebody who acted like he was worth the attention. Haymitch had needed to be able to tell himself that everything they did together, all the things he liked doing were just a way of accommodating Finnick. But it was like they’d had this massive breakthrough where they were now okay with the status quo. Talking about what they wanted before and after was fine, and so very important for any number of reasons; while they were at it, though, Finnick made the calls.
“Would you want to do more of that?” Finnick asked that day, his hand trailing down the inside of Haymitch’s thigh and towards his ass to clarify what he was talking about. “Anal, I mean. We’ve been doing that more often. I could fuck you, if you’d like. Or just use more of my fingers.”
He retreated his hand to a safer spot without pausing his caress when Haymitch tensed ever so slightly at the suggestion, moving his leg in an almost imperceptible defensive gesture.
“Nah,” he said. “I ain’t really into that, I don’t think. It’s good the way it is.”
Then there was a pause, and Finnick felt that the answer had come a little too swiftly and too casually. Haymitch didn’t have a lot of tells, but Finnick had spent a lot of time trying to learn how to see through his bullshit. For this one, Haymitch hadn’t even tried all that hard. Finnick felt like he’d gotten a reflex in answer rather than an actual opinion. Now, he waited, rearranging himself to get comfortable with his head on Haymitch’s shoulder, stroking along Haymitch’s belly and playing with the hair on his chest.
Haymitch’s hand was still resting on Finnick’s back; it tightened after a while.
“This is gonna sound stupid,” he announced preemptively, then audibly snapped his mouth shut again.
Finnick waited very patiently.
Haymitch cleared his voice. “I kind of do want to,” he said abruptly. “Want you to fuck me, I mean. I’ve never really… I’ve done it in the Capitol, I mean, they were all about that kind of sick stuff.” It was as if he’d slipped into the frame of mind of his sixteen-year-old self for that one sentence, sixteen and a district bumpkin who didn’t really know how that gay stuff worked - kind of excited about the input he got from the likes of Beetee, while a part of him wanted to shove all those things his Capitol clients did to him into a box and label it perverts. It showed how upset a part of him got talking about it.
Finnick kept playing with his chest hair, moving his head a bit to press a kiss against the patch of skin he could reach, until Haymitch continued.
“But I kept wondering about it, you know? What it would feel like, if it’s done right. I knew that Beetee liked it. Kind of hard to overlook that,” he added with a snort. “And, and you’re liking it too. So it looks like something about it feels pretty damn good. A part of me…” He paused. “I guess it feels like… like they stole it from me or something. I mean, at least I want to try it out and decide for myself, you know? But then, I think about it, and…” Again, he stopped for a moment, as if he’d suddenly realized what he’d said and what a huge leap of intimacy it was for him to even admit to having sex fantasies. They were both uneasy about that kind of thing, but Haymitch was much more so. They didn’t really raise you into a sense of sexual security in a district like Twelve.
Then, however, Haymitch continued as if he’d made a conscious choice to get it all said. “I think about it, and it’s good, but then it’s like everything clamps up and it’s just not. And I… I try to think it through, but it’s like this barrier in my head, a point where it turns bad, and I start remembering all these things. How…” He cleared his throat, his voice ebbing off on the last words. “How, when they were doing it to me, how it hurt.
“It hurt a whole fucking lot every time.”
Throughout the three years they’d known each other, Haymitch had always done his might to minimize the impact of what the Capitol had done to him; he’d only ever insisted that it hadn’t been as bad as what had been done to Finnick and Caramel, that it hadn’t been that big a deal.
Kind of the same way Finnick had been telling himself that his own Games hadn’t been that bad, or that fighting in the arena had even been great. In reality, he’d been a panicked, overwhelmed fourteen-year-old kid. He’d known that intellectually, but he just hadn’t allowed himself to focus on those parts.
Finnick thought back to two years ago when they’d lain at the lake, and Haymitch had found the whole idea that their relationship could last so ludicrous. He remembered how Haymitch had turned and waded out of the water the day they’d first kissed, because the idea of feeling attracted to Finnick had been just as unacceptable as the idea of anybody feeling attracted to him. The fact that they were having this conversation now made him feel ridiculously warm inside.
Haymitch took a breath. “So it’s not like I don’t want to do it, not really. I just don’t think there’s a way to make it work.”
Finnick thought about that for a moment.
“Uh,” he said. “Have you ever tried… I mean. I mean, you’ve always had Beetee’s vibrator lying around, right, so have you ever…”
Haymitch shrugged awkwardly, as much as he could with Finnick cuddled up against him. It was quite possible that Finnick would have had a unique opportunity to see him blush had he raised his head.
“Funny thing,” Haymitch said, regrouped rapidly even as he was talking, then relaunched. “Funny thing, I did, I really did, I… once or twice. I mean, I was nineteen or so,” he clarified, as if that had anything to do with anything. Maybe it really did for him by some logic Finnick wasn’t party to. “And…” He huffed an embarrassed laugh. “I mean, look at that thing, it’s huge. No idea what Beetee was thinking with that, it just ain’t practical to use that for anything. Not that it wasn’t mostly meant as a joke. But, yeah. I mean, I played around with it. Just because it was there and all, and I figured… well. And then, I just… I just felt really stupid, right, I suddenly started thinking, what am I even doing? So I put it away. And I never touched it again until we had a proper use for it.”
“But did it work, though?” Finnick asked. “Or did it give you a bad reaction like you’d feared?” There was a world of difference between feeling stupid and getting violent nausea, or slipping into a flashback.
Haymitch sighed. “Well, no,” he allowed. “It was different, obviously. Don’t know about you…” The small hitch that followed now clearly was him hesitating and worrying about bringing up Finnick’s own Capitol activities, giving him a bad reaction. Though, Finnick himself was a little ashamed to admit that a part of him felt glad they had this thing in common, so that Haymitch was able to understand what it was like. From the few conversations he’d had with non-victors, he had a feeling that most people didn’t even get why anything about sex should be hard. “Don’t know what it’s like for you,” Haymitch eventually settled on saying. “But when it was happening to me… they wouldn’t put anything up my ass beside their dicks. It wasn’t about me getting anything out of it. They wouldn’t have bothered.”
