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musicfren · 3 years

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the presents they measured (the presence she treasured) part 2

HOLY CAKES y’all! 5000 words and infinity pages later, me and @nottesilhouette have finally finished part two of our blind date fluff fiesta (part 1 here) Notte wrote a really big portion of this and deserve so, so much credit for it. She’s an amazing writer <3 Meanwhile I contributed all the many italics :P Happy @felinettenovember y’all!

“Adrien.”

“Felix.”

“I should have known.”

The class presses closer like onlookers at a street brawl, hemming them in. Felix glares at his infuriatingly pretty adversary from across the flimsy classroom table. So here stood the pretender, the imitation, the counterfeit who thinks he can outdo Felix in this game of grandiose. The air between them is taught as a heartstring, dangerously close to snapping, causing irreparable damage to the function of one of their hearts, and it’s a toss-up whose is going to make it out intact.

Felix steels himself. He is not going to lose, and he is not going to break.

At last, Adrien breaks the sharp silence. “So, why are we here?”

And then, from the back of the crowd, a malicious, irritated voice rings out, punctuated with the crisp pop of a bubblegum snapping.

“This has to stop now,” says Chloe, nose red from allergies, immaculate hair ruined by the rushing crowds. She plucks confetti from her hair, crinkling her nose, and dusts ash from her jacket disdainfully, still reeking of cherry blossom candle wax.

“Whatever it is that you’re going through, everyone else is sick of it and we are putting an end to it NOW!”

Felix and Adrien push back in perfect unison:

“But no one’s won yet!”

“How will we know who won?”

Half the class gave them a deadpan look. The other half, less subtle, just outright glared. Chloe checks her nails, and then flinches when she notices one is chipped. She hadn’t even noticed it chipping in the midst of all the chaos, which goes to show exactly how out of hand this has gotten. It needs to get back in hand, and that hand needs a manicure!

“Okay, listen up, you walnuts.” (This was clearly becoming a popular insult around the school) “Cuh-learly this nonsense isn’t going to stop until one of you meatheads gets handed a trophy and told by your daddy you did a good job. So, as surrogate daddy for the day, I am officially announcing the Grande Bataille pour Marinette. SABRINA!”

Sabrina scampers over with a flustered “yes, Chloe!” and a cascade of papers from the stack she carries under one arm. After several seconds of fumbling, she proudly produces an enormous poster, nearly as tall as she is.

“The rules are simple.” (They aren’t.) “You’ll each get a series of clues about something to do with Marinette. What chocolate she likes or something, I don’t care. Anyway, you’ll go where the clue tells you and do your little dance or whatever, and whichever of you gets to the end first will be set up on a blind date with Marinette. Then you can drown her in these stupid roses for all I care. Not my problem”

Felix looks from Chloe to Adrien. Adrien looks from Felix to Chloe. Chloe glares them both down in equal measure. They quail and nod, despite having absolutely no clue what this game is or how it works, because it seems like a good time to get out of that room. But whatever it is, the game is about to begin.

Chloe greets them with an irritated huff in the middle of central park. It’s a calm, sunny day, far too cheerful for the occasion. Felix arrives late, having almost gotten lost on the way twice and sprinting the rest of the way. Adrien chuckles as Felix skids to a halt, panting, already not off to a good start. Felix glares back, but if he has a response it’s lost among his sputtering gasps.

Chloe taps one irritated foot against the grass. Clearly she doesn’t want to be here any longer than she needs to be.

“Late already, I see. Whatever, lets just get on with this.”

Felix, still barely able to breath, raises a hand to tell her wait, but Chloe seems to have no interest in having this take any longer than necessary. With the air of someone picking up a particularly disgusting piece of laundry, she pulls out a sheet of paper with two fingers.

“What is… Marinette's… favorite color?”

Felix’s eyes go wide. They’re going to start with something this simple? And so quickly? This is less a test of knowledge than of reflexes! Oh no... he has to answer now, right now, before Adrien answers first. Okay, um... It was obviously green of course, everyone knew that. It was green right? Right...?

The gifts she got were green. And she hangs out with Chat Noir, right? Marinette had said so often that he was her favorite hero, and she definitely likes black but she says it’s not a real color, and Felix was starting to get dizzy with the lack of oxygen to his brain, and the world was spinning, and he needed to answer right now, and--

No time to think. With all the scarce air left in his lungs, Felix croaks out “Green!”

Adrien looks at him with baffled incredulity. “...Dude, it’s literally pink, have you ever seen her?”

Oh, bother.

Chloe claps with such immense lack of enthusiasm, Felix thinks she might fall asleep right there.

“Bravo, bravo. Adrien, you get a five minute head start. Felix, not gonna lie, that was pretty stupid, I’ll tell you when you can go. Next clue is just in front of Marinette’s bakery. You do know the way there I hope?”

Adrien gives a mock salute and sprints off, leaving Felix to forlornly watch his hopes vanish into the distance.

Despite having more time, more breath, and a considerably higher morale on his side, Adrien manages to arrive at the bakery exactly as Felix does. Silently, he curses his sense of direction. Of course he knew where Marinette’s bakery was. Of course he did. He just… had a moment of confusion during which he needed to look up the bakery by name because he didn’t have the address saved anywhere on his phone. That was all.

Felix is far too out of breath to focus on anything other than remaining alive. He trots weakly up to Sabrina who stands outside the bakery doors, a large official-looking binder tucked under one arm.

“Oh, you’re here. Good.” She flips through her binder intently without looking at them. They wait in tense silence as she searches for the correct page. The wind tosses Felix’s hair into a disheveled mess.

Adrien gives him a wry nudge “Maybe you should take the time to study. You seem to be a little shaky on your basics.”

“Maybe you should learn how to see, Adrien, or did you miss the fact that the bakery is literally in full view of the park?”

“...touché”

“Ah!” At long last, Sabrina has found the appropriate page. With a small, self-satisfied smile, she thumbs the edge of the page and looks up at them.

“Which class does Marinette enjoy the most?”

Felix, by this point, has lost all sense of coherency. What does enjoy even mean, anymore? Well, Felix certainly isn’t enjoying this game he was losing. Losing, losing… What is Marinette good at? That’s got to be something she enjoys, right?

...what isn’t Marinette good at? Felix drifts in his thoughts, flashing through memories of her bright enthusiasm, the flush riding high on her cheeks in every class, the way she chews her pencil when she thinks and the scribbles on her arms, every word a work of art in her hands. The only time he’s ever seen her sink into her seat, hide her face in her hands, turn pallid and pale is…

Gosh, she’s just good at everything isn’t she?

“Everything except physics!” Felix blurts out before his exhausted mind can catch up to him. Sabrina looks at him in bewilderment, finger hovering above her binder. Is he serious? she thinks, mouth starting to hang open in question. Then, five whole seconds after Felix’s brain has crashed over the barricade and careened into the valley below, Adrien’s brain slowly sputters to life.

“Um… I have art with her third period! So… probably that one!”

Sabrina’s gaping mouth hangs a little lower. “What?!” She manages through a wheeze.

Felix jolts. “Wait!!! I thought the question is which is she best at, can I answer again?!”

“...unfortunately, despite having completely awful reasoning, Adrien has gotten the question right. He will progress to Marinette’s favorite fabric store five minutes before you will.”

Felix sulks. Adrien smirks, and looks up the directions on his phone first this time.

It’s awkward standing there with Sabrina waiting for the seconds to tick by. She’s typing away rapidly on her phone, not even acknowledging Felix’s presence, glancing around idly at anything but him. Felix is still trying to work out Adrien’s reasoning. Is that her favorite class because he’s in it? Did they mean which experience does she most enjoy, or which subject? Does Adrien know something Felix doesn’t, about who Marinette likes spending time with, or is he just too sheltered to consider how Marinette exists outside of when she’s with Adrien?

Four minutes and thirteen seconds into his wait, she glances up and then her eyes blow wide. Her typing speeds up more than Felix thought was humanly possible, and her mouth purses into a thin line, her skin pale and clammy despite the unusually warm day. There is an absolute cacophony of text notifications that makes his head spin. At last, she looks up at Felix.

“Okay, go.”

“...what?”

“Go!” She waves a frantically dismissive hand as if that explains things any further.

“Um… okay?” Says Felix, glancing at the watch that still visibly has time left on it. He’s not about to waste one of his precious seconds though, and bolts off towards where he hopes the fabric store is. Time is wasting.

Besides. Sabrina looked about ready to murder him if it got him out of there.

Sabrina watches him go, glancing anxiously from her phone to the bakery window, and calls the class. There’s been a situation.

Marinette is thinking of going for a walk (it is a beautifully calm, sunny day after all) when she spots Sabrina outside the bakery window. Chloe’s friend-turned-servant-turned-friend-again has always been awkward around her, ever since the day Marinette had (temporarily) convinced her to stand up for herself. Still, Marinette thinks it might be nice to have someone to spend the day with, and waves to Sabrina before hurrying out the door.

Sabrina meets her at the door with a “Hi, Marinette!” so aggressive they both nearly fall over backwards.

“H… hey, Sabrina!” She says with an awkward smile. ��Um… what brings you around here?”

She’s trying to look over Sabrina’s shoulder, maybe see if anyone came with her, but Sabrina almost instantly slides to block her view.

“Just! Going for a walk! Do you want to… walk… together?”

“I was going to, but you seem to be blocking the door?”

“Oh… yeah…” Sabrina looks over her shoulder and does not move.

“Um…”

About ten seconds of awkward silence later, Sabrina’s wall across the doorframe abruptly vanishes, as she practically yanks Marinette outside. “Come! Walk! Let's do that, where do you want to go?”

Baffled, Marinette takes a minute just to blink in the new light. “I… was planning on going to the park.” She figures that, with the rare beautiful, warm, clear day in December, it would be a good chance to people-watch and sketch ideas in her notebook for new outfits.

“NO!” It’s the most vehement Marinette has ever seen Sabrina and Marinette recoils from the suggestion immediately, not wanting anything that makes her friend uncomfortable. Even if the word friend applies loosely here.

“...or we could just… visit downtown for a bit?”

If Sabrina had it her way, the two of them would go straight up to Marinette’s room and stay there straight up until the date rolled around. Since she doesn’t get to have that, this seems like an acceptable compromise. Downtown is plenty big enough. Right?

Ten minutes later, and it’s too late to stop Marinette from going to her favorite store. To buy fabric.

Sabrina whimpers quietly and sends a few more texts.

By the time Felix gets to the store, Adrien has already answered and slipped out the door. Felix catches him smirking a few steps away from the storefront, but something about it looks off, a little strange. He looks haunted, stricken behind his smugness.

Felix bursts into the store and spots Juleka, and immediately blurts out: “Did Adrien get it right?!”

She shakes her head and ducks behind her bangs, and mumbles, “He said she likes to look pretty. And make other people pretty.”

So Adrien has incurred his first five minute penalty.

...and he’s still ahead!!! Felix growls, and decides on a new strategy. It must be more efficient to focus on getting the answer right than getting it fast at this point, because another five minute delay is irreparable, but a two or three minute delay might still be recoverable. He waits impatiently for the question, but Juleka is engrossed in her texts.

As soon as he opens his mouth to demand fair play, Juleka grabs his arm and yanks him forcibly behind a mannequin. “Why did Marinette start designing for fashion?” she hisses in his ear, pulling him abruptly away and into a new aisle. Felix’s heart leaps to his throat. He can feel a jumble of incoherent words clamoring to burst out. He swallows them, and they taste like bile.

No. He needs a right answer, right now.

It’s hard to think, though, with the way Juleka keeps shoving him around, even going so far as to kick him behind his knees, sending him crashing to the floor in a heap. She makes up for it by helping him back up later, but does it count if she’s the one that put him there, and then held him there for long minutes by kicking at him again when he pushed himself upright?!

Finally, he manages to gasp out between one move and another, “Because… clothes are a representation of who you are, and there are too many people with no choices except the same hyper-idealized body types and colors, and Marinette wants to make them feel at home in their own skin.” He says it all in one rushed, nerve-wracking breath, and forgets to breathe altogether when Juleka nods. It’s his first correct answer. He did it. He did it.

And yet Juleka still doesn’t let him go, her vice-like grip on his wrist not letting up at all. Precious seconds are getting lost, and she wont. Let. Go.

Finally, finally Juleka seems to get the divine signal she had been waiting for, because she hisses the next location in his ear and shoves him through the door. And then, immediately after he steps outside, the worst happens.

Marinette figures, being downtown already, she’ll take the opportunity to pick up the order of fabric she’d placed, since the confirmation email came in this morning. It’ll save her a trip tomorrow, at least.

Sabrina seems to despise this shop with a vengeance, whining and pulling on Marinette’s sleeve to go anywhere else, but it’s Marinette’s favorite. All the complaints only make Marinette more determined to show Sabrina why this one is so good.

Stepping in, Marinette makes her way cheerfully to the counter, where she strikes up a conversation with the now-familiar cashier. The two of them strike up a grand campaign to show Sabrina around the store, making the redhead cringe and quiver with every new section of the store. Her eyes seem hunted, constantly flicking back and forth looking for predators, seeming to track something Marinette never quite manages to catch.

At one point, Marinette swears she sees Sabrina mouthing the name Juleka, and the word run on multiple occasions. But that would be super weird, so she assumes she’s just imagined it.

Finally, Marinette steps up to the counter to package up the fabrics she’d ordered, plus a few odds and ends she noticed as they had walked around that she liked. There is, behind her, a mad patter of steps and then the chime of the door opening, but by the time Marinette turns to look, the door is swinging empty back and forth.

And then the akuma alarms go off.

Luckily, it’s Mister Pigeon, because apparently the lure of a sunny day was too much for him to resist feeding his pigeons.

Unluckily, this is going to set Felix back ages in the competition.

Still, he does enjoy getting to talk comfortably with Ladybug, since the fight is so repetitive. They’ve both done this a thousand times, and the motions of defeating him feel like slipping into well-worn pyjamas.

“So what’s been bugging you, ma coccinelle?” Her shoulders are tense, movements awkward. He knows her well enough to know it isn’t the akuma that’s causing this stress.

She grimaces. “...this fight is nothing compared to the one in my civilian life.” She shoots him an exhausted grin, and his heart aches at the sight of it. He tries for reassuring and winces as his words fall flat.

“Oh, dear. What’s going on? Certainly nothing a hero like you can’t handle,” he winks, and then flinches away from a barrage of pigeon excrement and his own awkwardness.

“...you ever think about how nice it would feel to have two people love you so much they’d fight over you?”

This, he’s familiar with. Perhaps not the same way, but he’s loved something like that. Loves someone like that. “I’d imagine you’d enjoy them trying to outdo each other for you, putting so much effort into pleasing you, yes?”

Ladybug slips into a corner and calls for her Lucky Charm, then turns to answer him. “You’d think, but this is neither lucky NOR charming. I… I feel like a prize. I don’t even know if these people know me at all, or anything about what matters to me. I thought I’d like having secret admirers, but it feels like more of a mask than ours.” She looks at him fondly through a slew of pigeon feathers. “At least I know who you are, Chaton, even if I don’t know what your name is.”

He has nothing to say to that, so turns to tackle the villain with particular aggression, slapping sharp beaks and sharp talons away from her so she can focus, and so she can keep talking.

“I don’t know. I just want it to end. I want to matter to somebody, I want to be their priority, y’know? I don’t want big gifts that seem more focused on outdoing the last and an audience for my every reaction-- honestly, they’re worse than the press!!” He catches her shooing away a stray reporter, and grins. She grins back. “It’s like I’m the prize at a gladiator fight, and I’m not sure if I’m the woman he marries or the meat the lion gets, and I’m not sure which is better.”

That last line, paired with her sweet, soft grin is what breaks him. Quietly, he answers. “I’m… not sure there is a better.”

She tosses him the akumatized object and he catches it with claws covered with cataclysm. It crumbles in his grip, and he grins weakly as her yo-yo shoots out to catch the corrupted butterfly.

“Yeah, exactly!! I’m glad you know that, even if they don’t. My… my classmates said they’d take care of it for me, so hopefully it’ll be over soon. I’ll be glad when I can stop performing my adoration for these presents that I don’t even really like anymore.”

“You'd rather have someone just be present, huh.”

“...yeah.” Her earrings give off their last warning beeps, and she startles. “I’ve gotta go, Chaton, but… thank you for listening! You… don’t always say much and I know we don’t know a lot about each other, but I know that… you might not know my favorite color, or whatever, but you know the things that matter to me. The things that make me who I am, that drive me. We have the rest of our lives to learn those things.” Impulsively, she kisses her cheek and then swings away before Chat can respond, leaving him gaping useless at the skyline for a solid minute.

When he comes back to himself, he chuckles quietly, and then decides he has enough time on his ring (and enough selfishness in him) to jump through the city as Chat Noir, which brings him to the Farmer’s Market much more quickly than Felix ever would’ve made it on foot.

Adrien, between navigating downtown on his own for the first time and the akuma attack, arrives at quite the same time as Felix, and glowers miserably at his rival for having caught up.

Maybe Ladybug’s luck was rubbing off on Felix after all.

They meet Luka behind a stall of hand pressed apple juice and apple tarts and some very distracted candied apples that Felix eyes, tempted, before focusing on their clue.

…Luka looks at them solemnly for a long moment, and then plays a deep, rich chord. He pauses for a second to let it ring out before playing another, deeper, even richer chord.

No one dares interrupt. Nodding, satisfied, Luka begins playing a melody. It’s staccato, plucky, but gradually shifts into a neatly balanced harmony, before ending on a final, unimaginably rich chord that rings out into the silence. Then he simply looks at them, calmly, expectantly. Clearly neither Adrien nor Felix have worked out what the heck this is supposed to be.

At long last, Adrien ventures to ask, “Um...what’s the clue?” “The answer. Is within. The question.” Says Luka without pause.

Felix, with more emphasis, asks again. Luka, now very grave, responds: “Be wise. And be true. To your love.”

Felix looks at Adrien. Adrien looks at Felix. Luka looks contemplatively at an apple, and then wanders a little ways off following a bird. Adrien and Felix chase after him, and ask as one with great urgency: “What’s the clue?”

Luka lets out the infinitely mournful sigh of misunderstood artists everywhere. “...fine. The question, since you two clearly didn’t understand the first three times, is: what does Marinette want most from her future?”

There is a long pause as both boys try to work out how they were supposed to understand this from any of the previously given information. Then, collecting themselves, they both answer in a rush, tripping over each other to be the first to answer.

“A fashion designer, with three kids and a gerbil!”

Felix is still talking as Adrien finishes, and feels three sizes too big in his skin as he keeps talking, awkward and gangly and ridiculous. “She wants… the ability to be independent and self-sustaining without losing her passion for loving and caring for others.” Then, absentmindedly, he adds, “also, pretty fashion.”

Another painfully long pause. Then Luka abruptly plays a sharp, twangy chord, so loud and sudden that the two boys jump.

“Good job, Felix!” He says, nodding approvingly “Sometimes the song isn’t just about the melody. You get a five minute head start.”

The blue-haired boy leans against a nearby stall and, satisfied, plays a contemplative chord. Then another. Then another. Felix watches him, confused, trying to determine the hidden message until Luka interjects “Four minutes”, and sends Felix scampering off.

He almost gets to the edge of the market before a thought occurs to him and he backtracks for a moment. Marinette had mentioned once the way she had finally, for the first time, eaten a candied apple she liked and fell in love with it, and the ones he’d noticed at the stall are the same gourmet brand she had loved. She had rambled to him for twenty minutes about how cutting the apple into slices had improved the balance of flavors so well, and why had she never thought of that before, and how the caramel was creamy and soft and sweet without being overpowering or brittle or sticky, and how creative the flavor combinations were.

Felix grabs s’mores, which was her favorite, and toffee-dark chocolate, which she had wanted to try but didn’t get to.

Getting this for her is worth losing his lead.

Then he nearly jumps out of his own skin and bones when he notices Marinette just a few steps away, peering at another stall, and panics for a second, but Sabrina (who is by now very frazzled) rushes after Marinette and reminds her that she needs to get home and changed soon, and didn’t she want to pick up some red bean paste before that? Better hurry!!!

Marinette, for the first time all day, doesn’t protest. Felix takes the fastest route to her house, in case her red bean paste excursion goes more quickly than he expects.

In front of her house again, they meet Nino, who is looking uncharacteristically serious.

The question he asks knocks Felix off balance, and by the time he even begins to get his wits around him, Adrien has caught up and Nino is posing the question to him, too.

“What is Marinette most afraid of in a relationship?”

Adrien answers first. “She’s worried she won’t end up with me.” Nino looks at him for a long moment, and then clearly makes a decision. Adrien is asked to elaborate, and he doesn’t hesitate before adding that “Marinette wants someone who’s kind like her, and who knows the little details about her. She’s afraid to be with someone who doesn’t pay attention to her because it shows they don’t care, and she doesn’t want someone who drags her down with heavy, loaded conversations.”

Felix’s heart sinks. Is that true? Has Adrien won before Felix ever even got to attempt the question? His heart rate spikes until Nino, very carefully, says: “It’s Felix’s turn to answer. Whoever is closer wins, unless we decide you’re both tied, in which case you’re you’ll get a chance to answer again.”

“...shouldn’t you have explained that first?!”

Nino shrinks and smiles nervously, scratching the back of his neck. “Uh… haha… oops?”

Felix decides it’s more important to answer. Nino will still be around to traumatize later, after all. He takes another moment, savoring the sensation to have time to think for the first time all day. Recalling the conversation with Ladybug from earlier, Felix realizes that Marinette and Ladybug are similar in a lot of ways. They’re strong, they care so much about the people they love, and maybe they’re both absolutely terrified of being seen as an idol or a pretty face, a trophy or a derivative of their history, or a doormat for their kindness and compassion. They don’t care about knowing something that they can tell someone else between casual conversations through the rest of their lives. They’re worried that they’ll get in a relationship and not be seen, and not be heard.

He says so.

Nino nods, and points Felix towards the park.

He won? He won!!! He--

...he gets to go on a date with Marinette.

Felix is slammed with the realization that he hasn’t won now. He… he knows Marinette, and he knows her well, and that’s not something he thought he would get to be able to say today. It’s more than winning or losing, all of a sudden. It’s friendship.

And, with a little luck and a lot of patience, maybe it’ll be more.

Adrien suddenly bursts in on his revelry. “It’s not fair! That was a stupid question, how was anyone supposed to know that?”

The taller boy steps towards Felix, towering over him. Felix takes an involuntary step back.

“You didn’t deserve to win. She likes me!” Spittle is flying from Adrien's face, his precious model-coiffed blond hair hanging ragged over his face. Felix starts to back away, or point out that he had, in fact, known the answer by asking Marinette questions about herself and listening when she talked, and putting the pieces together, but a kernel of compassion grows in his stomach.

“She does like you. That’s why she’s your friend. And if she likes you more than that, I know she’ll let you know.”

Adrien is looking at him silently, aghast as to how he could have been wrong. Then he storms off, muttering something about lawyers. Felix chooses not to gloat, because there’s nothing to gloat about. He hopes Adrien can get to know Marinette well, too. She’s worth the effort. He knows that now.

