district thirteen's least favorite intern

As he knew it would. It always did—Haymitch knew that better than most—but the particular consequence of both tributes coming home alive was that the entire district had somehow decided that it was his doing—as if he had done anything beyond shoving two traumatized children towards their impending deaths in slightly more efficient fashion than usual—and he should be rewarded for it. And it started so reasonably: hampers of cold beef and cured ham, crates of expensive liquor, the occasional basket full of things he didn't want. Then presumably when they'd run out of things to send, they'd sent a girl instead—dispatched to the door on mayor's coin with a mop and a mandate, young enough and pretty enough that he could tell immediately what the mayor's coin was paying for. Haymitch had tried, briefly, to get rid of her. 

It hadn't stuck. 

The woman was immune to everything—slammed doors, barked insults, and a handful of bribery attempts he's not proud of. So he'd surrendered the downstairs entirely and barricaded himself upstairs with his white liquor while she worked below, presumably committing acts of violence against the rot and mildew that had been his close companions. 

That had been five days ago. 

He hadn't left his post since. 

He leaves it now only because he's run out of liquor—which is, in the long and inglorious history of surrenders, perhaps the least dignified reason yet—only to regret it immediately. 

The house is full of light.

In a grotesque act of historical revisionism, the curtains have been washed back to their original colour. Sunlight floods through them and through every open window in thick, invasive streams, illuminating the polished floorboards usually buried under empty bottles, and the kitchen counters have been scrubbed clean of every respectable layer of dirt and mold and grime. 

And it reeks of lemon polish.

“Smells like a dog shat in the meadow,” he grumbles. 

She appears from the kitchen like the house conjured her, all loose curls and yellow frock bright enough to blind a man. 

“It smells elegant!” she protests.

“It smells like a flower shop threw up in here.” 

“It’s cheerful. I like it.”

“I don't care,” he says. “Get rid of it. And burn those mismatched throw pillows while you're at it,” he adds, squinting at the sofa. “Where did you even find those?”

“I bought them.” 

“You bought that?” 

“Well—I suppose you bought those.” 

“I bought those?” He nearly pops a vein when she nods. “With what money?” 

“With my—”

“—the shopkeeper opened a monthly account in your name—” 

“The shopkeeper what—” 

“—and it was for a good cause! His little girl is sick, you see, and the mayor told me you wouldn't mind me purchasing things in your name that we need for the house.” 

“We—” he repeats, “—do not need floral throw pillows. We have never needed floral throw pillows. Return them in the morning.”

“They were only worth seven scrips!”

“That's seven scrips that could've gone towards liquor. You've set my cirrhosis back by a week for some nasty cushions. I hope you’re proud of yourself.” 

“I am! They're very pretty cushions, and they give the house some character.” 

“The house had character before you came.” 

“No. That was mildew.” 

“It was almost my only companion. That’s what it was. And in the twenty-four years I've been here, it never tried to spend my money on throw pillows.” Haymitch opens his mouth to continue, thinks better of it, and closes it again with gritted teeth and a vein threatening to burst somewhere behind his eyes.

He slams his empty bottle down on the countertop, collects three more from the cupboard where they're lined up like condiments, and makes his way upstairs. 

The door slams shut behind him. 

He has maybe three hours of peace. He spends them the way he spends most hours—horizontal, working through his second bottle and then his third, while the light goes amber through the curtains, and the victor’s village does what it always does, which is nothing. He is comfortable. He has almost managed to forget there's anyone else in his house. 

And then the screeching starts. 

Haymitch freezes. 

The noise comes again. 

Wood violently scraping against wood.

Followed by a heavy thump. 

Followed by humming. 

God help him, there's someone humming. 

In his house. 

He stares at the ceiling. 

The ceiling stares back. 

Another screech. 

Something large and heavy being dragged across the floor—directly outside his bedroom. 

He waits for it to stop. It doesn't. He pulls the pillow over his head. 

This helps for approximately four minutes. 