It was different for Finnick. There hadn’t been anything under the sun that people hadn’t made him do, maybe because the times had changed, or because he attracted a different clientele, or maybe just because he had such a big one. He sometimes thought that was why he didn’t have reactions like Haymitch was describing now, from anal sex or deepthroating or any of these really intrusive things. He’d used to think he’d just been desensitized, or that he was just that big a slut; nowadays, he suspected it was simply because he was too aware that he couldn’t afford protective reactions. He had this huge adrenaline surge every time he was with a client, much like when he’d been in the arena; he had all these terrible ramifications of a bad performance in his head. He couldn’t let himself develop a reflex. A reflex would get punished.
He was suddenly doubly relieved that this was a thing that hadn’t happened to Haymitch, that he had retained this ability of making a distinction between people who did things for him and who did things to him because otherwise, none of the things they were doing with each other would work.
“How about if I used fingers?” he asked, and for a moment, he was sure he’d reached the point where Haymitch would tell him they’d talked about this enough, this wasn’t necessary, and anyway, none of this was important because he’d already said they shouldn’t try; it wouldn’t work.
But then Haymitch’s body relaxed back into the pillows under his, as if he’d made another choice to engage a little further and see where it went.
“Depends,” he eventually said slowly. “If it’s just fingers for the sake of fingers, maybe. We’d have to try it out and see how it goes.” Finnick knew that meant verbal confirmation would have to be involved: reminding Haymitch that he was only doing this so that Haymitch would feel good, not because he wanted to use him for something, would help keep memories at bay. “If it’s fingers so that you can shove something bigger inside after, I’m not sure.”
“We could do that,” Finnick agreed. “I can do that. If that’s what you want.”
“Yeah,” Haymitch said, sounding almost surprised. “Yeah, I think I do.”
“We could get a better toy from the Capitol,” Finnick added.
“Not through Trinket, we won’t,” Haymitch promptly said, and Finnick snorted a laugh into the crook of his neck.
“I’d buy one in a store. I bet Snow would love that paparazzi shot.”
They were both laughing then, a little hysterical, like twelve-year-olds who’d been caught talking sex.
When their chuckles had dried off, they didn’t say anything else for a while anymore, and Finnick thought that Haymitch had probably exhausted his dose of soul baring for the day. This was hard for him; for the longest time, Finnick hadn’t really understood how hard exactly. A part of him had believed that Haymitch knew precisely what he wanted but just hadn’t been willing to share, and now he knew that just the act of sorting through his needs and desires was a huge mountain he needed to climb anew every time, never mind verbalizing it. Half a year ago, he wouldn’t have talked about anything that he thought wouldn’t work in the first place.
Haymitch pulled him closer for a second, squeezing him.
“Maybe, maybe the fingers thing first,” he said. “Let’s talk about the other thing after.”
“Okay,” Finnick agreed readily, knowing that it didn’t quite matter whether or not it would work. Maybe it wouldn’t, and they’d catch on early enough, and that would be alright, too. He was working on believing Haymitch when he said it wasn’t a tragedy if something backfired; it just meant that they’d know to do it differently the next time. The important thing to him was that Haymitch had found things he might want and that he was willing to share.
Now, however, Haymitch started getting out of bed.
“Shower time,” he announced unnecessarily. “Want to come with?”
“Sure,” Finnick said and got up.
***
In a world other than this, Haymitch was away on Victory Tour with not one, but two children in his care, never even meeting Finnick at his stop in Four, or thinking that there should be a pressing need to do so. In that other world, a rebellion was afoot. A Quarter Quell unlike any other was announced, but it was never concluded. A war was fought instead. People died. Others survived and started new lives, and some survived and didn’t. There were babies, though, and new generations ready to do it all differently; a shaky first attempt at an election was held.
This, however, was not that world.
The victors in this world only ever felt the touch of freedom fleetingly and without paying it much mind.
Somehow, they kept making it anyway, like they had for the previous seventy-three years.
This winter, snow covered the Victors’ Village in a heavy white coat. Buckets poured down until long into spring.
They fought a battle to mask the paths of children’s footsteps leading into the backyards of the two occupied houses, the adult steps stopping at a window at Swaggers’, or vanishing out of sight behind the Village towards that weakened spot in the fence. But those paths always reappeared before long.
In the mornings, Finnick’s long, striding foot prints would always lead along the fence for his runs, sometimes accompanied by the smaller ones of Aleese, and then, they’d return.
“Maybe I’ll get reaped and win and I’d make everything better for Mitchy and Janna and me,” she said one day, sheepishly, when they slowed down to catch their breath at the height of the mines.
Finnick didn’t look at her.
“Maybe you could, yeah,” he said, knowing that reaped would change into volunteer one day, and it would still mean probable death, but he’d encourage her to do so anyway.
She’d turned fourteen. You could survive the Games at fourteen. Finnick himself had been the one who’d proven that.
Finnick felt like he had proven that you could survive a whole lot of other things, too.
***
When the Quarter Quell announcement crept close, Haymitch stopped leaving the house.
It didn’t take a genius to understand that he was fighting against relapsing harder than he had to in over two years.
When the television in the living room turned itself on to start blaring the broadcast all across the districts, he got up and bolted out of the room.
Finnick followed him ten minutes later, finding him in the kitchen.
“How bad is it?” Haymitch ground out over his shoulder, back turned to Finnick, holding onto the kitchen counter with both hands.
Finnick clenched his jaw.
“They’ll be reaping kids that haven’t ever taken tesserae,” he said, thinking of the merchant class that all the districts had, thinking of the few other children in those privileged positions, trying so hard to stop himself from doing the math on how likely it was that they’d be seeing victors’ relatives in those Games. Snow had no reason to punish him by reaping Coral, he tried to tell himself. He didn’t.
Haymitch had been holding himself so still that his shoulders were shaking now. He released one long, extended breath that did nothing to wash the tension away.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his mind having searched that announcement for how it was bad, as well.
“It’s to show that nobody in the districts will ever get out of the Hunger Games, I think,” Finnick added. “There’s no way.”
Haymitch huffed a pained laugh. “Like we needed a reminder of that.”