He meets Marinette at the park, where the rest of the class has been setting up a picnic date. It’s gorgeous, with soft blankets laid out, pillows strewn across the edges of the blankets bordering a feast of their favorite foods. Candles flicker on nearby benches and fairy lights are strewn up through the trees, and it’s a miracle the weather has cooperated the entire day, honestly.

“You would not BELIEVE what I had to get through to get here,” he starts, knowing how much Marinette loves a good story.

“I’m… Alya just told me what shenanigans had happened today, because I wouldn’t stop asking why Sabrina was having a nervous breakdown by the end of the day. How’d you get that last question right, anyways?” She laughs, somehow bright and awkward at the same time. “I’m not even sure I know the answer!”

Felix feels a blush blooming across his skin. “Well, I thought-- y’know-- it’s just that--” Marinette interrupts him with a hand over his, and he swallows. “...you just… reminded me of someone I know.”

“That’s a pretty special someone you’ve got there.”

“...there’s a pretty special someone I’ve got right here, too.”

They take a minute to eat, and snuggle into each other, and bask in the moment, the warmth of each other and the brisk sharpness of windchill and the twinkling lights of all the love (and maybe desperate frustration) their friends have poured into making this happen.

Hours pass like that, half in comfortable silence, half in excited, rambling chatter. When the wind picks up, Marinette glances at her long-discarded coat and curls up tighter against Felix. He slips his hands into his gloves and holds her tight.

They’re dozing off like that, half asleep in each other’s arms, when Marinette breaks the silence, eyes still closed, mumbling against his shoulder.

“I guess it’s not much of a blind date anymore, but…” She leans in and kisses his cheek, ghosting over the still-warm presence of Ladybug’s kiss. “...I’m glad it was you here.”

#felinette november #felinette #felinette month 2020 #miraculous ladybug #too many italics #guys #she's not a prize #he is so smitten he will discover her deepest fears #and that's valid of him #meanwhile: Adrien's a jackass #and luka's a beautiful space creature #and chloe is a mean girls girl #and every single word is in italics #and the plot don't stop

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barrysjumpsuit · 4 years

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the killing in kildare - an outer banks/criminal minds crossover (jj pov)

this came to be thanks to a post by @pixelated-pogues and @poguesoftheobx and tbh my main motivation for this was jj being an asshole to feds

word count: 3k

warnings: mentions of (canon) abuse, some abuse/fighting, mentions of canon murder, this is purely unedited so prob typos and bad grammar idc

summary: following the murder of sherriff peterkin, our favorite BAU team comes in to assist the kildare county police department with their case

a/n: i hate this and rewrote it twice, but here ya go!!! couldn’t make it a true criminal minds bau type case due to the canon but i did my best. also there’s mayward if u squint

---

“We haven’t had a homicide here in ten years,” Deputy Shoupe was explaining as he led the BAU team through the police station. “All sorts of weird shit going down lately. We’re at our wits end.”

“And all this happened after Routledge’s disappearance?” Agent Hotchner asked, weaving his way through desks as Shoupe unlocked the conference room door.

“Yes sir, his kid - also John Routledge, we call him John B - thought he’s out there, but we’ve officially deemed him dead after he didn’t show up after a couple months, now the kid says a local killed him. Have a seat.”

Shoupe gestured to the chairs surrounding the table, and the team sat down, Hotchner and Rossi near the head of the table. They all listened while Shoupe explained what went down over the course of the past year - Big John’s disappearance, which turned out to be linked to his hunt for the gold of the Royal Merchant. Word had it that a man named Ward Cameron, the elite of the island, was responsible, or at least involved. “That statement came from Routledge’s kid, so I’m not sure how true it is,” Shoupe explained.

Turns out, Shoupe believed it was the younger Routledge who murdered Sheriff Peterkin. A local reported him running around, covered in blood. He had become involved in the treasure hunt with his friends, wreaking havoc around the island in the process. There were strange men who reportedly chased the kids, who later turned up dead in someone’s nets, sporting wounds from a gaff hook.

“And now Pete…” Shoupe continued, trailing off. “That kid’s on the loose. We haven’t seen or heard anything about him in a few days. We think he got away, but I still have officers out keeping an eye open.”

It wasn’t the type of case the BAU would normally take on, but it was interesting. A hunt for treasure, mysterious men and local residents turning up dead, and the murder of the Sheriff.

There were a few questions and a brief silence as the team looked over the photos and files they had been given. Morgan finally spoke up, his voice filled with determination. “We’ll find whoever did this.”

JJ laid on the dock, swinging his feet which dangled off the edge. The tips of his boots barely skimmed the water. In one hand, he pinched a joint between two fingers. His eyes were closed, and occasionally he sucked on the joint, enjoying the calmness that overwhelmed his system, easing the anxiety that had been overwhelming ever since he saw John B disappear the night before.

They had finally eased off the search once there was word of his escape. He was out of Kildare County, out of jurisdiction.

With no more cops hanging around, JJ could finally return to the Chateau. He knew he couldn’t go home - his dad had probably realized that JJ had stolen the keys to the Phantom by now, and JJ would be a goner. Being at the Chateau was familiar and comfortable.

Both Kiara and Pope had returned home to be with their families. Ever since two nights before, JJ had been at the Chateau, Kiara having dropped off food from The Wreck to last him a few days.

JJ was too caught up in his thoughts to hear the footsteps making their way down the dock until someone spoke. “JJ Maybank?”

He knew the voice of a cop when he heard it; JJ bolted upright, immediately jumping into the water, his joint long forgotten as he plunged under the water and started swimming.

Arms suddenly wrestled him. “We just want to talk, kid,” someone said, and JJ threw an elbow their way. Whoever had jumped in and grabbed him was too big, and wrestled him back to the dock. “Grab him, Spence.”

Hands pulled JJ back onto the dock. “You’re not in any trouble, JJ.”

JJ struggled in his hold, but more hands were on him, and he knew he couldn’t get away.

“Alright, you got me, congratulations,” he said, throwing his hands up. “John B didn’t kill Peterkin, he didn’t kill anybody.”

“Hold up, kid,” the first man said. JJ saw that they weren’t dressed like normal cops, and the man soon confirmed his suspicions. “My name is Derek Morgan, this is Spencer Reid, we’re with the FBI. We just have a few questions.”

“Ask away,” JJ said, exasperated. He was cornered on the end of the dock by the two agents.

“We’d like you to come with us,” Agent Reid explained. “To take an official statement. You won’t get in any trouble and you’ll be able to leave whenever you want.”

“If your friend is innocent, we want to help him, all right? That’s what we’re here for.”

Maybe it was the weed, or maybe it was the fact that John B was gone and safe. Whatever the case, JJ nodded, allowing the agents to walk him to their SUV to take him back to the police station. He was more than aware of all the looks everyone gave him. JJ greeted them, in typical JJ fashion, and he was brought into an office.

A blonde woman was sitting at the conference table, papers and files spread out before her while she spoke on the phone. JJ recognized the photos of the two square groupers that were killed, hauled up in nets by some fishermen. His stomach turned at the memory of them breaking into John B’s house.

The agent set the phone down onto the table before sticking out her hand. “My name’s Jennifer Jareau, but you can call me JJ. You’re a friend of John B’s?”

JJ laughed. “JJ, that’s a good name, I like it.” He smiled with satisfaction as Jennifer’s face flushed red. “Look at that, we even look alike, we’re both blond bombshells.”

“This is JJ Maybank,” Agent Morgan interjected, a smile tugging on his lips, too.

“Well, all right, JJ. Can you tell us what happened? From the beginning? We found that the officers here tended to have a… biased report, so sorry about that.” Her eyes shifted slowly towards Deputy Shoupe.

“Nah, it’s all good. I have a bit of a reputation here, so that doesn’t surprise me.” JJ couldn’t help but throw a wink towards Shoupe. “Ol’ Shoupe and I here know each other pretty well.”

There was a pang of satisfaction inside JJ as Shoupe sighed. “Just shut up and talk, Maybank.”

“Aight. So, JB’s dad was looking for this gold his whole life, ya know? He went missing at sea about a year ago. Then this month, after Agatha, my friends and I were out fishing and we found a sunk boat. It belonged to Scooter Grubbs, and we were like ‘oh, how did he get his grubby little hands on it?’” he paused, clearly proud of the joke he made. “Anyway. Scooter turned up dead and we found a compass in the boat. It was JB’s dad’s. So we were like ‘holy shit, it’s a ghost compass’. But after we found that compass we were chased by some guys, total square groupers - they tried to shoot us! Then they next day we went to ask Scooter’s wife about it but found the guys there, then they came to JB’s house looking for him and the compass. Then we found a map and tape recorder to John B from his dad in this creepy ass tomb the compass told us to go to, and we knew something was up.”

JJ paused for dramatic effect. Everyone, even Shoupe, was watching and listening intently, Jennifer scribbling down notes as a tape recorder played on the table. Agent Morgan was visibly amused by JJ’s storytelling.

He continued with the story. “So we found the shipwreck, right? But there wasn’t anything on it. So we were like damn, someone beat us to it. But then John B started mackin’ Sarah Cameron-”

Agent Reid made a confused face at his slang.

“Mackin’. You know, making out, dating, Sarah Cameron. Turns out, there was a letter left by Denmark Tanney. He was the sole survivor and hid all the gold at the Crain house. But this is where it gets good,” JJ said, leaning forward, as if the story wasn’t thrilling enough already. “Ward Cameron must have known that John B was looking for the gold. He had him move into his house and must have overheard him talking to Sarah about the gold. The gold was gone. Ward loaded it up in his plane. While this was happening, John B went to Lana, Scooter’s wife, and she told him everything. About how Big John and Ward were looking for the gold, and they were about to find the merchant, then Ward shoved John and split his head open and dumped him over the side of the boat.”

“We have agents talking to Lana Grubbs right now,” Jennifer said, and JJ nodded vigorously.

“Good. Oh yeah, JB said Ward took him fishing and tried to kill him with a gaff hook. That ring any bells?” JJ looked from Morgan to Reid, and then to Jennifer, who just nodded. “So turns out Scooter found his body and got the compass. Then he was coming back when Aggie hit. After JB found out, he was pissed, man, and we went to the runway to stop Ward from stealing the gold. He was taking it and Sarah to the Bahamas. JB went out to try to stop him. He said Peterkin showed up to arrest Ward, but then Ward’s kid Rafe - he’s a crazy motherfucker - shot Peterkin, John B ran because Rafe was gonna shoot him too, then Ward called our friend Shoupe and said John B shot her and denied everything.”

“Did you witness anything at the airport?” Morgan asked, walking to sit down beside JJ.

JJ shifted uncomfortably, filling with guilt. “No, we ran once Peterkin showed up. I’m on probation. I didn’t need to get caught out there. As far as I know, the only people who were there were Peterkin, Ward, Rafe, John B, and-”

He stopped speaking as Jennifer’s attention was immediately diverted, her eyes locked on something outside the window. JJ’s head whipped around, seeing the one person he never wanted to see ever again. All of his cockiness and charm was gone the second he laid eyes on his father.

“Reid, lock the door,” Jennifer said quietly as Shoupe and Morgan slipped out of the office, leaving the three of them. From outside, JJ could hear yelling, the voices of his father and Shoupe unmistakable.

“Don’t let him anywhere near me,” JJ said suddenly, almost pleadingly.

“Who is that?” Agent Reid asked, and Jennifer nodded as if acknowledging that she was thinking the same thing.

JJ muttered, “My dad,” wheeling his chair out of view from the window.

“We won’t let him near you, okay?” he heard the woman say, and JJ just nodded. “I’m going to call the rest of my team to see how it’s going, you can stay in here. It’s safe here. We’ll be back soon with some more questions for you.”

JJ nodded again, opening his eyes and watching the two agents leave the room, closing and locking the door behind them.

He sat alone for a while before pulling out his phone. He noticed he had several missed calls and texts from Pope and Kiara; he called Pope back, greeted by the frantic sound of his voice. “Dude, where the hell are you!”

“Bro, the FBI is here looking for whoever killed Peterkin,” JJ said, not answering his question.

“You’re talking to them?” Pope asked in a worried but hushed tone. “JJ, you’re actually talking to feds?”

“Hey, they wanna help John B, man. Help him and put away the Camerons.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“I told them everything, Pope. They’re talking to Miss Lana too. Who knows, if you or Kie back me up-”

“JJ!” Pope was yelling now. “JJ, do you know how many laws we’ve broken? No, JJ.”

JJ opened his mouth to say something, but quickly hung up the phone as the door opened and a two stoic, official looking men walked in.

“I’m Agent Hotchner, this is Agent Rossi,” the taller one stated. His tone was flat and hard, and JJ instantly didn’t like him.

“Are you here to take my story again? The recorder’s right there bro, I don’t even think she turned it off.” He pointed to the tape recorder, which was still running.

“No, we’re here to ask if you would happen to know where Rafe Cameron could be hiding.”

“His house? It’s really big, you might want to check everywhere.”

“We did a full sweep of the place,” Agent Hotchner said in the same disinterested tone. “Any friend’s place? Anything like that?”

JJ sighed. “He’s this guy’s bitch. Some basehead named Barry. If my dad’s out there, ask him about where to find him, he buys coke off him. Rafe does, too. The two of them jumped me a few days ago.”

“Do you know where he lives?” the other agent asked, his voice slightly softer. “His father isn’t speaking, we’ve arrested him but can’t find his son.”

“Where’s Ward? I’d like to talk to him.”

“I’m afraid we can’t let you do that, son.” Agent Rossi pulled out the chair next to JJ and sat down. “Where does this Barry guy live?”

JJ sighed. “Shitty little trailer on the west side of Sunshine street. Ironic, huh? Dude’s full of sunshine.” He paused as Hotch watched him through narrowed eyes. “Second place south of the Dollar General, you can’t miss it, it’s a shithole.”

“Thanks, JJ,” Agent Hotcher said, and the two men left, closing and locking the door behind them again.

Sighing, he kicked his feet up onto the chair that Agent Rossi had vacated, rubbing at his temple. He had barely eaten since John B left, and barely slept. His high had worn off, leaving him tired and with a subtle yet persistent headache.

“I want this fuckin’ thing to be over,” he muttered to himself.

A voice made him open his eyes and walk over to the window. Ward Cameron was walking through the main space of the station, his large strides quickly covering ground, followed by two officers. He was yelling at Jennifer, the agent hardly flinching as he berated her. The glass muffled his voice, but JJ could tell he was pulling either the wealth card or the my-daughter-ran-away-from-home card on her.

“Hey Ward!” JJ yelled, pounding his palm against the glass. “Ward!”

The man’s head eventually turned to see JJ, and seconds later, he was at the pane of glass, yelling at him.

“You’re a fucking murderer, Ward!” JJ yelled, ignoring the words Ward was throwing at him. Your friend could have killed my daughter. You ruined her life. You ruined my life. You’re a liar. JJ countered with words of his own. “You killed Big John! You killed those men! You tried to kill my best friend! Your son killed Peterkin! You don’t care about your family, Ward!”

The last sentence made him snap. Jennifer and two officers were trying to restrain Ward, but he shoved them off, picking up and chair and throwing it at the window.

Luckily, the window was made for scenarios like this. Ward couldn’t touch JJ, and both of them knew it. They kept yelling until they finally cuffed Ward, leading him out of view, JJ’s face still pressed against the window, his body shaking with rage.

He flinched as the door opened, and Agent Reid came in, standing in the doorway sheepishly.

“What do you want?” JJ muttered, plopping back down in the chair he had been sitting in before.

The agent shrugged. “Just thought you might want to talk, is all. Nothing you’ll say leaves this room.”

JJ regarded him through squinted eyes, his arms crossed across his chest. “Why do you think I need a therapy session?”

Reid shrugged again. “Thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask. You’ve been through a lot recently. I can tell there’s more going on than what you told us.”

He sighed. “Everything just went to shit so quick. My best friend was framed for murder, he left, and now my dad wants to kill me the first chance he gets. And once they get the Camerons I’ll be expected to resume life as normal.” He threw up his hands for effect. “Life was never normal, life was never good. It’s fucked, man.”

JJ sat with Reid for another hour or two. The small talk had eventually drifted into an awkward silence, broken by more yelling.

“I didn’t do it!” JJ heard from outside the office. He could recognize Rafe’s voice anywhere, and it filled him with rage.

Reid had forgotten to lock the door. In one fluid motion, JJ was on his feet, throwing the door open, running and tackling Rafe, knocking him from the agent’s grasps. Grabbing his shoulders and throwing him against the ground, JJ collapsed to his knees, one on either side of Rafe.

He was helpless with his hands cuffed, and Agent Morgan pulled JJ off Rafe, restraining him. “Easy, big guy,” Morgan said cooly. “We’ve made the arrests, JJ, your friend’s name is cleared. You can get out of here.”

“What?” JJ asked stupidly, looking to a woman he had not yet met. She had long, straight black hair.

“You’re free to leave. Your story matches up with what Lana Grubbs told us, and we were able to recover a gun from the Cameron residence that matched the type used in the murder of Sheriff Peterkin.”

At that, she followed the others, leaving JJ standing in the middle of the police station. He could hear muffled shouts of Rafe, which dissipated after a door slammed.

It was over. JJ almost didn’t know what to do, so he just left.

A body collided with his, then another. He struggled at first, but recognized the arms wrapped around him, and melted into Pope and Kiara’s embraces.

“They made the arrests,” JJ found himself saying. “JB’s gonna be okay.”

tagging @jellyfishbeansontoast @pixelated-pogues @kookkyra @poguesoftheobx @shawnssongs @stargazingstarkey @letsgofullkook @jjmaybcnks @ims0golden @jjsmentalpolaroids @queenk00k @sortagaysortahigh @thegreatestofheck

#outer banks #criminal minds #jj maybank #marie writes

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toysoldiers-rwby · 3 years

Text

[CS] 6. Conflict

Cutting Strings

Characters: Team APCX, Winter Word Count: 7k

Somethings never change. Even if it’s new to Penny.

Read on Ao3

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Error: Enemy Unknown

Neon’s frustrated voice rang around the Gym. “Reese! She closed shop to help you and Nadir study!”

“Yeah but Aro can be really scary!” Reese argued. “We still have like two weeks till Haven officially starts…”

Penny slowly tunned their voices out. Ciel and Penny arrived 30 minutes ago. May was there again and she challenged Ciel to a sparring match. Ciel declined, her shift was about to start but Neon begged her for the hours. Neon’s reasoning that training with a Huntress was more valuable than lien convinced Ciel.

Penny joined their warm-ups to burn some excess energy her upset Aura was generating. It helped a little but it would take a real fight to exhaust her. Then she spent five minutes of watching the Huntress play around with the officer-in-training and an unknown amount of time slumped against the table drawing aimless shapes on the wood as little Billy tried to ram into her finger.

Another discovery Penny had made was that she needed a routine. Previously her days was scheduled to optimize both her father and Ironwood’s time. But now that she was free to explore Atlas- and Mantle as long as Ironwood doesn’t know, she had to make her own schedule. This past week she’d work on Billy, the now fully repaired miniature robotic goat with limited functionality! At night she’d visit Ciel and they’d relax at the Officer’s Gym.

But tonight was a little different. Xanthic had finished her assignment from Ironwood… Then Winter escorted her back to her quarters. Four hours ahead of routine. She didn’t argue or fight, just stared at Winter and Penny…

“Oh!” Penny gasped. Billy had determined her nose as new challenger and rammed into her. She giggled and picked him up, “Alright, Billy. It’s bed time.” She said. Pushing aside the cover on his back she pressed the sleep button. Billy’s charge slowed to a trot and eventually a complete stop. His head shook, metal ears stiff in the air when they should be flopping around. Tinny rubber hooves dug into Penny’s hand so lightly her sensors didn’t recognize it.

Winter didn’t need to isolate Xanthic. They could have worked on this little robot together. She wanted to have it updated to perform simple tricks and vocal commands. Penny was curious to see her Father and Aro’s reaction.

“That’s so cute I think I have cavities,” May muttered. She grunted as Ciel finally got a punch in. “You little!” May practically growled. She feinted a jab then dove in a low tackle. Ciel’s back slammed into the mat as her legs were pulled out from under her. Once taken to the mat, Ciel was quickly put in a lock and forced to tap out.

Ciel lay there, exhausted and breathing hard while May barely broke a sweat and effortlessly jumped to her feet. “Huntresses are insane…”

“We are superheroes!” May said with a large smile. It faltered slightly when Penny couldn’t match that energy. “Something biting at you Penn?” Penny tilted her head and looked around. Her false skin wasn’t sensitive so if something was biting her she didn’t feel or see it. May laughed and shook her head. “What’s on your mind? You’ve been acting sad all evening…” Her voice drifted off, posture completely slacking. She thickly swallowed and that definitely triggered Penny’s interest.

Before Penny could turn around a pale green hair flew past her. Aro stood a few feet from May. She was grinning, ears to excited to stay hidden and fluttering up and down. She had an excited bounce and tiny flaps of her arms-

“Aro!” Penny’s mind nearly shorted. There might have been several warnings about velocity and weight but all that was registering was her friend was finally back. Her processors fired several simulations about how easier the week would have been if Aro was there to smooth conflicts or to infect her with her cheery attitude.

“Hi Penn!” Aro yelled back, grunting as the women tackled her. They didn’t fall to the ground but floated long enough for Aro to get her footing again. Penny was hugged tight. That comforting feeling of pressure back in greater force. Penny giggled burying her face into her future teammate’s shoulder. She wanted to go back to the drinks with Winter and May or even the trails General started her with. She was built for the stress of combat not… whatever she was feeling righ tow. Aro set Penny down and looked at May again. Her grin was bigger, undeterred by May’s indifferent, almost glaring expression. “Hi.”

“Salutations,” May drawled, voice dead and voice of any emotion. She crossed her arms and waited for Aro’s energy to calm a little. It had the opposite effect and she only squeezed Penny tighter. Penny giggled as Faunus ears tickled her fake ones. Apparently they were sensitive and sent a Morse code of sensation confusing her processors. May sighed at the cute display, “I’m still mad at you.”

“I deserve it,” Aro said only a hint of seldom and guilt in her voice. “I know it’s not showing now- I really missed you.”

A blush flashed across May’s face for a second. The Huntress groaned slapping her head. Then held her arms open and Aro jumped into them. Arms wrapped around her neck and face buried into the crook of her shoulder and neck.

“I hate you sometimes.”

“Sometimes I deserve it,” Aro said.

Penny giggled from the side. If this was how they resolved their conflicts how did they end up fighting in the first place?

“Ugh. Get a room,” Ciel groaned from the floor. Aro snorted. She separated from from May and threw her head back laughing. It shamelessly echoed around the basement.

It was then she understood why May paused, so surprised. Aro wasn’t dressed in her boiler-suit, wasn’t covered in grease. Sweat, or Dust. Penny knew Aro own a successful weapon and Dust shop. But it was difficult to actually see her as a businesswomen.

Her high class suit rivaled Winter’s casual outfits. Penny’s eyes were particularly drawn to the pin on her tie and collar. Aro’s dull eyes were framed by glasses… May caught her staring and smirked. Penny flustered, a surge of Aura generating too much heat. While she couldn’t blush Penny felt it the hot air rise to her face and she huffed out cloud of steam.