He tries reasoning with himself—she’ll be done soon; she has to be done soon; no reasonable person makes this much noise past evening—but it doesn't help because she's not a reasonable person. He tries sleeping. He cannot sleep. He counts all the bottles on his nightstand. He stares at the water stain on the ceiling. 

The humming continues. 

He almost makes it. 

Then—the sound of a bucket toppling over. 

Another screech. 

Another. 

Finally: 

“For the love of—” 

He shoves himself upright, head swimming with movement, and storms out. 

He immediately wishes he hadn't. 

The hallway has been destroyed. Every piece of furniture has been displaced—a side table pushed against the wall at an angle, a dining chair abandoned halfway down the corridor, an old blanket chest moved so far from its original location he can see the darker rectangle of the floorboard where it used to stand undisturbed for years. The windows at either end stand open to the evening air. The floorboards are dark and wet, and the chemical smell of floor polish is sharp on his tongue. Several piles of old bedsheets and blankets sit in a heap on the top of the staircase, grey with disuse, and in the middle of it all—a bucket, a mop, two scrub brushes lined up with neatness amidst the surrounding chaos. The corridor stretches ahead of him, slick and strange and barely his. And she is at the far end of it, her back turned, still working. 

Humming under her breath. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he asks. 

She looks up at him. 

“I’m cleaning.” 

“You’re cleaning,” he says. “Right now—right this moment.” 

Her brow furrows. 

“Yes.” 

“At six in the evening.” 

“Yes.” 

“Well—don’t.” 

She stares at him for a second. 

“Did I disturb you?” 

“Take a wild guess.” 

“Oh,” she says. “I've been trying to be quiet.” 

“Try harder,” he says. “Or better yet—don’t clean here right now. Don't clean here at all. I'm perfectly fine with that.”  

“I'm not. The mayor pays me to clean here.” 

“I’ll pay you not to.”

“That would defeat the whole purpose; besides not being the right thing to do.”  

Haymitch grits his teeth. 

“Listen, kid,” he says. “I don't care about the floors. I don't care about the furniture. I don't care if the entire second floor collapses into the first. What I care about is that my head feels like somebody's mining coal behind my eyes, and you've spent the last twenty minutes dragging half the house up and down the hallway. So either find something else to do or come back later. Tonight, tomorrow, never—pick whatever. I'm not fussy.” 

“But you might be asleep later.” 

“That's the idea.” 

“It'll wake you up.” 

“I'll live.” 

“But you'll be disturbed even more than you are now, and besides I've already started.” She wrings out her mop. “I’ll be done in an hour, and in fact if you went outside for a little while, I could do your bedroom too and get everything finished at once.” 

“Absolutely not.” 

“But you know I've got to do it sooner or later, and if you let me do it now, I'll leave the upstairs alone for a whole week after.” 

Haymitch pinches the bridge of his nose. 

“An hour,” he warns. 

She rearranges her expression into something sincere with suspicious speed. “I swear.” 

He turns sharply, intent on putting as much distance between himself and this conversation as possible, and immediately catches the bucket with his boot. 

And then it topples over, sending a wave of dirty soapwater rushing across the floorboards and down the freshly cleaned staircase. 

The bucket rattles after it loud enough to wake the dead. 

“Two hours,” the girl amends quickly. 

Haymitch stares at her.

And then he stares at his soaked boots. 

And then he walks away. 

…

There are few indignities greater than being kicked out of your own house.

He had woken at noon to the smell of something aggressive and chemical riding through the floorboards. He had stumbled downstairs, squinting against the light, to find his house turned into a warsite. The kitchen had been scrubbed and every surface sprayed with something that burned his eyes from twenty paces away; and the rest of the house was next, she had informed cheerfully. The windows stood open but it made no difference. The smell had settled into the walls, the curtains, the very air itself—and he'd been too drunk and too hung-over all at once to argue. The result was that his house was now unfit for human occupation. 

And he was human enough, regrettably, for the distinction to matter.  

So the backyard it had been.

He had dropped into the chair beside the porch some time ago and stayed there, because the alternative was standing, and standing had become an act of ambition. 