Most districts wouldn’t be displeased, Finnick thought, thinking of the entire Seam of Twelve and how it would be safe for once, of Vick and Rory Hawthorne, Primrose Everdeen and Aleese, of the working class in District Four. At Wintermas, Caramel had hinted at unrest that was growing amongst fishermen, and Cecilia had told in hushed voices about a riot that had barely been prevented in a fabric manufactorer in Eight. This would calm the districts down and at the same time, leave all victors with families trembling in fear about doing even one wrong step.
The Capitol would be dubious, but they’d come around once Cashmere’s little sister or - fuck - one of Mags’ grandchildren climbed Flickerman’s stage.
No volunteers, the special rule of this year’s Quarter Quell said, as if Snow had noted the rise and fall of Katniss Everdeen, maybe Finnick's happiness in his new home, and he didn't like either one of these developments one bit.
Finnick muttered a warning when he stepped up to Haymitch and hugged him from behind, resting his chin on Haymitch’s shoulder, and Haymitch grasped the arm wrapping around his waist so that he was holding onto Finnick just as much.
Again, they stood there for a while, knowing that it had just become worse, waiting for it to get better again.
***
They still hadn’t painted Haymitch’s house.
It would be some time until spring thaw, so they couldn’t right now.
They talked about it, though, planning it as a project for April or May. What color should they use? How did you even paint a house? What tools would they need, and could they rent ladders from the official in charge of district construction, or should they just have the district carpenter make one for them? They could hire her for the finer points and do the grunt work themselves.
However, it was so cold, they often had those conversations wrapped in warm winter coats, huddled together on the bench in front of Haymitch’s porch, only occasionally disrupted by a child who came running down the road because an urgent Games question had just occurred to them and it needed being answered now. Or sometimes, they’d just been looking for an excuse to warm up and mooch a bit to eat. It was easy to hear them coming, though, and their arms and hands quickly detangled when they heard noise.
Most days, nobody came by, though. Finnick would lean against Haymitch’s shoulder idly after a while, and Haymitch would put his arm around Finnick’s shoulder.
The more time passed, the more new problems occurred - some big, some small - and the less time they had to think about the 74th Games, about the change of Games rules that had never taken place, about what could have been. The Quell would come and end, and everything would revert to normal afterwards, probably.
They had a life for themselves now, a life that sometimes had nothing to do with the Games. They’d built a thing and made it theirs. And it wasn’t that that life would ever be enough; it would never be what either of them deserved.
But in Finnick’s mind, they’d still changed the odds in their favor aplenty.
They’d changed any number of rules.
Fin.
Author's Note
It is done! Phew!
Couple of editorial notes:
I am not currently planning a sequel to this story. I might write a thing in the future, possibly something companion-ish from Haymitch’s POV. Keeping that possibility in mind, I added this story to a series, so you can put the series on your alert list and receive an email if there ever should be sequels.
If you’d be interested in reading original stuff I wrote, I recently found a publisher who’ll be publishing a number of my short stories, as well as a novel probably in a year, both of these in English, and then an anthology of fantasy short stories in German in nine months or so. For now, this will all be lesbian fiction. I’ve you’re interested in getting notifications about those things, you can sign up for my newsletter: this one for English-language stories and that one for German ones. My pen name is Patricia Penn. (my pennnn name! :D… scnr) Or else leave me your email address in a comment and I’ll add you to the list. You’d be receiving an email every three months or so.
That said, I would love it if you left me a comment and told me how you liked not just the last chapter but Spin Control overall, whether there was anything that you liked particularly or maybe something that you didn’t like. I value any kind of squee or constructive feedback. Also feel free to tell me if there’s anything you’d like to read more about. You never know, I might get inspired! :-)
Thank you all so very much for your many, many lovely comments, recommendations and kudos that you’ve left within the last one-and-a-half years. I appreciated each and every one of them.
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; anorexia and exercise addiction
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.
Chapter 24: Odds And Ends
In the days between the Games and the crowning ceremony, the Trophy led with a feature on District Twelve: Haymitch Abernathy and Finnick Odair - The True Victors Of This Hunger Games. Every other Games-related paper followed suit. The 74th Games had been exciting, but the victory of Thresh had ultimately let Panem down. People were looking for alternative news material with more entertainment value than the boy who’d sat it out.
Everybody with Games credence knew that Thresh would be forgotten in two years; he’d suffered through his victory interview with an unreadable face, answering Flickerman’s and the other journalist’s questions in monosyllables. So Katniss and Peeta were all over the victory tape, brilliant and colorful and so alive that it hurt. This Games’ story was a tragedy, and Thresh starred only as the witnessing survivor; he’d be remembered as the one who had been there to see. If the boy was smart, he’d eventually figure out how lucky he had gotten.
Finnick could have told them all that the media were wrong when they praised Twelve’s rise to power. There could have been a change, but there hadn’t been. The Games would continue, the same they’d always been. Nothing was different.
Not as far as the public eye was concerned, anyway.
Finnick and Haymitch sat at a corner table in the Training Center bar the evening before they’d all go home, not talking, just tired, moodily holding onto their glasses of iced tea, both longing to get drunk in that moment, albeit for different reasons. The victors tended to gather here at this point, even if they didn’t feel like talking to anybody, just in case someone had a last message to relay before everybody went home for a year. A small part of Finnick was missing the days of getting hopelessly wasted with Johanna, but he didn’t want to smell of alcohol in Haymitch’s presence, especially not on the last day of the Games season.
A heavy thud made them look up.
Chaff had slumped onto the chair across from Haymitch. He’d brought with him an elaborately arranged green and red cocktail, little sugar umbrellas sticking out of it, which he now put on the table and pushed towards Haymitch in a deliberate way that made a point out of the gesture.
Finnick tensed.
Haymitch eyed the drink with a dubious, guarded look on his face, obviously searching for words that might start with something like, “I really don’t think…” Finnick immediately developed a bad feeling that there was almost nothing Haymitch could say that wouldn’t damage his friendship with Chaff even further.
Chaff watched him with a hard face, in the way one might watch an ugly insect die.
Then he said edgily, “It’s made of kiwi and cherry or something like that. No alcohol involved, all right?” And after an uneasy beat, he added defensively, before Haymitch had time to react, “Gotta find something if we’re ever gonna go for drinks again, right?”