Aro stomped on the floor, a bright glow of purple slowly levitating Ciel up. The student was floundering. Her legs kicked out wildly for footing only to be upside down. Penny wasn’t fond of the sensation either, so she quickly helped Ciel upright. Aro gently turned off the Dust. Ciel looked more disheveled by the gravity Dust than the sparing.

“Never. Again.” The officer-in-training said, as if the order would stick with the anarchist.

“No promises,” Aro sang. She looked at May with a guilty and open expression. “I was waiting for Xanthic’s okay to come back.” May’s quick temper flared again. A fierce scowl and a trembling fist instantly set Penny on alert. She took a deep breath. She’s spent more time with Ciel and May these past few days and trusted that peaceful experience rather than her sensitive protocols. It was a little slow, but May slowly relaxed and nodded at Aro to continue. “A mutual contact told me Xanthic disappeared.”

Penny frowned. That was… true? She pushed her processors trying to analysis the situation from a different perspective. It was difficult, trying to think of false information and incorrect functions. Chances were high only the Ace-Ops and Winter knew about Xanthic’s whereabouts. The hacker was taken by surprised, so she couldn’t call for help. Did she even have anyone that would help her?

May frowned and crossed her arms. Penny didn’t know if she was pleased or alerted, that indifferent mask was on her face again. She liked the smile better.

“Since when were you and Xanthic talking?”

Aro made sure to hold eye contact with May. Her dull eyes were sincere… and not glowing! Her semblance was off! Aro’s entire energy seemed a little muted but much more earnest, “Almost two weeks. Since she found out Ironwood is trying to puppet us.” May closed her eyes, fighting off another outburst. She took a deep breath. Penny added a reminder to ask Aro about her history with Xanthic. Judging from May’s expression it wasn’t good.

“I want to punch you in the face.”

Aro didn’t even flinch at that but Penny did. Was… this common? Is this how friends behaved? “I deserve it, but we need to find Xanthic first.” May visibly blanch and deflate.

“I know her current location,” Penny said. Her voice sounded too seldom but. She was oddly worried about a women that was far too aggressive. Somewhere deep in her programming told Penny it didn’t matter. “She’s under house arrest at the my father’s Facility. Are we helping her escape?” She asked quietly.

“Depends,” May said quickly and harshly, “Does she really need saving?”

“I think so,” Penny said. She hadn’t notice it at first because Xanthic was working but General Ironwood had placed her in near complete isolation. Alone, no socialization, no freedom… “Kidnapping. Isolation. Forced Labor. Forgery.” She listed, flinching at each word. She was sure General Ironwood had a good reason, but was also understanding Xanthic’s precautions. May and Aro didn’t seem surprised at the list but Ciel was deeply skeptical and glared harder at every word.

“Kidnapping. Don’t you mean arrested?” Ciel asked. “She was guilty of hacking Atlas’ system!”

“Then she would be in prison, not a military research facility.” Penny reasoned. They had to return Xanthic’s home to bring necessities Atlas provided in prisons. She still didn’t know if she enjoyed Xanthic’s company but it often lead to Winter assisting her. Seeing her almost made the fights between them worth it. “Ms. Xanthic is crass, aggressive, and enjoys challenging authority.” Ciel stared hard while May and Aro nodded. They both looked like they wanted to add more but refrained from doing so. “She was oddly compliant and docile with Winter today.”

Aro popped her lip, brows raised high. “Isolation… with Win?” She asked slowly. She looked at May with a pleading stare, “You know Xan doesn’t handle both of those things well.”

“If she doesn’t want to be lonely she should try being nice!” May said. Aro snapped her jaw shut. Her semblance must be active again because the usual bright blue glow returned, pupils flaring white. “I like you better with Focus off.”

“And I’d like your support.” Aro snipped back. “You don’t need to help but I’m not letting Ironwood get away with this.”

“Breaks people!” Ciel yelled. "We are not infiltrating a military facility."

Aro smirked arms crossed in a way that strained her suit across her large arms and shoulders. “Infiltrate? You do realize you’re talking to a businesswomen.” She gestured to her suit. This time Penny caught May admiring it, a bit reluctantly. The Huntress huffed, trying to act frustrated rather than flustered. Penny giggled at the bravado.

They took the elevator up to the roof where Aro had parked her airship. Two more Huntresses sat atop of it and one jumped down when they saw the group.

“Salutation!” Penny didn’t instantly recognize the voice so she wasn’t Atlesian Military. The distinctive Faunus ears and excellent record identified her as Fiona Thyme. She grinned running up to Penny and shoving May aside even though she had her arms open for a hug. Her partner Robyn Hill, laughed so hard she almost fell off the airship on her descent. Fiona grabbed Penny’s hand and shook it, “I’m Fiona, it’s a pleasure to finally met you!” She said. “Aro and May are constantly talking about you.”

Penny gave Aro a curious glance and she simply raised a brow. Her eyes flickered before she talked in a voice that was too smooth and perfect, “She’s lying.” The liar said. Penny and Fiona glanced at each other a knowing look and shared a giggle.

“It is a pleasure to meet you too!” Penny grinned, “I have to admit it’s nice not having to look up so much…” Ciel and Fiona was around her height. Aro was surprisingly short when she stood next to May and Winter. It was her horns brought them closer to height.

“Right?! These assholes should treat us to a good chiropractor.” Fiona covered her mouth as if she was whispering, but Penny was sure she purposely increased her volume.

“You brat!” May grumbled picking Fiona up and throwing tiny Huntress over her shoulder. Fiona only laughed and playfully tried to break free. Ciel looked hesitant but followed Penny into their future teammates’ transport. The inside looked like a luxury cruiser, two sofas pointed at an entertainment system with a hard-light table disappearing from the center. The rather happy group of huntresses already took a sofa catching up on this week’s events.

“Someone actually tried to mug us in Vacuo,” Robyn said. “Aro accidentally drew blood and then fainted on the spot!”

May rolled her eyes, “Dressed like that and in this airship? I’m surprised you didn’t get shot down.”

“With what artillery?” Fiona asked.

Ciel made her way to the front. She didn’t take a seat on the sofa but hovered at the cockpit door. Penny decided occupy the co-pilot seat next to her future-teammate.

“You two are idiots.” Ciel said with a sigh. “You’re actually going to talk him into releasing a dangerous criminal?”

“You sure you trust an idiot to fly an airship?” Aro said with a large grin up at her. Ciel frowned. She didn’t look nervous and didn’t look at the door. After a few seconds Aro finally lifted her personalized transport off the building.

“Aro has one of the best records for nonmilitary pilots!” Penny informed. That seemed to eased Ciel but she didn’t sit down.

The ride was short and easy, so Aro entertained herself by giving Ciel a brief overview of the console. It didn’t match any specs that Penny knew so she suspected she personally built it. As they finally reached the floating city Atlas Command tried directed Aro to dock at the Academy. The ships audio-to-text was instantanious and the hard-light words hovered above the dash. Aro weighed her options. But with one looked at Penny, she confidentely veered off course.

“Actually I think Dr. Pietro is holding something important for me.” Aro said. May loudly gagged, then grunting in pain as two loud smacks stopped her.

“M-Ms. Glade!” The military personal stuttered.

“Very confidential,” Aro said drawling out the words with a grin. “I was his protégée, I still help every now and again. You know how it goes.”

“General Ironwood-” Aro turned off the speech-to-text. Penny remembered where the volume was and turned that down for everyone else.

Before Ciel could scold her, they finally sored above the smog and factory smoke. For a second, Ciel looked amazed. Then it was replaced by scowl. Penny spent enough time with her to recognize that analytical look. Her eyes darting from bright tower to hard-light banners and even the robots that waited patiently for their owners. Penny flinched.

“Wow.” Ciel scoffed. “So much for hard-light Dust being rare. One percent of the excess funds here could help the hospitals and miners- Ugh.”

“Welcome to the Atlas sucks club!” May cheered from the back. Penny frowned. Was it really that bad? “Hard to see the bullshit they are pulling from below.”

Aro landed the ship on the roof and Penny’s Scroll granted the group access. Ciel tried to talk her way into staying on the ship but Aro and Penny convinced her not to. She would be alone, technically trespassing on Military property.

“It’s best if you stay with me,” Aro said. Her tone was a little different. Leveled and practiced in a way that reminded Penny of Winter. Then her sensors picked up on something, or rather the lack of noise. Penny glanced at the back to see the Huntresses looking uneasy. Aro only smiled and laughed, “I’m a pretty good distraction.”

“Hm. For the record I was kidnapped,” Ciel muttered.

“Records Xanthic is able and willing to alter,” Penny reminded.

When the elevator opened to the main floor, General Ironwood and a small entourage was awaiting for them. Specialist Winter stood, poised like a soldier but lacking any real conviction. She nearly broke rank when she saw Penny. Her eyes locked on to hers far too long and Penny could only smile back. She hoped it was comforting because it felt sad. Almost guilty. Vine Zeki and Marrow Armin stood behind her. Vine was the only real image of an Atlesian soldier, Marrow looked conflicted, tail almost between his legs.

These operatives were ideal for crowd control.

If a fight broke out, the battle would hinge on Marrow’s Stay and Ciel’s Clockwork, perhaps even Aro’s Dust abilities. He was a newest Ace-Ops member so statistics was still off, in theory he could Stay a group. But one of this size as well as three Huntresses would be a challenge. Penny would be able to fight off Winter’s summons- Penny shook her head. She should not be strategizing against the military.

“Welcome back, Ms. Glade.” General Ironwood greeted. His tone was as cold and welcoming as the steel they stood on.

Aro on the other hand kept her playful persona, “You didn’t even bring my favorites,” Aro said with a small pout. Once again her voice was too perfect, too smooth and at ease. Her eyes seemed to shine brighter, “Where’s Hare and Oak?”

“Standby with Clover,” Ironwood said. He stood aside and waved his arms. A silent permission for the group to enter and an order to follow. Robyn and her team scowled but followed Aro’s lead. Flanking her, as if they were guards.

Winter broke rank, strides placing her next to Penny. She didn’t speak, instead giving Penny a concerned look then a questioning glance at Ciel, who didn’t look very pleased. The possibility of a fight breaking out was… low. Ideally. The human variable was very unpreditable, and Aro seemed to be the largest unknown factor. Perhaps kidnapped wasn’t too extreme.

“Congrats Marrow!” Aro said, “I had a bet with Joanna and May about when you’d get accepted into the Ace-Ops. I won.”

“Thanks! I-” Marrow was cut off by a pointed look from Vine. “I’m not allowed to be polite apparently.” He said with a pout. His tail curled down and arms folded across his chest.

"I don’t quite understand it either. I feel like the silence is meant to rile us up." Aro said. Despite her smooth and easy going voice the soldiers seemed to flinch. General Ironwood increased his pace and no one stopped any further conversation.

Marrow excitedly told her about a search and destroy mission of a Geist that plagued a few SDC transports. It was particularly fond of taking over machinery. Aro talked about the crime rates in Vale, how Dust theft is increasing the demands for Dust. During her week long trip she made several contracts for the Abyssal Dust Company that would give her a small lead over the SDC.

“Sounds like Vale needs help,” Marrow frowned.

“They do,” Robyn agreed, “I still have a few connections from my cop days. We helped a few investigations and the scale of this thing could mean a huge gang war.”

“But Vale isn’t known for those types of conflicts,” May muttered.

“I still think they’re shipping it to Vacuo.” Fiona added.

“Their history of violence and such little resources would mean they’d need outside help.” Vine agreed.

Aro was right. The small talk did easy tensions a little. They were all Huntresses and Huntsmen after all, their duty was to protect the people, and they easily talked about Vale’s situation for the duration of the walk. But Ironwood only grew tense. His posture grew stiff, walking more like a march.

Then Penny notice Winter fell back, nudging May’s arm and giving a questioning look. May’s hands and fingers moved, face quickly changing from expression to expression. Penny realized she was signing when Winter did a gesture and May repeated the motions a little slower. Whatever information they traded set Winter on edge. She widen her strides and walked even closer to Penny.

She tried to trust Aro. Her future teammate was confident and unwavering but as she watched everyone’s behavior Penny was starting to realize something. She was helpless and useless. She couldn’t contribute anything to Xanthic’s freedom. She was created to help and protect, but this situation wasn’t a physical fight.

It was beyond her control…

They finally arrived at Ironwood’s office. Xanthic was seated there, surrounded by the other Ace-Ops members. The gravity Dust bindings were on, holding her wrist together. Physically, she was well. Mentally, Ashley Xanthic nearly catatonic. The way her eyes… Penny’s Aura clenched around her systems. There was nearly no power running through Xanthic’s circuits. It was dull almost-

“You look dead,” Ciel blurted out, surprise and a near overwhelming tone in her voice.

Immediately those cybernetic eyes flickered on. It was long enough for Xanthic to take in the rebellious group but it dimmed far too quickly for Penny’s comfort. She didn’t stand when Harriet tried prompting her too. “I’m here to haunt you. Boo.” Xanthic said. Again it didn’t hold any bite and Penny’s processors barely register it as Xan’s voice. She wasn’t happy that so many people came to support he. Just tired.

Ciel sneered, “A failure even in death, I see.” That finally got a reaction even if it was a lazy middle finger. The bit of normality helped Penny calm down.

“Clover,” Ironwood commanded.

“We’ll be close,” Clover said with a nod. He lead Harriet and Elm out of the room. Elm gave May a concerned look. Harriet and Fiona lightly glared at each other until Robyn stepped between them. She completely ignored the Spec-Ops and kept her eyes on Ironwood. Vine and Marrow stepped forward, protecting their General’s flanks. Penny was grateful Winter stood by her side. Even it was to protect her from Aro or Robyn’s team.

The General’s eyes landed on Ciel though he didn’t speak until the doors hissed shut. The officer-in-training tried not to fidget, but from her position Penny could see her tightly squeeze her hands hidden behind her back.

“I’m surprised Ms. Soleil is with you.”

“I found them bonding at the old Gym! Ciel’s credentials are some of the best in the Police Academy. Almost as good as Robyn’s,” Aro said with a smile that wasn’t perfect. It was a little smug and that made it completely vicious. Penny looked around the room, reading people’s reactions. Everyone stared hard at her, tense.

Penny flinched a little. Aro wasn’t a threat, she was a friend trying to help their future teammate. She wanted to say it but the tension in the room caused her processors to stutter and falter.

"I bet with training Ciel’s Clockwork would be more versatile that Stay." Marrow seemed to frown at that. “I also noticed Penny completely destroyed the highest score.” That another response from Xanthic. Her cybernetic eyes glowed softly. Aro signed at her and finally roused the hacker onto her feet. It seemed like she was trying to wake up.

“… She did now?” General Ironwood asked with a raised brow. His eyes finally lifted off Ciel and to Penny. She tried not to flinch under it. She really did but couldn’t find the courage.He was General Ironwood, he helped her father create her and- Aro’s arm wrapped around her shoulders, body angle between them like a shield.

“Without breaking a sweat, according to May. Which is… surprising,” Aro tapped her chin. She spared a glance at Penny then down to her hand. She had grasped Aro’s shirt out of reflex. Penny let go and took a step closer to Winter. She was relieved to feel a faint pressure push into her.

Aro pulled out her Scroll- a new model. It was gold and green, compact with only one handle. It didn’t open, with a press of the button it projected schematics… of Floating Array. Penny’s eyes widen. That was hidden off the network, the data was only in this facility.

An instances was immediately brought forward in Penny’s head. Caught red handed by General Ironwood himself.

Xanthic didn’t just hack Atlas’ Network but she physically snuck in here! That finally seemed to bring the hacker back to her senses. The smirked was a little soft, her features hard lacking the sharp edge but it was slowly coming back. Your system locked me out before I could get any real information, Xanthic once said.

Floating Array and Penny herself wasn’t on the record, according to Atlas documentation, they didn’t exist.

The mechanic took a deep breath. Slowly that façade faded with the bright blue of Aro’s eyes. A nearly chilling deep sea green eyes challenged Ironwood.

“I don’t remember giving the military access to my design or permission to turn it into a lethal weapon.” Aurora Glade, lied with her semblance off.

Penny felt a heavy weight in her chest. In order to keep the lie Ironwood carefully constructed around her, he couldn’t risk denying that claim. Aro effectively stolen Atlesian Military Weapon in front his most loyal subordinates.

When she spoke this time her voice was completely flat, mimic’s Ironwood’s tone when he gave out orders. “I’ve had some companies ask me if it was a personal weapon or commercial one…” She was threatening to publish the schematics.

“What do you want Glade.” The only crack in his composure was his tone of voice. It was so tense it was nearly dead.

Aro’s semblance immediately turned on, “Xanthic’s punishment adjusted to accommodate for her autophobia. Of course this wouldn’t affect our previous arrangement.” Except it does. If Ironwood doesn’t give Penny complete freedom to choose her final teammate, the schematics would be released to the public. While the only people capable of using it were in the room, it could easily be reverse enginered by other Kingdoms. And as Ciel one said, humans could be horrible to each other.

“Of course.” Ironwood said. He pulled out his Scroll transferring permissions to Winter. Immediately the cuffs turned off. “I’ll entrust Schnee to work out the accommodations with you.”

Aro grin was more of a show of teeth, combined with her golden horns and glowing eyes… For once Penny was skeptical of her first friend. Marrow tried to hide a small smile, his tail wagging so slightly as they left. No one talked as Winter escorted the rebellious group back to the roof. Penny didn’t quite understand the atmosphere. She thought she’d be more conflicted about this but she found herself scared for the others.

Wasn’t this a victory? Somehow her civilian teammates twisted Ironwood’s lies and manipulations against him. It felt… Penny fidgeted and she took a deep breath of the cold Solitas air to cool her down. Her processors finally placed the emotion, finally realized how bad the consequences could be. She was scared for her team. Her two civilian teammates just blackmailed the General into a corner in front of his subordinates. Not to mention Aro claimed to have created Floating Array.

The repercussions would be dire.

Whatever was hanging over them didn’t break until Xanthic stepped out onto the roof. She glared at everyone, “Whoo. Go team APCX…” It was said in such a bored and thick drawl it seemed to have shorted Focus. Aro’s eyes suddenly dulled and she snorted and laughed while Ciel manage to hide it a little with a cough. Satisfied with seeing some life back into everyone, Xanthic ran out arms stretched above her head, “Sun! Praise the sun! I want some Menagerie and Minstrel BBQ! A drink! Fucking pretzel dip!” Whatever tension that remained eased off as Xanthic vented out into the air.

Slowly they filtered out of the cramp elevator. Penny let everyone walk past her, watching the crowd and life the empty halls of the facility never had. Robyn and Fiona was chatting and giggling, mocking the Ace-Ops reactions. Winter and May seemed a little conflicted but their shoulders weren’t as pinched. The Specialist was rubbing her temples. All the noise of life could be overwhelming at times but… it was wondrous.

“That would be more effective if you relaxed your jaw,” Penny whispered to her. May sneered and coughed trying to hid it. Winter half glared at Penny but she saw those lips part ever so slightly.

“Was fucking pretzel dip sex or food?” Aro whispered to them. May growled shoving Aro forward and Winter only groaned. Thanks to the Schnee’s famously pale complexion, Penny did see a small blush across her cheeks.

They finally caught up to the others who was just watching Xanthic prowl around yelling.

“We should calm her down,” Robyn whispered to Ciel.

“I was kidnapped and treated as a bargaining chip. I’m not participating in anything.” Ciel objected. Despite the harsh words her attitude was a little light and entertained, like she was enjoying Xanthic’s frustration.

“You have no idea how crazy I was going locked up doing the same thing every-day!” Xanthic screamed into the air. Aro hummed, playing along as she opened the transport with her Scroll. “Fucking Ironwood. Argh! I want to rip that Bluetooth off his fucking face and watch his body go limp!” She stormed the transport. Team APCX followed their raging teammate. Penny frowned, finding her co-pilot seat stolen by the hacker. At least she stopped yelling and was glaring past the window. When those sharp cybernetic eyes flicked to Penny she yelped and jumped a little. “I want to beat Penny’s score.”

“Of course you do!” Fiona yelled from the back. The Huntresses had settled onto the sofa. Penny was a little surprised to see Winter seated in the middle, Fiona and May at either sides of her. Of course Robyn at Fiona’s side. “What does everyone feel like eating? I’m calling Joanna to pick us up some food and meeting us at the Gym.” Someone said sushi and the other wanted pizza. The Huntresses argued amongst themselves with Winter softly critisisng their choices.

Ciel made a displeased noise, “Please don’t tell me this is going to be a regular thing,” She said. The officer-in-training leaned against Xanthic’s seat, probably because Penny was beside Aro. “Blackmailing the General and everything.”

“Things usually go a lot smoother…I’m having a hard time figuring out where my plan failed,” Aro admitted with some embarrassment.

“Oh. So this is fucking routine. Lovely,” Ciel scowled. Then Penny remembered the little box. She slipped off her backpack and pushed aside several folded blades to get to it.

“Could it be because I didn’t delivery this?” She asked holding the mysterious box out. If she was the reason this happened…

Xanthic took it and wrote out her signature with her finger. Invisible seems split open to reveal a new Scroll similar to Aro’s new one and thick gloves with cybernetic attachments. Penny counted at least four hard-light projectors on the palm side.

“There was too much security to use the Scroll and I would have just assaulted the Ace-Ops if I had my gloves,” Xanthic explained, “So it’s probably a good thing you didn’t.”

“And even if I was here I doubt I’d be able to do much. I prefer subtle manipulations,” Aro said.

“Pretty sure they hate it.” Xanthic’s head nodded to the back. For a moment Penny caught Winter and May’s eyes. Penny finally realized why they were able to communicate without words. It was shared history and understanding. All three of them hated this side of Aro. The pair turned back to Fiona and Robyn. Xanthic noticed but continued talking with Aro in low volumes. “But no… I don’t think we can afford to be so reckless.”

“We showed our biggest trump card,” Aro said with a frustrated sigh. Her hands flexed around the joystick. Her voice dropped to a whisper, “My trip to Vale was to transfer ownership of ADC so Ironwood or Jacques doesn’t target that next. I’d still have connections and favors but resources will be short for a bit.”

“Wait… what are you two talking about?” Ciel asked with a worried edge to her voice.

Aro tilted her head, dull… no, normal sea-green eyes looking at her, “Court games, Squire.” She grinned weakly. Ciel groaned and rolled her eyes but accepted the answer. Penny had a vague understanding of the phrase. The subtle manipulations of people and appearances to influence the masses. “Things should be calm for awhile. And as much as I hate Ironwood, I’m a little excited to do this Vytal Festival thing.” Aro said, her voice picking up and sounding a little lighter, more like Penny’s first impression of the women.

How much of her was a lie through Focus?

The rest of the ride was filed with oddly peaceful chatter. Xanthic’s bite was more like nibble now and Ciel was always ready with a quip back. Or perhaps Penny was just growing acustome to those harsh tones. The closer they got to the Gym the more energy built up, thanks to little Thyme. In the elevator down to the basement the sheep and goat Faunus was posturing at each other.

“Oh come on! Xanthic is a legendary shot,” Fiona argued. Xanthic smirked, pride swelling obviously.

Aro scoffed and rolled her eyes, “And Floating Array and is 100% accurate! Besides Penny’s eyes are the newest model.”

“Bitch,” Xanthic scowled, "My shots are all skill."

“Five thousand lien that Penny will smoke your ass,” Aro crossed her arms. Ciel sputtered, eyes wide and head whipping back the businesswomen.

