naviaminnie

You lay him on his back. He opens his eyes long enough to see Burdock in your place, blocking out the worst of the dying sun. Lenore Dove crouches beside him to help sit Haymitch up. 

Leave me here, he tries to tell them, but the words are acid in his mouth the second Lenore Dove presses her hand to his forehead. She swallows her shuddered breaths. “She’s with the birds now.” 

With the birds, in the maple tree—what does it matter when you’re still dead, and so are Ma and Sid? 

Burdock grabs Haymitch’s left arm and glances at the vomit on the floor. His frown deepens, drawing attention to the dried tears along his jawline. 

“Ruined your pa’s suit,” Haymitch mumbles. 

He hauls him to his feet, shaking his head like that’s the least of his concerns. “It can be washed.” 

Well, Haymitch has ruined a lot of things of theirs. A soiled suit must be a splash in the pond compared to everything else. 

“Let’s get you back to mine, yeah?” Burdock squeezes his shoulder. 

“Don’t,” Haymitch wheezes. The sharp pins from earlier begin to prick his lungs at the thought of seeing your parents, being tended to by them in the walls of your home. Not his. He’ll never have a home again, and he doesn’t belong inside yours. “I don’t want to go there.”

Lenore Dove and Burdock exchange worried glances and coded asks. Haymitch has no use deciphering them, so he stares up above. Which branch were you on? He can’t find it anymore. 

Burdock sighs, having reached a silent verdict with Lenore Dove. “Okay, that’s all right.”

“I’m sure Blair won’t mind having you.” Lenore Dove wraps both arms around one of Haymitch’s, steadying him as his legs begin to wobble. 

Blair wouldn’t mind at all. He’ll let Haymitch take his bed while he sleeps with one of his siblings. His pa will lend Haymitch whatever clothes he needs. His ma will make jam that won’t taste like the kind he had on his birthday, but will be a noble effort all the same. “Don’t wanna be there either.” 

“Where do you want to go?” whispers Lenore Dove, patient yet strained.

“Here.” Where his rotten roots can’t reach anyone. Where he can search for your branch until he’s granted his own wings to fly to it. 

Lenore Dove and Burdock reconvene in another silent meeting. Haymitch is fading again, in and out of consciousness, back and forth from the hellhole of his memories. He’s kept in his equally torturous reality by the clearing of Burdock’s throat. 

“Here’s not an option, Hay.” He takes a step, beginning his and Lenore Dove’s pointless pursuit of finding a new home for Haymitch. “We’re getting you somewhere warm and out of this suit.” 

Haymitch thought the cold was in his head. He forgot that it existed on the outside of his body as much as it does on the inside. That must be what’s keeping him good and numb now that the sleep syrup’s run its course. He doesn’t have the heart to tell Burdock there is no warming him up. There is no substitute for you. 

Nightfall peaks from behind the mountains. From the edge of the meadow, Haymitch sees the Covey house in its current darkness. Not a hint of light slips through the curtain gaps. Clerk Carmine and Tam Amber must be at yours. Maybe your parents wouldn’t deny him entry, but Clerk Carmine surely would, in looks more than words. And Haymitch can’t blame him for that. For seeing him as is—a plague brought to infect them all. 

If only the rest of your family had the sense to see Haymitch the same. Either way, he was right to refuse Burdock’s offer. 

Blair joins them halfway through the Seam with a pot of bean and hammock soup. “From Mrs. McCoy.” He trades the pot with Lenore Dove, carrying the weight of Haymitch’s right side. 

They get to where they’re going quicker after that. When they cross the gates into Victor’s Village, Haymitch takes in all its magnificent, lonely, burdensome glory. 

“Guess you get to choose your own,” says Blair, muffled by the imagined cotton balls in Haymitch’s ears. 

In theory, he does get to choose. None of the houses are labeled with his name or any sign that they belong to him. But he certainly belongs to them, and the furthest from the entrance, towering above its identical prisons, makes sure he knows it. 

“That one,” he mutters and points to his new cage. 

Even the artificially chilled air and rose scented walls cannot keep out the coal dust. It trickles in through the front door as they cross into the living room. Plopped on one of the couches, Haymitch lets Blair and Lenore Dove wrap him in blankets. 

Burdock switches on the lights. “I’m going to find Asterid. See about more sleep syrup. Try getting him to eat something.” He glances at Haymitch like he wants to say more to him, not just speak of him. He doesn’t, rushing back through the doorway and down the marble steps. 

“Don’t forget clothes,” calls out Lenore Dove. Haymitch feels her sink onto the couch beside him, and he digs his nails deeper into the velvet as she asks, “Do you want a bath or food first? And don’t say ‘neither’ because you’re getting both eventually.” 

His tongue feels useless in a way his legs somehow don’t. He pushes up, letting the blankets fall, and takes a shaky step forward. Blair catches him before he falls straight through the coffee table. 

“Let’s find the bathroom in this place,” Blair says, dazed with more than grief. 

Haymitch shakes his head. Stop helping, stop caring, stop keeping me alive. His useless tongue forbids him from saying any of it out loud. What was the point in letting him keep it? 

The bathroom gives him time and space to be alone, at least. The bathtub is larger than the one in the apartment, but furnished with a similar shower head. He stays in there, melting under the water with steam curling around him, until a knock on the door says his hand-me-downs have arrived. 

His self-appointed saviors are huddled in the living room when he wanders back into it. The windows pointing out to the front porch reveal nothing but darkness. Blair has his back to him, and Lenore Dove and Burdock are both looking to each other for what to do. Not one of them notices Haymitch in the hall yet. 

“He shouldn’t be alone right now. Or here, in their clutches.” Lenore Dove wipes the tear stains on her cheeks with rough movements. 

“Blair and I are staying.” Burdock crosses his arms, straightens his shoulders, and reminds Haymitch so much of you that he nearly runs the other way. “You’re already on thin ice with C.C. and Tam Amber. You gotta go back.” 

“None of you should stay.” Either they can’t hear Haymitch’s murmuring, or they ignore him. May as well be a ghost. And if he is, then where is yours to lend him guidance? 

Lenore Dove shakes her head. “They aren’t allowed to be mad at me today.” Even through her pain, she holds herself with a boldness that’d cut straight through her uncles’ leashes. The kind that’d make Haymitch laugh and admire her under different circumstances. Right now, it makes his lungs shrivel up. 

Burdock surely feels the same, because he scoffs and grabs her hand. “They’ll be mad at you tomorrow. Lock you up for the rest of your life, and they’d be allowed because of today.” Haymitch hears the way you exist on the edges of their exchange like an anvil over their heads. Burdock and Lenore Dove could go on like this forever—skirting around the nightmare with their roundabout speech, spouting riddles about what they should or should not do in your name. 

Her eyes flare up before ultimately extinguishing themselves with fresh sadness. Quite a scare she gave her uncles, Haymitch imagines, but he sees no regret for whatever she did to wind up in jail, or for however long she kept their hearts stalled. Lenore Dove starts up again, but Haymitch delivers the final blow. “Go home.” 

She turns to him, sharp-eyed, Burdock and Blair following suit. At least they heard him. Haymitch stumbles over his feet and words, slotting into the circle they’ve formed. “You should go home.” 

Whether it’s the expectant anger of her uncles or what her family’s buried today, Lenore Dove drops it. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” she promises, hesitating like she means to say more. She opts to pull him into an embrace. 

Haymitch lets himself slip out of her grasp and back onto the couch. Light dangles from the ceiling and glares at him unnaturally. A poor imitation. 

When the old oak of the front door shuts, a slow and heavy creek following more murmurs, Burdock and Blair resume their diligent, hopeless task of helping Haymitch. He meant it for them, too—his wish that they’d go away. He doesn’t repeat himself. Can’t. Seems he used up all his energy to shower and send Lenore Dove back into her uncles’ protective arms. 

After changing the bandages on his knuckles, they ladle him a bowl of bean and ham hock soup, coming to find the kitchen fully stocked as all the other rooms are. Glass plates and silver spoons and crystal cups that even Maysilee would scoff at, despite their finery. She’d recognize it for what it is: another set of Capitol chains. 

Blair brings the bowl, but Burdock is the one who gets Haymitch to eat. He doesn’t need to force the spoon into Haymitch’s hands, or coax him with words, or threaten him in any way. His eyes are plenty disarming, plenty influential. 

Each mouthful strikes a cord in Haymitch’s misshapen guts. He stares off into the room, watches Burdock and Blair watching him in turn, but he isn’t here. He’s in the arena, sharing a pot of soup and mourning Wyatt alongside you and Maysilee. He’s in the apartment with Mags and Wiress and their attempts at comfort. He’s newly five, learning what it is to mourn for the first time. 

Haymitch doesn’t get to finish eating; the sparks of cold find him quick and clog up his airway.

Burdock administers sleep syrup, a lighter dose than what Asterid gave Haymitch yesterday morning, and tells him how much he should take in the coming days. Haymitch files it away with everything else he doesn’t care to hear right now. Blair’s well-meaning assurances of “We’re here for you, Hay.” Lenore Dove’s promise of tomorrow, which sounds closer to a threat. Each word out of Burdock’s mouth, be it instructions or sympathies or under-the-breath comments to Blair. 

His mimicry of your voice is the last Haymitch hears before slipping into a different kind of torture. 

Haymitch can’t see them properly through the wads of smoke. Ma and Sid manage to find him themselves, screaming as they turn to ash. He tries to reach them with desperate screams of their names and panicked shouts at the chains around his wrists and ankles. They bound him to the same desk where he was first turned into a spectacle by Prosperina and Vitus. 

Strange hands, stranger than theirs, touch him now. Running gel through his hair, scrubbing dirt off his back, forcing him in place as his home shreds piece by piece like wood shavings. The more they shape him in their image, the less Haymitch fights back. 

“Haymitch!”

Why isn’t he fighting? Ma and Sid are dying. Why isn’t he fighting?

“Haymitch!” 

Their shadows flicker in the flames. He wants to scream at the faceless hands to stop touching him, to let him save them, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t save anyone. 

“Haymitch, it’s okay!” 

With a yank out of the cuffs—the fingers—around his wrists, Haymitch scrambles back into the headboard of the bed. Fire lashes behind his eyes, even as the pitch black of the room tells him he’s awake. Burdock and Blair loom over him with their arms raised in surrender. 

“You’re okay,” Blair soothes weakly. “It was just a nightmare.”

Burdock steps forward wordlessly, letting the light from the hallway snuff out the darkness. 

Haymitch’s demands of “Go away!” come out ragged and unintelligible. He swings his legs over the bed. Burdock and Blair try to help him stand, but he pulls away from them. Drawing in sharp breaths, he manages to gasp, “Leave.” 

“All right,” sighs Burdock, catching Haymitch when he nearly trips over himself. “Take it easy.” 

Burdock’s dismissal hardens his resolve. “Leave me alone.” He pushes Burdock and Blair towards the door, down the stairs, into the living room. His shoves are halfhearted, but they entertain his efforts. Haymitch can no longer tell if he’s shooing them or if they’re guiding him. “I want you to leave me alone.” 

They don’t ignore him again; he doesn’t let them. Burdock grabs Haymitch’s wrist when he goes to push him again. Despite nearly being sent over the coffee table, Burdock only seems to care about getting Haymitch to calm down and sit. 

Haymitch bites down on his cheek until he tastes iron. Why does Burdock still care about anything, let alone about him? 

“Don’t pretend like you can’t hear me,” Haymitch sneers, sidestepping Burdock and Blair, storming to the front door on steadier footing. 

“We hear you just fine,” says Burdock, dry and tired. 

“Great!” He jerks the door open to the star dappled sky and nearly loses his grip. “Then hear this: You want to do me a favor? Go.” 

Their faces begin to blur, just enough that Haymitch can’t make out their reactions. Better that way.  

Blair begins shakily, “Hay, we aren’t—” 

“Stay away!” 

Even after Haymitch repeats himself, their hesitation stretches onward. The details of Burdock’s face become visible again. He stares at Haymitch with the same open, trusting look that first folded him into his friendship, now remolded into an ache that is all Haymitch’s doing. He doesn’t deserve Burdock’s care anymore; he’s not sure he ever did. 

Finally, Burdock moves and takes Blair with him. He stops on the marbled porch, glancing at Haymitch. “If you need to be alone right now, that’s fine. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Don’t bother,” Haymitch grumbles. “Just pass the message on to Lenore Dove.” He slams the door in their faces before Burdock’s sullen, curious eyes crack through him. 

The pot of bean and ham hock soup is on the stone counter when Haymitch wanders into the kitchen. Devoid of an appetite, stomach raw and nauseated, he makes a beeline towards the three bottles of sleep syrup on the table, meant to last him…a while, he guesses. One of them’s gone in minutes. 