An unfamiliar, hesitant look crossed Haymitch’s face. It took even Finnick a moment to realize that this was what Haymitch looked like when he was touched.
Then, Haymitch awkwardly hooked his finger around the stem of the glass and pulled it closer, as if it were something delicate that needed to be protected.
“Uh,” he said, uncomfortably clearing his voice. “Listen, it’s not like I don’t appreciate the sentiment or anything, but that bottle I had sent to you…”
“…was a filthy scheme to keep me out of the Games, yeah, I get it,” Chaff said with a huff. “Guess what, we still made it. So I guess that leaves me on the moral high ground for a change.” He eyed the glass as if he hated the fact that he had to have this conversation, nodding at it as if it had personally insulted him. “Now drink it and shut the fuck up.”
Haymitch huffed a laugh.
But he tipped up the glass and downed its contents like it was a shot glass, except that he was coughing a moment later, managing, “What the fuck?” and, “You get this at a candy store?” and Chaff looked like he hadn’t previously considered that this would get hilarious so quickly, but that he might laugh at Haymitch anyway.
“How the fuck would I know one pansy water-drinker cocktail from another?”
“I’ll leave the two of you to it,” Finnick announced and stood up.
Then he paused, because he’d brushed his hand across Haymitch’s shoulder without thinking; maybe he’d gotten a little careless about public displays of affection here amongst the victors crowd. However, nobody seemed to have taken any special note of it, and Haymitch had turned to look at him, not starting, just with that automatic beat of, don’t go on his face. It vanished when his mind caught up, however, and although he still looked drained, this off-guard expression crossed his face - momentarily relaxed, as if that one burden were suddenly gone; he and Chaff had been friends for over twenty years.
Haymitch nodded at Finnick slightly. Only then did Finnick let go of his shoulder, turning to face all the other victors in the room.
He decided to go check on Johanna.
“So, you and Odair,” he heard Chaff’s voice before it was drowned out by the chatter in the bar. “How the fuck did that even happen? Not that I didn’t appreciate the fucked expression on Conny’s face…”
Finnick knew there was a chance that Chaff’s forgiveness never would extend to him. Haymitch was his oldest friend, but Finnick had threatened him a year ago; he’d cheated him in a worse way than Haymitch had, and he might have been permanently cast in the role of the bad guy for Chaff.
There were worse things, though. This wasn’t about Finnick.
Finnick did appreciate Thresh’s victory, in a way that most of the rest of Panem never would be able to. Katniss and Peeta might have died. But District Eleven had deserved just as much new hope as District Twelve. And in a strange way, he felt like he had gained some new hope as well this Games - not for their odds to bring home a child, but for himself, as if both he and Haymitch suddenly knew so much better who they were and who they wanted to be.
***
A new, eerie stillness covered District Twelve when Finnick and Haymitch arrived home.
Their train had arrived around noon, just past shift-change at the mines: The workers were making their way from the facilities towards their homes in the Seam, passing through the downtown. When Haymitch and Finnick went to give the Mellarks their condolences, the merchie market was littered with half-washed, tired faces of men and women dressed in workers’ rags - the adult variation of oppression in Panem. Nobody approached them, which was normal. But there were eyes following them, a new expression in those faces. At first, it made Finnick’s skin crawl. Then, he realized that the reason it felt different was the way it lacked open hostility. It might even have looked a bit less distrustful. An air of tentative expectancy was hovering in the district. Hope.
They’ve seen Katniss and Peeta shine, too, Finnick understood. They’ve felt that marketing pull as well. We could as well have won this one, and if we almost did it once, that means we might do it for real some-day soon.
Katniss Everdeen had been unique; there was nobody like her left who could get reaped, now that Gale was too old. But if that hope meant that children would join Games school, that tributes would enter the Games with the slightest sense that they might get out alive, something almost as important as victory had been achieved.
The Mellarks’ eldest, Hue and Dane, were holding down the fort at the bakery when Finnick and Haymitch entered, both brothers having donned carefully blank faces, despite the dark circles under their eyes. It was as if they were determined to present a wall between the district and their little dysfunctional private world. From all that outsiders could glimpse, from hints Peeta had dropped, it was a shitty family, but it was probably all they had. A victory at the Hunger Games would probably have been Peeta’s only way to ever escape that world.
The young men called their parents into the shop. The four of them stiffly lined up behind the counter. Mr. Mellark looked so discolored that he might have been sick right there. Mrs. Mellark kept up the mask of gratitude and politeness that befitted her two richest customers in town, but it was so brittle that Finnick thought it might crumble the moment they turned their backs. Then it did: The door fell shut and the bell rang when they stepped back onto the street, and they’d made it only a few steps before Finnick could distantly hear her screaming at somebody about a ruined cake, in a muted, angry, desperate way that dissolved into sobs.
Next to him, Haymitch flinched a little bit when it first started, but he didn’t say anything, his eyes on the road, so they just left that place behind.
Finnick wondered if he’d want to keep buying cakes in screaming colors to make Haymitch laugh now that the boy who’d excelled at them was dead.
They knocked at the Everdeens’ house down in the Seam, but nobody opened, the house carrying an unwelcoming air of emptiness. Finnick hoped that Katniss’ mother was at a relative’s or friend’s who could take care of her at a time like this. However, when they walked up the only street of Victors’s Village fifteen minutes later, at least they found out where little Primrose had gone.
Gale Hawthorne stepped forward from where he’d been waiting for them on Finnick’s porch. The girl trailed in his wake.
She looked white as a sheet and as if she just hadn’t stopped trembling ever since her name had been called and her big sister had volunteered to sacrifice herself so she would live.
Gale put a heavy hand on her shoulder.
There was a streak on his face that Finnick had never before seen on him - an ancient-looking, dangerous, hardened edge, even angrier than he’d previously been. This one was the kind that wouldn’t ever go away; it was a permanent scar.
The last time Finnick and Gale had spoken to each other, Gale had demanded that Finnick bring home his best friend, that he do whatever was necessary. He’d told Finnick he needed him to not fuck his way through the Capitol this time, but of course, Finnick had.
Finnick took a deep breath, knowing that Gale’s fury would always feel deeply deserved.