“Just 5? And upgrades.” Xanthic pointed to her eyes.

“Seven and a gadget IOU,” Aro agreed.

“We’re gonna be rich!” Fiona cheered running out of the elevator as soon as it opened. She was at the far end of the basement already setting up the shooting range. Joanna had two boxes and two booths shoved together in the back looking a little confused. As soon as she saw Xanthic, a grin broke out on her face.

“Wow! Just like our academy days!”

“Don’t remind me,” May and Winter groaned.

Penny wanted to watch them interact a little more but her teammates Ciel and Aro dragged her off. Specifically Aro with her odd fluctuating gravity presence. Ciel took a deep breath and put her hands on Penny’s shoulders. “Don’t lose. This is two months of pay.”

“Uh…” Penny smiled a little nervously. Two months sounded like a lot of time and effort but she did not fully comprehend the value of lien. Or human effort. But she was combat ready! Her systems was made for fighting, “It is nearly impossible for me to lose!”

“I don’t know…” Aro muttered rubbing her chin. Focus was still off so the chances of the mechanic lying was nearly a 0.2 percent. “Xanthic is a really good shot. I’m sure it’s because of the upgrades because her a semblance was tied to her original eyes.”

Penny only smiled, trying to reassure her teammates. "Floating Array can split into fourteen individual components."

“Xanthic only has two hands,” Ciel reasoned with a shrug. Aro was starting to look a little worried.

“Will our shooters please take their places!” Robyn yelled.

Aro ruffled Penny’s hair, a familiar gesture that tickled Penny’s ears and had her giggling a little. The seating arrangements were divided amongst Team Xanthic and Team Penny. Winter, May, Aro and Ciel sat on Penny’s side. She smiled brightly at them and May gave a loud cheer. Joanna and Fiona stood at Xanthic’s side, loudy hollering and ignoring the other patrons. Robyn dropped her lien onto the table, next to the boxes and boxes of food and walked to the middle to referee.

“Alright ladies the rules are simple. Highest points at the end of ten minutes is victorious!” She yelled with a flare that was nearly making Penny Aura overload her power unit. Penny bounced with excitement to burn it off a little. “The current pot is half a 32 thousand lien,” Robyn said. Penny frowned and looked at Winter and May. May was grinning and cheering while Winter just shrugged her shoulders. They came from rich families but throwing so much into a game seemed excessive. “The winning team can decide how its split.”

“What?!” Neon and Reese yelled from the back. They quickly dashed over on their skates and threw more lien on the table. “You got this cutie!” Neon cheered jumping.

Robyn covered her mouth trying to hid a grin. Penny giggled as Reese jumped up and down on her hoverboard. “Team Penny! Go! Go!”

Penny unfurled Floating Array from her back. All fourteen blades pointed down range. Xanthic smirked and dusted off her palms. Hard-light projectors sparked at every contact. The cybernetics glowed brighter and brighter. Was it charging or was it for show?

“Do Robyn’s crossbow!” Fiona yelled.

Xanthic sneered and flourished both wrist. The hard-light projectors on her gloves crafted a near exact replica of the arm mounted weapon. Robyn let out an appreciative whistle. Her confident eyes slide over to Penny.

The metal women was starting to worry as even Robyn smirked at her, “Care for a test shot, Blue?” Robyn asked.

Xanthic aimed down range then looked at Penny. She winked as the crossbow fired. The on the spot changes were three rails on the crossbow. Three hard-light arrows split off into different directions, three targets. Like how Aro dodged the Spider Droid without looking, Xanthic’s blind fire were all within the lethal zone. Penny frowned, humming in thought. Aro’s assessment about Xanthic’s eyes must be off. Or maybe Xanthic was using more of her neural augments? The most plausible explanation was both semblance and cybernetic enhancements.

This challenge was definitely harder than anticipated.

“Participants ready!?” Robyn asked.

Penny felt her Aura swell and systems hummed. She took a deep breath, taking in as much cold air before blowing out a slightly visible steam.

“Combat ready!” Penny confirmed.

“Player two ready,” Xanthic smirked.

“You got this Penn!” Aro and May yelled.

“Xan! Xan! Xan!” Joanna and Fiona cheered.

Robyn let the tension built up a little more before yelling, “Begin!”

As soon as Penny started firing she realized her firing rate was not high enough. Floating Array needed time to charge while Xanthic shot once and hit three different targets. She took a deep breath and focused on control. She didn’t need a lot of power, didn’t need to charge up the shots so long. It only need to be detected by the scoring system.

Penny started to stagger her shots as well. One barrel always firing with the others were charging up. The steady stream of fire quickly caught up with the burst Xanthic did. A downside to the gloves was reloading ability. Xanthic had to recreate the entire weapon. Which was why she was only firing with one arm, Penny realized.

When the first crossbow finally ran out of hard-light arrows, it disappeared. With a flick of her wrist military grade, long barreled pistol was in her hand. Penny could see her cybernetic eyes telescoping and shifting from target to target. Underneath the loud cheering she could hear Xanthic’s augments hum loudly.

It was a genuine challenge for both shooters but at the end of 10 minutes…

Xanthic’s rate of fire outpaced Penny by ten points. Team Penny groaned and collapsed to the floor, the students particularly defeated. The idiots that threw in such large amounts of money didn’t seem to upset. Aro was nervously laughing as Ciel chewed her out.

Team Xanthic was jumping around, particularly Fiona. Xanthic rolled her eyes and fist bumped Robyn and Joanna. Then she turned to Penny and held it out a first, “Good shooting, Swords.” Xanthic said.

With a smile.

Penny grinned, fist slamming into Xanthic’s. The women let out a pained, flinching as metal connected Aura-less bone and flesh. “Oh! I’m sorry!”

“I-I’m fine,” Xanthic mumbled despite the tears in her eyes. It took a few tries with a throbbing, possible broken hand but the alias Silver Wat was once again top on the scoreboard with Penny’s name under it.

Error: Enemy Unknown

#Penny Polendina #fic #cutting strings #pre-fall of beacon #Aurora Glade #ashley xanthic #ciel soleil #APCX #qued

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vendeavendea · 4 years

Text

I wish Peridot fused and here’s why

I don’t normally write such long and detailed stuff here, but I feel like this is an important thing to note.

So, I came across Maya Petersen’s tweet the other day about Peridot.

First of all, I am aromantic and asexual myself, and even though I’d been headcanoning it for a long time, I’d like to express how happy it made me that Peridot was officially confirmed to be aro ace representation by one of the creators. Also, I’m so excited to know that someone who has worked on the show shares my sexual and romantic orientation. It’s really inspiring to see how many amazing fellow aro ace artists are there.

However, I feel like Peridot not being about fusion at all may feed some harmful misconceptions about aromantic and asexual people, and as an aro ace who’s been invalidated many times because of those misconceptions, I feel like it’s important to talk about this and make it clear. This is not just me venting about not liking the creators’ decision of Peridot not fusing. This is mostly based on my personal experiences as an aro ace person.

While many fans tend to interpret fusion as a gem equivalent for sex and/or romance, mostly based on Garnet’s character, the crew has always been quite specific about fusion generally being meant to symbolise different kinds of relationships, and we can see several examples for this throughout the show. Garnet obviously does represent romantic relationships, but that’s only one of the many kinds of bonds two people can have. Smoky, for example, represents the sibling-like bond between Steven and Amethyst, Steg represents father-son relationships, Malachite represents any kind of abusive relationship, whether it being romantic/sexual or not, Obsidian represents family, and so on.

The problem with Peridot, an aro ace representation, completely rejecting fusion is that it can easily make people believe that aro ace people are unable or unwilling to be attached to anyone or have normal social life and any kind of close relationship. This misconception has been existing since way before Steven Universe, and I’m sure all aro aces have been told this by at least one person. I see that Peridot herself is a very social and caring person and she has many friends, and I also appreciate the fact that she was genuinely willing to try fusing and didn’t just say no without even trying.

But the strong symbolism of fusion and her rejecting it still implies that she wouldn’t be able or willing to form close intimate bonds. So instead of her not fusing at all, it would have been very nice to see Peridot fuse with someone and create a representation for queerplatonic relationships. I understand that not all aro ace people want a queerplatonic partner, but this type of relationship is very underrepresented in media, and ever since I started to suspect that Peridot might be aro ace, I've been hoping for a fusion that represents the kind of bond that I personally wish to have with someone someday.

I can also understand, however, that if Peridot had ever fused, the majority of fans would have interpreted that as romantic attachment. Which, actually, is exactly the case with queerplatonic relationships in real life. Many people just refuse to see them as anything other than a "normal" romantic relationship, because we live in a society that's all about romance and sex. And sadly I don’t think amatonormativity is something a cartoon could change.

Overall, I understand the creator’s decision, and I see that bringing an asexual and aromantic character into a story is a very complicated thing because of the way the fandom would react to it. In spite of all, I’m still grateful that the creators gave us visibility, and I hope that people will see Peridot the way she’s meant to be seen.

#steven universe #peridot #asexual #aromantic #aro ace

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marinsawakening · 4 years

Text

And A Monster Steals Your Children

Submission for @arowrimo! Turned out to be a lot more autism-centric than aro-centric, but I still think it counts.

Category: short story

Wordcount: 2170

Genre: Fantasy

Prompt: none/belonging (loosely)

Summary: It is said that, in a tower rising above the valley, a monster lives, and that it steals children’s souls. Netel, one of those stolen children, goes to kill it.

Warnings: heavy ableism (including internalized ableism), off-screen child murder, ableist language, mild amatonormativity.

///

There lives a monster in the tower. This was a fact well known to the people of the valley. Surrounded by a forest of thorns, its brick and mortar rose above them all, casting their homes in shadow. It had been there before their villages were built, and they knew it would stand long after their houses had rotten away. Even so, no-one had ever approached it; the people knew better than to approach the home of a beast.

There lives a monster in the tower, and it steals your children. It doesn’t snatch them from their cribs, attack them and drag them to its lair; that could be guarded against, could be fought. No, this monster steals your children’s souls. It sucks the life from them, steals their smiles, eats their words. It devours love wholesale, consumes their humanity in the hopes it might retain it. The children it touches are hollow, screaming at shadows, unfeeling in the face of pain and sadness, filled with meaningless tics and gestures to produce a farce of life.

If a child is taken, there is no hope for them. If one is merciful, they kill the body it left behind. But sometimes, the family can’t let go of the shadow, the shell that remains, and so it stays in the village, a walking corpse among their midst.

Netel was once such corpse.

Se was stolen young, too young for sym to remember being whole. Syr hands cannot hold still, always tapping or twisting or waving wildly, no matter what syr parents did. Periodically, se would loose all sense, crying and screaming in a facade of distress with no rhyme or reason. Se could hardly speak, needing to script syr conversations before they actually occurred, or else se would forget syr lines, revealing the truth of the interaction as nothing more than a play at life. When others felt sad or hopeless, when syr mother was crying or syr father panicking over their failed harvest, se felt nothing. Se never felt anything; no joy, no sadness, nothing at all, and syr face reflected that, still and emotionless as the dead.

Despite this, se lived. Villagers parted for sym, whispered as if se couldn’t hear, talked to syr parents as if se wasn’t there - which, to be fair, se might as well not have have been. But still, se went to the market, even if se had a fit right after. Se walked by another house where a mother cried while a father sharpened his knife, their child nowhere to be seen, and se walked past, breathing in a way their baby soon would not. Se walked by the forest, its branches looming, and se walked past, ignoring the graves between its roots.

Once a week, se went to a healer. Syr parents still held hope se might be cured, you see, and even though Netel doubted them sometimes, the healer actually agreed. See, she had explained to syr parents, Netel had made a friend.

The friend in question was the healer’s son, a boy so kind he could almost jolt Netel’s heart from its eternal slumber. They’d played together as children, and now they talked, the healer’s son not minding that Netel could barely speak. With him, Netel almost felt alive. With him, Netel almost believed the healer, that se might be cured some day.

And then, the healer’s son proposed.

He was on his knees, saying he didn’t care se might never be healed, that he loved sym all the same. He was smiling up at sym, giving sym a chance for love other corpses would never even dream of, and se felt nothing.

Later, back home, after having weathered syr former friend’s curses, se looked up at the ceiling. Netel didn’t love. That was abundantly clear, now that se had refused syr only chance to gain it. Se couldn’t love, and that had been syr last hope. Now, se could only wait for the healer to pronounce sym officially dead. Even if se was still breathing, even if se lay in a bed instead of the ground, no one without love could possibly be alive. And there were no feelings to be found in the empty cavern of syr heart.

Well, no feeling but one.

It burned syr chest, a bonfire setting sym aflame. It had smoldered there for as long as se could remember, flames rising every time syr parents cried, every time se saw a new forest grave, every time se saw the tower.

And now, syr last tether to the village had been destroyed. All se had left was this burning hatred for the monster that had stolen syr soul.

When the healer came to syr parents’ house to deliver the sad news, se was already gone.

It was time for someone to kill the monster.

///

In town, there had always been a cacophony of noise; chickens and children screeching, horses and people neighing, bells being rung and carts being pulled over unstable stone roads.

In the forest, there was quiet. Aside from the few birds singing their song (too cheerful for creatures living in the kingdom of a beast), the only noise were leaves cracking under syr heels, the wind rushing through the trees. The smell was different, too; earth, still damp from the rain, smelt fresh and vibrant in a way the village never had. For those first few hours of walking, Netel felt strangely at peace, calm in a way se never had among people.

Then, se realized se couldn’t see the tower.

Even with autumn closing in, the canopy was still thick enough light barely broke through it, and when even the sun couldn’t be seen, there was no hope for the tower. It had never even occurred to Netel that se might have trouble finding syr way. After all, that tower had always been there, and always would. It was preposterous to think that se might not be able to see it.

And yet, se could not.

The rush of the wind was suddenly incredibly loud, syr clothes rough against syr skin in a way they hadn’t been before. Se rolled up syr sleeves, but it wasn’t enough, the phantom feeling of cotton still lingering, and so se scratched. Distantly, se recognized that this was bad, but the hurt was the only thing that felt real anymore, and so se scratched and scratched and then se was screaming, syr was burning and still se screamed and screamed and screamed -

Slowly, slowly, se came back to syrself. Se was still here, still in the forest, syr pants damp from kneeling on the ground, the birds still chirping. Syr arms and throat burned, and, distantly, se realized se had a fit. Because se couldn’t see the tower.

Brilliant.

It was easier to find syr calm here, though. In the village, people kept pulling at sym, talking to sym, and se could not tell them that se needed them to stop. There were no judgmental gazes or loud voices or rough hands here; there was just the wet leaves and quiet birdsong, and it was easier.

Se ate a little. Not much, se needed to ration for syr journey after all, but enough that se felt like se could stop shaking. It was late; the sun was setting. Perhaps se could sleep tonight, and try to find a way to the tower tomorrow. Just to rest a little bit.

There was no-one to stop sym, and so se rested.

The next morning, se went looking for water. After a while, se heard the rush of water, and se found a stream, its water running fast, splashing up against the rocks. Se drank to syr heart’s content, and looked up.

The tower.

Along the shore of the stream, the trees had cleared away, leaving the tower clearly visible against the blue morning sky.

Se laughed.

It would be alright.

For a week, se followed the river, accompanied by the fish swimming in the stream, the water rushing against the rocks, the smell of morning dew. No matter how close se came to the tower, the forest remained peaceful, bright in the clearing of the river, the birds as happy and calm as ever. It was hard not to be taken in by it, and more than once, Netel felt syrself relax against syr better knowledge. But se must not rest, must not falter; se had a monster to kill.

And finally, finally, se reached the tower.

It rose higher than se ever imagined, old and weathered, the ivy climbing up against it almost making it seem like a part of the woods. Windows set along the walls, but Netel could not see anyone - or rather, anything - inside; just darkness. There was no evil aura coming from the building, or any at all, in fact; it seemed like just another house, if an overly tall one.

And, to Netel’s surprise, it had a door. Wooden, normal, on ground level, easily pushed open.

Carefully, knife raised, se stepped inside.

Se hadn’t quite known what to expect. Maybe an infinite number of red eyes, staring at sym from the darkness; the sound of claws scraping over stone; animal corpses strewn across the stairs, dripping blood onto the floor, the smell of rot inescapable.

Instead, se found dust. Dust covering the hallways, so deep that se left footprints in it like se did in snow. It got in syr nose as se breathed the air, which smelt not of decay, but of stale parchment, with perhaps a whiff of mold. Syr footsteps echoed through the tower; otherwise, it was dead silent.

Se followed the stairs up, and found rooms. Normal, human rooms, covered in spider webs and yet more dust. The furniture was old and often molding, the books nearly falling apart, but they spoke of people who had lived here, once upon a time. Scholars, perhaps, if the sheer amount of dried-up ink was anything to go by.

But nowhere was a beast. There was nothing waiting in the shadows, nothing hiding in the silence, no monster living in the tower.

At long last, se reached the final room. From the top of the tower, se could see the valley, its forest and its villages, the mountains that cut them off from the outside world, the stream that had guided sym here. The breeze was cool, the sun low in the sky, its last rays hitting the window se was standing in.

A bird landed next to sym. It looked up at sym, cocking its head, hopped a little closer to syr hand, then flew away. Se watched it until se could no longer, and then, se fell to syr knees.

There was no monster living in the tower. It was old, abandoned by time and people, but there was no monster stealing children.

Anger burned in syr chest, brighter, more destructive than ever before. There was no monster. All those graves had been for children, innocent and alive, not shells or living dead. And se had walked past them, nearly every day; se had ignored the knives being sharpened, ignored the children doomed to die behind their house’s walls.

Se was one of the lucky ones, and se had been dragged to a healer every week of syr life, to be prodded and examined like an animal, talked about as if se was lifeless, stolen, despised by everyone around sym. And why? Why had they murdered, abused their children?

There was no monster living in the tower. There were graves outside the villages, knives being sharpened, people convinced that they were living dead. But there was no monster in the tower.

A ray of sunlight hit syr face.

Perhaps there should be.

///

There lives a monster in the tower. This was a fact well known to the people of the valley. It steals your children on the darkest of nights, climbing into homes and taking them from their beds. Once upon a time, it had been content to take their souls, but now, it took their bodies too. The people let it; they remembered the husks it used to leave behind, and considered that perhaps, this was a monster’s version of kindness.

Nobody dared enter the woods, the domain of the monster; this had not changed. If they had, if they had walked far enough and found a little stream, they might’ve seen clothes drying from the trees, heard the sound of children laughing, saw a vegetable garden in a clearing.

The tower was no longer empty. It was filled with people, children young, once doomed for death, and a few adults as well, who had been called the living dead. The rooms were cleared of dust and spider webs, the ink replaced, the books rebound. The sunlight seemed brighter than ever before, and in the morning, the birds arrived, knowing they could expect freshly cooked bread.

There lived a monster in the tower, and se had a family.

#arowrimo writing #aro stuff #my writing #auti stuff #actuallyautistic #my posts #still not satisfied with the forest section but eh it's fine-ish so whatever #writing wise

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ellanainthetardis · 6 years

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Day 3: A Christmas Carol

This is the day for Christmas stories retelling and so I go classic with a classic ;) This got away from me and became nobel length. Usually, it’s the kind of story I would have published a chapter a day for a week but since it’s hayffismas, I go crazy and give you everything at once! Please do let me know what you think because I bled on this haha!

[FF] or [AO3]

A Christmas Carol

1. Humbug

Haymitch glared at the group of carol singers in the street, hauling the strap of his messenger bag higher on his shoulder. Fortunately, none of them even so much as tried to ask him for a coin. Only one was bold enough to wish him a merry Christmas, prompting him to glare harder and to mutter under his breath that the whole thing was little more than a sham and that they should be ashamed of themselves for behaving like privileged Capitols.

He was relieved to leave the unusually crowded streets of town behind to attack the slippery slope that led to the Village. There were still blinking lights ahead – Peeta had insisted on putting some on the Village’s gates as if it could actually make the place more cheerful – but it was nowhere near as bad as the main part of the District. The kids’ house was visible from afar, all twinkling lights and colorful – not Katniss’ doing by far but the girl seemed happy to go along with her boyfriend’s newfound passion for the winter holidays.

The Village hadn’t been spared. Garlands had been nailed to a few doors, red and green ribbons were everywhere and if he saw another branch of mistletoe…

Haymitch had always been very good at facing dangerous things head on.

There was no ignoring the facts: Christmas had invaded Twelve and it was almost as annoying as the thick snowflakes that had been steadily pouring all week.

Christmas had never been a big thing in the Districts, not like it was in the city with their bright lights, their huge colorful trees and their avalanche of gifts. In the Districts, before the war, you were lucky to have food on the table, never mind gifts or trees or anything as scandalously extravagant as fairy lights. Maybe you would go the extra-mile and try to have something special, mostly for the children, but it was all a very simple affair. Something he hadn’t cared to celebrate in a very, very long time.

Last year, Christmas had fallen not long after the surrender and Panem had still been in flames. He remembered Effie vaguely remarking that it had come and gone unnoticed while they were working on Katniss’ defense for her upcoming trial. He remembered the yearning in her eyes and the way she had snatched her hand back when he had tried to reach out…

He trudged down the path that led to the back of the Village where most of the houses were still empty and blissfully devoid of decorations. He tried to pretend the flashing colors irritated him first and foremost because it reminded him of his arena but the truth was, what it really made him think about was his escort’s face laughing next to a Christmas tree, her face bathed in the changing lights of red and green fairy lights.

He hated Christmas.

He hated it with passion.

Even the snowmen that randomly appeared here and there, sometimes oddly shaped, sometimes oddly dressed, annoyed him.

Finally, he spotted his house in the distance, sensibly desolate and dark against the surrounding coat of snow. He hadn’t bothered clearing the path that led to the front door, happy to let the knee-deep snow discourage carol singers from knocking on his door – because they did knock on doors, asking money for charities in exchange for a song or two and while he wasn’t against giving some money, he was against being assaulted by Christmas carols – so he walked around the house, following the narrow alley the kids had dug for themselves. He checked on the geese on the way, made sure the pen he had built for them was withholding the weather, and didn’t know why he felt so disappointed that the birds were all tucked away and barely greeted him with lazy honks.

Maybe Katniss was right. Maybe he needed a pet that would actually be happy to see him.

But a dog or a cat would be dependent and he didn’t want anyone depending on him. He was never better than when he was alone after all.

With the cold, the backdoor was acting up and he was forced to give it two hard shoves before it finally surrendered and opened. The wind was picking up and he was happy to get inside, immediately grumbling when he realized it was barely less freezing. The fire must have died down.

He tossed the messenger bag on the table in a clicking chorus of glass bottles knocking together and tore the woolen beanie off his head. He peeled the numerous layers off his skin, the coat was discarded on the bag of a chair, the gloves thrown on the kitchen counter and the scarf with its holes in it ended up hanging from the dresser’s drawer.

He was walking toward the living-room to tend to the fire when he caught something at the corner of his eyes heading for the door on the left. He immediately whirled around, his hand falling on the handle of his knife.

“Who’s there?” he asked loudly.

The… thing had been human-shaped. Maybe the kids had a point about him needing to lock the doors. The study’s door was ajar, which was odd because he hardly ever went in there, and he slowly pushed it completely open, certain that he would find the intruder trapped in there.