His eyelids grow heavy, his body weightless, his chest perfectly empty. He floats on a cloud of velvet, waiting for the fall. Suspended between sleep and reality, Haymitch fixates on the dark corner leading to the inner hallway. He expects nothing, but you’ve always exceeded his expectations. 

Haymitch blinks at you from the couch. It isn’t right for you to look so at place in this gilded cage, but you do. He remembers the same being true the night of the interviews. Wearing this exact gown, hair up instead of down, hollow smile hiding your frightened eyes. 

Your nose twitches with disgust. “You really shouldn’t drink that all at once.”

Bile builds in his throat, and he expects to throw up again, or for you to disappear. When neither happens, he sucks in a breath. “What are you doing?” 

“Right now,” you sigh, “I’m watching you lose the fight against moderation.” 

Haymitch follows your gaze down to the empty bottle rolling around the rug. Asterid said two spoonfuls would do the trick from here on out, according to Burdock. But two spoonfuls weren’t enough to patch up his oozing soul. “I thought you’d stay in the woods.”

“Wanted to save you the trip. I’d rather you don’t undo the trouble they went through by getting lost again.” 

No shoes on, you drag your gown as you’d drag your feet. Silk fabric rustles along the floor. It’s the only audible noise in the dead of night, save for the thumping in his chest. For all that he hates how easily you fit in with the Capitol’s ideals of luxury, Haymitch is still just a moth to a flame. 

“Don’t deny it.” You sit on the edge of the coffee table and lean forward. “I can see the gears shifting in your pretty little head.” 

Haymitch rolls onto his back, but he doesn’t tear his focus from you. “They’d find me again anyways.” 

You hum. “Probably.” 

“But I told them to stay away.” 

“Oh, peach.” You smile gently, like you’re breaking difficult news to an ignorant child. “You know better than to think getting them to quit will be that easy. They’ll be back tomorrow, and the next day, and the next—”

“Will you?” Haymitch flinches, the selfishness of his question further tainting the space between you. 

Your smile doesn’t fade, instead growing pained with the rest of your expression. “You’d have me stay forever, wouldn’t you?” 

He tries to push up on his elbows and falls back against the cushions. “I’d have you here,” he chokes on the last syllable. “I’d have you—I’d—” 

“Shh, Haymitch.” You put an immediate stop to his spiral. Moving from the coffee table to the ground, you kneel beside the couch. So close he could catch the tears sitting on the cusp of your eyelashes, or press his nose into your hair, or count every one of the crystals on your dress, which look exactly like glass shards. “You know better.”

He should, but even so, he reaches for you. And like a moth to a flame, he burns. 

The second his nose makes contact with the floor—the rug a poor buffer for the tile—Haymitch stops breathing. His nose isn’t broken, but he can’t breathe. Each intake of air pierces his lungs and slips through the resulting gaps. He can’t move either, because he knows when he looks up you won’t be there. 

He might as well let the room’s shadows steal him. Sink into the hole you’ve carved out of this world. 

They’d find him. Haymitch feels them creeping around—the Capitol, the cameras, President Snow. There’s no escaping them; he will never be free. 

By some miracle, Haymitch finds it in himself to crawl to the kitchen. He passes out soon after downing a second bottle, letting you seek him out in his nightmares. Choking, dying, singing your own funeral song. 

Eventually, the third bottle makes its way into his bloodstream. Eventually, Haymitch follows you into the woods before you can save him the trip. Eventually, Asterid stops providing any sleep syrup at all. 

Fine by Haymitch. White liquor’s a hell of a lot stronger than sleep syrup anyway. 

✶⋆.˚꩜ .ᐟ˙⋆✶

You were right. Getting them to quit was no simple feat, especially when it comes to Burdock and Lenore Dove. Running them off proved difficult when they returned the morning after finding him the second time around. Or was it afternoon? Evening? Who knows? 

Haymitch no longer concerns himself with keeping track. It’s all one cyclical blur. 

Blair was the first to throw in the towel, having endured weeks of Haymitch’s tirades. He nearly made it two months, or three, before he accepted the inevitable and left Haymitch with a tearful hug goodbye. 

Burdock and Asterid clung on hard until that rock split open her pretty merchant face. Hurting his girl, on top of killing his sister, was Burdock’s last straw. The latter should have been enough before Haymitch had been forced to use those rocks. 

Lenore Dove… She sticks like a leech, dropping in as much as she’s able to sneak out, despite his tactics to get her to leave him be, or her uncles’ efforts to protect her from danger. Haymitch can lock the doors and windows all he likes—her voice carries through, asking him to open up, then demanding that he does. When she decides she won’t take a locked door for an answer, she evokes your name. 

It works, much to his shame. And when Haymitch does open that door on those rare blue moons, allowing her to tell him about what you’d want and what needs to be done, he isn’t sure he can use the same cruelty that worked on the others. He isn’t sure. But he does either way. 

Haymitch leaves his flint striker on the porch one morning, finds it in the same spot later that evening after Lenore Dove drops off a basket of something he doesn’t bother bringing inside with the weekly delivery of his winnings. Ignores the throb of his heart and the bite of your chiding when he throws it at her feet through the second story window the next day. Hates himself enough for the both of you at the sight of her hurt. She snaps then, yells about making change with or without him, and he learns to tune her out. 

The emptier the bottle, the less Haymitch feels. So he drowns himself in all Hattie has to sell in order to do what’s really needed of him. 

“Haymitch,” she says as she accepts his coin, which is unusual. Hattie stopped speaking much after his first purchase, when she extended anything she could offer in his time of grief, and he said all he needed were three bottles. Rarely, she offers the occasional update on others’ happenings. 

“Burdock is coming to trade again, but his color’s not back yet.” It’ll return eventually, because his strength supersedes Haymitch’s. But he reckons things will always be a little dull for Burdock, too, with your tether forever severed and no one else to blame but the boy who was meant to be his best friend. 

“Blair’s joining him now too, you know.” How would he? He’s made it his mission not to. Blair has two younger brothers and parents to help feed—go figure Sorrel and Burdock would teach him. They might’ve done the same for Haymitch. 

“Word has it that Covey girl was suspended from school for an outburst in class.” Lenore Dove already told him herself, not divulging or admitting to the accusations, on one of those mornings Haymitch opened his door. Suspension’s a far cry from a fourth arrest, so their teachers must’ve given her a pass on the grounds of grief. 

Hattie told him this sporadic information—about his old friends, about the rumblings in the air—like it would prove necessary when he came out the other end of this rough patch. Except this was his life now. There is no brighter end in sight. “I appreciate the coin, but you oughta learn to ration, boy.” 

His gaze flits up to her worried eyes. The very ones that took him under her wing. What’s it to her when she’s the one sustaining more vices than his? “Stick to the business you’re good for, Hattie.” 

With days’ worth of his anesthetic rattling in a bag, Haymitch drags himself out of the Hob, by some miracle avoiding a run-in with Burdock, and into the nipping breeze of…fall…winter… Who the hell cares? 

Matters even less when Haymitch catches sight of Clerk Carmine as the daylight gives way to the stars. There, on the edge of town, Haymitch doesn’t give him the chance to pretend they aren’t walking the same path. He spits out, “You should pay more attention to your niece.” 

Clerk Carmine whirs around, glowering at him with no lost love. “What was that?” 

“Need me to spell it out?” scoffs Haymitch. Leaves crunch beneath his boots. Maybe it is fall. “Keep Lenore Dove away unless you want her dead, too.” 

And before Clerk Carmine has the chance to curse him for his callousness, for all he’s cost them, Haymitch marches away. A tightened grip on his clinking bag, he doesn’t linger on Clerk Carmine’s drooped face, or his mounting guilt, or the storm he’s probably sent Lenore Dove’s way. It’s safer than the one she’d get caught in if she kept by his side. 

Haymitch drinks all the way back to his gilded cage, ignoring the hardened streets and their humming of insolence and the influx of new, antagonistic Peacekeepers. 

His companions await him. Those he’s killed, those whose spirits he’s dimmed in place of the lives he’s ruined and will only continue to worsen. 

And you. 

Sometimes you are still merciful. You greet Haymitch after hours spent dodging Panache’s sword in a heap of white roses, or running from exploding ladybugs while Maysilee’s scream plays from memory, or sifting through piles of ash and decapitated squirrels to get to Ampert’s bones. On the worst nights, when Sid’s burnt off face is the one under the rumble, you sing but do not appear to him. Different lullabies and ballads from the Covey’s catalogue, many he didn’t think he even remembered. 

Other occasions, which are most, you do well to remind Haymitch of his failures. Your brilliance is sharper than he knew it to be before. Death changes people, and so does betrayal. How Haymitch has hurt your people—once also his—warrants whatever harsh edges you have in store tonight. 

Tell him now: she is standing here at my head;

Not beautiful now, not even kind.

But you are beautiful. Beautiful and unforgiving, like the neglected flowers in his garden. Nearly winter then. 

He may take her now; for she never speaks her mind,

But is ever the one thing silent here.

You aren’t bothered by the chill—do ghosts get cold? Or are they perpetually frozen? You were always warm, a sunbeam gifted from above, but Haymitch wouldn’t be able to tell now. An invisible current keeps him from touching you, so he stays cold too, letting the dirt cushion him as he drops to his knees before you. 

She is not of us, as I divine;

She comes from another stiller world of the dead,

Stiller, not fairer than mine.

There are more lines that follow, he’s certain, but you’ve decided they aren’t worth sharing now. You close your eyes as if mulling over the poem on your own, your fingers curling around the edge of the wooden bench. Starlight bounces off the glass pieces in your hair; the resulting effect is the fading embers of a fire. He deludes himself into believing they’re dandelions or jasmine, the kind you used to weave into your braids on happier days. 

You come to Haymitch in this gown more than you do your arena outfit. It took him a long time to pinpoint why, to remember that night as the first in his string of betrayals. 

Though every nerve in his body aches to hold your hand or lay his head on your lap, Haymitch holds himself still. If he tries to touch you, you’ll disappear, and you already have more than enough reason to tonight. “Which part is that from?” 

You crack open one eye, annoyed by the interruption. Maybe you did have more to recite. That poem you love is endless, like his life. He doesn’t understand how you could be so comfortable with glass in your hair, and his guts begin to flare up, but you steamroll over him with a sigh. Both eyes look across the scene of his backyard. “This could be a nice space if you put some effort into it.” 

Haymitch lets a gulp of liquor scrape the lining of his throat. He waits for it to dull his chest just enough to say, “I don’t care about having a nice space. Which part is that from?” 

“And into yourself.” You drum your fingers against the bench. “I mean, honestly, peach, you couldn’t even make it a year?” 

“You’re dead,” he blurts, and nearly drops his crutch. 

“Duh.” 

“My family’s dead.” Why won’t the earth tear in two and swallow Haymitch whole already? 

“I’m dead, they’re dead,” you say casually, flicking your hair over your shoulder. “So is Maysilee, Wyatt, Wellie, Ampert, I could go on all night. You know who’s not dead? Your friends.” You huff out a bitter laugh. “Though you sure almost changed that for Asterid.” 

You’ll never let that one go, having yelled at him plenty the night it happened, scolding how he’s disparaged Burdock, then mocking how he almost gave you matching concussions. Even though Haymitch expects the same now, he cowers. “I—” I love you. I’m sorry. I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but take me with you anyway. “I did it to keep them safe.”

“Is that what you told yourself when you left the Newcomers?” You lean forward, elbows on your knees, and cut through his quickening breaths with a vicious whisper, “You just had to play the hero. You had to be a rebel. How’d that work out for you?”

His impending apology dies on his tongue, and his stomach churns with something much harder than guilt. At the sight of your mirrored anger, he clamps down his defense and answers honestly. “Not great.” 

You hum, a satisfied look on your face that quickly sours. “And now you think you have the right to yell at my family? To threaten and hurt them?” 

“I’m trying not to.” And you know that—you have to. There is no more place for love in his life; President Snow has seen to it. But Haymitch is no less culpable. Everything he touches, he destroys. He is sparing them from himself as much as he is protecting them from Snow’s vengeance. 

Your lips are tightly sealed, a refusal to be swayed, so he repeats himself again in a broken slur, “Which part are those lines from?” 

You stare down at him, and he swears he can feel your hand curled around his jaw, forcing him to hold your gaze. “The irony is,” you chime, “you don’t need to try very hard to hurt people, Haymitch. You do enough just by loving them.” 

His eyes burn, and he sees there is no denying the truth. He searches for the will to beg you to see the benefits in letting him die, but as a glass shard falls from your hair, you condemn him with your last words. 

High above, the moon emits a bright yellow like the primroses where Haymitch swears he left you alive. In his sleep, you’re gone upon his arrival. And as he stirs awake in his garden to a pale, apathetic sunrise, his memories begin to tell him the same. 