But then, it looked like Gale had followed this Games from a new point of view. He’d always been a realist, unusually quick on the uptake.
His hand on Prim’s shoulder visibly tightened.
“Prim will be joining Games classes again,” he said. “Her family is okay with it now.” His voice shook on that last bit, betraying that it had been an incredibly hard thing to say, acknowledging Katniss’ absence in that unspoken way. He looked away, then refocused on Finnick. His face was drawn. “She’ll need to do it on her own from now on. I’ll teach her how to hunt and gather food. You teach her how to survive.”
Primrose tightened her arms around her chest, her lips very firmly pressed together. She neither looked at Finnick and Haymitch, nor at Gale. But she also wasn’t pulling away from him or running away.
Nothing and everything had changed all at once. Finnick wondered, with a start, how long he’d have to be friends with Gale before he would be able to reach out and take Haymitch’s hand in the young man’s presence. Life didn’t stand still. Maybe someday, down the road, there’d be a point when he could.
***
When the door of Haymitch’s house closed behind them and it was just the two of them, Finnick turned and buried his face in the crook of Haymitch’s neck.
“Are you alright?” he muttered, wanting to add, Because I’m not.
Haymitch sighed.
“No,” he admitted, arms tightening around Finnick in a way that was probably supposed to soothe himself as much as Finnick.
The grief and misery and guilt they both felt didn’t ebb off. Though Finnick guessed it was good that at least now they knew that it would eventually, a little bit.
***
On the surface, nothing much had changed. Noreen and Fallon knocked at their respective doors the morning after their return and reported that they’d been over twice to dust during the Games. And there was a stray cat that had set up camp in Finnick’s yard that they didn’t know what to do with. And by the way, Noreen was pregnant again, though there was still no father in sight, which didn’t seem to fill her with a lot of concern. She was congratulated, after some careful verbal negotiation on whether or not she found that this was reason to celebrate, and looked quite satisfied when Haymitch attempted a very awkward pat on her shoulder.
The summer grew hotter, but their houses stayed cool, the curtains keeping out the heat. They reached a silent mutual agreement to stay in and leave the world be in those first weeks after the Games. For a time, they were even too listless to flee the district and visit the lake. They didn’t even avoid the surveillance devices, figuring that they had nothing to say that Snow didn’t already know. Most of the things they said to each other weren’t anything new; others didn’t have to be said again or aloud.
They shared space a lot, staying close, and eventually they started touching in a more intimate way again as well, rediscovering each other.
Equilibrium returned.
***
“Up to anything interesting?” Finnick asked Haymitch one morning when he’d visited his house after a morning run. At first, Haymitch had been nowhere to be found. Hearing footsteps in the far wing of the house that Haymitch never used for anything, Finnick had called his name, and eventually Haymitch had shown up. His sweater had been dusty. His eyes had been a little red in a suspicious way. He’d looked a little embarrassed.
“Just cleaning up some stuff,” he’d said in a tone that meant he wouldn’t talk about it now, but whatever he’d been doing, he felt like it could be a good thing.
That evening, after Games class, when the children were just helping Finnick and Gale putting away the dummies, Haymitch snapped his fingers at his namesake, little Mitchy. Mitchy had recently turned eight, still a little too young and much too sickly to join in. He’d been coughing all throughout winter.
“You,” Haymitch commanded as if talking to a recruit in boot camp. “With me, now.”
Finnick usually had very strong feelings about respecting privacy, but found himself bitten by the curiosity bug. He knew that Haymitch wouldn’t mind if he snuck after them in this instance. He found them upstairs, skinny Mitchy dwarfed next to Haymitch in the entrance of an unused room. Mitchy’s eyes were round as saucers.
“Can’t walk around in those rags through the winter, you’re gonna freeze off body parts.” Haymitch was nodding gruffly at whatever Mitchy was staring at in the room. Then: “Take anything. Clothes should be roughly your size. And for fuck’s sake, take some of those toys off my hands. I can’t have this shit lying around.”
When first Mitchy, then a number of the smallest Games school children started running around in sweaters twenty years out of Capitol fashion and others carried home bed sheets and toy Hovercrafts and children’s puzzles, Finnick realized that the room meant for Haymitch’s kid brother Jackson had to have been sitting there unchanged for all these years. It had still been filled with all the clothes and brand-new kid stuff delivered after Haymitch’s victory, except Jackson had been executed before he could have played with any of them. Of course, Haymitch hadn’t cleaned those rooms out, having nobody to give these things to in his life of self-imposed solitary confinement. He’d had nobody who could have done it for him, either. Jackson and Mrs. Abernathy’s rooms had been a morgue, the door closed but the ghosts still inside.
Now, Haymitch could be seen standing with his hands in his pockets and a drawn expression on his face while he watched the last remains of Jackson’s life re-assimilating into the district, becoming part of other children’s existences.
Finnick stepped up to him casually, watching the last of the children go home. Gale had left early that day, having taken some of the older boys to the forest where they were learning to shoot with Katniss Everdeen’s old bow.
Haymitch gave him a fleeting look and grimaced.
“It just… it was time, alright?” he said defensively, as if he felt like an idiot for saying such a thing aloud.
“I gathered as much,” Finnick replied easily. Haymitch snorted audibly, and Finnick smirked at him in reply. “It’s cold. Let’s go inside.”
***
They had the Twelve tailor fashion new sheets for Haymitch’s bed to replace the stiff and dusty ones that he’d been using since he’d won. They were cozy and soft and unlike any fabric used in either the Capitol or Twelve. They’d lie down on those sheets, and Haymitch would allow Finnick to touch him wherever he wanted. Sometimes, he’d close his eyes for a bit, trusting that Finnick would keep talking to him while he did so. They were learning to use words during sex, slowly, mapping out minefields; Finnick couldn’t stand even a subtle demand to do this or touch like that, and they both weren’t fond of being told what they looked like, each for different reasons. But talking about what they liked doing worked, or why they liked doing it, or what something felt like. They got a little further every time.
Autumn arrived, then winter fell upon Twelve. Soft, fluffy snowflakes were careening down outside the window, while bright sun reflected on the ice outside. Inside, however, it was warm, a small film of sweat just on the brink of forming on the back of Finnick’s neck.