It could be a child. Since the Christmas season had begun, they seemed to have made it a game to see who would be brave enough to cross his path. He remembered being ten and doing stupid daring stunts to impress his friends. Sneaking in the old drunk’s house would have been right up his alley.

The room was empty.

He remained very still for a few seconds, trying to listen to heavy breathing or the small noises that would betray the hiding place of whoever it was, but aside for the wind hurling handfuls of snow against the window, there was nothing.

At long last he stepped inside, his fingers tightening on the handle of his knife. The dust made him sneeze twice when he disturbed it but ultimately it was what made him relax. There were no other tracks but his on the floor. Nobody had come in there in a very long time, probably since Hazelle had been working for him even.

He could have sworn he had caught a glimpse of blonde hair but it must have been a trick of the eyes. Or wishful thinking.

He didn’t let himself go there. There were fantasies that weren’t worth indulging on. They were too painful on waking up.

He walked around the room for a minute, moving a chair, passing his hand over the surface of the desk and then swiping it on the leg of his pants… He fished the key in the ugly vase on the small table in the corner and, after a moment of hesitation, he unlocked the desk’s drawer and took out the small metal box. It had become a little rusty.

He brushed his fingers against the lid, not sure he wanted to go there either. Not tonight of all nights because it was Christmas Eve and he hated Christmas and he didn’t need to feel any more miserable than he already did.

And yet…

He checked that the window was properly closed just in case and then retreated to the living-room, placing the box on the mantelpiece to be forgotten if he really wanted to. He was a bit low on wood and he made a mental note to go fetch more from the shed the next day if the blizzard didn’t stop. He didn’t fancy getting snowed in without proper combustible. Although there were a few pieces of furniture he wouldn’t have minded using as firewood.

There was a creaking upstairs, the kind of creaking that meant someone was stepping on that loose floorboard at the top of the stairs, and he froze once more, a frown on his face. Taking out his knife again, he meticulously toured every room in the house, downstairs and upstairs, attentive to the smallest noise…

He didn’t find any sign of an intruder.

And yet at some point, he could have sworn he had seen a flash of blond hair again. A very real shiver ran down his spine.

He must have drunk more than he had thought, he figured. That must have been it. His treacherous mind tended to conjure her when he was drunk. Sometimes the yearning was so strong he was tempted to call her, he actually stopped himself with his fingers clutching the phone receiver, the first three numbers already dialed.

She doesn’t want anything to do with you, a little voice reminded him at the back of his head, she’s living the dream in the city, she’s with someone, she’s happy… She’s better off without you.

At least that was what the kids had reported Effie had told them. And that was more or less what she had screamed at his head the last time he had seen her, in those difficult weeks following victory, when they had been trying to find some balance back to their relationship between his guilt for failing her and her resentment for having been left behind. The announcement that he would be leaving for Twelve with Katniss had been the last straw, the proverbial nail in the coffin of their complicated affair.

She had gotten so angry, that day…

He had asked her to go with them and it had come out very wrong, like a Hail Mary rather than a genuine offer, like he was asking just because she was furious and not because he really couldn’t bear the thought of that much distance between them. He had been in peace with the idea of… moving forward with her at that point, to evolve from the two of them being a dirty secret to something more official – maybe not wedding bells official but living together… he would have been able to handle that. He had wanted that.

But as usual when it came to expressing feelings, he had put his foot in his mouth and had said the wrong thing or maybe it had been the right thing but he had said it wrongly and now there they were: he was back to being trapped in his loneliness and she was back to her usual antics in the city.

And when he was drunk, he tended to conjure her, to imagine she was around just to feel a little less lonely, to…

He shook his head, called himself an idiot and swore he would get a grip. There was no one in the house but him, it was the wind and the snowstorm acting up, nothing more.

He was back downstairs for only a few minutes when someone did enter the house uninvited but he would have known Peeta’s footsteps everywhere so he didn’t bother startling. The boy didn’t look impressed at what he found.

Haymitch had been avoiding the kids since the holiday season had started and the Christmas bug had bitten them. It had been a couple of days since he had seen them and, clearly, Peeta didn’t approve of the extra mess in his living-room.

“It wouldn’t kill you to clean a little.” the boy sighed.

Haymitch rolled his eyes and tugged on the hem of his woolen sweater, trying not to mind that the kid was right. He had lived in a dumpster practically since he had won his Games but when Hazelle had started working for him… Well, he had gotten used to a clean environment and he had worked a minimum to keep it that way. But when he had come back to Twelve… It hadn’t seemed worth it. Nothing had seemed worth it.

And Sae’s numerous hints that there were plenty of people in town looking for work and who would be happy to do the housework given how well he paid never convinced him to go the extra miles and actually hire someone else.

He couldn’t bother.

Sure, there was dust everywhere. Sure, the dishes were piling in the sink. Sure, there was rotten food in the fridge and the cupboards were otherwise empty of anything that wasn’t liquor. Sure, there were dirty plates, forks, mugs and glasses all around the living-room. Sure, you couldn’t go three steps without tripping on an empty bottle or clothes in his bedroom. Sure, he had been overdue for laundry day for a while. Sure, his clothes were old and shabby and it wouldn’t have hurt him to buy some new stuff.

Sure, sitting there on his stained couch with a sweater full of holes and a glass of moonshine in his hand, he felt like a loser.

Well… Everyone couldn’t be like the boy, all preppy and cheerful in a ridiculous Christmas sweater with reindeers on it.

“What do you want?” he mumbled, not in the mood to socialize.

“I want you to come over for dinner.” Peeta said. “It’s Christmas Eve… You shouldn’t be alone and…”

“Don’t fucking care about Christmas.” he scoffed for what must have been the hundredth time.

The worst time, by far, had been the one when the kids had tried to force a Christmas tree in his living-room and he had almost had a stroke about it. Truth be told, he thought Katniss had gone along with that plan just to see him turn a nice shade of purple. No way the girl was as invested as the boy was.

“Don’t think of it as a Christmas dinner then.” the boy shrugged. “Just dinner with us. It’s been at least a week since we all ate together. We miss you.”

He felt a twitch of guilt at that. He had been neglecting the kids.

But the thought of gorging himself on food – as delicious as it would be – in what now looked like Santa’s kitchen…

“Not tonight, boy.” he refused, not unkindly.

Peeta’s face fell. “Katniss stuffed a turkey, you know. It smells really good.”

“You mean to say my house smells bad, kid?” he snorted, waving a dismissive hand. “I’m just gonna go to bed and wait for this nonsense to be over, yeah? No offense but Christmas’s really not my scene.”

Peeta’s gaze pointedly darted to the glass in his hand and the open bottle propped against the cushion of the couch. The boy didn’t say anything but he didn’t need to. They both knew there wouldn’t be any going to bed early that night, just a lot of drinking. There was a reason he had risked the Christmas cheer to hit the liquor store earlier after all.

“If you change your mind…” Peeta eventually offered.

“Yeah, I know.” he nodded. “Maybe tomorrow.” He might feel like making an effort the next day. But then there might be presents and… He made a face. “Or the day after that, yeah?”

Peeta sighed once more, wished him a quiet merry Christmas and left the way he had come. He wasn’t exactly surprised to hear the back door opening and closing about fifteen minutes after that or to smell the appetizing aroma of stuffed turkey.

That was Katniss.

There and gone without attempting to force him out of his comfort zone, more understanding of his issues than the boy.

He tried to resist but eventually he caved and fetched the plate. He ate with his fingers because he couldn’t locate a clean fork and tried not to imagine Effie’s shrill voice commenting on his table manners. The last part was harder and it spoiled his appetite. He put the plate on the coffee table, wondering how long it took to heal from a break-up that wasn’t really a break-up because they had never been committed in the first place. It had been a year now. A whole year. And he still stiffened when he caught a sniff of lavender because that was how her bed sheets always smelt like.

He had actually stopped to smell a girly fruity shampoo at the store the other day, just because it looked like the one she used to keep in the shower and…

Pathetic.

His eyes found the metal box on the mantelpiece. He retrieved it under the cover of poking the fire, trying not to mind his cracking joints. It had been ages since he had opened that particular Pandora box and he felt his throat close as soon as he glimpsed the first items he kept in there.

He fingered the tattered pink ribbon that had been his token once upon a time. He had worn it wrapped and knotted tight around his wrist like a badge of honor and he had kept it in his pocket for even longer afterwards. His girl’s ribbon. The only ribbon Mabel had owned, really. The Seam wasn’t known for its hair decorations.

There were pictures too. The only one he had of his family, yellowed by time and faded from the blaze of the fire that had swallowed his home. He wasn’t sure how it had survive, he was just thankful it had. The faces were grainy now, the features too blurry to make out perfectly and his memory wasn’t precise enough to compensate. Still, he brushed his thumb over his little brother’s face and tried to remember…

When he put that aside, it was to find magazine clippings or pictures, old enough that he barely recognized himself on them. He had been young then. Never carefree but young and handsome and ready to take over the Capitol with his friends. Mags still had black hair on those. Chaff’s shortened arm was around his neck as he lifted his glass in a toast to something long forgotten… Finnick’s little shit grin as he forced two equally grumpy Chaff and Haymitch to pose with them… And finally Effie. Effie snapping pictures of them, laughing as he obviously struggled to grab the camera. Effie naked and in bed, smiling back at him without a care in the world for the pictures he was taking. Effie offering herself to his gaze like…

He snapped the lid of the box shut and downed the rest of his glass.

It had been another time then.

She had been unmarked by the war still, by his failures.

He discarded the glass and grabbed the neck of the bottle.

It wasn’t a night to pace himself.

The phone rang at some point. Two or three times. But by that time, he was too far gone in moonshine to care. He wouldn’t have answered even if he hadn’t.

“Merry fucking Christmas to me.” he snorted.

2. The Messenger

Haymitch woke up with a start, not quite sure what had alarmed him but suddenly alert, heart racing and adrenaline flooding. At first he had troubles understanding what was going on. It was dark in the living-room but the lights should have been on – he never slept without at least one lamp on at night – and it was freezing. So freezing he could see his breath coming out in puffs in front of his face.

He stood up from the couch, studying the dead ashes in the fireplace with a frown. The fire he had built should have lasted the night or, at the very least, stretched until the very first hours of morning. It was dead now. Dead and cold. Not even smoking. Not one ember poking underneath. Odd. Really, odd.

Floorboards creaked upstairs but he refused to be tricked by his treacherous mind again. It was just the house acting up, nothing more.

It looked like the storm had really picked up outside. It was too dark for him to see but he could hear the wind roaring in the chimney, blasting snow against the windows… Maybe the electricity had given in. It didn’t explain the fire but it explained the lights.

Except when he hauled himself off the couch, he heard the distinctive humming of the fridge in the distance. His frown deepening, he walked to the switch and flicked it. Lights flooded the living-room.

Weird.

A door audibly slammed shut down the corridor and, this time, Haymitch didn’t let himself hesitate. He pulled his knife out of his belt and rushed ahead, very angry with whoever was playing pranks on him. It had to be a prank. The feeling that someone was in the house earlier, the fire, the lights, now slamming doors… He hoped the kids weren’t involved because he would skin them alive for this. He hoped even more it wasn’t Plutarch’s idea of a joke, a candid camera or whatever he was producing those days.

The study door was slamming close only to bounce back open.

Haymitch kicked it open, knife ready to be used right as he switched on the lights…

The study was empty but the window was wide open. It explained the cold, at least. And the slamming doors.

But he had closed that window earlier.

He had checked the latch twice.

With a suspicious glance around and careful not to keep his back to the door, he stomped on the heap of snow that had come in to force the window close, thinking it might be broken. It didn’t resist though and the latch was intact.

And there was no getting rid of the strange prickling at the back of his neck, the distinctive feeling that someone was watching him.

The room was empty though so except if there were cameras…

The thought made his skin crawl.

He retreated to the living-room once more, attentive to the smallest sound. This time if something flashed in the corner of his eyes, he would catch it, he swore it.

He had been so busy watching the shadows that he almost jumped out of skin when he spotted the blond girl sitting on his couch, comfortable as you pleased, her feet propped on the coffee table and his box of memories on her lap. She was rummaging through his belongings and that infuriated him.

Her long hair was loose and hid her face but she was so skinny he didn’t think she was much older than Katniss and Peeta. She was wearing something entirely inappropriate for the weather too. A blank tank top and cargo pants with sturdy scrapped boots…

“The fuck do you think you’re doing?” he snarled.

He might have been less inclined to strangle a teenage girl with clearly too thin clothes sneaking in his house on Christmas Eve if she hadn’t been so obviously trying to terrify him for a while. Maybe the kid needed a warm place to stay, maybe she thought she could sneak around and steal food… Whatever. He would have given her money and tossed her out the door as soon as the storm had cleared…

… if she hadn’t been snooping.

The girl tossed her head back and looked up at him.

Haymitch gasped and stepped back right at the moment the lights turned off again. With the room once more in the dark, he was blind and all he could do was clutch his knife tight, heart racing…

“If this is a joke, it’s a very bad one.” he spat. “You…”

Laughter rang in the air. Familiar.

A fire appeared in the fireplace. It just popped into existence as if it had always been there.

It was a nightmare. It had to be. The whole Christmas thing had gotten to him and now he was having a nightmare. That was the only logical explanation.

But it felt so real…

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” Maysilee’s ersatz declared and then laughed again like she used to do in school, long before her name had been called at the Reaping. He hadn’t heard her laugh after that. A few chuckles maybe but not that joyful carefree laughter he didn’t even know he could remember. “Well, yeah, I did. But it was too funny. You should have seen your face…”

Even the worst night terrors didn’t feel like this. Haymitch felt awake. Awake and awfully sober. There was none of the blurry quality of a dream. This felt…

The girl walked closer to the fireplace and outstretched her arms to warm her hands. In the glow of the fire, she looked exactly like she had on the last day in the Games, next to their campfire. The same light played in her honey blond hair, her blue eyes sparkled in the same determined fashion… Her face wasn’t as hard though. She looked relaxed right then, carefree like she used to be in school when she strutted around arm in arm with her twin, followed by her friends.

They had never really talked before they had been reaped. She had been from town and he had been from the Seam. They hadn’t had the same set of friends or the same kind of lives. He had honestly been surprised that, of the three others from Twelve, she had been the one to survive that long.

“If this is a joke…” he repeated, frantically searching for an explanation that made sense. Her niece had looked a lot like her but Madge Undersee had died during Twelve’s bombing. She didn’t have any other family. And maybe someone could have found a girl who looked exactly like her but at what end? What was the point of this cruel twisted prank?

“Oh, it’s not a joke, Haymitch.” she countered, crossing her arms in front of her chest and turning around to look at him. “I’m really here. It’s really me. And no, you’re not dreaming.”

He stared at her for a moment, daring to take a step closer. When she didn’t attack, he took another one. He remained at a safe distance though but close enough that he could see…

He wasn’t sure what he wanted to see.

“You’re dead.” he commented.

“As a door-nail.” she confirmed with a smug smile.

He blinked, licked his lips and eventually decided that the moonshine he had drunk earlier had been poisonous. It didn’t stop him from picking up the bottle and taking a good healthy gulp.

Maysilee was still standing there when he lowered it though.

And she looked amused. A little sad too but amused.

“You know, you can drink all the alcohol in your house, it won’t get you drunk tonight.” she remarked.

“What’s so special about tonight?” he snorted. “You’re just a bad dream, sweetheart. Got plenty of that before.”

She shook her head, simply looking sad now. “You couldn’t have saved me, Haymitch. I’ve been dead twenty-six years now and you’re still wondering. You should really let that go. I don’t blame you.”

“Well, it’s a nice change.” he mocked.

Usually, in his nightmares, Maysilee accused him of having let her down when not of downright having murdered her. And then, of course, she tried to kill him.

“This really isn’t a dream, Haymitch.” she sighed. “You don’t believe me?”

“We established you’re dead so unless…” he started to scoff only to pause. “Oh.” He looked at the bottle in his hand and then at the couch thoughtfully. He had been drinking a lot earlier. He didn’t remember how much but… “Am I dead too?”

There was something twisted to the hint of hope in that question.

“No.” Maysilee denied. “But you’re lost and tonight is a night for miracles.”

“Yeah, right.” he scowled. “More Christmas bullshit.”

Trust his mind to torture him with everything he hated.

“You’re wasting your life.” she accused and, this time, there was resentment and regret in her voice. “You’ve been wasting your life for twenty-six years. You could have had a happy evening tonight, you know, if you hadn’t been such a moron. Effie would have been here. You could have had dinner with Katniss and Peeta. You could have come home with her. Be happy with her. And instead you pushed everyone away and now you’re alone and miserable.”

“Okay.” he deadpanned, taking a swing of moonshine because that was his default defense mechanism. “Nice chat. See you next year.”

He turned around and tried to leave the living-room but there was a freezing draft that chilled him to the bones and suddenly there she was, blocking his path.

“Don’t you see?” she almost begged. “You can still fix it. But it’s now or never, Haymitch.”

He rolled his eyes. “Seriously? You come back to haunt me just to tell me how to live my life?”

“Clearly, someone needs to.” she retorted. “And who else will save your ass, Abernathy? We’d live longer with two of us. Right?”

“Didn’t work that well for you.” he whispered. He felt tired all of a sudden. This… Whatever this was… Alcohol poisoning or a strange dream or… It was too much. “Look…”

“You’re not going to like it but hopefully by the end of the night you will get it together.” she cut him off. “I don’t think you will be seeing me again, I’m just the messenger. Watch out for the third one, he’s not… He gives me the creeps.”

“The third one?” he repeated. “What are you on about? You sound crazier than me.”

She shook her head. “You will be visited by three spirits tonight. They will show you.”

“What? More ghosts?” he chuckled bitterly. “All I wanted for Christmas. How did you know?”

“You can still fix everything.” she insisted. “Please, remember that.”

She outstretched a hand and, stupid as it was, he found himself reaching back.

The moment their skin touched, everything turned black.

3. The Ghost Of Christmas Past

One second he was standing in his living-room facing a dead girl, the next he was in the middle of a narrow street lined by houses that were little more than shacks. He could only gape for a moment because he knew that place. He knew that place like the back of his hand and it had been lost to flames long before the Capitol had decided to bomb Twelve into oblivion.

The Seam had grown back around it eventually – had grown back over it even – but that particular street with its shabby looking houses with tin roofs that leaked every time it rained a little too hard had been gone a long time. The uneven ground under his feet was frozen and slippery even though the snow had been more or less shoved to the side of the street, clearing a path for people to walk through.

Everything was so painfully familiar…

“Catch me!” a little boy laughed behind him and Haymitch turned just in time for the kid to race past him without any thought for how dangerous it could be to run at full speed on icy patches. Another boy, an older one, ran after him but Haymitch barely paid that one any attention because the little boy…

He would have known that green woolen hat anywhere. He had watched his mother knit it.

“Hayden…” he whispered, air blocked in his throat. “Hayden!” he repeated, louder, suddenly unable to stop himself from shouting his brother’s name at the top of his lungs. He thought he could count on one hand the number of times he had uttered it in the last twenty-six years and now… “Hayden!”

The older boy – who he now realized was no one else but him – caught up with the nine years old who was laughing without a care in the world despite their depressing surroundings. He had forgotten how loud his baby brother could laugh. Even when a fourteen year-old Haymitch shoved a handful of snow in his face, Hayden laughed, wriggling away to make a snowball of his own.

“He can’t hear you.”

Haymitch whirled around and stared at the woman who was now standing right behind him, in a spot that he was sure had been empty a second ago. She was wearing a black and white woolen dress under an open coat and a red scarf. He noticed the clothes first because they were very Twelve – at least before the war had changed things.

Her face was a stranger’s face until it wasn’t.

She just didn’t look sixteen anymore. She looked…

Her complexion was pale but it always used to be. He remembered she burned in summer, the bridge of her nose always reddened and freckles appeared on her cheeks and she used to rant and rant about that… He had found it cute – not the ranting, the ranting infuriated him, but the freckles and the sunburns. Her hair was as long and dark as he remembered it, mostly loose with only a few strands held back so it wouldn’t be a bother. She had always worn her hair like that as long as he could remember. Unless they were sneaking into the woods through the hole in the fence near the mines, in which case she would tie it up in a high ponytail and tell him to get a move on. And her eyes… Her grey eyes were full of mischief, as usual.

She looked like she should have looked had they been allowed their life together.

“I thought you would be more comfortable if I looked closer to your age.” Mabel grinned that smile that had had every boy in their grade falling in love with her. “You know… So you wouldn’t look like a creepy old man crushing on a kid.”

“Mabel.” he breathed out.

The name was almost as painful to utter as his brother’s was.

“Bitchy Mitchy.” she teased.

And the nickname was enough to make him chuckle, breaking through this strange stillness that seemed to have fallen on him. He reached for her face without really thinking about it, brushing his fingers against her cheekbones, touching her hair…

“You look so real…” he whispered. He hadn’t had that clear a dream in two decades.

“I am real.” she shrugged and, when he rolled his eyes, she rolled hers. “Yeah, I know. You don’t believe me. You’re too fucking stubborn, that’s always been your problem.”

He was vaguely aware that his brother and his younger self had started an epic snowball fight behind him but he couldn’t really care. Not when Mabel was standing right there, her skin warm under his fingertips.

“Fine.” he humored her, happier to play along with this hallucination. “You’re real. What does that make you?”

“The ghost of Christmas past.” Mabel said ominously. She gave it a second and then laughed it off. “Maysilee told you. Three spirits. I’m the first one. I’m here to remind you.”

“Of what?” he snorted. “That I lost everyone?”

She shook her head at him with obvious impatience. “You’re an ass, you know?”

“I’ve missed you.” he replied. It was an explanation in itself.

She softened and ran her fingers in her long dark hair, like she always used to do when she was nervous. “I’ve missed you too.”

The dream was so real…

He didn’t really let himself hesitate before cupping her cheek or leaning in. Their lips brushed together clumsily a few times until he pressed harder, desperate for a real kiss. It was… disappointing. It felt… wrong.

Something was missing and he had a good idea of what it was.

She stepped back with a sad smile. “It’s alright, Haymitch. You’re not sixteen anymore.”

“I really loved you.” he swore before she could say anything else. “I tried to…”

“Do you really think I expected you to remain alone your whole life? Do you really think that’s what I wanted for you?” she snapped. “You used me as an excuse. All your life your used me as an excuse not to take any chances.”

“I took chances.” he denied.

“Yeah? Name one.” she challenged.

Effie, he almost said. But that wasn’t entirely true, was it? He had never given them a fair shot. He had used her and then pushed her away. He had denied her the right to have feelings for him and had mocked her when she had dared hint at them. Sure, he had showed her tenderness and affection sometimes but he had never really told her how he felt. Then the war had happened and she had been left behind to be tortured and… And it had taken losing her to realize just how deep he was in. And when he had asked her to move in with him, he had made a mess of the whole thing. A salvage operation, that was what that had been. He couldn’t really blame her for accusing him of never fighting for her.

“It should have been you and me.” he argued.

It would have been easy, then. If he hadn’t been reaped… Eventually, he would have started working at the mines and he would have married her. And they would have had a typical Seam life. He would probably have died in one of the numerous cave-ins and she would have given him more children than they would have been able to feed while taking as many laundry job as she could manage. They would have worried themselves sick over it and…

“You know better.” she accused.