He stays holed up in the garden until his skin turns blue, and collapses in his living room where the other ghosts of his past return with a vengeance. 

Time continues to slip through his fingers. Silka joins Panache in his efforts to hunt down Haymitch, and the other Careers he killed recommit to their own alliance. He falls into a new cycle of letting them catch him, feeling their nails shred his ribcage, and fending them off with his knife once awake. Haymitch runs himself ragged with attacking the room’s deceptive shadows, succumbing to your latest melody when his mind begins to spin. A song, not a poem, and not belonging to the Covey. 

Down in the Willow garden,

Where me and my love did meet.

As we sat a-courtin,’

My love fell off to sleep.

I had a bottle of Burgundy wine,

My love she did not know,

So I poisoned that dear little girl,

On the banks below. 

Where the song comes from, Haymitch can’t remember. It produces pictures of lakeside lilies and the caress of water at his feet before he’s pulled under the waves of your crystal clear message. On the night you sing it in full for him, he knows it’s time for another restock. 

Effie Trinket doesn’t give him the chance when he comes to hours later. He swipes instinctively, but she’s wrangled his knife out of his grasp, standing above him with pursed lips and a weary disposition. 

“Haymitch, I’m so sorry to hear about your family’s accident.” She sets the blade down on the kitchen counter, too far for him to reach from his place on the ground. “But this simply won’t do. We have a responsibility, and you have a sacrifice to honor.”

Oh, sure, it was a real accident. Tragic, coincidental timing too, coming off of your sacrifice. Effie doesn’t know any better, blind to the horrors of the Capitol and their dear president, but her ignorance isn’t any easier to swallow. 

Haymitch washes up under Effie’s orders, though it takes a while for the rose scented soap to replace the booze and dirt. Prosperina and Vitus declare they can stomach him long enough to ready him, but the roses make him plenty nauseous in turn. 

Plutarch’s camera greets Haymitch as soon as he’s out the door, one step behind the entire way to the train station, where Plutarch informs him of Magno’s demotion and Drusilla’s accident. “Maysilee was right about those boots. I suggested Effie as the natural successor. Given her innovative track record, they went for it.”

“But you’re still stuck slumming it?” Haymitch deadpans, itching to run back to his prison when it hits him you won’t be joining him in this one. Steeled, not gilded. 

“It’s in my contract I continue with Twelve through your first year as a victor. Who knows where I’ll go then,” Plutarch says with an attempt at a friendly smile. What intentions hide beneath it? “You look like you could use a sandwich. Tibby!” 

Facing your kin and living with the ghosts should’ve been enough to prepare Haymitch for the wretchedness of the Victory Tour. District Eleven proves that nothing could’ve prepared him for seeing the families of his fallen allies, echoing meaningless words about their heroism when there is more to be said of them. Little as they really knew each other, Haymitch thinks of all the things he noticed about Hull and Chicory. Even Blossom and Tile. Everything that made them people instead of pawns. 

He sticks to the cards. 

Plutarch takes over Effie’s job of corralling Haymitch when the night’s festivities come to an end. He’s hidden away in a corner with the district’s most recent victor, who has introduced him to the wonderful world of Eleven’s specialty rotgut. 

“He’s all yours,” says Chaff, toasting the air mockingly. 

Instead of dragging him back to the train, Plutarch rushes him up a set of stairs and into an abandoned attic. He yanks the bottle out of Haymitch’s hands when he begins to blow whistles into it. 

“We don’t have long. This is the one place in the Justice Building that isn’t bugged.” Plutarch’s lax posture and narrowed eyes, almost honest in their urgency, convince Haymitch he’s right. 

More than that, they send him down memory lane, straight to that pitcher of hot chocolate. The very one Haymitch found while President Snow withered to death. If only he smashed the pitcher right over his head. Did Plutarch know Snow’s plan when he lent it to him? Was he a willing participant, eager to make one last show out of you?

It doesn’t matter, because the wave is already swelling inside Haymitch. He lunges clumsily, and only has the liquor to blame for how quickly Plutarch dodges him. He’s the killer here, after all. This should be easy for him. 

“Okay—” Plutarch sidesteps another of Haymitch’s lackluster attempts. He grabs his wrists, forcing him to sit on the nearby windowsill. “Hate me all you’d like, but get a hold of yourself for one minute.” 

His words do the opposite of their intended effect, worsening Haymitch’s need to make someone, if not Snow, carry the blame. He sets out to do just that with Plutarch, the one tangible culprit other than himself, and strides forward. Sensing another meager attack, Plutarch pulls something out of his blazer’s inner pocket. 

Haymitch falls back, fists dropping. “Where—Where’d you get that from?”

“The surgeon in charge of victor affairs is a colleague of mine. Normally they toss all extra items on a victor’s person, save for their token, but I promised she’d get this back.” He drops the bluebird into Haymitch’s outstretched hand. 

His muddled head swirls as he cradles the closest thing left of your heart. Plutarch promised who, exactly? The simple answer is you, but when would he have… 

“Now I need you to listen closely. The arena plan may not have produced the results we wanted, but it wasn’t the failure you believed it to be.” 

Haymitch sees you in the reflective light of the bird’s beak, the sunset scarf around your neck and the fading embers in your hair. He sees Plutarch leading you out of the library, hears the unavoidable confession to his involvement in the rebel plan. He swallows down the return of tonight’s main course. “How much did she know?” 

“Not everything. It would’ve been a risk. Besides, she wasn’t needed on the frontlines.” Plutarch smoothes his rumpled blazer. “Symbols are powerful weapons in and of themselves, and every good revolution needs one.” 

“And that symbol was meant to be her?” 

“It could’ve been. Beetee chose you for a reason, too. Admittedly, I was partial to Everdeen, but there have been others before, and there will be more down the line to pick up the torch.” Plutarch lifts a shoulder like he’s only trying to placate the rage emanating from Haymitch, not add to it. “That doesn’t mean we don’t need you.” 

So it’s not enough to reduce you to a blip in his machine of revolution—he expects Haymitch to sign himself away to the cause once more. “You don’t want me. Everybody’s dead because of me. It was a failure, and it’s on me.” 

“Don’t sell yourself short. You shook up the Capitol in more ways than one. Every misstep along the way was outside of your control.”

“Her death wasn’t a misstep,” Haymitch seethes, squeezing the bluebird in his hand, “and she’s not a token you can replace.” 

“No, I suppose not,” he relents. With a quick glance out the window, he straightens himself. “Revolution takes time, Haymitch, and it requires sacrifice to succeed. You can decide whether this one amounts to something or not. But I know she would’ve liked to see a free Panem, and I know you should be a part of making that happen.” 

There’s that word again, the idea that you were a martyr for two opposing ends of a war. Effie said it like she snatched the tagline directly from a Capitol poster. Probably did. Neither she nor Plutarch understand. You were more than a piece in the Capitol’s games, or Plutarch’s. Haymitch has half a mind to tell Plutarch just that and more. He should know you’re already free, and maybe you would’ve liked the same for those in this world, but Haymitch isn’t sure he still does for himself. What good can he do now? What freedom does he deserve? 

“You don’t know a thing,” he mutters. “None of you do.” 

Haymitch finds his own path to the train. 

Every stop is as bad as Eleven. At least Plutarch leaves Haymitch be, taking to the sidelines to record his triumph across the districts. In Six, he sees Wellie’s head hanging from every corner. Both Five and Four provide ugly reminders that the blood on his hands was literal. By the time they reach Three, Haymitch thinks he’s numbed himself to the point of permanently discarding all emotions. 

Until he sees Beetee on a platform beside his wife, from whom Ampert clearly got his looks. Beetee was nowhere to be found during his crowning ceremony or the two weeks that followed, so Haymitch assumed he killed himself. It’s obvious now why he hasn’t. Beetee holds his wife’s hand while she protects the swell of her stomach with her other. Ready to pop any day. 

Another kid without a brother, and what a great one Ampert would’ve made. Nothing like Haymitch. 

He cries in his room back on the train, for Ampert and Beetee, for you and Burdock. For Sid, the sweet baby who, from the second he was born, looked up to his brother like he could do no wrong. 

Effie tries her best to keep Haymitch sober for One and Two. Shame there are no locks on the bar car. 

The Capitol festivities come and go with their usual fanfare. President Snow looms over them with an air of immunity, and when he finds Haymitch in the crowd during his own speech to his adoring subjects, he stands like the victorious one. 

Back in Twelve, Haymitch is ready to sink back into his pit of solitude. Like his homecoming, there is no grand crowd to welcome him back. There is, however, a similarly unsettling message that awaits him. 

Effie gasps over Haymitch’s shoulder. Plutarch stifles a cross between a laugh and a scoff. He averts his camera, and Haymitch wonders whether he should be thankful this taping isn’t live. A part of him, buried beneath layers of alcohol, would’ve liked more people than his wardens to see the bold orange letters sprayed across the platform. 

THE CAPITOL LIES

As quickly as the satisfaction bubbled inside him, the fear kicks in. Because there’s only one person Haymitch can think of who’d do something like this. And there’s no good moment to think about it with Effie ushering him to keep on schedule, looking to the Peacekeepers who’ve accompanied them for answers. 

She’s appalled the whole way to the Justice Building, ranting about the sheer audacity of some wayward soul to suggest the Capitol was anything but honest and just. If that’s the case, Haymitch seethes internally, then why were forty-eight kids buried this year? 

Mayor Undersee tries to assuage Effie’s worry, promising there is no tolerance for treason but the Peacekeepers’ reported the cameras were too old and froze before a picture could form. He already looks tired in a way Mayor Allister did her last years before retirement. Maybe his son will have to pick up the slack sooner than expected. 

While Haymitch has already had to confront your family, and the Donners, and the Callows, it’s horrible addressing them on those platforms. His speech—Effie’s, technically—is all stammers and slurs. It’ll earn him a scolding from her, maybe another surge of fresh spite from his own district, but he skips over any part that’s a reference to you. 

Afterwards, throughout the lackluster party in the square, Haymitch voluntarily sticks by Plutarch, who’s a fine repellant. No one wants anything to do with Haymitch, and the feeling’s mutual. Except when it comes to Barb Azure. She keeps track of him from a distance, by Sorrel and Burdock, the latter of whom has longer hair than he did last Haymitch saw. Mid-neck, a braid on one side flitting across his nose when he turns to look at Haymitch. 

He avoids Burdock’s eyes, exchanges them for a glimpse of Barb Azure, who elicits the same ache and yet feels safer. Haymitch can tell, by the way her mouth curves into a watchful frown, the only reaction he’s seen of her tonight, he’s caused her worry. More than he’s worth. Her time is better spent hating him, but for whatever reason, it doesn’t seem her spirit will allow it. 

He wonders why, wonders if you’ll visit once the cameras are gone, wonders about Lenore Dove and that welcome banner and if that’s why he didn’t see her and the uncles anywhere in the square. 

Your bluebird weighs heavy on his heart, safe as it is in the pocket of his shirt. Haymitch stands in his front yard, well after the sun has dipped and Plutarch has finished his recorded tour of his new house. 

“You have more power than you believe, Haymitch,” he says in parting. “Don’t quit before you have the chance to use it.” 

Haymitch feels the urge to kill him again. “And how do you use your power, Plutarch? Filming our last days, having tea parties with the president—you’re not fixing a thing. You’re just full of shit.” 

Recognition flashes across his face, and amusement comes fleetingly, though it takes Plutarch a beat to actually answer. “I never claimed my methods were perfect. But at least I’m still in the game. For what it’s worth, your better half wouldn’t disagree.” 

And with that, Haymitch finds himself alone in his much too large, much too quiet, much too golden cage. It’s all the more constricting without any bottles in the house. He stocks up extra, enough that he doesn’t have to leave Victor’s Village until three rounds of his winnings are delivered to his door. 

In those three weeks, your visits are restricted to his dreams, always the same sequence of Maritte’s attack, the shattered pitcher, and then nothing. It replays in his head as he wanders District Twelve, prolonging his trek because he doesn’t want to sleep tonight. He doesn’t want to see if you’ll be waiting for him when he returns. Weeks of silence can only mean a reckoning around the corner. One he’s earned but fears nonetheless. 

Most of the merchants have closed up shop for the day, except for the sweetshop, every one of its lights on despite the yellow moon beating down on Twelve. The crop of golden hair at the counter, turned down to the till, stirs the harmony of ladybugs and fire. When Merrilee glances up, the pink of her dress swallowing her whole, a soft blue finding him through the blurred glass window, Haymitch reminds himself she’s not who he’s missing. 

He traces the twists and turns around Twelve, muttering that schoolyard song, pretending you and Maysilee are the ones singing it together now. A voice replaces both of yours in the dark of an alleyway. Haymitch blinks his eyes open, landing first on the cutting words painted the same shade of orange as those on the train platform. 