He sits there now, the sun beating on his neck. It's all wrong—too bright, and too direct—and the air is thick and still and smells of cut grass and something else green and wet and rotting in the heat. His skull is doing something unpleasant behind his eyes. His knees ache. His stomach has lodged several formal complaints about all the biscuits he'd eaten in the last hour and the liquor he'd used to wash them down. And somewhere on the back of his neck, several winged things have decided he's lunch.  

He slaps at them. 

They come back. 

He swats the mosquitoes away from the plate of biscuits sitting on the chair beside him. Peeta had dropped them by this morning while he was still asleep. The girl had reheated and placed them beside him as consolation for being kicked out of his house. 

He takes another swig and the bottle feels easier to lift than his head. 

The light shifts through the overgrown grass and catches the empty bottles lying in the weeds beside his chair. The grass brushes against his boots. The garden sprawls beyond the porch, dark and airless and overgrown. The flowerbeds have sunk into themselves, the stone path is almost gone now. Thorned vines have climbed the fence, and twisted hard around the slats. The roses have grown wild, their blooms small and ragged, their stems tangled in the weeds around them. Tall grass leans against the porch steps. Dandelions push up through every crack they can find. The whole thing smells sour in the heat—something green and old and wet slowly baking in the afternoon sun. 

He should go inside. 

But the house is uninhabitable and standing is an effort. 

He remains in his seat. 

Then the weeds swear. 

Or the girl does, from somewhere inside them. 

Haymitch opens one eye. 

His hand reaches for another biscuit. 

“The boy's trying to kill me,” he says. 

She laughs. 

“With biscuits?” 

“With diabetes.” 

“That does sound serious.” 

“It is,” he says. “I haven't spent twenty-four years of my life destroying my liver just to let diabetes take me away.” 

“You poor thing.” The sound of leaves rustling follows. “He's very kind to drop these biscuits by, all fresh and warm.” 

“Yes, well," he says. "It's Peeta." 

As if that explains everything. 

(It does.)

“Papa used to love those fancy cakes he made. Brought one home every payday, like clockwork.” She appears in his periphery, cheeks flushed, and stops before the glass window to inspect her reflection with seriousness. “Can’t eat them anymore though,” she says, “which is just as well, because we can't afford it either.” 

He hums. 

She plops down on the chair beside him. “He was so shocked and confused when I answered the door though—the poor thing. You're so tight with him—and the girl too. I’d figured you'd have told them by now.” 

Tight.

He's not sure that's the word he'd use. He's not sure what word he'd use. They drop by sometimes—the boy more than the girl—to check whether he's alive. And when he's too drunk to argue, he lets them in. The whole thing is ridiculous and unnecessary. A man falls asleep face-down in his vomit one time and suddenly everyone thinks he needs a keeper. 

But Haymitch isn't a strong enough man to turn away whatever the boy brings him. 

And so the boy keeps coming back. 

“They haven't visited since,” he says. 

Which is a rare stroke of luck. He’s not quite ready to publicize his defeat just yet. 

“You should invite him here more often. He's from such a big family. I imagine it must get lonely living in such a big house.” The girl reaches for a biscuit. “I can cook dinner and whatnot. If we're very lucky, he’ll bring some of those tarts he makes. We could invite the girl too, I suppose.” 

“I suppose.” His lip twitches. “Try not to injure yourself with enthusiasm.” 

“It's not that I'm unwilling! I just don't know her. She used to visit our shop once a year for Prim’s birthday. She was a bit scary.” She flashes a sheepish smile. “But I'm sure she's a very nice person to know.” 

Haymitch takes a long swig from his bottle.

“Right,” he says. 

“The garden is going to take loads of time, by the way,” says she. “The soil's gone wrong, the roses have grown wild, and there's weeds growing all over the stone path. I don't even know where to start.” 

“I do. Don't.” 

She ignores him. 

“The flowerbeds will have to be cleared up first. Then I'll have to figure out what all's even worth saving at this point. The grass needs cutting. The shrubs need trimming. The vines have to come off the fence before they bring the whole thing down.” 