And maybe he did.

Because if someone offered the choice to him now…

He wasn’t sure he would have exchanged whatever he didn’t have anymore with Effie for a domestic life with Mabel. It was like the kiss they had just shared. Somewhere down the line, he had outgrown that particular dream.

“I’m sorry.” he said. “It was my fault. They killed you because…”

“It wasn’t your fault, Haymitch.” she cut him off. “It was the Capitol.”

Deep down, he knew that. Very deep down. But he had never been able to let go of that guilt.

“Forgive me.” he insisted, tears burning his eyes. He blinked them away before they could freeze on his cheeks. He didn’t have a coat and it wasn’t a weather to be outside in a sweater full of holes.

“I forgive you.” She framed his face between her hands and tugged him down until he bowed enough that she could press her forehead against his. “Of course, I forgive you. I love you. But you have to forgive yourself.”

“Haymitch! Hayden!”

His head jerked up in the direction of the call, his heart hammering inside his chest at the sound of that voice. He had forgotten that voice. All that was left was a vague echo, like a footprint in the sand of his memory.

“We should go on.” Mabel said. “You have a long night ahead and we have a lot of stops to make before I hand you over to the next one.” He barely registered that. He simply held out his arm for her to take, his eyes locked in the distance to where he could guess at the old rusty painted house he used to call home. “Look at you being all gentlemanly.” she laughed. “What? Did you confuse me with one of those Capitol girls who can’t walk without help?” His heart squeezed but he didn’t think she meant anything mean by that. Not when she grabbed his hand and gave it a strong tug. “Come on.”

In a flash, they were inside his old house. It was obvious some time had passed because his mother, his fourteen year-old self and his brother were sitting at the old wooden table, sharing what appeared to be stew. Rich stew too, not the watered down version they used to eat for most meals.

He would have loved to ask how she had done this but he couldn’t speak. Not when his mother was right there, so much younger than he remembered… She had seemed old and fragile to him in his youth. But she wasn’t that old, as he had realized in retrospect, the year he had turned thirty-five. The age she had been when she had died. If she had lived, she might have found another man to share her old days with, have a brand new other life…

“Can we do presents now?” Hayden asked with that toothy grin that always got him out of trouble with most people.

His mother and his younger self shared an indulgent look and she eventually nodded her assent.

“Cool!” his brother exclaimed and rushed off to the only bedroom in the house, the one the two boys shared.

With a shake of her head, his mother went to fetch two small gifts from under the single bed tucked in a corner of the room.

Fourteen year-old Haymitch was slower in standing up, the frown on his face one of worry. “I told you not to get me anything, Mama. I don’t need…”

“I can still give my son a Christmas present, Haymitch, thank you very much.” his mother chided.

Both Haymitches winced at once.

“I remember this.” he whispered for Mabel. “I took a couple of tesseraes that year. We were really tight. I think she sold some of her jewelry to buy those.”

And she hadn’t had much to sell in the first place. Her wedding ring. He thought that it was what she had sold and he remembered thinking good riddance. His father had long been out of the picture by then.

“She adored you.” Mabel whispered, leaning against his side and resting her head on his shoulder.

“Presents!” Hayden came song-singing back, with two packages tucked under his armpits.

Haymitch smiled with fondness at the boy. He tried to reach out when he passed by him but his hand went straight through as if he was a ghost. The irony.

“He was always good at swapping things, yeah?” Mabel chuckled. “He could bargain with the best of them. I remember once he managed to convince Sae to exchange him a pot of soup against a bunch of flowers from the meadow…”

“Too cute for his own good.” he snorted.

Finnick had been like that too.

They watched the three of them exchange gifts. Wrapping paper was far too expensive for something like this so the gifts were wrapped in pieces of clothing. Hayden and Haymitch had teamed up to buy their mother a new shawl that year, a brand new one that had never been worn before from the shop in town. She had gotten him a new bag for school – or poaching, which he wasn’t allowed to do but already did anyway – and she had gotten Hayden a soccer ball which the boy was ecstatic about. Haymitch had carved animals into wood for his brother and received a new pair of gloves in exchange. They were nice gloves. He remembered that much.

“You look so happy.” Mabel commented.

Not quite carefree even then, he thought, but, yeah, he looked happy.

And it hurt.

It hurt because in a little more than two years, that perfect scene of family bliss would be reduced to ashes. Literal ashes. And suddenly it was only too easy to imagine the flames licking the wall. The roof would have collapsed in minutes. And Hayden and his mother, trapped in there, sentenced to…

In a blink, the scenery changed and they were at the lake, deep into the woods.

“What the fuck?” he spat, whirling around. “Take me back. I…”

He wanted to see them again, to stare at them forever, to commit everything to memory, to…

“I told you. We have a couple of things to see.” Mabel requested. “Look at us.”

That shut him up and he looked at the direction she pointed at, not really surprised to see their younger selves recklessly gliding on the lake with makeshift skates that were far from being safe. This Haymitch was older than the last one. Sixteen or soon to be. This was the winter before the Second Quell’s Reaping. And if he wasn’t mistaken…

On the ice, the boy grabbed the girl by the waist as she was losing her balance but it wasn’t the dashing save he had expected and they both tumbled down. He could still remember the doomed sound of the ice cracking under them and he could only watch as the two teenagers scrambled to the shore, laughing their fear off once they were back to safety.

Then the boy cupped the girl’s cheek as if it was the most natural thing in the world and he just kissed her.

He thought back to earlier, the kiss they had shared and regretted it hadn’t feel like that one. Mabel’s kisses used to taste like freedom even in their fenced-in District.

“It was our first kiss.” she reminded him. Her smile was wistful but not unhappy.

“Yeah?” he frowned. “You’re sure?”

“Christmas day before the Quell. Yes, I’m sure.” She rolled her eyes, slapping his arm. “Seriously, what’s wrong with you? You’ve been claiming to pine after my ghost for how long? And you don’t even remember our first kiss?”

He didn’t like to linger on firsts and lasts. It was too sad.

And honestly was it that important?

“You sound like…” He cut himself off and swallowed back the name at the last moment for the second time. He pursed his lips tight and reported his attention on the couple a few feet away. It didn’t seem like they would stop kissing any time soon.

“You can say her name, you know.” Mabel said quietly. “I told you. I never wanted you to be alone forever. It’s a good thing.”

“For what came out of it.” he scoffed, shaking his head.

The sixteen year-old Haymitch pulled something out of his pocket and offered it to the girl with an awkward shrug. It was a brooch, he remembered, a small one, flower-shaped that he had exchanged at the Hob against a rabbit. A folly because Mabel had been stringing him along for months and the rabbit would have been better employed cooking on their stove but… He had been crazy for that girl. Crazy. Hayden used to tease him at night, before bed, and even his mother smiled indulgently at him every time her name was mentioned.

Head over heels. Invincible. Intoxicated.

That what being with Mabel had felt like.

What being in love was supposed to feel like, maybe.

He remembered now.

It wasn’t supposed to make you feel scared your significant other would get killed because you got a little too affectionate in public.

And that threat was gone anyway, wasn’t it? He could have gone full out if he had wanted to. He could have done more. He could have…

“Let’s move on.” Mabel suggested.

“We could stay.” he argued. “In this memory forever. You and me. It could be good.”

She stared at him and it was sad and too knowing.

She outstretched her hand and he took it after a short moment of hesitation.

He had been expecting the change of scenery this time but their new surroundings took him aback. It took him a while to place Capitol Park in full winter mode. Well… winter was relative because with the controlled weather, it was actually pleasant. The frozen lake was huge and there were a lot of people strolling along the bank, pointing at the bright decorations that seemed to be everywhere, children running around, a lot of people on the ice…

“Why are we here?” he frowned.

He sure as hell had no Christmas memories in this place.

“Why do you do anything lately, Haymitch?” she mocked.

“Grandfather! Watch!” a little girl called out from the edge of the ice rink in a shrill excited voice.

She must have been ten or eleven and was clearly embracing the Christmas spirit. She was dressed all in red and green, from her coat to the dress poking out underneath, and she had a red puffy wig adorned with holly on.

“I’m watching, my little princess!” an old man promised from the edge.

He stuck out a little because he wasn’t wearing a wig and his white hair hadn’t been dyed a ridiculous color. His clothes were sensible ones to and that warmed him up to Haymitch. It was hard to find sensible people amongst the Capitols.

The man was leaning hard on a walking stick and he seemed to have known better days but there was something to him… He wasn’t sure what. The way he was watching his granddaughter maybe. Just unequivocal love and pride.

On the ice, the girl took some speed and then jumped, twirling on herself in a move that would have been more impressive if she hadn’t crashed hard on landing.

“Effie!” the man worried, taking a few steps toward the frozen lake.

And Haymitch did a double take.

The girl had already picked herself up, red in the face. She brushed the frost off her coat and politely assured she was fine when a couple skated to a stop next to her to make sure she was alright. She skated to the edge of the lake with her head held high, chin up in the air, in a defiant stance Haymitch was very familiar with.

“I think I am done skating, Grandfather.” she announced, very dignified. “I hope nobody saw me. If someone tells Mother…”

“I will deal with your mother.” her grandfather grumbled.

What was his name? Haymitch was certain he knew the guy’s name. It must have started with a T. There was a flowery T branded on the flask Effie had gifted him with many years ago and it had belonged to her grandfather. He was sure he had heard her say the name before.

“Still.” Effie insisted, clearing her throat pointedly. “It is rather childish, isn’t it? Ice skating. Not really befitting of a lady.”

“You love ice skating.” the old man pointed out, handing her small heeled boots he had obviously been keeping safe for her. “And you should never just quit something because you failed once. You should always reach for the stars, my little princess.”

The girl pouted but then a beaming smile stretched her lips. “Can we have some hot chocolate?”

“If you wish.” her grandfather humored her.

Haymitch was fascinated and he followed them close, listening to their conversation about a Christmas party her mother was throwing. Her grandfather was explaining why he didn’t want to attend and Effie was trying to convince him by sulking and declaring it would be a dreadful Christmas if he wasn’t around.

The lady behavior had already been ingrained into her, he could tell because it came out now and then, but her grandfather was very good at breaking her out of that code, at luring the child out… Effie laughed and beamed and talked a mile a minute…

She was so happy…

“Oh, I do love Christmas!” she exclaimed several times.

He was so enthralled in watching that innocent part of her that he startled when Mabel placed a hand on his shoulder.

Without transition they went from Capitol Park to the kind of interior design he had come to associate with wealthy uptight Capitols.

“Where are we?” he asked but it became obvious once he spotted the people.

They were in a parlor of sort – not a living-room because there was nothing living about the room, it was all white and cream as if the colors had washed out despite the bright decorations hanging everywhere – where a huge Christmas tree dominated the room.

He had crossed paths with Effie’s parents one time or two at parties but they never failed to rub him off the wrong way. Right then, they were sitting on the immaculate couch, backs straight as rods, face set in blank masks. Effie looked older than in the previous memory although it might have been the make-up she already had on. She was curled up on one of the armchairs, a sea of opened presents discarded at her feet, and she was obviously… Well… Not there.

Another girl was still passing presents around and even though her identity was obvious, it took him a few seconds to identify her sister.

“Why are you showing me this?” he insisted, ill-at-ease with how Effie looked. The last time he had seen her that upset… She had been lying half-dead in a hospital bed and he had been confessing everything from how he had failed to get her to safety to Thirteen being the ones who had really been bombing the children.

“Because you need to understand.” Mabel shrugged.

“Understand what?” he scowled.

“This one is for you, Effie.” Lyssandra said, almost hesitantly, carefully holding a square box wrapped in glittery gold paper. “It’s from grandfather.”

Effie’s blue eyes immediately filled with tears and she curled up a little more on the armchair as if her sister had literally punched her in the chest. Her mother pursed her lips with disapproval but uncharacteristically held her tongue and didn’t scold her for what Haymitch was sure wasn’t ladylike behavior. Her father placed a hand on the Capitol’s woman leg and awkwardly patted it a few times.

“So, what’s going on?” he frowned. “She’s upset ‘cause her grandfather didn’t come this year?”

Her eleven year-old self had certainly seemed to think I would be the worst Christmas ever if he didn’t show up and she could be such a little spoiled brat… One look at the amount of expensive presents at her feet was enough to confirm that.

“Not exactly.” Mabel hummed sadly.

Effie reverently took the box from her sister without a word and carefully unwrapped it, making sure not to damage the paper or the ribbon. She placed both aside for safekeeping before opening what seemed to be a small music box. He was very familiar with that music box. It was always on her dresser in her apartment – or it used to be before the war, at least, he had no idea what had happened to it during the rebellion, her place had been ransacked and anything of value stolen so… – she kept mementoes in it. It wasn’t unlike his own metal box except he had made fun of her plenty of times for it, calling her a sentimental fool.

There were two rectangular golden tickets inside the music box, the kind that gave access to almost every Victory Tour events. They were branded with an ominous 50th that told him everything he needed to know. This was his year’s Games. And thus she was twelve.

“I disapprove, naturally.” her mother said suddenly when Effie brushed her fingers on the golden tickets as if she couldn’t believe her eyes. “But your grandfather insisted and bought them despite my wishes so… He intended to take you obviously but… Well.”

“I will go with you.” Lyssandra promised, kneeling next to Effie’s armchair, her face so earnest, so desperate to bring comfort…

Effie burst out in tears. Fat ugly sobs that wrecked her small body and tears that ran down her cheeks in an unending flow…

“Now, now, Euphemia…” her mother sighed. “Do not upset yourself so. It is not becoming of…”

She ran out of the room, clutching the music box to her chest. A door slammed upstairs a few seconds later.

Her mother’s lips were pursed so tight it looked like she almost didn’t have a mouth anymore. Her father’s hand was less hesitant when he reached for his wife this time.

As for Lyssandra, she simply gathered the golden wrapping paper and the ribbon and carefully put them aside – Haymitch assumed it was to give them to her sister later – looking sad but nowhere near as grief-stricken as Effie had been.

“You need to understand she knows great loss too.” Mabel whispered eventually.

He hadn’t needed Mabel to tell him that. He had sat next to her for too many Games, had watched her deal with too many dead kids. He knew she knew what loss felt like. They both did. Nobody who had been involved in the Games had escaped that.

But it wasn’t that personal… that annoying voice of reason whispered at the back of his head. How many times did you tell her she didn’t know what she was talking about when she tried to comfort you? How many times have you accused her of never having been unhappy a single day in her life?

“Let’s get out of here.” he scowled. “Please.” He couldn’t take much more of Effie being heartbroken. He had been the one breaking her heart too many times before. He couldn’t deal with seeing her like that, twelve or not. He just wanted to see her happy, like in that first memory. More than that he wanted to make her happy. “I’ve had enough.”

“There is only one left.” she promised.

“No.” he snapped. “I want to wake up now. Enough of this bullshit. I’m done walking down memory lane. It’s…”

The parlor disappeared and the next thing he knew he was standing in a room he had never thought he would see again.

The bedroom he had been living in when he was at the Training Center’s penthouse. His home away from home, as he used to joke.

And wasn’t it just great already. His thirty-five year old self and Effie were naked in bed together. They were done with whatever they had been up to, thankfully, and the sheets kept them mostly decent but that wasn’t something he had ever wanted Mabel to see.

“Seriously?” he spat, barely covering the sound of Effie’s giggles.

He hadn’t been in the city that many times for Victory Tours and he placed that one instantly. It was during the 70th Tour, Annie’s Games, when numerous victors from every District had been dragged back to the city for the season because the Gamemakers badly needed a distraction from the disaster that was Annie’s public appearances.

“Hey, don’t blame me.” Mabel grumbled. “That’s what you needed to watch. It’s not like I really wanted to see that.”

In the bed, Effie was trying to wriggle free but thirty-five year old Haymitch – still reeling from his recent birthday and the knowledge that he was now older than his mother when she had died and thus feeling a little out of sort and acting out even more than usual – was refusing to let her go. He had his arms locked tight around her waist and was keeping her there, his face pressed against her shoulder blade to hide the smile that threatened to burst forth so painfully…

Oh, he remembered this Christmas very well.

“You think it’s the best Christmas you ever had.” Mabel told him.

He scoffed. “Wasn’t the best.”

“Why are you always so ready to deny everything when it comes to her?” she retorted, straight to the point.

Haymitch shut up and focused on what was happening in the bed. It was rather innocent. Effie was giggling and struggling to escape, he was very determined to keep her in bed.

“Come on, Haymitch!” the escort chuckled at last. “I cannot be late to my mother’s Christmas party.”

“Skip it.” his younger self demanded.

Effie’s laugh, this time, was more insecure than happy. “She will send a search party after me, you realize.”

“Just call her and tell her you’re feeling sick.” he grumbled. “Tell her you’re gonna spend the day in bed. Which you are.”

“Haymitch…” she sighed.

“Look. You’re gonna go. You’re gonna come back in a couple of hours all upset and miserable ‘cause your mother’s a bitch and you’re gonna ask me to fuck you into the new year. We’re gonna be back right here in this bed. See? I’m saving you some time.” he scoffed.

“Charming.” Effie scowled.

“You’ve got such a way with words, Haymitch…” Mabel teased.

The two Haymitch rolled their eyes at the same time.

“You can either go and be bored or you can stay with me all day and have fun.” his younger self shrugged. “The way I see it…”

“I wonder what sort of fun you could possibly be up to.” Effie mocked, watching him over her shoulder. “We already did it twice.”

“Can get you through a third and a fourth and then I’m gonna be up alright.” he replied in the same tone, wriggling his eyebrows.

“Oh, so you will make sure I have a very good time, is that right?” Effie asked, lifting her own eyebrows. “Why, it must really be Christmas.”

Haymitch snorted at his younger self’s pouting. It was mostly fake pouting because it had been a long time at that point since he had left her unsatisfied but… Fuck, he missed the easy sexy banter.

“Christmas naked in bed together with champagne.” thirty-five year-old Haymitch insisted, making it sound more enticing than it probably was.

Effie clearly hesitated and then flopped back down on the bed with impossible grace, a long slender leg slipping out from under the sheets. She was barely decent now. If he moved to the left he would have had a fair view of her breasts.

Mabel had moved a little back. To give them privacy, he figured.

“Well, if there is champagne…” Effie grinned, her blue eyes sparkling in happiness.

Haymitch was shocked to realize his younger self was watching her the exact same way. He was watching her as if she was the only woman for him in the whole world. And it was so obvious he was starting to understand what Chaff and Finnick had been teasing him about all those years.

He hadn’t known he had already been in love with her at that point.

“You’re cheap.” thirty-five year-old Haymitch accused with a smirk.

Her only answer was to coil a hand at the back of his neck and pull him into a kiss that immediately got dirty.

Haymitch could see tongues from where he was and he shook his head at their antics, unable to ignore the pinching in his heart. He yearned for this. Kissing Effie, joking with her, teasing her… It wasn’t even the sex he missed the most although that had been exceptional, it was the… The partnership. How easy it had been to be together even when they were furious enough to try to strangle each other. He trusted her. And he didn’t trust many people. It was comfortable. Easy. Safe.

“Can we go now or do you want the full show?” he grumbled because hands were in places now and the sheets wouldn’t cover the action much longer.

“In a second.” Mabel commented and, surely enough, Effie broke the kiss.

“I think I was promised champagne.” she giggled.

“Now?” thirty-five year-old Haymitch groaned.

“A small break would do us both good if you truly intend to keep that up all day.” she deadpanned. She must have squeezed something under the sheets because young Haymitch jumped and tossed her a look that was in between a glare and a tolerant gaze. “Bring me champagne, Haymitch.”

Haymitch could see the clogs turning in his younger self’s head. He had never liked being ordered around and tended to resist her demands at any given opportunity. Sometimes just because he didn’t want to appear as whipped as he truly was.

This time, he gave in though and pushed the sheets away to step out of bed in all the glory of his birthday suit. “So fucking bossy.”

“Now, that, I’m not sorry to see.” Mabel grinned and Haymitch awkwardly rubbed his neck, red in the face.

On the bed, Effie watched him go and, once she was alone, she stared at the ceiling, grinning like a fool and eventually pulled the sheet all the way over her head as if to hide from her own foolishness. It was such a girlish behavior… She looked so in love… Had she looked that in love all the time? Had he?

“Effie.” he whispered, taking a step toward the bed, suddenly feeling sick because he missed her so much…

But the Effie in the bed didn’t hear him. She eventually pushed the sheet off with a huff and a shake of her head at her behavior and snatched a white long-sleeve shirt off the floor. It didn’t exactly keep her decent. It was long enough but a bit see-through and if Haymitch remembered right they had never gotten around to drinking the champagne he had poured them in the living-room because the moment he had seen her wearing his shirt he had pounced. They had rolled under the giant Christmas tree for hours. He remembered watching the twinkling lights tossing red and green shadows on her face.

It had been his best Christmas.

It had been a rare good day.

“I like her.” Mabel said quietly and then rolled her eyes. “Sure, you could have found someone who wasn’t Capitol or an escort but… I like her. She’s good for you.”

“Too bad I’m not good for her.” he scowled.

“Aren’t you?” she asked sadly. “I think she needs you just as much as you need her.” He wasn’t exactly alarmed when she stepped closer but he tensed a little, only relaxing when she cupped his cheek and leaned in. The kiss was chaste, an innocent brush of her lips against his. “Goodbye, Bitchy Mitchy.”

He frowned at that, trying to wrap his arms around her, to hold her back…

He woke up with a start.

4. The Ghost Of Christmas Present

Haymitch sat up on his couch where he had obviously passed out, his grey eyes peering out in the darkness, trying to identify every shadow… His heart was hammering in his chest and he had a strange taste in his mouth. He brushed his fingers against his tingling lips…

He could still feel Mabel’s kiss.

He could…

He breathed out a long steady breath, glancing at the dying fire. What a fucking dream… He glared at the bottle of moonshine that was still propped against the couch’s cushion and kicked it to the corner of the room, swearing he would never buy his liquor at that store again. Whatever was in there, it couldn’t be only alcohol.

What a fucking dream…

The lights turned off abruptly. The lamp overhead, the fireplace… He was left in the dark again and his heart started racing once more… The icy draft of air made the hair at the back of his neck rise, he was sure his skin was covered in goosebump…

“Mabel?” he whispered, feeling stupid for doing so.

The draft of freezing air blew on the side of his face and Haymitch tensed…

“Boo!” someone shouted directly in his ear.

He jumped on his feet right as the lights came back up, clutching his heart and glaring hard at the intruder.

It was probably a testament to the rest of the night that he didn’t think twice about how impossible it was for that boy to be there. Finnick was laughing his ass off as if the joke was hilarious. He actually dropped on the couch, bent in two and holding his stomach.

“Seriously?” Haymitch asked for what felt like the hundredth time that night.

“Sorry, sorry…” Finnick kept on laughing, looking up at him, his green eyes full of tears of mirth. “I couldn’t help myself.” The boy flashed him his trademark wolfish grin and Haymitch swallowed hard in hope the lump in his throat would disappear. “How are you doing, Haymitch?”

“I’m having a fucking acid trip.” he deadpanned. “Aside from that… You know… Same old. What about you, kid? Still dead?”