NO HANGING TREE

He shuts himself off to the words and the world, trying to scrub them clean in his head. A pair of hands hoists him to his feet, and he doesn’t resist letting them lead him where he asks to go. 

Lenore Dove, expectedly, doesn’t leave after she gets him inside. Haymitch flinches away from her when she tries to settle him on the couch, and she winces in turn, taking a step back and holding herself tensely. She crosses her arms, orange stained nails digging into her sweater. 

“You’ll get arrested for trespassing,” he says, a mimicry of the threats he’d throw at her and Burdock when both of them still came together. “I thought you already were.” 

“Clerk Carmine and Tam Amber have me under house arrest except for school. In part thanks to you.” Lenore Dove was always sweet lilts or emotional edges, never bitter. Not like she sounds now as she credits Haymitch for his role in her newfound restrictions. 

“Great job they’re doing.” 

“They can’t stay awake twenty-four-seven.” She wavers on the defensive for her uncles’ sake, despite her own blatant frustration with the circumstances. “Have you eaten anything real lately?” 

Haymitch senses Lenore Dove scanning the filth of the living room, wrecked beyond repair in just the few months it’s been his. Drink stains on the rug and velvet, trash overflowing, clothes scattered under a layer of dust. To her credit, she does her best not to react, but her face swirls with pity and sorrow. He snorts. “Oh, don’t you worry. I had a nice, hearty meal before we ran into each other.”

He’s never challenged Lenore Dove, never had cause to, even in moments when they didn’t see eye to eye, even when he didn’t understand her riddles. They have never argued, and the closest they’ve come was Lenore Dove demanding he let her in and Haymitch doing the exact opposite. Knowing this, he barrels over the litany of concerns building up on her tongue. “I liked your painting. Could’ve used a softer touch though.” 

Her pity dissolves into confusion over his sudden ease with coded words. But Lenore Dove knows exactly what he’s referencing. “People deserve the truth—” 

“It’s a shame you haven’t shown anyone else,” Haymitch cuts in sharply. Did she know the cameras at the station weren’t anything more than fillers? Would it have made a difference if they were? “But you know what, painting’s not really your style.” 

“I think it suits me fine,” she says without missing a beat. “I think you should give it a try instead of singing and dancing for them.”  

Maysilee’s pinkie is a phantom sensation; yours wraps around his other. Haymitch opens his mouth, but Lenore Dove beats him to it. “You think I don’t see what you’re doing? Putting up all these walls to keep us out because you think you deserve it.” She’s close, so very close, and yet she couldn’t be more off base. He’s doing this for them, not just to himself. “You aren’t the only one who loved her.” 

“Stop it.” He shakes his head. “I don’t wanna hear this.” 

“Maybe it wasn’t in the same way, but she was my cousin. And Burdock’s sister. And people’s friend.” Lenore Dove sniffles, and unlike before, the thought of you makes Haymitch want to slam the door shut instead of opening it to her. “It was a different love but the same amount. We understand. You aren’t alone in the pain, Haymitch, or the fight.” 

“There is no fight, Lenore Dove. None I want a part of.” He rounds the corner into the main hallway, and she’s on his heel. 

“You don’t believe—” She huffs, working herself into a quick frenzy like when she found out about Maysilee’s canary. You may not be here to add fuel to her fire, but Haymitch sees you’re settled in the forefront of her mind. “You can’t believe it. Not after all the lives taken from us this year. The lives that’ll keep being taken if we do nothing.” 

His jaw ticks, sending a pang to his head. For the first time in all the years Lenore Dove has graced his life, all the years he’s loved her, she causes him true anger. “I did do something, Lenore Dove. I fought, and I lost. You think I don’t know how many people died?” 

“I never said that!”

“I know exactly how many of ’em died—I helped kill them.” Haymitch stifles the rumbling in his chest, stills the twitch of his fingers. “You think you or Burdock or anyone understands, but you don’t. And I don’t have to explain it to you. But you need to quit what you’re doing before you get yourself killed.” 

The overly bright fluorescents catch the defiance in Lenore Dove’s eyes, the disbelief that he could even ask that of her. Haymitch thinks of her coyness surrounding her first two arrests and her ability to skirt around a real confession. She maintains that now, even as she says, “Nobody should have to die for their games. I won’t stop believing in the possibility of the sun rising on a better world.” 

A better world, a free Panem. Plutarch’s pipe dream rings in Haymitch’s head. 

“Good for you.” He curls a fist over the doorhandle, nearly slams the oak into his nose. Everything he has to tell her and apologize for slips through the cracks between them. Any form of begging will fall on deaf ears and lead to her swaying his resolve. Clerk Carmine and Tam Amber will get a handle on things. They’ll figure out a way to watch her all hours of the day, to stop her before she’s caught. How else can Haymitch protect her, besides falling into the role he’s written for himself. “Now get out of my house.” 

Lenore Dove doesn’t fold or flinch or even look hurt the way she did over his callous return of the flintstriker, her expression burning. “I know what my cousin would’ve wanted, and it ain’t this.” 

What a shame you aren’t here to tell him yourself. Haymitch says it out loud to her, yells it vindictively, and it’s hours, bottles, later before you prove him wrong. 

“You know she was doing this?” He pushes up from the kitchen table on shaky limbs. 

“Course I did.” You slip off the counter, black uniform nearly blending with the night.  

Resentment is a treacherous thing; without a rhyme or reason Haymitch can name, it tints the way he accuses, “And you never stopped her.” 

“There’s no stopping Lenore Dove. And it’s not like I can now. Or have you forgotten?” 

“I haven’t forgotten,” Haymitch snaps, insides coiling as tight as your gaze. He stops right in front of you, backing you into the counter again. “How can I? You won’t let me. You won’t leave me alone!” 

“I’ll leave if you want.” You grin, tugging at the roots of his heart. “I’ll go away like the others. Push me out that door, force me to leave, tell me you want me to.” The quirk of an eyebrow silently communicates go on then. 

“She’s being reckless,” is what he murmurs instead. Lenore Dove will go on fighting, go on trying to help him, despite being furious with him. It’s in her nature, just as it is in Haymitch’s to have you stay. 

“Take a look in the mirror,” you snipe, leaving only a sliver of space between your faces. The proximity is dizzying, almost as much as the absence of your breath fanning his cheeks. “Lenore Dove is willing to die for her people, instead of expecting it the other way around.” Your nose brushes his, and Haymitch grows cold when he doesn’t feel it, when he remembers the acidity of your poisoned blood. “You think on that.” 

He does, through the turn of a new day, through the days that spill into weeks, through the pathway that leads to the Covey home in the blinding light of day. 

Though he’s long since given up on telling time, Haymitch knows it’s a Monday because the Hob was packed with people yesterday, every one of them casting their judgement on his horrid state of being. Presumably a school day, and if what she said is true, there’s no risk of running into Lenore Dove. 

Haymitch doesn’t consider the likelihood of there being anyone else home. He makes sure your bluebird is balanced on the porch railing and spins around before Tam Amber comes out from his workshop. 

“Too late to run off now, boy.” Tam Amber stops him instantly. He walks around to porch steps, wiping his brow with a red handkerchief. “You ain’t subtle.” 

A dozen sharp-tongued quips come to mind, but there’s no use for them. Tam Amber isn’t someone Haymitch needs to swat —he is not a fly on the wall or a gnat fretting over him. He isn’t risking his life by seeking Haymitch out. He is someone you loved. So maybe there is a risk in speaking to him. Haymitch still finds himself saying, “Came to give that back.” 

Tam Amber glances over his shoulder, to where Haymitch points his finger. He isn’t surprised to see the bluebird, his crinkled eyes welling with pain over suspicion. And the lack thereof leads to the horrible, nauseating question of whether they opened your coffin. Whether they saw you—Haymitch staggers over a rock—like that. 

“You don’t give back a gift.” Tam Amber doesn’t move to help, but he holds Haymitch’s gaze until his breathing steadies, eyes flickering down to his wrist. 

Technically, you never gifted the charm to him. You gave it to Plutarch, of that Haymitch is now certain, who passed it on to Beetee and Ampert, who sent it his way. Doesn’t make it a gift just because you let him hold onto it. Fleetingly, he can hear you calling semantics, imagines the smile that’d be playing on your lips, and buries the image under his shame. “It was more of a placeholder than anything.” 

“Lot of care was put into this placeholder.”

“Which is why I’m returning it.” He’d take it to you directly if he knew where you were buried. Whenever he sets out to find you, he’s sent packing by your condemnation not to follow. 

“Son,” Tam Amber starts gently, mournfully, holding out the bluebird in his direction, “if it was entrusted to you, it was a gift.” 

Why couldn’t it have been Clerk Carmine who caught him? He’d have yelled and cursed at Haymitch, not thawed his heart with the reminder of how easily you gave him yours. Tam Amber holds no hate in his eyes as he looks at him, and Haymitch shuffles away, at risk of breaking apart entirely. “You’ll take better care of it than I ever could.” 

The next months are a repetition of those following his homecoming. Effie is unchanged when she wakes Haymitch much like she did on the morning of his Victory Tour. Smiles and encouragement and scoldings against Haymitch for not looking after himself. Would she change her tune if she knew he spent the better part of his nights chasing shadows with a knife? If he confessed to longing for your ghost? If he told her about the bloodied whipping post they cleared out to make room for this big, big, big day? 

It’s hard to hold it against her in earnest when she is his main source of human contact now. And whether he wants it or not, she does watch over him. 

On stage, Haymitch picks out Lenore Dove, furious as he last saw her, one row behind Merrilee and Asterid, and breathes out when none of their names are called. When Burdock and Blair are not either. No, Haymitch is given a different pair of kids he recognizes. Fifteen-year-old Laurel Grover and twelve-year-old Flint Moss, both Seam. 

They look to him, helpless, all the way to the Capitol, where they are given an upgrade in apartments for the year. Laurel is a shy thing, but she’s quick on her feet, tells him so and all he says in return is that she’ll need it. Flint has more confidence than he’d expect for a kid in his circumstances. Talks a mile a minute and asks a dozen questions, but none of them have to do with survival. They are both resigned to their fates, and against his will, it makes Haymitch think of you.  

He bumbles over what to do for them, how to be there, and if there’s even a point in trying. He isn’t given access to the other victors or mentors the entirety of their training period. He’s confined to the Twelfth floor except for occasions where his presence is required. The parade, after parties, the interviews. 

It’s then, in an empty hallway, on the way to the bathroom after outdrinking Chaff, that Haymitch runs into Mags. 

She’s aged five years or so since the night of his ceremony, but she’s mobile and steady in the way she approaches him. 

Haymitch struggles over what to ask first. “Are you— Is Wiress— What happened?” 

Mags squeezes his hands, eyes darting up to a corner behind him. Right. They can’t discuss this here. Maybe not ever. 

“I’m sorry about your family,” she whispers, voice more hoarse than it once was. For what comes next. Mags doesn’t apologize for you, or tell him what he should do in the wake of all this loss. She rests a hand against his cheek and stares at him with sadness. “You did everything you could.”

A hazy confession floats above him. The wish Mags once wanted for herself. The district partner she tried to protect in her Games. Every part of Haymitch screams at him to deny and correct her lie, say she doesn’t understand, but she does. To whatever extent. 

He accepts the lie and falls into her arms.  

How long’s it been since he’s been held like this? Out of kindness and comfort. The touch of Capitol citizens doesn’t count. It comes in passing, with a million strings, and they feel they’ve earned every one. Running a hand up his arm, down his back, across his hair. Like they’re petting a dog, like he’s back in his much more literal cage.  

And like a dog, Haymitch learns to bite. To snarl and resist until they learn to avoid him. To find a new novelty. He may not tear down their posters, but he’s making Maysilee proud in some way, if not you. 

The worst victor in the history of the Games. Shame it makes him the worst mentor, too. 

His boy dies in the bloodbath; his girl makes it to day two, gets taken out by the boy from One. Their coffins rattle the entire way home. 

She has no relation to either of his kids, and yet, the first face Haymitch sees when the train doors open is Cindy. She shuffles on the platform, twisting a ring around her finger, demeanor smoother than he’s ever known her to be. Haymitch only ever frequented her booth at the Hob with you and Burdock. She’s normally the topic of conversation, not a participant. Her role in his life is nonexistent, but she liked you, and much farther down the line, he realizes that’s why she volunteered herself for this. 

“There was a big display, exactly two weeks after the reaping,” she says in a quick, hushed tone once they’ve left the station. They’ve amped up the Peacekeepers there, but they were pretty unmoved when Haymitch stepped off the train and bid them farewell with a mock salute. “There’s been so much loss. We’ve all felt it.” She glances at him pitifully. “I never got to tell you at the funerals—”

“What kind of display?” His patience for sympathies has run out, and he’s not in the mood to postpone getting back to you now. A month of cooing Capitolites and deathbound children and recaps of last year’s “best bits” have stripped him of his ingratitude for you. 