“I don't understand why bother at all.” 

“Because I want to do a good job. The mayor's wife was so kind as to find me this job; I don't want to disappoint her. Besides, it'll look pretty. A house ought to look pretty if it can! It'd just be such a waste of a good gardening space otherwise.” 

He snorts. 

“I don't plan on sitting here enough times to notice,” he says, taking another swig. “And besides, pretty doesn't do much.” 

“Yes, it does.” 

“No, it doesn't.” 

“It makes people happy. And besides, things don't have to be useful to be worth keeping.” 

“Useful is generally a safer bet.” 

“Well, I disagree.” 

“Shocking.” 

They exchange a glance. 

“You'll like the garden when I'm done with it,” she promises. 

He remains quiet. 

She dusts the crumbs off her clothes before returning to work. 

Haymitch watches from his seat. 

She starts with the flowerbeds closest to the porch. Haymitch watches her crouch down and begin pulling weeds by hand and dropping them in a growing pile beside her. 

It's a complicated process. 

Every so often she has to brace one foot against the edge of the flowerbed and tug with both hands to get a stubborn root out of the ground. More than once, she loses the fight and nearly falls backwards into the dirt. 

By the time she moves on to the next patch, there's soil under her fingernails, and dirt smeared across the sleeve of her dress.

A root catches her next.

She braces both feet against the flowerbed and pulls. 

Nothing. 

She tries again. 

Still nothing. 

Haymitch takes another sip from his drink. 

The root remains unmoved. 

“You're getting your ass kicked by a plant.” 

“I'm not.” 

“You are.” 

The root wins a third round. 

Haymitch nods. 

“Humiliating,” he says. 

“It would come out if the ground wasn't so hard.” 

“The ground seems fine.” 

“The ground hates me.” 

“The ground has excellent taste.” 

She shoots him a look, still pulling with all her strength. 

The root gives way without warning. 

She stumbles backwards and lands squarely in the dirt. 

Haymitch laughs into his bottle. 

“You're enjoying this far too much.” 

“And why shouldn't I? It's the first useful thing this garden has produced in years.” 

The bottle empties in his hand and he sighs. 

Watching her lose so spectacularly to something is almost adequate compensation for being evicted from his own house.

But the mosquitoes have returned to avenge their dead kin and his spine hurts from sitting up straight. 

“How much longer?” he asks. 

“For what?” 

“This.” 

She looks around. “The outdoors?” 

“The outdoors.” 

“Oh, you mean when will it be safe to go inside? That you can go anytime you like! The smell should've gone away soon after the first hour.” 

He stares at her, dumbfounded.

“Why didn't you say anything?” 

“Well, you'd already come outside, and you looked so comfortable. And besides, a little sunlight is supposed to be good for your health. I didn't want to say anything.”

“You—” 

He gets up from his chair. 

She looks back at him quietly. 

“You're a menace,” he says and goes away, shutting himself inside his bedroom.

He stays there for the rest of the day. 

It's late evening when she knocks on his bedroom door.

Haymitch ignores it. 

He lies back in his bed and stares at the ceiling and waits for it to go away—which it does. Five minutes pass. 

And then something that isn't quite curiosity but lives in that neighborhood gets the better of him and he opens the door. There's a tray on the little stand outside—a bowl of soup, still steaming, with a heel of bread balanced on the rim. He looks down the hall, and then at the soup. 

Nobody. 

He brings it inside. 

The soup is watery and oversalted, and the bread is slightly stale, and the whole thing is barely warm by the time he gets to the bottom of the bowl—which he does faster than he means to. He feels like a thief sneaking inside his own home as he listens for footsteps before opening the door, setting the empty bowl on the tray, and bolting the door shut again very quickly. 

It's replaced by a fresh tray the next morning—undercooked buns and a questionable attempt at coffee. 

He finishes that too.

No one ever mentions it. 

a/n: i hope you guys loved reading this as much as I loved it! please like, comment, reblog, follow—all of that! it'd mean the world to me.