Further up, Haymitch was fisting the sheets, muttering, “Fuck,” reduced to shivers as Finnick swallowed him down, working his cock with his tongue in that firm way that Haymitch liked best. Haymitch made this throaty, helpless sound sometimes when they did that that would just never get old.
Haymitch’s thighs felt hot under Finnick’s hands, and he could feel the muscle in them twitching as Haymitch tried to keep still. Caressing his ass, Finnick felt how Haymitch was reangling his leg, giving him better access and a subtle cue. Making sure to telegraph the motion, he reached to gently rub his thumb against Haymitch’s entrance. Applying a little pressure did it, pushing in just so, and Haymitch started coming, deep down Finnick’s throat.
A minute later, Haymitch’s breath was calming down, and Finnick had let go of him, slumping down next to him into the crook of his arm. Haymitch pulled him closer, getting comfortable; Finnick leaned in, and they kissed. It felt warm and familiar and satisfied. There were still what felt like a million little things that Finnick, and sometimes Haymitch, wasn’t willing or able to do. But there was a routine to the caution: they knew the things that worked, and whether they’d feel good about doing them that day.
After that catastrophic attempt at sex in the Capitol, when Haymitch had proven to be prone to trigger reactions after all, Finnnick had been cautious, almost panicked. He’d questioned everything they did together, afraid that this time would be the time that another thing went wrong because he hadn’t considered all angles and problems. It had taken him a long time to wrap his head around what Haymitch had admitted that night for the first time, that he liked Finnick making the calls. Even after Haymitch surprisingly started complaining that Finnick wouldn’t do that position anymore, it took him a while. It had been the Capitol, Haymitch had grumpily said, not the position, and he’d wanted to keep doing it; he missed it. He’d have to have been quite fed up with the situation to even say that aloud; the fact that it had been about something that he already knew Finnick liked doing, too, had probably gone a long way.
It had taken a lot of anxiety for Finnick to understand that the reason Haymitch usually didn’t have any negative reactions to what they did was because he truly enjoyed the sex the way they had it. It wasn’t a compromise; it worked for him. Haymitch had learned to fear decisions the hard way; he’d learned that any seemingly obvious choice could explode in his face. That didn’t mean he wanted Finnick to take the reins in any other part of their relationship; he was too natural a decision maker for that. But in the bedroom, it felt safe to leave decisions to Finnick. It meant he could relax, and he didn’t have to worry or feel selfish about requesting things. He’d never admit it, not even to himself, but Finnick had eventually figured out that Haymitch longed for somebody who acted like he was worth the attention. Haymitch had needed to be able to tell himself that everything they did together, all the things he liked doing were just a way of accommodating Finnick. But it was like they’d had this massive breakthrough where they were now okay with the status quo. Talking about what they wanted before and after was fine, and so very important for any number of reasons; while they were at it, though, Finnick made the calls.
“Would you want to do more of that?” Finnick asked that day, his hand trailing down the inside of Haymitch’s thigh and towards his ass to clarify what he was talking about. “Anal, I mean. We’ve been doing that more often. I could fuck you, if you’d like. Or just use more of my fingers.”
He retreated his hand to a safer spot without pausing his caress when Haymitch tensed ever so slightly at the suggestion, moving his leg in an almost imperceptible defensive gesture.
“Nah,” he said. “I ain’t really into that, I don’t think. It’s good the way it is.”
Then there was a pause, and Finnick felt that the answer had come a little too swiftly and too casually. Haymitch didn’t have a lot of tells, but Finnick had spent a lot of time trying to learn how to see through his bullshit. For this one, Haymitch hadn’t even tried all that hard. Finnick felt like he’d gotten a reflex in answer rather than an actual opinion. Now, he waited, rearranging himself to get comfortable with his head on Haymitch’s shoulder, stroking along Haymitch’s belly and playing with the hair on his chest.
Haymitch’s hand was still resting on Finnick’s back; it tightened after a while.
“This is gonna sound stupid,” he announced preemptively, then audibly snapped his mouth shut again.
Finnick waited very patiently.
Haymitch cleared his voice. “I kind of do want to,” he said abruptly. “Want you to fuck me, I mean. I’ve never really… I’ve done it in the Capitol, I mean, they were all about that kind of sick stuff.” It was as if he’d slipped into the frame of mind of his sixteen-year-old self for that one sentence, sixteen and a district bumpkin who didn’t really know how that gay stuff worked - kind of excited about the input he got from the likes of Beetee, while a part of him wanted to shove all those things his Capitol clients did to him into a box and label it perverts. It showed how upset a part of him got talking about it.
Finnick kept playing with his chest hair, moving his head a bit to press a kiss against the patch of skin he could reach, until Haymitch continued.
“But I kept wondering about it, you know? What it would feel like, if it’s done right. I knew that Beetee liked it. Kind of hard to overlook that,” he added with a snort. “And, and you’re liking it too. So it looks like something about it feels pretty damn good. A part of me…” He paused. “I guess it feels like… like they stole it from me or something. I mean, at least I want to try it out and decide for myself, you know? But then, I think about it, and…” Again, he stopped for a moment, as if he’d suddenly realized what he’d said and what a huge leap of intimacy it was for him to even admit to having sex fantasies. They were both uneasy about that kind of thing, but Haymitch was much more so. They didn’t really raise you into a sense of sexual security in a district like Twelve.
Then, however, Haymitch continued as if he’d made a conscious choice to get it all said. “I think about it, and it’s good, but then it’s like everything clamps up and it’s just not. And I… I try to think it through, but it’s like this barrier in my head, a point where it turns bad, and I start remembering all these things. How…” He cleared his throat, his voice ebbing off on the last words. “How, when they were doing it to me, how it hurt.
“It hurt a whole fucking lot every time.”
Throughout the three years they’d known each other, Haymitch had always done his might to minimize the impact of what the Capitol had done to him; he’d only ever insisted that it hadn’t been as bad as what had been done to Finnick and Caramel, that it hadn’t been that big a deal.
Kind of the same way Finnick had been telling himself that his own Games hadn’t been that bad, or that fighting in the arena had even been great. In reality, he’d been a panicked, overwhelmed fourteen-year-old kid. He’d known that intellectually, but he just hadn’t allowed himself to focus on those parts.