Cindy clears her throat and checks over her shoulder, looping her arm through his. “Burning of flags, a protest against watching the Games, a riot. Peacekeepers traced it back to that Covey girl.”

“Lenore Dove?” Haymitch stops walking, sobering up quicker than he has in months. 

“She incited that riot last year,” Cindy says, cautious. “There was word she sparked one at the school before the tour, and, well, she’s got a history.” 

“Is she on the base now?” Three arrests was pushing it, but four? Clerk Carmine and Tam Amber won’t be able to sweet talk or negotiate or beg her way out of this on their own. “I have to get to her. I gotta—I have to—” Haymitch sputters and pulls away from Cindy, who only tightens her grasp on his arm. “Cindy, I swear—”

“Haymitch,” she sharpens, detaches from emotion, reassuming the no-nonsense woman she’s always been. “It’s too late.” 

Cindy’s wrong. Lenore Dove can’t be—what she’s implying. Clerk Carmine and Tam Amber have a close eye on her, and Haymitch has all but broken her heart to keep her safe, and she has an endless fight left in her. Haymitch can fight harder too, against the Capitol like she wants, against her putting herself in danger. Because she’s not gone. Because Haymitch can’t have killed her too. Because you will never, ever free him from this torment. 

A noose twists around his neck and squeezes. 

✶⋆.˚꩜ .ᐟ˙⋆✶

Gone are the hateful shouts that found him the night he hurled rocks at Burdock and tarnished Asterid’s pretty face. Gone are your taunts and insults, a natural byproduct of your grudge. Gone are your tears and gasps and bloodied lips, all pulled from memories which he never before took as merciful. 

They weren’t. Aren’t. But they feel a lot like mercy compared to this. Compared to your husk of a ghost. 

You’re devoid of anything real, angry as you are at him. He’s betrayed you. Again. Is that all he’s good for? You ask him that, completely indifferent. Over and over, until his yes’s turn into one long hyperventilating plea for you to stop. To pry his chest open already and tear his heart out because what use does he have for it? 

None whatsoever. 

And yet, you insist he keeps it. Mangled and shrunken and booze-soaked—it’s not a heart worth carrying around but it’s the one Haymitch has earned himself. Along with his complete isolation from Twelve. 

He gets Bascom Pie to deliver his hooch, leaves the money on the steps for him, and doesn’t go into town as far as he can help it. There are enough ghosts in the confines of his house without seeing the shells of those left behind. His nightmares of Lenore Dove, of Clerk Carmine and Tam Amber’s pain, are entirely up to his imagination, unlike those spun from semblances of the truth.

The woods are his workaround, and Haymitch wanders most nights, looking to get lost, only for you to wind up forcing him back to the fence line. But the longer you deprive him of anything real, the more you shun him with indifference, the less Haymitch listens.  

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Don’t know.” Haymitch shrugs roughly, a splash of his drink landing on the dirt. “Don’t care.” 

You whistle—it’s the most emotion he’s heard from you since the news of Lenore Dove’s execution. “Someone’s in a mood.” 

“And I wonder why.” He strides over a large branch and forces himself not to turn to you. 

“I’m the one who should be upset.” You walk in step with him. “I got glass sticking out of my stomach, a dead cousin, and you to deal with.” 

Night distorts the woods. Trees appear like weapons and hooting owls sound like screams. “You’re not dealing with me. I’m putting up with you.”

“I told you to send me away, Haymitch,” you say calmly, and it’s nearly enough to stop him, “but you haven’t. Why?” 

“I’m telling you now,” he sneers, lingering on the taste of rotgut before continuing, “You don’t belong here.” 

“You know what I think?”

“No, but you’re gonna say it anyway.” 

“It wasn’t enough to kill me.” You sigh in tandem with the rustling wind. “You need to make sure I’m never free too.” 

It hits Haymitch hard and fast and brutal, before he even has the chance to name what it is drilling the last bits of his reluctance to nubs. “I don’t want you to be free?” He digs his heels into the floor. “I’m the one stuck here, living with it!” The lid’s blown off completely, and shoving down all the horrible, hideous feelings is useless. “I tried to make things right. I tried to keep you alive. I would’ve died to do it!”

Clouds obscure the stars above, making everything darker, crueler. Your eyes are plenty dark, more ruthless than indifferent as you say, “Trying doesn’t absolve you of what you did.” You poke and prod at him with the way you stare at him now, a different yet equally disarming effect from your tender gaze.  

“You promised we’d be on even ground.” It couldn’t have been that hard to take him with you. 

“And you promised you’d stay with Wellie.” You seem pleased when he flinches. “If you hadn’t broken your promise, I would’ve found my way back to you. Maritte never would’ve had the chance to attack. I wouldn’t have been poisoned.” 

“I didn’t drop you on the glass,” Haymitch spits instantly, even as the words come out with a quiver, because his bones say that it’s true. So do his memories. 

Your mouth curves up and outrage sparks your expression, but it doesn’t cut Haymitch down. For once, he’s not looking to get a reaction out of you. “No, you didn’t. You want a prize?”

“I caught you. I made sure the poison never touched you.” But it did somehow, and now it’s in Haymitch.  “I did everything I could.” 

Your laugh chills his lungs. “Everything for who, exactly? For me? For your ma and Sid? For Lenore Dove? Let’s cover all our bases, because it sure didn’t start with the four of us, and it won’t end with us either.” 

It never will end, because Haymitch will have two new kids to fail every year for the rest of his life. Two kids like Laurel and Flint, hopelessly waiting for him to save them. The stream of loss is vast, and so is his culpability. 

“Why won’t you just stop?!” he chokes out, dropping like the strings attached to his limbs snapped right off. He yanks on his scalp in the hopes it’ll distract from the pain the way the alcohol should’ve. “Just stop!” 

You meet him on the ground, an unavoidable nightmare even after he clamps his eyes shut. “I died for you.” He’s back in the arena, every turn of events stabbing at him as you echo, “Live with it.” 

Curling in on himself, Haymitch stews in his boiling blood. He bites down his cheek to taste the metal for himself. Spiteful words string together inside him, replacing his demand for you to end your vengeance. A distant hoot gives the final shove he needs to steel himself again. 

“Is that how you remember me?” 

Warmth, not a boil, floods his veins, a jarring contrast from the shocks of ice to his abdomen. His anger is stilted, cut short, which somehow reignites pieces of it. A paradox. The kind you are all too familiar with. 

You don’t try to ease or rile him. You don’t expect him to feel anything more or anything less than what he does now. It’s not the first time he has, not by a longshot, but Haymitch misses you. Your hands rest on your bent knees, fingers flat on the fabric of your purple skirt. Dawn is nowhere near; still, Haymitch sees those rainbow rays of sunlight in you. 

He waits to see if you’ll repeat yourself, but you don’t. Your nose bunches up. 

“Sunshine,” he murmurs, crawling on scarred hands and battered legs. The wracking of his shoulders stops him, suspends him on the floor until he’s forced to realize this is the worst crime he could commit against you. Disparaging who you are. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” 

You aren’t there to hear it. 

You’ll come back like you always do. Haymitch assures himself with the thought and other delusions long after the sun sets and rises again. He ventures further into the woods, comes up empty, the last of the liquor drained from his system. He waits another day, summons you to him with shouts and bargains and things he knows would ruffle your feathers in different circumstances. But he wasted most of his breath pushing you away. 

Why did he do that? Where was the punishment in being haunted by you? 

Not in the woods, not in his house, not in his dreams when consciousness fades away. You’ve disappeared completely, and no amount of anesthetic can fix that, can bring you back to Haymitch. Doesn’t stop him from drinking into the night, sleeping through the day, wandering every bit of Twelve you’ve touched. Wherever you might be. 

His vision is blurred around the edges, but Haymitch knows the Seam like the back of his hand. The streets are lonely, yet more alive than his stone walls. No noise except for the kind coming out of his mouth, a repetition of your name, over and over, loud enough to raise the whole population of Twelve. Haymitch only seeks to raise his dead. 

His body collapses on wooden steps, and he swallows the last syllable of his scream. 

A door opens, a soft hand presses against his temple, and low whisper commands, “Get him inside.” 

He smells berries and wet earth, and a trace of jasmine when he’s laid down on a mattress. Fingers card through his hair, brushing it back the way Ma used to when he was small and would fall ill. She hushes his whimpers now, and Haymitch hides in the crook of her elbow. “I wanna go home.” 

“Oh, sweet baby,” she says, deeper than he remembers her voice. Closer to Mags, minus the rasp, but she couldn’t possibly be in Twelve. “Burdock, bring the towels!” 

No, no, no. 

“You’re all right, son.” Sorrel settles Haymitch back down when he tries to scramble off the bed, careful. 

Nothing is all right. “It should’ve been me.” His brain flails while his limbs sink into paralysis, subdued by a wet towel on his forehead. “It was supposed to be me.”

Haymitch receives no denial, nor confirmation, in his dreams. Silka and Panache have rounded their allies and saved their torture for a later date. Ampert has a baby brother to watch over tonight; Maysilee, a sister. Ma and Pa have Sid and the twins. 

You’re in the meadow, standing on a rock beneath a willow tree, holding onto your crop of lilies and roses and honeysuckle. Lenore Dove and Burdock sit before you, blind to Haymitch’s presence. A timeless voice fills the air, not belonging to any one of you, and yet, it condemns him with the mockery of your eternal absence. 

O me, why have they not buried me deep enough?

Is it kind to have made me a grave so rough,

Me, that was never a quiet sleeper?

Maybe still I am but half-dead;

Then I cannot be wholly dumb;

I will cry to the steps above my head.

And somebody, surely, some kind heart will come

To bury me, bury me

Deeper, ever so little deeper.

Haymitch jolts, startling the beige monster on his chest. Calla blinks at him languidly. Her whiskers tickle his chin as she searches for a comfortable position again. 

“How are you alive?” 

She acknowledges him with a hiss and a hop off him. She doesn’t go far though, curling into a ball where his feet dangle from the edge of your bed. 

Your bed, your room, your—

Haymitch barfs into the bucket beside the window, no doubt brought in anticipation of this exact moment. He recoils when he touches the floor, the wooden floorboards becoming hot coal. It scorches him through his clothes and licks at his bones. 

The room appears virtually untouched, still lived in, the sale of any one of your things prolonged for as long as possible. Seems cleaner than it should, too. Besides the corner by the door, where a jacket hangs off a chair like it was tossed there just last night—dust concentrates there like an incoming thunderstorm. 

Moving his focus from the limestone on your windowsill, Haymitch hobbles to the corner. 

He understands why the dust has migrated here. This is the only spot where the fire or the cold can’t hurt him. Where the hearth is gentle and kind and unconditional in its love. Haymitch figures it’s what’s kept the jacket warm and soft despite the coarse material and mismatched threads woven through repaired holes. His lungs protest, but he doesn’t care to stop breathing it in, because beneath the flecks irritating his airway, it’s meadowsweet and fresh as rained grass. 

Instinctively, hopelessly, Haymitch turns in search of you. Expects the lilt of your voice to ask if he’s coming along, to boast about climbing that maple tree. 

Footsteps thud over his panicked gasps. “Hay?” 

Haymitch pushes past Burdock, not caring about the dropped jacket, or the clatter it causes. Daylight says it’s mid-noon, but Sorrel’s in the kitchen with Barb Azure, calling after Haymitch when he whirs out the door. His daughter, his suit, his Sunday of rest—is there anything Haymitch won’t ruin for your pa?

Victor’s Village has never been more welcoming. A warped embrace that jabs and cuts at him, but he gladly chooses it over your family’s grace. 

Lucidity is purgatory, and Haymitch is unable to stay in it for long. He doesn’t savor and doesn’t ration a drop. Wrapped up in the task of forgetting and numbing, he misses the first knock. The second and the third are just as quiet. A pin drop in a torrent. The fourth rattles the windows and his nerves, and he has no choice but to confront his agitator. 

Orange splatters the sky, swirling into violet where the moon has already begun to show itself. Burdock stands on the other side of his door, holding what Haymitch recognizes as sleep syrup and a smaller jar of something faintly yellow. 

“Peppermint oil,” Burdock supplies, mouth twisting to the side briefly. His hair isn’t as long as yours was in those last days, and certainly not before the Capitol’s intrusion. But it’ll get there, just past his shoulders now, before the mines demand otherwise. “For the headaches.”

Haymitch turns around. Be it old habits or chipped armor, he doesn’t fight when Burdock slips through the crack in the door. “I don’t get headaches.” 