“Very dead.” Finnick grinned as if, this too, was the best joke.

“Just checking.” he shrugged. “So… What does that make you? Let me guess… You’re the ghost of Christmas Present.”

“Yep.” the kid confirmed, making the p pop. “Before I forget… Chaff and Mags say hi and stop being an idiot, please and thank you.”

“And what? They couldn’t make the trip?” he mocked. “Too bad. Could have been a party.”

Finnick’s face turned a little more serious. “I really wanted to be the one to come.” The boy clapped his hands once, the devilish grin bursting forth again, and stood up. “Shall we go?”

“Where?” Haymitch frowned. “’Cause I don’t really care for another trip down my depressing past.”

Finnick rolled his eyes and waved at himself. “Ghost of Christmas Present, here. Keyword: Present. Come on, let’s go.”

Did he have a choice? It hadn’t felt like it with Mabel so he simply followed the boy when he let himself out of the house, hoping it would be brief – and that he would wake up soon. The weather outside wasn’t as bad as the noises made it sound in his living-room. He was honestly surprised because he had fully expected to walk into a blizzard. Another proof that it was all a dream, he figured.

“The storm looks bad from your house because of us.” Finnick explained without him having to ask.

Haymitch studied him suspiciously. “Can you read my mind?”

The boy wriggled his eyebrows. “Do you really want to know?”

The answer to that was not really so Haymitch kept his peace, frowning a little when he realized where they were headed. “The kids’ house?”

“Yeah.” Finnick nodded. “You need to see.”

“Lots of stuff dead people think I need to see, seems like.” he sneered.

Finnick tossed him a look but didn’t comment. Four’s victor let himself inside the kids’ house but if Katniss and Peeta heard anything, they didn’t let on. Haymitch followed him to the living-room where the kids were huddled together in front of the fire, a fur blanket draped over their laps. Katniss was clutching a mug of what looked like hot chocolate between her hands and Peeta was lazily poking the fire. There was another mug next to him and a plate full of Christmas cookies.

“What’s wrong?” Peeta asked when he glimpsed Katniss’ thoughtful face.

“Nothing.” the girl sighed. “Just… you know. Haymitch.”

The boy’s face grew somber, worried. “I tried, Katniss.”

“I know.” the girl shrugged. “It’s just… He’s getting worse.”

Haymitch’s jaw clenched and he looked down at his feet, feeling both guilty and ashamed for making them worry. It wasn’t the kids’ job to take care of him, it was his job to take care of them. And lately… He had been making a mess of that.

“He’s drinking a lot.” the boy agreed. “I mean… He’s always drunk a lot but this, lately…”

Katniss cleared her throat. “I think he’s lonely. Christmas can make that worse.”

That was more insightful than he would have given the girl credit for.

“I’m not sure it’s just Christmas.” Peeta countered. “Since we’ve been back… I don’t know. Something’s off with him, real or not real?”

“Real. I think.” she scowled, taking a sip of her hot chocolate. “I don’t think he wanted to come back here. When we were in Thirteen… He couldn’t even look at pictures from Twelve.”

“You think he feels guilty about the bombing?” the boy asked.

Katniss shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Do you?” Finnick asked, placing a hand on Haymitch’s shoulder. His shrug echoed the girl’s. Yeah, he did. Of course, he did. He should have thought of that. He should have planned better, insisted that Thirteen got ready to defend the civilian or… something. Four’s victor looked at him with sympathy. “You can’t control everything, Haymitch. You did the best you could.”

“Wasn’t enough to save you, was it?” he hissed.

“That’s not on you either.” Finnick shook his head. “You weren’t even there.”

“Yeah. Exactly.” he muttered.

“Haymitch…” his friend sighed.

“Maybe it’s more complicated than that.” Peeta frowned. “I just… I caught him staring at the bangle the other day…”

Haymitch made a face and automatically covered the battered token he still wore on his left wrist with his other hand. It wasn’t exactly conspicuous as far as jewelry went.

“I don’t get why he’s still carrying that thing around.” Katniss scowled, reaching for a cookie shaped like a Christmas tree and covered in green frosting. “It’s damn ugly.”

“Maybe that’s the problem.” the boy mused and, when Katniss looked at him with incomprehension, he clarified. “Maybe it’s all about Effie?”

“Oh, come on!” Haymitch sputtered, feeling his face reddening. “They don’t have anything else to do than gossip about my sex life?”

Finnick buried his hands in the pockets of his pants and gave him an innocent shrug. “Maybe you’re not as subtle about that as you think you are.”

“Effie?” Katniss repeated. “He hates her. I mean… I know he and Plutarch had to do some sort of bargaining with the rebels to keep her safe because… You know. The Purge.”

“Does he hate her though?” the boy insisted thoughtfully.

“He doesn’t want her dead.” she replied. “That’s as good as it gets with them.”

Peeta’s gaze was lost in the distance and he had a faraway look on his face. Haymitch tensed because that was a dead giveaway that an episode was around the corner but the boy eventually shook his head and flashed Katniss a small smile. The signs hadn’t escaped her either and she looked ready to bolt.

“When I was in the Capitol…” the boy started slowly. “Everything is very blurry before they… Before they reprogrammed me. I don’t remember much. Flashes and bits and pieces… I can’t tell if it’s real or not.”

“Okay.” Katniss said slowly, grabbing his hand. “You don’t have to think about this.”

“No, I’m fine. What I meant is… I think they kept bringing Haymitch up with Effie.” he hesitated. “They said…” He frowned, clearly trying hard to remember, and then winced and shook his head again. “It’s gone.”

“It’s okay.” she repeated.

Peeta flashed her a small smile. “I think there was something between them.”

“Fucking meddling kids…” Haymitch mumbled under his breath.

“Haymitch and Effie?” Katniss scoffed. “No way.”

“Right.” Finnick mocked. “It’s good to know she hasn’t changed.”

Haymitch rolled his eyes.

“I don’t know.” Peeta sighed. “But I think so. Maybe that’s why he’s so miserable.”

“It’s Haymitch.” Katniss argued. “He doesn’t need an excuse to be miserable.”

“He drinks too much though.” the boy insisted. “I agree with you there. Maybe we should have an intervention.”

“Sure, that’ll go well.” she deadpanned.

They reached for the same cookie at the same time and Peeta snatched it away with a teasing grin, their old mentor clearly forgotten for now.

Haymitch watched them behave like normal kids their age for a few seconds but turned away when they started kissing. He had a good idea of where the kissing would lead. The fireplace’s glow, the blankets in front of it, the picnic dessert… He knew a romantic setting when he saw one.

“I’ve seen enough. I get it. They’re right. I’ve been slipping too deep down the bottle again. I’m gonna get it under control. Lesson learned.” he told Finnick. “Can I go home now?”

“Not yet.” Four’s victor refused. “We have two more stops to make.”

“No offense but they’re the only people I have now so… Ghost of Christmas Present? Probably the easiest job.” he snorted.

Finnick lifted mocking eyebrows and, just like that, the kids’ house vanished and they were in another living-room, where there was no fireplace and where the windows were open wide to let the fresh night air come in. It was always hot in Four. Summer or winter.

Finnick let go of his arm and made a beeline for the couch on which Annie was sitting, her baby on her lap. She was laughing hard, waving a small Christmas star above little Finn’s face to keep her son occupied, while she watched Johanna try and fail to wrap a toy box in glittery paper. There was tape and ribbon everywhere and the few gifts already wrapped and wedged under the Christmas tree in the corner looked like they had been wrapped by a two years old.

Johanna was sitting on the floor, scowling, tape in her hair.

“It’s not fucking funny! Stop laughing!” Seven’s victor snapped. “What’s the fucking point of wrapping gifts anyway? Ain’t like he will know fucking better!”

“It’s tradition.” Annie argued.

Haymitch’s eyebrows shot up because he would never have imagined Johanna living in a house full-on decorated for Christmas. He had called Four a few times but he hadn’t really kept properly in touch.

“Are we here for me or for you?” he asked the boy who had perched himself on the couch’s armrest and was staring at his son with wide eyes as if he couldn’t take enough of the baby.

“It was one of the perks.” Finnick whispered. “It was supposed to be Chaff. He means more to you. But…”

“You mean a fucking lot to me, kid.” Haymitch protested and then closed his eyes. “Meant.”

“Heard from Twelve?” Jo mumbled once she had managed to make the glittery red paper stick around the box. She pushed the gift under the tree and moved on to the next one.

Finn was clearly spoiled.

“I called Katniss to thank them for the gift.” Annie hummed, drumming her fingers against the baby’s tummy. Oh. So the kids had sent a gift. Maybe he should have thought about that too. After all, the baby was only a few months old and he had promised himself he would keep an eye out for Finnick and… “I didn’t hear from Haymitch.”

Jo snorted bitterly. “Might have broken his phone again. Or he doesn’t care much about us.”

“That’s not true.” he protested, forgetting they couldn’t hear him.

“I’ll tell you who else he doesn’t care much about.” Jo continued, harsh. “Trinket. She hasn’t heard from him either.”

“Oh, did you call her already?” Annie asked, looking up at Jo. “Did you remember to thank her? That Christmas romper she sent is so cute…”

“Yeah, yeah…” Johanna dismissed. “Not the point. Point is… I told her to get her ass over here again. She won’t come. Stubborn bitch.”

Haymitch frowned and looked at Finnick for an explanation but the young man was lost to his own world, making his fingers dance over Annie’s shoulder, making faces at his son… The baby’s attention was on him too and Haymitch wondered if babies could see ghosts. Or whatever they were.

Not that he was beginning to think this was more than a dream. ‘Cause…

Annie looked concerned by Johanna’s words. “Do you think she’s alright? She won’t do… something stupid, right? Because last time I spoke to her…”

“I think it’s fucking good she can’t afford sleeping pills.” Jo sneered. “She used to pop them like candies. You think… Maybe I should just go up there and drag her back with me.”

Annie actually considered it, which made Haymitch very wary. What were they talking about? According to the kids, Effie was living the dream. A new huge apartment, a new boyfriend, a new awesome job in the television industry…

“I think it has to come from her.” Annie finally sighed. “But if she doesn’t get better… Then, yes, we should visit her. Maybe stage an intervention. We could ask Katniss and Peeta.”

“Don’t think they know how bad it is.” Jo shook her head. “Stubborn bitch.” she spat again. “I fucking hate her.”

“No, you don’t.” Annie countered.

Finn started fussing a little and she hummed him a cheerful Christmas song. And the conversation about Effie was dropped.

The mood was joyful in the living-room, more joyful than Haymitch had ever thought a cohabitation between Annie and Jo could be.

“What’s wrong with Effie?” he asked after several minutes, respectful of Finnick’s wish to watch them but also a little worried.

“Give me a moment.” Four’s victor requested. He hovered behind Jo for a moment and reached for her shoulder but his hand went straight through, just like when Haymitch had tried to grab his brother earlier. A small dejected smile stretched the boy’s lips. “Thanks for taking care of them, Jo.” Johanna gave no indication that she had felt anything at all. She kept on bitching about the presents Annie was forcing her to wrap. Finnick moved back to the couch and crouched in front of Annie. He brushed a kiss against the baby’s forehead. “I love you, Finn. So much.” He cleared his throat, licked his lips and finally looked at his wife. “Merry Christmas, my love.”

“Merry Christmas.” Annie answered, staring back at him, her eyes full of tears.

“Yeah, no shit it’s fucking merry for you.” Jo scowled, oblivious to what was going on. “You get to watch me do all the work.”

Finnick and Annie stared at each other for the longest time. It looked physically painful when the boy finally stood up and tore himself away from his wife and child to walk toward Haymitch.

Haymitch had a lump in his throat again.

It wasn’t fair.

So not fucking fair.

“They’re happy.” Finnick said firmly. “The three of them, they’re happy and safe. That’s all that matters to me. That’s why I fought. That’s why I died. Don’t feel sorry for me.”

“Kid, you’ve got to stop the mind reading.” Haymitch winced. “That’s fucking creepy.”

“I’m not reading your mind. It’s all over your face.” the boy accused, tossing a last look at them over his shoulder. “They’re happy. That’s good. I’m good.” He reached for Haymitch’s arm again but let his hand hover. “You should check on them more, you know.”

“Yeah.” he admitted. He would call them. It was the first thing he would do when he would finally wake up from this weird trip. He would call Four and he would make more of an effort to keep in touch.

Finnick nodded. “Good. You’re ready for what comes next? Last stop with me, then I’m handing you over. What came before… That was the easy part.”

“Fucking great.” he deadpanned. “Don’t suppose we can just skip the rest and go have a drink, yeah?”

Finnick’s only answer was to grab his arm.

Haymitch sighed when Four’s living-room faded away to morph into… He was pretty sure it was another living-room but it looked… Well, truthfully it looked like a shithole. The brown paint was peeling off the walls, the furniture was clearly secondhand and sparse, sirens and noises kept filtering through the closed window… The only light in the room came from a small lamp in the corner and the glow of the TV. The living-room was separated from the tiny kitchen by a counter next to which a lone frayed stool waited. The kitchen didn’t look much better and he dreaded to think what the rest of the place was like.

It was still better than the shack he had grown up in but it wasn’t ranking a lot higher in places he would have liked to live in.

There was no hint of Christmas in the room except for a ridiculously tiny plastic Christmas tree on the scratched coffee table. The tree wasn’t higher than the bottle of vodka next to it.

“Where are we?” he asked slowly.

But he already knew.

Because next to the bottle of vodka and the half-full glass, there was a battered cigarette packet on top of which rested a silver lighter with E.T. branded on it. And that lighter he would have recognized anywhere.

He felt his stomach churn.

“Take me back home.” he ordered, turning to Finnick. The boy was leaning against the wall, hands in his pockets, and was apparently waiting, face grim. “Take me back, Finnick.”

“You need to see.” the kid countered.

“I’ve seen enough, alright?” he snapped. “I get it. I’ll call Plutarch so he can find out what’s going on. I’ll…”

He shut up abruptly when he spotted her. How he had missed her before, he wasn’t sure. She was toying with the telephone in the corner, lifting the receiver only to place it back down, nervously bringing a cigarette to her lips with shaky fingers.

She was wearing a pink nightgown, her blond hair was loose but shorter than he remembered, it curled a little past her chin, she was far too thin. She had been skinny after her rescue, starved, but she had been supposed to be gaining back weight – he knew that for sure because he had stood there enough times, listening to the nurses rebuking her for not finishing her tray in the hospital. She had been putting on some weight when he had left the Capitol with Katniss.

Right then she looked… Not healthy.

With a sigh, she dropped the phone one last time and went to the kitchen. The apartment was so small it only took her a couple of seconds. She opened a cupboard that was alarmingly empty and fished out a packet of cheap Christmas cookies, the kind of brand of pastries she would never have touched before because they weren’t fresh and were full of calories and what not. She opened it and fished a cookie before placing the packet back in the cupboard.

There were no traces of dirty plates or anything remotely hinting at the fact she had had an actual meal that night. She didn’t seem like she was planning on eating. He wondered how much of it had to do with leftovers from starvation and how much was because of how financially tight she was.

That was obvious.

The place she lived in, the state of the furniture, the cheap brand of vodka on the table, the cookies that came from a grocery store instead of a bakery…

“What happened to her?” he whispered, horrified.

Had this been going on since he had left? She had lied to the kids.

Of course, she had lied to the kids. Who was he kidding? He should have known better. He should have…

“The government seized her bank accounts as compensation for her crimes.” Finnick explained. “She’s pretty much ruined. And… other stuff.”

“What other stuff?” he insisted, studying her.

She was tipsy. That much was clear. But then again, given the way she downed what was left of vodka in her glass and with only half a cookie in her stomach, he was surprised she wasn’t completely drunk yet. She took another shaky drag of her cigarette.

“It’s not a good night for her tonight.” Finnick defended her. “She’s holding on better usually. But Christmas… She used to love it too much.”

“What other stuff?” he repeated in a growl.

“She’s alone.” the boy shrugged. “And you can send Plutarch all you want, that’s not who she wants to see. What do you think he’s going to do anyway? He can find her a job and a better place to live but he won’t help her fix what’s broken inside. It’s her family she needs, Haymitch, don’t you get it? She needs Peeta and Katniss. She needs you. She needs to find a place to heal.”

“I tried.” he snapped. “She wouldn’t…”

“She was angry and hurt.” Finnick cut him off. “It’s been a year. You didn’t try again.”

“Maybe I wasn’t brave enough to get rejected again.” he sneered bitterly but it sounded cowardly anyway.

“She was always braver than you when it came to feelings.” the boy acknowledged, nodding at her.

Haymitch’s eyes darted from him to her a couple of times but when she marched toward the phone again, chin proudly jutted high in the air like the little girl who had just crashed on the ice pond, he couldn’t look away. That was the Effie Trinket he knew. Proud to the point of arrogance.

She picked up the phone and typed the numbers very fast, as if she was afraid of losing her nerves.

The hand that was holding the cigarette was shaking so badly now that she almost burned herself.

Clearly whoever she was calling wasn’t answering because she hung up and licked her lips before trying again.

“Come on…” she whispered. “Please… Pick up. Pick up.”

With a sick feeling at the bottom of his stomach, Haymitch remembered the phone ringing earlier that night. The calls that had gone on forever and that he hadn’t bothered to answer.

“Please, Haymitch…” she insisted, her lips wobbling a little. “I need you. Please.”

“I’m here.” he said, stepping as close as he could, reaching for her face… His hand went straight through. “Fuck this. Fuck this. You got to Annie. Why…”

“’Cause Annie’s special.” Finnick shrugged. “She’s not entirely sane. And I’m dead. That helps.”

“But…” he argued, watching, helpless, as Effie collapsed on the floor, sobbing her heart out. He crouched next to her. “Sweetheart, I’m right here. I’m coming for you. I swear. You hear me? I’m coming for you. I’ve got you. Sweetheart…”

She cried and cried, ugly sobs that looked painful…

“We need to go now.” Finnick said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” he snarled. “You can be sorry. Fucking look at her! She’s your friend too. Just let me…”

“I don’t make the rules.” the boy replied. “We need to go. He’s coming.”

“Who?” he frowned.

“Death.” Finnick declared and it chilled Haymitch to the bones. He wanted to ask what the boy meant but before he could say anything the kid smiled. “Merry Christmas, Haymitch.”

Haymitch woke up in his living-room.

5. The Ghost Of Christmas Yet To Come

He didn’t bother trying to figure out if everything was real or not this time around. He bolted off the couch, barely noticing the fuming ashes in the fireplace, the lack of lights or how cold it was in the house. He dashed to the kitchen and the phone, pressing it against his ear while he wrecked his brain for Effie’s number and realized with a start that he didn’t know her new one.

It didn’t matter.

The kids would know.

The wind sounded so strong the whole house seemed to be shaking with the strength of the blizzard but Haymitch didn’t let that stop him, remembering only too well that it hadn’t been that bad with Finnick at his side. He didn’t think to grab a coat or anything, he just ran out, letting the door slam shut behind him…

And he walked straight into the fucking snow storm of the century…

He couldn’t see anything. Waves of snow hit him in the face, the wind pushed him one way and then the other… He tried to walk back but he couldn’t even guess at the shape of his house.

With chattering teeth, he hugged himself and pushed in the vague direction he thought the kids’ house to be, cursing his own stupidity. He had let those weird dreams get to him and now he would die in a snow storm and the kids would find him frozen stiff and blue in the morning.

Merry Christmas indeed.

A human shape flashed ahead and Haymitch’s hopes rose up.

“Hey!” he called out but his voice was lost to the storm. “Wait! Help! Hey!”

He trudged forward, sometimes stumbling and falling to his knees but always pushing himself back up. The mysterious figure seemed to mock him. It hovered out of reach, waiting for him to catch up only to disappear again, leading him on a merry chase.

He was so cold…

He didn’t really notice the smell was weird until the storm abruptly stopped, leaving him standing in front of Twelve’s new graveyard, the pale winter sun making the glint of the snow on the ground almost blinding. It had been night a second ago. Hadn’t it?

But the smell…

Oh, the smell…

He almost gagged with the strength of it.

It reeked of roses. White roses to be specific.

“No.” he muttered. “That’s fucking enough. I don’t…”

He turned around and almost shouted in fear at finding Coriolanus Snow just an inch behind him. In his haste to scramble back, he slipped and fell hard on his ass.

The dead President was all in black, which only made the white rose on his lapel more striking. There wasn’t a hair on Haymitch’s body that didn’t rise when the man’s gaze lowered on him.

Watch out for the third one… He gives me the creeps Maysilee had said.

Death, Finnick had claimed.

Oh, Haymitch was so fucked.

Rationally speaking, he knew he could probably take Snow. The man was ancient – not to mention dead – but the fear… The fear was primitive and brutal and he wasn’t entirely sure it was truly Snow standing right there.

He crawled back when the President took a step forward, he twisted his body and got to his feet.

He ran into the graveyard because it was the only close possible escape way. He sidestepped tombstones, leaped over graves with an agility he hadn’t possessed since he had been sixteen and running for his life…

There were people ahead and he headed there, thinking to alert them to whatever it was that was calmly but surely walking after him in an odd distorted chase.

He froze when he realized who they were.

Johanna and Annie were walking away, both holding the hands of a little boy who couldn’t be more than two years old.

The Ghost Of Christmas Yet To Come, then.

After a moment, Katniss followed behind them, angrily wiping at her cheeks.

“Don’t go that way!” he shouted after them even though he knew they wouldn’t be able to hear him. They walked past Snow who was still heading toward him, unhurried, and apparently uncaring for anyone who wasn’t him.

“I am sorry it had to be today.” Peeta said and Haymitch turned back to see what the hell was going on. The boy and Effie were standing next to a freshly dug grave. “Funerals on Christmas Eve… It’s not the best timing.”

“Well, that was Haymitch for you.” Effie chuckled and it would have sounded cheerful if it hadn’t been so damn hollow. “He never had any respect for schedules.”

Peeta snorted without any amusement.

Haymitch felt sick. The name engraved on the tombstone at the mouth of the open grave… It was his.

And he jumped out of his skin again when Snow finally caught up with him, standing far too close for comfort. The dead president didn’t attack him though. He simply watched the boy and Effie.

“You always were a creepy asshole.” Haymitch accused.

If Snow heard, he didn’t let on.

“I understand you are the one who found him.” Effie said slowly. “I am sorry.”

“The number of times I joked I would find him dead in a puddle of his own sick…” Peeta scoffed and then passed a hand over his face, blue eyes suspiciously shiny. “I always tried to be the first one in the house lately, you know. It just… It was getting very bad. I didn’t want Katniss… Seeing him like that, it would have destroyed her.”

Effie’s features remained schooled into something resembling detachment but Haymitch saw the cracks in the mask. He knew her too well.

“That was thoughtful of you.” she observed and then licked her lips. “I wish… I wish you had called me when it started getting out of hand.”

It wasn’t a reproach, not really. At least it wasn’t voiced as such but…

“You have your boyfriend and your job…” Peeta said defensively. “It wasn’t your place to take care of him anymore.”