Finnick thought back to two years ago when they’d lain at the lake, and Haymitch had found the whole idea that their relationship could last so ludicrous. He remembered how Haymitch had turned and waded out of the water the day they’d first kissed, because the idea of feeling attracted to Finnick had been just as unacceptable as the idea of anybody feeling attracted to him. The fact that they were having this conversation now made him feel ridiculously warm inside.
Haymitch took a breath. “So it’s not like I don’t want to do it, not really. I just don’t think there’s a way to make it work.”
Finnick thought about that for a moment.
“Uh,” he said. “Have you ever tried… I mean. I mean, you’ve always had Beetee’s vibrator lying around, right, so have you ever…”
Haymitch shrugged awkwardly, as much as he could with Finnick cuddled up against him. It was quite possible that Finnick would have had a unique opportunity to see him blush had he raised his head.
“Funny thing,” Haymitch said, regrouped rapidly even as he was talking, then relaunched. “Funny thing, I did, I really did, I… once or twice. I mean, I was nineteen or so,” he clarified, as if that had anything to do with anything. Maybe it really did for him by some logic Finnick wasn’t party to. “And…” He huffed an embarrassed laugh. “I mean, look at that thing, it’s huge. No idea what Beetee was thinking with that, it just ain’t practical to use that for anything. Not that it wasn’t mostly meant as a joke. But, yeah. I mean, I played around with it. Just because it was there and all, and I figured… well. And then, I just… I just felt really stupid, right, I suddenly started thinking, what am I even doing? So I put it away. And I never touched it again until we had a proper use for it.”
“But did it work, though?” Finnick asked. “Or did it give you a bad reaction like you’d feared?” There was a world of difference between feeling stupid and getting violent nausea, or slipping into a flashback.
Haymitch sighed. “Well, no,” he allowed. “It was different, obviously. Don’t know about you…” The small hitch that followed now clearly was him hesitating and worrying about bringing up Finnick’s own Capitol activities, giving him a bad reaction. Though, Finnick himself was a little ashamed to admit that a part of him felt glad they had this thing in common, so that Haymitch was able to understand what it was like. From the few conversations he’d had with non-victors, he had a feeling that most people didn’t even get why anything about sex should be hard. “Don’t know what it’s like for you,” Haymitch eventually settled on saying. “But when it was happening to me… they wouldn’t put anything up my ass beside their dicks. It wasn’t about me getting anything out of it. They wouldn’t have bothered.”
It was different for Finnick. There hadn’t been anything under the sun that people hadn’t made him do, maybe because the times had changed, or because he attracted a different clientele, or maybe just because he had such a big one. He sometimes thought that was why he didn’t have reactions like Haymitch was describing now, from anal sex or deepthroating or any of these really intrusive things. He’d used to think he’d just been desensitized, or that he was just that big a slut; nowadays, he suspected it was simply because he was too aware that he couldn’t afford protective reactions. He had this huge adrenaline surge every time he was with a client, much like when he’d been in the arena; he had all these terrible ramifications of a bad performance in his head. He couldn’t let himself develop a reflex. A reflex would get punished.
He was suddenly doubly relieved that this was a thing that hadn’t happened to Haymitch, that he had retained this ability of making a distinction between people who did things for him and who did things to him because otherwise, none of the things they were doing with each other would work.
“How about if I used fingers?” he asked, and for a moment, he was sure he’d reached the point where Haymitch would tell him they’d talked about this enough, this wasn’t necessary, and anyway, none of this was important because he’d already said they shouldn’t try; it wouldn’t work.
But then Haymitch’s body relaxed back into the pillows under his, as if he’d made another choice to engage a little further and see where it went.
“Depends,” he eventually said slowly. “If it’s just fingers for the sake of fingers, maybe. We’d have to try it out and see how it goes.” Finnick knew that meant verbal confirmation would have to be involved: reminding Haymitch that he was only doing this so that Haymitch would feel good, not because he wanted to use him for something, would help keep memories at bay. “If it’s fingers so that you can shove something bigger inside after, I’m not sure.”
“We could do that,” Finnick agreed. “I can do that. If that’s what you want.”
“Yeah,” Haymitch said, sounding almost surprised. “Yeah, I think I do.”
“We could get a better toy from the Capitol,” Finnick added.
“Not through Trinket, we won’t,” Haymitch promptly said, and Finnick snorted a laugh into the crook of his neck.
“I’d buy one in a store. I bet Snow would love that paparazzi shot.”
They were both laughing then, a little hysterical, like twelve-year-olds who’d been caught talking sex.
When their chuckles had dried off, they didn’t say anything else for a while anymore, and Finnick thought that Haymitch had probably exhausted his dose of soul baring for the day. This was hard for him; for the longest time, Finnick hadn’t really understood how hard exactly. A part of him had believed that Haymitch knew precisely what he wanted but just hadn’t been willing to share, and now he knew that just the act of sorting through his needs and desires was a huge mountain he needed to climb anew every time, never mind verbalizing it. Half a year ago, he wouldn’t have talked about anything that he thought wouldn’t work in the first place.
Haymitch pulled him closer for a second, squeezing him.
“Maybe, maybe the fingers thing first,” he said. “Let’s talk about the other thing after.”
“Okay,” Finnick agreed readily, knowing that it didn’t quite matter whether or not it would work. Maybe it wouldn’t, and they’d catch on early enough, and that would be alright, too. He was working on believing Haymitch when he said it wasn’t a tragedy if something backfired; it just meant that they’d know to do it differently the next time. The important thing to him was that Haymitch had found things he might want and that he was willing to share.
Now, however, Haymitch started getting out of bed.
“Shower time,” he announced unnecessarily. “Want to come with?”
“Sure,” Finnick said and got up.
***
In a world other than this, Haymitch was away on Victory Tour with not one, but two children in his care, never even meeting Finnick at his stop in Four, or thinking that there should be a pressing need to do so. In that other world, a rebellion was afoot. A Quarter Quell unlike any other was announced, but it was never concluded. A war was fought instead. People died. Others survived and started new lives, and some survived and didn’t. There were babies, though, and new generations ready to do it all differently; a shaky first attempt at an election was held.