“You will once we dump out the liquor.”

“Who’s ‘we?’ Last I checked, this is my property, and I can do as I pleased.” Haymitch spins back to him and gestures between them absentmindedly. “And we aren’t friends.” 

“You can’t go on like this,” Burdock reasons, jutting his head at the bottle in Haymitch’s hands, then at the filth loitered around the hallway. He sets down the syrup and oil on a lamp table. “Determined to send yourself into an early grave.” 

“My grave’s a year overdue.” Be a kind soul and bury me deep. “I’m catching up, and you best catch the exit before I send you through it myself.” 

Burdock breathes out. “I’m still not okay with it, what you did to Asterid, but I—” He sounds so unusually lost, it sends a shard through Haymitch’s ribcage. “I didn’t realize how bad it was for you until last night. Lenore Dove told me. I should’ve seen it myself sooner, I just couldn’t.” 

“Shut up, Burdock.” 

“And I couldn’t be around you without talking about it.” His confession hangs overhead, and he takes a step closer. “Or without feeling guilty for wanting her home.” 

You aren’t the only one. “I said shut up.” 

“That made it easier to ignore how you were struggling. I won’t anymore, though.” 

Every dull, dark corner of the room suddenly sharpens, and the wound you’ve left blows right open. “Shut up and get out!” 

Burdock snaps back, running on his own desperation. “I’m not leaving without a good reason.”

“Were the rocks too subtle? Need me to get your twin killed again?” It’s a low, low blow, and it doesn’t work on Burdock anyway. It’d be easier getting a brick wall to listen than making strides with him. 

“Give me the damn bottle and take the syrup, Hay.” 

Haymitch holds it out, lifting an eyebrow with a simple, taunting dare. Take it and watch. 

They’ve wrestled before, playfully in the woods, during recess at school, the final morning Burdock came around sans Asterid, when Haymitch refused to eat. Nothing like this, yanking shirts, jabbing elbows, sloshing liquor. It’s coated all over the floor and each other by the time they wrangle themselves out onto the porch.

Haymitch releases Burdock, shoves him hard enough that he stumbles down a porch step and catches himself with the railing. “Well, it’s all gone now! Happy?” 

“I know you got more,” Burdock says, wiping a wet strand of hair from his eyes. He uses them to pry Haymitch open and find the broken pieces that match his own. 

“How many times I got to tell you?!” Haymitch screams, chest knotting around his heart. “Get out!”

“No!” 

Haymitch slams the bottle into the bannister, unflinching when a piece flies past his neck. It misses. He grips the spout and points the jagged, broken edge at Burdock. “Get the fuck out!” 

“I’m not losing you, too!” Burdock yells, as fearless as the day he walked up to Haymitch and said he’d be his friend. 

Haymitch walks down a step, chest heaving as he forces Burdock backwards until his feet are on the grass. He thinks he could do it. Hurt Burdock like he did all his fellow tributes in the name of self-defense and something less than human. If it meant being left alone, doing right by the person who brought more than one precious thing into his life, Haymitch could do it. “Don’t come back, Burdie.” He lowers the spout. “Neither of us needs to see her when we look at each other.” 

Cool-faced through the wrestling and the threats and the broken bottle, Burdock winces at that. He can cover it up with the pretense of healing, but the gap you’ve left in his life is there and always will be. It fuels the distance between them, stretching it impossibly far. He looks up as if the sky will have answers. Maybe he’s searching for you, too. “Cindy and Hemlock are getting hitched.” 

Haymitch blinks, oddly shocked more by the news than Burdock’s delivery of it. The bomb inside him diffuses briefly as he hears you scoff and sputter into laughter. Vivid enough to believe the sound isn’t in his head. He gives Burdock his back and the response you would’ve. “Finally decided they’re in it for the long haul then.” 

“Guess so.” There’s a lapse in his response. The clink of something placed on the steps precedes Burdock’s heavy breaths. Despite himself, Haymitch looks over his shoulder. His focus falls first to the clump of charms. He feels Burdock’s gaze burrow into him as he murmurs, “I just see you, Haymitch.” 

Cowardice disallows Haymitch from watching Burdock take his friendship with him. Curiosity forces him to pick up his final kindness. 

The bracelet glistens like a kaleidoscope, connecting six varying charms by a perfectly polished gold chain. Wrestling with Burdock shook the fog from his brain. Haymitch pieces the meaning of the first five quicker than he would’ve an hour ago. A shooting star, a pair of red tinted cherries, two identical fawns dangling from the same hoop. From there, he assigns the silver swan to ma and the copper eagle to pa. The sixth gives him trouble. 

In the dark, Haymitch can’t pinpoint the flower or the color of the petals. He pinches the teardrop entrapping them and holds it up to the porch light. They start off purple, a shade closer to indigo, and fan out into a blue as striking as the lake at sunset. 

He’s never seen one like this, never seen an exact copy of the larkspur from your book. The very color he picked as his favorite of all those they came in. The one you called his flower. Haymitch remembers that day in bits, separated from it by years and grief. But there’s no forgetting how his heart raced when he sat under the oak tree with you in the schoolyard. No scowl on your face, no reason to snipe at him, and no need to pester you at all into telling him about Larkspur Everdeen and the day she said yes to your papaw. Her name flower woven into her hair on their wedding day, a symbol of their true love.  

From the inside out, he freezes. His stomach gives out first, detaching from sensation and hunger and even nausea. The paralysis, acutely harsher than the numbness he craves, cuts off his airway. When the function of his arms and legs slams back into him, he uses them to break every part of his cage within view, lashing out in the only way he can. 

A gust blows through the front door; Haymitch doesn’t resist, panting and following its current to the ground. 

He didn’t think he had it in him to feel anything besides the guilt—he hadn’t in these weeks of your vanishing. Didn’t think he could weep like this again after Lenore Dove’s death, but he surprises himself. There are more tears to shed; more to miss. 

Consumed by the loss of your presence, how could Haymitch have known before now to mourn your stolen future? 

Pressing the larkspur to his lips, he murmurs his wants and regrets against your parting gift. Sleep comes for him once the dreams that will never be have streaked his face silver. And come morning, Haymitch reaches for the only future he has left. 

Taglist: @lovemiss-vale @aureolinb @mqrieshrt @bueburgers @dem1dearest @nikki-is-a-nerd @lovelylittlelesbianlore @jjloveshotch @inneedofcaffine @poetsandroses @kindsleybooks @ivyhaec @x-gabrielle-x @ghostlythinggoingaround @happiness2112 @sundawn1990 @starryjeongyeon @kuurbyfun @lenteheure @petrasbones @wertyuizxcvbnm @shiftingf1 @sarcasm-n-insomnia @defnotbrooklyn @harrypedro465 @rinatzsstuff @whimsybeth @youraggedybitch @poppysrin @watergirl85 @prettyandromeda @gaz0xx @marsupialnoises @madisonosidam @redshinyshoes @comfortcharacterwrites

A/N: lenore’s death in the raven is a mystery (my covey girls 😔) so that’s the symbolism in her execution happening prior to haymitch’s return. i also found it’d be worse for him to not be there for it. another thing to haunt him for years to come!

Hannah and Allie are 100% aware of this fact, considering that they were there when you started massively crushing on the hockey player back in sophomore year, and were the ones who listened to you ramble about said hockey player early into the year when you found out he could cook.

Unfortunately, your two friends learning about this fact while also actively dating two guys in Tucker’s own friend group meant that you were now in the unique and deeply unfortunate position of being perceived. Specifically, being perceived by people who knew Tucker, liked Tucker, and had absolutely zero reason to keep your little crush under wraps. 

Allie, bless her heart, had lasted approximately three weeks before she'd accidentally let it slip in front of Dean that you thought Tucker was, quote, "disgustingly attractive and it's all because of the cooking thing." Dean, being Dean, had found this information deeply funny and had done absolutely nothing responsible with it, ultimately teasing you every time you and Tucker were in the same vicinity of each other, although thanks to Allie, had really did keep the teasing to just you. You still found the whole situation deeply mortifying. 

The only thing keeping you from burying yourself in gravel and suffocating was the knowledge that Tucker, as far as you knew, had not been told. Yet. 

You were choosing to believe the "yet" was still working in your favor.

It mostly meant that whenever Tucker showed up places that Hannah or Allie also happened to be, you developed an immediate and urgent need to be somewhere else. Anywhere else. Bathroom. Kitchen. The parking lot. You were adaptable. Very much so.

"You're not even being subtle about avoiding him anymore," Hannah had told you once, watching you physically reverse direction in the hallway when you spotted Tucker heading your way. "Like. At all."

"I'm being incredibly subtle."

"You walked into a trash can."

"I meant to do that." 

She had given you a look that said, very clearly, that she did not believe you. You had chosen to ignore it on account of self-preservation.

The problem was that Tucker kept showing up. Outside the dorms when you'd come to hang out with Hannah and Allie. At the coffee shop near campus. At Malones — because you worked there and that was literally where the group hung out. At the rink when you'd come to watch a game and hadn't factored in post-game corridor hangouts. And every time, without fail, he was easy to talk to and warm and sincere in that genuine, unguarded way he had, the kind that felt less like a personality and more like a reflex — like being kind was just the thing he defaulted to, same as breathing.

It was even more annoying because he was always like that. Like the teasing from his teammates rolled right off him, and he just kept showing up with food and a good attitude and that small, steady presence that made you feel like whatever room he was in got a little calmer.

It was fine. You were fine. Everything was completely fine.

Which brings you here, to Hannah and Allie's kitchen, helping set up for a casual get-together that you had been assured would be small. Just a few people. Chill. Relaxed.

They were currently hosting eight people and counting, and Tucker's jacket was by the door when you arrived. Hannah had neglected to mention this when she'd asked you to come early and help with the food, even when you asked about the paper bag on the counter, which you later on learned was brought by none other than Tucker.

You were starting to think your friends were not entirely on your side, because the moment you arrived, Allie and Hannah started teasing you increasingly.

The thing is, you didn't know exactly when the conversation in the kitchen shifted to types in men (again), and your crush on Tucker. Which you tried very hard to keep his name as lowkey as possible. They find it amusing. You don’t.

Allie hands you the tablecloth then heads to the sink to wash the dishes left.  

Allie hands you the tablecloth then heads to the sink to wash the dishes left, humming something under her breath like she isn't the reason you're currently in this situation.

"So," she says, turning on the tap. "Hannah was telling me you nearly bolted out of the rink last week when Tucker walked into the corridor."

"I didn't nearly bolt. I had somewhere to be."

"You told us you had to go check on your laundry," Hannah calls from across the kitchen, not even bothering to look up from where she's arranging the snack bowls. "At eleven at night."

"Laundry doesn't have a curfew."

Allie snorts. You smooth the tablecloth aggressively.

"Can we not do this tonight?" you ask, with as much dignity as you could muster. "There are guests."

"There are guests because we invited them," Allie says pleasantly. "Including Tucker, who brought ingredients and is currently grabbing something else and will be back in a few, which I know you clocked the second you walked in."

You had, in fact, clocked it the second you walked in. You say nothing.

Hannah finally looks up, the picture of innocence. "You know, it's kind of impressive how much energy you spend avoiding someone you claim to just have a small crush on."

"It's a normal-sized crush."

"You once left through a fire exit."

"The regular door was blocked."

"By Tucker saying hi to you."

A pause. You smooth an already-smooth section of tablecloth. "It was a crowded hallway."

Allie turns off the tap, reaching for the dish towel with the serene expression of someone who is deeply enjoying herself. "All we're saying is that it might be time to, I don't know, exist in the same room as him for more than four consecutive minutes."

"I exist in the same room as him all the time."

"Without a planned escape route," Hannah amends.

You open your mouth. Close it. The tablecloth is extremely smooth at this point. You are doing a great job with the tablecloth.

"My type," you say finally, pivoting with what you feel is remarkable, amazing, grace, "is simply guys who can cook. That is a completely reasonable standard."

Hannah rolls her eyes at you, turning to set down a bowl of snacks while you finish wiping the counter. "Your type is guys that can cook."

“And? I think cooking is hot.” You miss the way Hannah’s eyes drift past you to someone behind you, busy wiping down the counter as you shrug. Your increasing embarrassment had made your tongue loose, and you had in fact given up on being vague. “Why else do you think I like Tucker?”

“Oh?” The voice behind you makes you freeze. Your hand stiffens on the tablecloth, eyes widening as you’re now suddenly acutely aware of the warmth behind you. “Is that so?”

You look up, and Hannah has a hand over her mouth, amusement dancing in her eyes as she speaks to you through your head.

"Hannah. Help me."

"Nah, girl. You got this. Go you."

Fingers gripping the tablecloth, you plaster a smile on your face and slowly turn.