This, however, was not that world.
The victors in this world only ever felt the touch of freedom fleetingly and without paying it much mind.
Somehow, they kept making it anyway, like they had for the previous seventy-three years.
This winter, snow covered the Victors’ Village in a heavy white coat. Buckets poured down until long into spring.
They fought a battle to mask the paths of children’s footsteps leading into the backyards of the two occupied houses, the adult steps stopping at a window at Swaggers’, or vanishing out of sight behind the Village towards that weakened spot in the fence. But those paths always reappeared before long.
In the mornings, Finnick’s long, striding foot prints would always lead along the fence for his runs, sometimes accompanied by the smaller ones of Aleese, and then, they’d return.
“Maybe I’ll get reaped and win and I’d make everything better for Mitchy and Janna and me,” she said one day, sheepishly, when they slowed down to catch their breath at the height of the mines.
Finnick didn’t look at her.
“Maybe you could, yeah,” he said, knowing that reaped would change into volunteer one day, and it would still mean probable death, but he’d encourage her to do so anyway.
She’d turned fourteen. You could survive the Games at fourteen. Finnick himself had been the one who’d proven that.
Finnick felt like he had proven that you could survive a whole lot of other things, too.
***
When the Quarter Quell announcement crept close, Haymitch stopped leaving the house.
It didn’t take a genius to understand that he was fighting against relapsing harder than he had to in over two years.
When the television in the living room turned itself on to start blaring the broadcast all across the districts, he got up and bolted out of the room.
Finnick followed him ten minutes later, finding him in the kitchen.
“How bad is it?” Haymitch ground out over his shoulder, back turned to Finnick, holding onto the kitchen counter with both hands.
Finnick clenched his jaw.
“They’ll be reaping kids that haven’t ever taken tesserae,” he said, thinking of the merchant class that all the districts had, thinking of the few other children in those privileged positions, trying so hard to stop himself from doing the math on how likely it was that they’d be seeing victors’ relatives in those Games. Snow had no reason to punish him by reaping Coral, he tried to tell himself. He didn’t.
Haymitch had been holding himself so still that his shoulders were shaking now. He released one long, extended breath that did nothing to wash the tension away.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his mind having searched that announcement for how it was bad, as well.
“It’s to show that nobody in the districts will ever get out of the Hunger Games, I think,” Finnick added. “There’s no way.”
Haymitch huffed a pained laugh. “Like we needed a reminder of that.”
Most districts wouldn’t be displeased, Finnick thought, thinking of the entire Seam of Twelve and how it would be safe for once, of Vick and Rory Hawthorne, Primrose Everdeen and Aleese, of the working class in District Four. At Wintermas, Caramel had hinted at unrest that was growing amongst fishermen, and Cecilia had told in hushed voices about a riot that had barely been prevented in a fabric manufactorer in Eight. This would calm the districts down and at the same time, leave all victors with families trembling in fear about doing even one wrong step.
The Capitol would be dubious, but they’d come around once Cashmere’s little sister or - fuck - one of Mags’ grandchildren climbed Flickerman’s stage.
No volunteers, the special rule of this year’s Quarter Quell said, as if Snow had noted the rise and fall of Katniss Everdeen, maybe Finnick's happiness in his new home, and he didn't like either one of these developments one bit.
Finnick muttered a warning when he stepped up to Haymitch and hugged him from behind, resting his chin on Haymitch’s shoulder, and Haymitch grasped the arm wrapping around his waist so that he was holding onto Finnick just as much.
Again, they stood there for a while, knowing that it had just become worse, waiting for it to get better again.
***
They still hadn’t painted Haymitch’s house.
It would be some time until spring thaw, so they couldn’t right now.
They talked about it, though, planning it as a project for April or May. What color should they use? How did you even paint a house? What tools would they need, and could they rent ladders from the official in charge of district construction, or should they just have the district carpenter make one for them? They could hire her for the finer points and do the grunt work themselves.
However, it was so cold, they often had those conversations wrapped in warm winter coats, huddled together on the bench in front of Haymitch’s porch, only occasionally disrupted by a child who came running down the road because an urgent Games question had just occurred to them and it needed being answered now. Or sometimes, they’d just been looking for an excuse to warm up and mooch a bit to eat. It was easy to hear them coming, though, and their arms and hands quickly detangled when they heard noise.
Most days, nobody came by, though. Finnick would lean against Haymitch’s shoulder idly after a while, and Haymitch would put his arm around Finnick’s shoulder.
The more time passed, the more new problems occurred - some big, some small - and the less time they had to think about the 74th Games, about the change of Games rules that had never taken place, about what could have been. The Quell would come and end, and everything would revert to normal afterwards, probably.
They had a life for themselves now, a life that sometimes had nothing to do with the Games. They’d built a thing and made it theirs. And it wasn’t that that life would ever be enough; it would never be what either of them deserved.
But in Finnick’s mind, they’d still changed the odds in their favor aplenty.
They’d changed any number of rules.
Fin.
Author's Note
It is done! Phew!
Couple of editorial notes:
I am not currently planning a sequel to this story. I might write a thing in the future, possibly something companion-ish from Haymitch’s POV. Keeping that possibility in mind, I added this story to a series, so you can put the series on your alert list and receive an email if there ever should be sequels.
If you’d be interested in reading original stuff I wrote, I recently found a publisher who’ll be publishing a number of my short stories, as well as a novel probably in a year, both of these in English, and then an anthology of fantasy short stories in German in nine months or so. For now, this will all be lesbian fiction. I’ve you’re interested in getting notifications about those things, you can sign up for my newsletter: this one for English-language stories and that one for German ones. My pen name is Patricia Penn. (my pennnn name! :D… scnr) Or else leave me your email address in a comment and I’ll add you to the list. You’d be receiving an email every three months or so.
That said, I would love it if you left me a comment and told me how you liked not just the last chapter but Spin Control overall, whether there was anything that you liked particularly or maybe something that you didn’t like. I value any kind of squee or constructive feedback. Also feel free to tell me if there’s anything you’d like to read more about. You never know, I might get inspired! :-)
Thank you all so very much for your many, many lovely comments, recommendations and kudos that you’ve left within the last one-and-a-half years. I appreciated each and every one of them.