Behind you stands Tucker, his eyes crinkling as he smiles at you. "Hey, Name."

Your cheeks warm. You are pretty sure that you are the definition of a tomato at this point as you clear your throat in an attempt to be nonchalant. "Heeey, Tuck."

His grin only widens, arms crossing over his chest. "So." His brow lifts, and you swallow. "You think I'm hot?"

You open your mouth. Close it. Open it again.

"I think," you say carefully, in the measured tone of someone carefully disarming a bomb, "that the cooking thing is hot. Objectively. As a concept."

"Uh huh." He doesn't look even remotely convinced, which is deeply unfair considering he's the one who snuck up on you. "And I cook."

"Lots of people cook, Tucker."

"Do they cook as well as me?"

You pause. And the horrible, traitorous, honest part of your brain supplies: no, actually, because you'd had his cooking twice now, once at a team dinner Allie had dragged you to and once when he'd brought food to the apartment for no stated reason, and both times it had been genuinely, annoyingly, unfairly good.

"That's not the point," you say.

His smile tips into something a little softer, a little more knowing, and somehow that's worse than the teasing. He takes one step closer, enough that you would have to actively crane your neck to look away from him, and doesn't say anything for a beat.

"I'll cook for you sometime," he says finally, like it's easy. Like he's offering to lend you a pen. "If that's what it takes."

You stare at him.

From somewhere behind Tucker, you hear Allie make a noise that she unconvincingly tries to smother with a cough. Hannah, you suspect, is still standing at the counter with that same hand over her mouth.

"That," you say slowly, "is the most confident thing anyone has ever said to me."

Tucker shrugs, that easy grin back in place. "I'm a confident guy."

"You're a menace."

"You think I'm hot."

"I think your cooking is hot."

Tucker laughs, saying your name in a way that makes your stomach flip as he tilts his head, and there's something warm in his expression underneath all the amusement. "Same thing."

You look at him for a long moment. He looks back, patient, like he has all night and fully intends to use it.

"Fine," you say, because apparently self-preservation has fully left the building.  Your face feels like a furnace, and you are hyper aware of every little sound Allie and Hannah makes behind you, plus thawing Tucker this close to you. "Yeah. Okay. I think you're hot."

The smile that breaks across his face is, genuinely, a little devastating.

"Cool," Tucker says. "I'll text you about dinner. This week?"

You're pretty sure your soul briefly vacates your body.

"This week," you hear yourself agree.

He nods, satisfied, like that's settled then. He glances over his shoulder at Hannah and Allie, who are both staring with the barely-contained energy of two people who have been waiting for this for approximately two years. "Ladies." Then, back to you, quieter, "Talk to you later?"

"Yeah. Yep. Sure." you say, a little helplessly.

Tucker smiles. Then he's heading back toward the living room, and you are left standing in the kitchen, gripping the tablecloth, staring at the middle distance, smiling widely.

A beat of silence.

"Look at you!”  Hannah says loudly, while Allie rounds the counter to throw her arms around you, giggling at your still flushed face.

"I hate both of you," you tell them, but the smile on your face doesn’t fade.

Dean started the whole thing.

It happened on a normal Friday night. Everyone had chosen to hang out that night, with the idea of movies, dinner and a few drinks. Soft music came from the living room while Hannah and Garrett argued over the movie considering it was their turn to pick that night. The rest were out on a beer run, and dinner fell on you and Tucker, as it usually did.

Tucker stood beside you at the stove while you chopped vegetables.

Neither of you had actually planned on cooking together.

It just sort of... happened. It was Tucker’s turn that night, and when you got tired of waiting in the living room, you got up and headed to the kitchen.

“Hey.” You sat on one of the stools, leaning forward as you watches him prep. Tucker looked up, and smiled. “Hey. You got bored?”

“Yeah. Doomscrolling while Han and Garrett argued over whether to pick a romcom or a horror movie was amusing only for the first ten minutes.”

Tucker snorted. You watched him grab a pan. “Not surprised. So, you decided to head here?”

“I think I’d much rather be here than there at the moment.” You chuckle. Then you eye the vegetables on the table. “What are you preparing?”

“Mac and Cheese. Probably a lot of it. And—” He gestures over to the vegetables. “Something with those. I haven’t decided yet.”

You hum, tilting your head. “Need help?”

His head snaps up to you, brow raising. “You don’t have to. It’s my turn tonight.”

“Yeah, but I want to.” You shrug, sliding off the stool to take the knife from his hand. “Now scoot over, you work on the Mac and cheese and whatever thing you’ll do, I’ll handle the prep.”

Tucker grins, letting out a laugh before moving to the stove. “Yes ma’am.”

Sometime in the middle of it, you settled in a familiar, but also not familiar routine.

You handed him ingredients before he asked for them. He moved aside before you needed the space. You knew exactly where he kept everything, and he knew exactly how much seasoning you liked adding.

At one point, Tucker held out his hand behind him without looking.

You immediately placed the spatula into it.

And Dean happened to walk in at that exact moment, arms full with six packs.

Both your heads snap up, at the sound of someone entering, Tucker’s hand still holding the spatula, and your arm still outstretched in the middle of handing it over.

The silence lasted three seconds, before a shit-eating grin spread on Dean’s face. “Oh my god.”

You and Tucker blinked at him

"What?" Tucker asked.

Dean stared.

Then he puts the six packs down on the counter, and pointed between the two of you again, the grin on his face not at all wavering.

“You guys are literally like— Mom and Dad.”

You make a face. “Dean, what the hell are you—”

“No, like. I mean, I did comment on it to Allie-Cat about how you two seem to have this flow in the kitchen but seeing it happen just solidified the whole thing.”

“You’re being weird, Di Laurentis.” Tuckers laughs, turning his attention back to the sauce, stirring it with the spatula while you work on what you decided to be coleslaw. You nod along, but Dean shakes his head.

“I’m serious. Wait Allie-Cat,” He calls for Allie who pops her head up from the couch she flopped onto the moment they returned from the beer run. “Agree with me here.” Dean gestures to you and Tucker. “Mama y Papa.”

Allie blinks, then grins. “Yeah, I see it.”

Dean looks back at the two of you. “See!” He points at you. “Mama.” Then to Tucker. “Papa.”

“Dean.” You groaned.

“No, no, it works.” Hannah piped in from her place next to Garrett. “I mean, we already call you Mom as a joke. And Tucker is Dad here. It just works.”

“Oh my god.” You sigh, and turn to Tucker, who doesn’t seem like he has a problem with the whole thing, grinning in amusement when he met your gaze.

“So, we’re calling them Mama and Papa now?” Logan interrupts as he heads down from, looking between the kitchen and living room. He eyes you and Tucker, before nodding. “I can roll with it.”

The nickname stuck, and spread in the friend group like a highly contagious disease. And with the nickname came the teasing.

-

“Oh good, Mama brought snacks.” You looked up from unloading grocery bags onto the counter to find Hannah already reaching for the chips.

"Hannah."

"What?" she asked innocently.

"You are twenty-one years old."

"Yeah."

"You can buy your own snacks."

"Why would I do that when Mama always remembers?"

"Han-Han."

"Love you too, Mother."

Across the kitchen while unloading the other grocery bag, Tucker tried not to laugh as loud at the incredulous look on your face.

You kicked his shin.

He ended up laughing anyways.

-

Then there was the movie night incident.

Everyone had crammed themselves onto the couch, fighting over blankets and snacks.

You'd gotten up to grab more popcorn, and when you returned, your spot had disappeared, because Dean just moved slightly to your spot, and you stared at him.

Dean only grinned, patting the spot where he once sat, which is conveniently, next to Tucker.

You glowered. “Dean.”

He grinned wider. “Sit beside Dad, Mom.”

You froze, and you catch Tucker visibly stiffen, his eyes flickering to you, then to Dean.

Dean looked between the two of you.

"What?"

"Dean," you warned.

"What? Married couples sit together."

"We are not married."

"Yet."

Your friends just exchange grins and teases, your face immediately going hot. You glance at Tucker, and ignored the way your stomach flipped slightly when he met your gaze, before burying his face in his hands at another tease.

He groaned into his hands. "You people are unbelievable."

This time, it was your turn to smile in amusement at his reaction.

Things only escalated by the end of the month with the road trip, which was a six-hour drive to a neighboring city for a random weekend getaway.

You had volunteered to drive the car, and Tucker offered to sit at the front and switch with you when you were halfway.

It was reasonable, so you agreed, and when the day came, it was Dean (again) who made a huge deal about it.

"Oh look."

"Dean." Tucker was the first to give Dean a pointed look while you sigh in the driver’s seat.

"The family car."

You eye him. "Dean."

"Mama and Papa taking the kids—"

"DEAN."

Needless to say, by the time you reached the hotel, your patience was hanging by a thread.

Tucker, unfortunately, thought your annoyed face was hilarious.

"You know," he said as the group unloaded bags, "you get this wrinkle right here when you're mad."

You stared.

He poked between your eyebrows, his grin widening when you nearly slapped his hand away.

"You’re testing my patience.” You glowered.

His grin widened, and he nudged you. "I’m just pointing things out.”

“I hate you.”

He shut the trunk door, and grinned. “Nah. You love me.”

Something in your chest tightens. You choose to instead huff and ignore the feeling, turning on your heel just as Logan comes by to grab the other bags.

-

Months passed, and you thought the joke would have died down along with it.

It kind of did. Because the joke stopped being a joke.

People stopped questioning it. Everyone stopped laughing every time, instead treating it like it was normal.

And it did, because at some point, becoming the Mom and Dad of the group became normal.

It became a fact. An accepted thing.

Which somehow made it ten times worse, because somewhere along the way, the joke stopped feeling entirely like a joke.

At least to you.

And judging by the way Tucker sometimes looked at you when he thought you weren't paying attention—

Maybe not to him either.

You didn’t know when you started liking him. When it stopped being just a nickname to you. But you could pinpoint when things really started to change between you and Tucker.

It was another Friday night gathering.

Another Friday night where you find yourself in the kitchen with Tucker. Usually, you’d have the others clean up while you lounge in the living room after making dinner, but after another round of jests that Logan started this time:

“You both are disgustingly domestic. Just get together already.” He points out. Grace, new to the group but had already caught on and was definitely in on the whole thing, nodded along. “It’s cute. Like you’re married and all.” You didn’t shoot them your usual pointed glares, instead opting to look away, but Logan caught the flush in your cheeks and, like Dean, made a huge scene about it enough to get the attention of the others. “Oh my god you’re blushing.” Allie looked at Tucker, and grins. “Tucker’s blushing too!” “Oh my god this is new.” Dean cackles.

You sent them all out for snack and beer runs so that the house would be quiet from all their jests, but you didn’t think ahead far enough because now you’re alone with Tucker.

The silence between you in the kitchen is usually comfortable. Familiar. Easy.

But tonight, its different. Heavy and awkward, like the all of the teasing finally settled into something more real between you two.

You curse yourself for not thinking ahead, busying your hands with drying a plate. Tucker was putting the dishes away, and it was silent for a long time (a minute), until he finally broke it with by clearing his throat.

“So.”

At the same time, you also decided to break the silence, and looked up to face him. Both of your faces were flushed, embarrassment obvious on either of your faces.

“So.”

You both stare at each other for a brief moment, before you both burst into laughter.

The tension cracked immediately.

When the laughter dies down, Tucker nervously shrugs at you, shifting his weight. “So, like, you don’t mind?”

“Mind what?” You blink at him.

Tucker rubs the back of his neck, and gestures vaguely. “Well. The whole… Mama, Papa thing.”

You stare at him, before letting out a shy laugh. “No. Not really. I don’t mind…”

“You sure?” He eyes you for a moment, and the seriousness in his gaze makes your stomach flip. “I mean, I could always tell them to back off.”

You shake your head. “No.”

“No?” A brow raises.

“No.”

He meets your gaze, and you swallow. “I mean, I don’t mind.” You look down at the dishtowel in your hands, and mumbled quietly, “I think it’s cute.”

The silence that followed was deafening.

When you dared glance up again, Tucker was staring.

Not a hint of amusement or anything close to teasing in his gaze. Then he smiled.

It was soft, and dangerous, and you feel your heart stutter in your chest.

“Yeah?” He hums, his eyes never leaving yours. The intensity makes you want to hide, but instead, you try to cover up the way your heart is pounding by looking away and grumbling, “Don’t make me repeat it.”

His grin widened. "I wasn't gonna."

"Liar."

"Maybe I was."

You rolled your eyes.

He laughed, and you lightly swing the dishtowel at him, earning an offended gasp and a “Hey!” from him. Your grins don’t exactly fade as you went back into the routine of wiping and putting away the dishes again, but something new has settled between you.

Something warm. Something hopeful. A quiet understanding about something that has been brewing there for months.

Dean noticed first. Of course he did. But it was mostly because neither of you were very good at hiding things. Or that neither of you was exactly hiding anything.

Tucker started sitting beside you more often, and you always saved the seat next to you.

He'd bring you coffee, meeting your outside your classes to walk you to your next one.

Sometimes, you'd drop by to bring him food.

You'd steal his hoodies. He'd let you.

Dean pointed it out to Allie. Allie told him to let it happen.

That wouldn’t stop him from commenting on it when he recognized the hoodie you were wearing after Hockey practice and you tagged along with Hannah and Allie.

"You guys are disgusting."

"Don’t be such a hypocrite, Dean." You poke at him. He scoffs, but doesn’t deny it. I mean why would he deny it, when Allie herself is wearing his hoodie?

You grin, "Exactly."

The funny thing is that neither of you were explicitly going out. No confession, no formal talk. It was just an understanding that settled after that one night, though you did think about actually doing the whole confession thing.

But it seemed like Tucker thought the same thing.

Because just a few days later, sometime around the early afternoon. It was just you and Tucker. A simple invitation to hang out, making lunch and all that.

You were helping Tucker clean up. Again.

Because apparently that was your thing. He was drying dishes. You were washing them.

Routine. Something normal. Comfortable.

"You know," Tucker suddenly said.

"Hm?"

"I think Dean might actually pass out if we started dating."

You nearly dropped a plate, glancing at him with squinted eyes.

"Tucker."

"What?"

"Tucker."

His laugh was warm.

You shook your head, but despite yourself, you smiled. “He would. Definitely.”

The room went quiet.

You glanced over.

Tucker was already looking at you.

The smile slowly faded from his face. Not like in a bad way, just in a manner that was softer. Serious. 

Your breath hitches. “Tucker…” 

He steps closer, “I’m not saying this because of the whole nickname thing.” He murmurs. “I’m saying this because I like you, and I'd really like to date you. If you'd let me.” 

The plate nearly slipped from your hands, but he catches it, setting it down in the sink. His gaze doesn't stray from yours, and you can feel your face heat up. "Tuck."

"Yeah?"

Your heart felt like it was trying to escape your chest.

"You have really terrible timing."

His grin returned.

"You saying no?"

You stared, then tilted your head back and laughed. A beat, and you shake your head with a chuckle, "No."

His expression softened immediately.

"No?"

"No."

The smile that spread across his face was blinding.

“This confirmation that I get to call you my girlfriend now?” You grin. 

“Yeah.” And when he leans in, you tilt your head up in response. It's gentle. Careful, and you’re both smiling into it, and just as you pull away, you couldn't help thinking that maybe Dean had been onto something all along.

The next day, you walked into the hockey house holding Tucker's hand.

The silence lasted long enough for everyone's gaze to flicker from your joined hands, then back to you.

“Are you guys actually…” Hannah tentatively asks, pointing from you to Tucker. 

You nod. He just smiles, simply squeezing your hand tighter, looking entirely too pleased with himself.

"Mama and Papa finally got together," Dean announced dramatically.

You just laugh, finding a seat on the couch. Tucker instead pulls you onto his lap, smiling widely, and for the first time since the nickname started—

Neither of you minded it at all.

This was only meant to be a quick drop in, but Burdock and Asterid are still going on about the healing properties of honey. He roped Haymitch into following him to her lunch table. Apparently, what he had to give Asterid couldn’t wait until after school. Technically, you and Burdock are now allowed to trade without Sorrel’s supervision. But Burdock told Haymitch that your pa still sets parameters around where you can go until you’re a little older. Because haggling at the Hob requires a special skill set, the two of you are really only allowed to deal with the merchants. 

Burdock has a particular affinity for the apothecary, and more importantly, who helps to run it. He found a crop of chamomile when he and Haymitch were forging just yesterday. Perfect for Asterid, Burdock claimed. 

“Chamomile helps with nerves,” he told Haymitch, carefully pocketing the tiny flowers.  

Asterid doesn’t seem like the nervous type. Quiet and modest, sure, but not anxious. She has the same self-assurance most merchant kids do, which says they’ve never had to worry about where their next meal is coming from. But she’s careful with her words, kind with them, and that makes her a lot more likeable than her friends. 

Scratch that—more likeable than Maysilee. She and Merrilee are normally the only friends Haymitch sees Asterid hanging around. 

That’s not the case today. Merrilee isn’t bad at least, and Otho’s a very quiet person too, if not awkward for his stature. Though he sure looks uncomfortable with half his ass hanging off the bench. He kept stealing glances at Burdock, more cautious than irritated, after he squeezed himself between Otho and Asterid. Haymitch should count himself lucky his bench corner is plenty spacious, the only other occupant being Oliver Schmidt. 

They exchanged exactly three words when Burdock and Haymitch showed up to their table. Oliver doesn’t resemble Otho much, but the two of them have been thick as thieves for years, and they both have brown eyes in a sea of merchant blue. So, Haymitch naturally broke the ice by asking, “Y’all cousins?” 

Oliver smiled, shyer than Maysilee’s mocking grin from across him, reaching over to knock Otho’s arm with his fist. “Sure.”

Not related then but as good as family. 

Really, Oliver’s presence next to Haymitch is pretty easy to forget, and he takes it Oliver feels the same, being he’s also the only one actually paying attention to Asterid and Burdock’s chatter. It’s mostly Burdock talking and Asterid chiming in occasionally. On this side of the lunch table, with a perfect view of you reading under the old oak tree, why would Haymitch care to keep up with them?

You sit crisscrossed in your still too big overalls, looking like a piece of the sky brought down to brighten the earth. The book’s title is obscured by the distance and your knee. Haymitch isn’t interested in the book though, more taken with your reactions to it than anything else. Not even a blowhorn could rouse you out of your concentration, or dim the wonder that makes the corners of your eyes go soft and round. 

“Your sister likes those.” 

Haymitch’s head is on a swivel, turning away from you and to Oliver, who either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care about the pair of eyes drilling into him. He continues with that typical merchant assurance, “Has a real penchant for finding them.” 

He glances at Burdock and waits for his nod of agreement to turn into some kind of scorn against Oliver for talking about you instead of minding his business. When it doesn’t, Haymitch slots into the conversation. “Finding what?”

“Limestone,” Oliver answers, and it’s the first time Haymitch realizes how calmly he speaks. “The natural kind, not what they turn into gravel. She brought us a whole bunch with a blue hue to them when they’re held in the sunlight. That’s rare to see.” He ducks his head, going cherry red and beaming like he just got told he can leave school early. “We made a door knob out of that batch.” 

Well, good for Oliver. So you brought in a whole bunch of rocks for him and his family to make use of—that’s no reason to brag. You gave Haymitch a rock for his tenth birthday as a gift, not a trade. 

Burdock snorts, his eyebrows pinching up with mild amusement. “I’m sure she’d like to hear about that.” 

And now Burdock owes Haymitch for the rest of the year! Why—just why—would he tease Oliver like he’s got a real foundation to stand on with you, let alone encourage him to actually talk to you? You aren’t friends with each other, and sure, Oliver seems harmless and friendly, but he’s got nothing in common with you. Besides the fact that you both ramble when prompted, or that he seems to care about things and people. Or that he knows about rocks, which Haymitch is beginning to notice you do too. 

Otherwise, what would you even talk about? 

Haymitch observes you again, then turns his attention to the doe-eyed glimmer in Oliver’s brown eyes as they focus on you. He feels spikes prodding inside his chest. “She doesn’t like when people stare.” 

Oliver quickly averts his gaze from you and blinks at Haymitch. “Then why are you staring?” 

“I wasn’t staring,” he defends, because Oliver has no room to throw around accusations. 

He shrugs, as calm as his voice. “If you say so.” 

“And if I was staring, which I wasn’t,” Haymitch sits up, “it ain’t any of your business.” 

“You told me to stop staring.” 

Haymitch could very easily tell him what Mamaw used to say about not bending to another’s mold, or something like that. Instead, he huffs. “You gonna keep track of everything I say then?” 

“Isn’t that what a conversation is?” Oliver doesn’t cover up the bluntness in his tone. Haymitch tries not to add that to the list of things you and Oliver have in common. 

“Good thing this one’s ended.” Haymitch gathers up his trash and slides out of the bench. 

His movement is enough to steal Burdock’s attention from Asterid. “Where’re you going?” 

It’s not on Burdock that Oliver’s gotten under Haymitch’s skin, but he’s irritated enough not to give him a straight answer, or to respond to Maysilee’s good riddance. “I’ll see you after lunch.”

He tosses the napkin that came with his stale school bread in the trash on the path to the old oak tree. You don’t acknowledge Haymitch until he slides down the bark beside you and stretches out his legs. He doesn’t say anything either, letting you glance briefly in question then return to reading. Once you get the hint he isn’t going anywhere, you close your book. “What are you doing?”

“Pretty obvious. I’m sitting down.” Haymitch leans his head against the tree, closing his eyes.

He hears the way your breath escapes in a sharp, irritated sigh. “I don’t want you to.”

“You know, it’s funny how you don’t own this tree, and I can sit here if I want.” Clearly, Haymitch hasn’t shaken off his own annoyance. He curls his fingers into the dirt and twigs beneath him. “Interesting book?”

You drum your nails along the spine, glaring at him like you’re trying to decide if you should address his snark with your own. Maybe you recognize his mood is in need of cheering, or maybe you don’t have anything to hurl back for once. Must be the mood thing. You haven’t been very cheerful yourself since Lenore Dove’s recent stint in jail. “It’s about plants.”

“I thought you already knew all there was to ’em.” Least the ones that can be found in the woods surrounding Twelve. Sorrel did well to teach you and Burdock, and Burdock’s done Haymitch a favor by telling him some about them.

You shake your head, biting back a grin. “This one’s about beliefs, not facts. Different meanings people gave to plants. Or still do.”

“What kind of meanings?”

A moment passes before you crack the book open, turning to a page with the title Larkspur and a large picture of a bunch of colorful stalks. Haymitch scoots closer to get a better view. There’s all kinds of information, but you tap the bold letters that read July Birth Flower.

“Larkspur blooms all throughout summer, but they’re brightest around July. I think that’s why they were given to it.” You smooth the crease on the corner of the left page. “Says here they symbolized positivity in cultures of old, and summer weather is a positive thing.” Lifting an eyebrow at Haymitch, you say, “That trait didn’t rub off on you obviously.”

“Think that up on the spot, did you?” He points to the one front and center of the photograph, a dark blue shade with purple shadows in the middle of the petals. “I like the color of this one.”

You don’t withhold your smile at his comment. “When my papaw was courting my mamaw, he’d take her larkspur every day ’cause that was her name.”

Haymitch snickers. “Courting?”

“It means—”

“I know what it means. Just sounds like something a merchie would say.” Your eyes narrow coldly, and Haymitch lifts his arms in surrender. “Sorry. Keep going, sunshine.”

A leaf breaks off the nearest branch and lands on top of the book. You pick it up along with your story again. “He’d take her purple ones. On the day he proposed, he brought every color larkspur he could find because she was his true love, not just his first.”

“The purple ones mean first love?”

“I’m sure it was just something he made up. She wore them in her hair for their wedding though. And they used the leftover petals to make ink.”

“That sounds real nice.” Haymitch drags a stick across the dirt, tracing a halfhearted copy of the larkspur.

“I think so, too.” Your face is downright bashful, and for longer than he should, he thinks about the kind of flowers you might wear on your wedding day, which is weird because you’re years away from marrying anyone.

Jasmine’s a likely option, considering you were wearing some yesterday, the smell still noticeable from how close he’s sitting to you. You could also follow in your mamaw’s footsteps. Haymitch imagines you both a little older, pictures that mix of blue-purple dappled in your hair, wonders if he’d even be invited to your wedding.

His pulse spikes up much like it did earlier, not at the worry over his invitation, but at the next natural question of who you’d marry. Someone kind and patient, hopefully, who could make you laugh, who’d notice the important things. And because his mind is having trouble catching up to his body, Haymitch finds Oliver still sitting at the lunch table, glancing at you again. Unabashed and doe-eyed.

Haymitch breathes in deep when his jaw gives a painful click. “Sunshine.” As you turn to him with remnants of that soft, round wonder in your eyes, Haymitch squashes all thoughts about Oliver Schmidt and his musings. “What does limestone look like?”

You explain in as much detail as you can, likely unaware of the glee emanating from you, until you’re all called back into class. On the way inside, once Burdock’s parted from Asterid’s friends and joined up with you, Haymitch doesn’t care when Oliver sends a quick wave your way. Doesn’t even notice when you wave back. And he most definitely does not trip over his own feet as a consequence of not looking at where he’s going. Got you laughing at him though, so maybe a win’s a win.

But Burdock absolutely still owes him.