“My boyfriend and my job. Yes.” she repeated in a broken whisper. Because it was a lie. Nothing but a lie. She looked close to death herself and he didn’t understand how the boy could stand there and not call her out on it. She was far too thin, she had dark bags under her eyes the cheap make-up wasn’t covering and her coat actually looked threadbare – that should have been a dead giveaway even if she had pretended it was all the latest chic. “Do you know… He has always been a compulsive drinker, of course, but… He used to be good at toying with the limits. Drinking himself into alcohol poisoning… It came close a couple of times, to be truthful, but…”

“I think he had been looking for an out for a while, you know.” Peeta shrugged. “He just gave up, Effie. Ever since he came back to Twelve after the war… He didn’t want to live anymore, that’s as simple as that. We weren’t enough. The only thing he cared about at the end was where he would find his next bottle. We tried to help. We weren’t enough.”

“Oh, you are not responsible, dear.” Effie countered firmly, squeezing his shoulder.

“He was a selfish asshole.” the boy spat. Guilt flashed on Peeta’s face when he looked back at her. “Sorry.”

Haymitch wasn’t sure if the kid was apologizing for the language or the sentiment.

“He truly was.” she simply agreed with a smile. “Would you mind giving me a minute? I will join you back at the house.”

Peeta hugged her tight, gave a last glance at the grave and then left. Effie waited until he was well away to fully turn toward the open grave. Haymitch didn’t dare look. He didn’t want to see his own coffin. The undertakers were waiting a polite distance away, shuffling on their feet to keep warm, clearly impatient to be done.

“You are the only man I ever truly loved.” Effie whispered slowly, swallowing hard to keep the tears at bay. It didn’t really work and she bit down on her bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. “You had a lot of flaws. And I really do mean that, Haymitch. And I am so angry with you, so angry… I would have overlooked them all, you know. I would have overlooked everything if only you had loved me a little. If only…” A sob escaped her and she hastily rummaged in her purse for a handkerchief. It took her a few seconds to collect herself and Haymitch could do nothing but stare at her, feeling stupid and in pain because… It was all such a waste. “I only wanted you to love me back. Everything else… Everything else would have fallen into place if you had just loved me back. I know it.” She shook her head and awkwardly reached for the tombstone, patting it twice. “I hope you are with your girlfriend now. I hope you are finally happy and at peace. I suspect I will join you before long. This Panem… I do not think it is really made for me. I love you. Still.” She chuckled bitterly. “Always.”

She licked her lips and carefully wiped her cheeks, nodding at the undertakers before hurrying away as if she couldn’t bear to see them close the grave.

“Effie!” he called after her, finally breaking out of the strange spell that had fallen on him.

He tried to follow her but Snow grabbed his arm and everything turned icy. Suddenly he could see a cloud in front of his mouth with every breath and the chill in the air was bad. His extremities were numb and no matter how many times he tried to shrug the hand off he couldn’t get him to let go.

It was night once more.

The undertakers were gone but the grave was still gaping open.

“What the fuck do you want?” he shouted, trying to struggle free…

The storm was picking up again and Haymitch couldn’t bear the cold.

Snow’s gaze was dead, absolutely dead, and Haymitch had looked at death in the eyes enough times to recognize it. He needed to get out if he wanted to survive. He needed…

With the hand that wasn’t gripping him, Snow slowly lifted his arm and imperiously pointed at the gaping grave.

The message was clear and Haymitch swallowed hard, terror and dread making his stomach churn.

“I look in there and then I’m done, you hear?” he snapped. “I’m done with this fuckery! I want to wake up! I want to…”

The grip on his arm tightened to the point Haymitch was sure he was going to lose the limb. The cold was so brutal it was burning.

Slowly, he took a few deep breaths and inched toward the grave. Snow let him go then, of course.

He peered inside the hole and found an open coffin. He frowned and looked a little closer… It was empty.

“What..” he started to ask.

He was pushed from behind.

So violently he didn’t have time to grab around for any kind of purchase.

He fell.

He fell and it lasted forever.

A lifetime of a fall.

And then he was inside the coffin and the lid slammed shut and he was trapped, trapped, trapped…

He hammered his fists on the wood, screamed himself hoarse…

He wasn’t dead.

He could still fix it.

He could still fix everything.

He wasn’t dead yet.

6. The Best Christmas

Haymitch woke up with a start.

At least he thought he did wake up this time.

The pale light of dawn was trickling through the windows and the fire was slowly dying in the fireplace. The house was warm, there was no suspicious creaking or banging…

He gave it a few minutes. Just to be sure.

But when no more ghost appeared out of nowhere to scare him half to death, he let out a long breath.

“Holy shit.” he muttered, rubbing his face. His eyes fell on the open metal box with the pictures he had never put away and he licked his lips. “Right.” He was exhausted. All he wanted to do was haul his ass up the stairs and crash on his bed. “Right.”

He wasn’t dead yet.

The first thing he did was go into the kitchen and pick up the phone. His first call was to Four. It rang and rang…

“What the actual fuck?” Jo’s voice grumbled at the other end of the line.

“Hey, Jo.” he mumbled.

“Haymitch?” she growled. “It’s fucking three a.m.”

Time difference. Right.

He glanced at the clock on the wall that had long since stopped working and then took a peek at the backyard through the window over the sink, stretching the phone’s cord as far as it would go. Snow glistened in the light but it had stopped pouring down. It actually looked pretty. The sun was very low still, he supposed it couldn’t be much later than six in the morning.

“Yeah, sorry.” he snorted. “I was just calling to say… You know… I haven’t been keeping in touch…”

“Can you keep in touch in daylight?” Jo snapped. There was another muffled voice on the other end and then Jo scoffed. “Just Haymitch calling in the middle of the night like it’s normal behavior. What do I know? He woke up the kid?”

“Say hi to Annie.” he requested and then winced. “Look, sorry, I can’t stay long. I’ve got lot of stuff to do today…”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Jo snarled.

He preferred to ignore that. “I was thinking… Maybe me and Effie could visit soon, yeah? Check on you, Annie and the boy.”

“You and Effie.” Jo repeated, dumbfounded. “How fucking drunk are you right now? That train left the station long ago, Haymitch.”

“Yeah, well…” he shrugged self-consciously. “I’ll call back tomorrow, alright? Okay. Merry Christmas!”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Johanna screeched. “You can’t call people at three a.m. and then just…”

He hung up before she could really get into it and dialed up another number he hadn’t used in a really long time. It took almost ten minutes before someone picked up.

“You work for the government.” he started when someone actually answered the phone, without waiting for a proper greeting. “Ain’t you supposed to be available at all times? What if this was an emergency?”

“Haymitch?” Plutarch asked sleepily.

Plutarch had never been an early riser and if it was three in Four… Well, then it was four in the city.

“Yeah.” he confirmed. “Merry Christmas! I need a favor.”

It was almost fifteen minutes before he had managed to extort what he wanted from the Secretary of Communications – and it did have its perks to know people in high places. He rushed to the kids’ house next, barely remembering to grab his coat.

He hammered on their locked door until Peeta opened it, rubbing sleep out of his eyes like a small boy. Haymitch hugged him without giving him time to pause or think.

“What the…” the boy exclaimed, taken aback. “What’s going on?”

“Merry Christmas!” Haymitch retorted, enjoying the look of total confusion on Peeta’s face. It was good not to be the one being confused for once. He had been confused enough in the last… How long had that night lasted? He spotted the girl hanging by the living-room threshold, warily watching him, and he let go of the boy to hug her. “And merry Christmas to you too, sweetheart.”

“How wasted did you get last night?” she grumbled, hugging him back for a second and then shoving him away. “It’s barely six.”

“And you hate Christmas.” Peeta reminded him, closing the front door. “I need coffee. You need coffee too. A whole pot of it.”

“Don’t have time.” He shook his head, following them into their kitchen nonetheless. “There’s a hovercraft coming from Thirteen to pick me up in thirty minutes and I need a shower.”

“Finally, he washes.” Katniss muttered sarcastically, rolling her eyes only to frown. “What do you mean a hovercraft is coming to pick you up? What the hell did you drink this time? You’re completely drunk.”

“I’m sober.” he argued. At least, he felt sober. A bit hyper, yeah, but sober. He waved his hand in the air. He didn’t have time for that. “Look, kids, I need a huge favor.”

Peeta and Katniss exchanged a look.

“Let’s hear it.” the boy said, not without reserve.

Haymitch winced. “I need you to get rid of my booze. And this time, don’t forget the stash in the garden ‘cause that’s where I kept everything before the Quell and you never noticed so… Yeah. Throw it all away.”

“Are you joking?” Peeta frowned. “Is this a joke?”

“Haymitch… You want to stop drinking?” Katniss asked, completely stunned.

“It’s not the important thing.” he dismissed.

“Sorry but that sounds huge to me.” the boy retorted.

“Look, I’m gonna go get Effie and I’m gonna bring her back.” he replied. “We need to have a Christmas dinner tonight, okay?”

“Christmas dinner was last night and you missed it.” Katniss grumbled.

“What do you mean you’re going to go get Effie?” Peeta objected. “You can’t just show up and… Abduct her. And what is this about a hovercraft? You sound…”

“Don’t worry about how I sound, just do what I say.” he cut him off and then made a face. “Please. If you can clean a little around the house, I wouldn’t say no either… Add some Christmas thingy… Make it look nice for her, you know.”

“Oh, sure.” Katniss sulked, pouring herself some of the coffee Peeta had just set to brew. “We’re gonna spend Christmas cleaning your house while you go have hovercrafts hallucinations in the meadow.”

“Haymitch.” the boy squeezed his shoulder. “Sit down. Have some coffee. Sober up a little.”

“I am fucking sober.” he snapped. “I swear. I’m fucking sober, Plutarch’s sending a fucking hovercraft and I’m gonna go and get my girl back no matter what so… Would you please help me? For fuck’s sake! Fucking ghosts are more helpful than the two of you.”

The kids exchanged another look.

Haymitch was ready to bet they were silently debating having him committed.

“Does Effie know you’re coming?” Peeta asked tentatively.

“No.” he admitted. “Look, she deserves a nice Christmas, alright? So I’m gonna go get her and we’re gonna have a nice Christmas, the four of us.”

“How do you know she’s not having a nice Christmas already?” Katniss frowned. “We talked to her last night and she was raving about that party she was going to…”

“I just know.” he scowled. “Could you two fucking trust me for a second?”

“Did you really talk to Plutarch?” Peeta insisted.

“Yes.” he sighed. “Look, I don’t have time for this… I need a shower. If I show up like this… Well, she’s gonna rant about how I don’t have proper hygiene and, let’s face it, she’s kinda right about that but that’s no way to get a woman back so… I’m gonna go shower. Help me, don’t help me. Whatever.”

“You’re going to do the trip to the Capitol and back in one day?” Katniss asked, pushing a mewling Buttercup aside. Peeta wordlessly fixed the cat a plate.

“It’s a three hours ride by hovercraft.” he shrugged, on his way out through the back door. “We’ll be back late afternoon.”

“Very confident about that we.” the girl muttered dubiously. “She’s gonna kick him out the door.”

Haymitch didn’t let them rain on his parade. He was on a roll.

It felt a little like the rush of alcohol right before a very good binge and it was only once he was finally sitting in that hovercraft, in the nicest unstained pressed pants and clean navy blue woolen sweater he owned, well on his way to the Capitol, that he felt the first doubts creeping in.

What the fuck was he doing deciding on sobriety and crossing Panem on a whim just because he had the weirdest nightmare ever? He had had nightmares before. He had had bad dreams…

What if she had rebuilt her life? What if she was having parties every night and had found a new boyfriend?

He didn’t believe in ghosts. He didn’t believe in prophetic dreams or whatever it was supposed to have been. He didn’t believe in fate. He really didn’t believe in Christmas miracles…

It had just been a dream.

It had to be.

But if it had been a dream why did he felt so much lighter? The guilt that he had been carrying around ever since his Games, the knowledge that he was responsible for his family’s and his girl’s death… It was gone. And when he probed at that particular dark corner of his mind, he didn’t feel as bad because… That was gone. Over. The kiss with Mabel had proved that well and truly. There were no more feelings there. Tenderness, yeah. Fond recollections. But no love.

So maybe it was his unconscious playing tricks on him with the help of a particularly vicious batch of moonshine…

Or maybe it had been real.

The whole thing.

Maybe…

The only thing he knew for sure was that he never wanted to see Effie upset again, never like in that vision Finnick had showed him and he certainly didn’t want her crying on his grave about the life they never had together.

What he wanted…

What he really wanted was to go back to that Christmas they had spent in bed six years earlier.

Mabel had been right. It had been his best Christmas.

And he was done denying.

He was done.

The hovercraft landed in the Capitol and he didn’t let himself hesitate or second-guess when he stepped out. As Plutarch had sleepily promised, there was a car and a driver waiting for him on the tarmac – and, even better, the driver knew her new address thanks to the former Gamemaker’s presence of mind.

He felt the urge for a drink. Several times. But he was so committed to his present goals that it wasn’t difficult to ignore it for now. The temptation to stop at a bar on the way just for a liquid dose of courage was fleeting. He didn’t want to risk it.

The Capitol had changed a lot since the war, rebuilding had completely reshaped the city, but it was still wearing its best Christmas outfit. Everywhere he looked, there were decorations and trees and what not… The day before it would have irritated him, now it simply made him smirk.

He was so impatient, he could hardly sit still.

And when the car left the nice districts behind to venture in a neighborhood that looked slightly dangerous, he knew whatever that dream was, it hadn’t lied. There were no decorations here. Just new grey squared buildings and unsmiling people. He didn’t like the thought of her walking around alone in that place. It looked like the kind of place a woman like her would get mugged because she would be an easy prey.

It was so drab.

She didn’t belong there.

Finally, the car parked in front of one of the grey buildings and Haymitch climbed out, looking around with uncertainty. Her name wasn’t on the buzzer but the hall door was broken and he only had to push to let himself inside. He found the right floor thanks to the mailboxes and just went straight for the stairs – he didn’t trust the elevator and it allowed him to burn some of that restlessness.

Once he was standing in front of her door, he nervously wiped his sweaty palms on his coat and knocked. And when it didn’t get him any answer, he knocked again, checking his watch. With the time difference, it was a little past nine in the morning. Not early at all for her.

He heard a small noise inside and he knocked again. Still, there was no answer.

“Effie?” he called, finally understanding what the problem might be. “It’s me, sweetheart. Can you open up?”

There was a long moment of complete stillness on the other side of the door and then bolts were audibly turned. He counted three until the jingle of keys signaled the door was unlocked. There was another second of immobility before she actually opened it though.

And then he saw her and he stopped doubting. The same confidence he had woken up with rose up. This was the right decision. He had been right to come.

Because she looked like hell.

Just like she had last night in Finnick’s vision. Too thin – albeit not yet as skeletal as she would be two years from then if he messed this up – upset and hangovered as opposed to tipsy. On that front, he could sympathize. She was floating in her long-sleeved green dress.

She didn’t say anything. She just stared.

“Can I come in?” he asked because he wasn’t doing this in the hallway.

She blinked and suddenly it was like she had come back to herself. “Oh. Of course. My apologies. Come in. I was not… I was not expecting visitors, you will have to excuse the mess. It is…” She had stepped back during her little speech and he took the opportunity to let himself in and close the door behind him. If he needed any more proof… The place was the same as in his dream. The ridiculously tiny Christmas tree was still on the coffee table with the now very empty bottle of vodka… He didn’t need to check the cupboard to know he would find a packet of cookies. Effie cleared her throat, obviously embarrassed both by the apartment and…Well… He wasn’t entirely at ease either. Last time they had been together in the same room it had become nasty. She patted her chin-long hair self-consciously. “I did not know you were in town. I talked to the children last night and I must have misunderstood because I could have sworn they said you were…”

“Getting myself wasted?” he snorted. “Yeah. I was.”

“I see.” she nodded, even though she clearly didn’t see anything because she looked completely lost. “I am not quite sure I understand…”

“I came to take you home.” he announced.

She looked at him as if he had grown a second head.

“Home.” she repeated.

“Yeah.” he confirmed firmly. “It’s Christmas and we’re gonna spend it at home. With the kids. I have a hovercraft waiting for us. Guess we’re gonna need to send something nice to Plutarch ‘cause I did wake him at four in the morning so…”

He shrugged.

She stared.

“Are you drunk?” she asked after a few seconds.

“Why is everybody asking that?” he sighed.

“I wonder.” she deadpanned and there was a hint of amusement in there but she covered the slip by turning away from him and snatching a cigarette and her lighter from the coffee table. She didn’t sit down and didn’t invite him to make himself at home so he remained standing, shuffling his weight from one foot to the other. “What do you want, Haymitch?”

“Told you.” he grumbled.

“It did not make much sense so you will forgive me for not understanding it.” she retorted. “I do not see what…”

“Are you still mad at me?” he cut her off.

She wedged the cigarette between her lips and flicked the lighter a few times before it finally worked. She was irritated, that was plain to see at her jerky movements. She used to hide it better.

“You still have deplorable manners.” she remarked.

“Not what I asked.” he pointed out.

“Does it matter?” she challenged. “You cannot wake up one day and decide that you suddenly want me to come to Twelve…”

“Yeah, I can. It’s Christmas.” he snapped, automatically eying the bottle of vodka.

“You hate Christmas.” she shot right back.

“Well, now I love it. What do you know. Things change.” he spat. “Except for one fucking thing, yeah? We can’t go one fucking minute without jumping at each other’s throat.”

“Language.” she rebuked. “This whole thing is crazy. You cannot seriously think that…

“I’m done. That’s what I came to tell you. I’m done.” he interrupted her again, shocking her into silence.

“Done with what?” she whispered after a second, jutting her chin in the air. But it looked more defeated than defiant. As if she was trying to pretend she was fine when she so obviously wasn’t.

“You called me last night.” he stated.

She was all poker face but he saw the surprise flash in her eyes. “You did not answer.”

“I’m here now.” he said, lifting his arms and letting them fall down in a helpless gesture. “And I’m fucking done, Effie. It’s gone on long enough. I’m done. So be done too and let’s move on, yeah?”

“I do not understand what you are talking about.” she retorted, taking a frantic drag of her cigarette. “What are you done with? Us ? Haven’t we been done for a whole year now? Have we even ever begun? This…”

“I’m done with this stupid war between us, alright?” he growled. “I’m done with… I’m done failing the kids ‘cause I’m too busy getting myself shit-faced so it stops hurting. I’m done fucking hating on Christmas just ‘cause you love it so much it’s impossible not to think about you every second and the pain’s unbearable. I’m done drinking full point ‘cause I sure as hell ain’t forcing Peeta to pick up my dead corpse from the floor in two years. I’m done watching you get so upset you do that little wheezy sound when you cry. I’m really done with that.” The place wasn’t that big. He only had to take one step forward to be able to grab her hand and he squeezed her fingers hard. “I’m done being without you, you hear? I’m done.”

“What are you talking about? What is this about dying in two years? Are you sick? Is this what it is about? Are you…” she worried, looking around for a place to put down her cigarette. When she found none she simply rolled her eyes and crushed it on an already badly damaged wooden storage unit. Then she cupped his cheek and studied him with wide eyes, as if she was trying to see through him. “Haymitch, is it your liver? Are you dying?”

“I ain’t fucking dying. Are you even listening to what I’m saying?” he grumbled but leaned into her hand. “Alright, you ain’t gonna believe me, sweetheart, but I’ve had those visions last night… There were those ghosts…”

“Ghosts.” she repeated with a frown. “How much did you have to drink?”

“Doesn’t matter.” he dismissed. “Point is… They showed me things, okay? And the bottom line is… It’s not how I want my life to go. You’re here crying and drinking yourself to sleep… I’m over there drinking myself to death…” He shook his head. “I saw where that leads, Effie. We’re not going down that road. We’re not. You’re coming home with me, yeah? We put the past behind us. We try to make a future. A good one. You and me and the kids. What do you say?”

She was searching his gaze, biting down on her bottom lip, so tempted … He could see it. How tempted she was. What did she have to tie her up here after all?

But what he was offering wasn’t enough.

She was going to pull away. He saw it in her eyes.

“It is obvious that dream upset you…” she began slowly. She dropped her hand from his cheek to his shoulder.

“I love you.” he said quickly, without even really thinking about it.

In that last vision she had said that if he had just loved her back everything would have fallen into place. And the truth was… He had loved her for a long time. He had just been too stubborn to admit it, too quick to deny it. He had thought those words were impossible but they were actually almost easy now. The weight was gone. He had seen everything he needed to see. He understood. He did. He remembered. That was what being in love should have always felt like: being invincible, ready to take on the world, not weak and so terrified of losing her he hurt her at every possible opportunity before others had the chance.

“I love you.” he repeated for good measure and then shrugged with a slightly self-depreciating smirk. “Still. Always.”

He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting. More talking, maybe. Yeah, definitely more talking. Some arguing. Maybe even full out screaming.

Not the violent way she grabbed the lapels of his coat and pulled him in a brutal kiss.

Not that he protested.

He was only too happy to wrap his arms around her waist and tug her closer.

He couldn’t help but compare it to the kiss he had shared with Mabel the previous night. It had felt so wrong but this… This was oh so very right…

Suddenly she drew back, pulling on his bottom lip with her teeth. She was glaring and he wasn’t sure what he had done to piss her off in the last couple of minutes aside from kissing her senseless. “If this is some kind of joke… If you think this is a funny prank to pull for Christmas or…”

He shut her up by kissing her again and she couldn’t have been very concerned with it being a prank because she kissed him back, locking her arms around his neck and hopping… He stumbled back a little, not used to it anymore, but he caught her anyway, locking his hands under her ass to support her weight…

“This looks fun but I’ve got a car and a hovercraft waiting and I kind of forced the kids to cook another Christmas dinner so maybe…” he hesitated between two kisses. There was a door on the right he was pretty sure led to the bedroom and…

“Later?” she finished for him.

“Yeah.” he mumbled against her lips.

They didn’t stop kissing. Or touching each other.

“You can stop anytime now.” she hummed right before pushing her tongue in his mouth again.

“You’re the one kissing me.” he grumbled, rocking his hips a little because the whole thing was making him feel very tight in his pants and… “Oh, fuck it.” he spat when she licked that spot under his ear only to bite down on it.

He dropped them on the couch, not understanding her cry of warning.

At least not before the thing gave out under them and they ended up on the floor.

They remained very still for a second, assessing injuries. Haymitch’s back was going to be bruised black and blue but he didn’t think anything was broken. He was about to ask her if she was alright when she started laughing.

A real laugh.

It rang loud and clear in the room, prompting him to chuckle too because… As ridiculous as the situation was, it was so typical of them. Breaking furniture everywhere they tried to fuck.

She sat up and then used his shoulder to push herself up to her feet. “I think that it is fate’s way of telling us I need to pack.”

“Don’t believe in fate.” he commented, grabbing the hand she outstretched to pull him off the floor.

“You do not believe in fate but you believe in strange visions enough to risk coming here.” she teased. “Who were those ghosts anyway?”

“I’ll tell you on the way.” he bargained.

She accepted that and went to fill her old pink suitcase.

“What should I bring?” She frowned at the meager collection of clothes in her closet.

“Everything.” he declared, grabbing an armful of dresses and tossing them in her suitcase to her utter horror.

“Haymitch! There is a proper way to fill a suitcase and this is not it!” she gasped.

They bickered all the time it took her to properly pack everything but when they were done, he had had his way and there was nothing important left in the apartment. She never acknowledged she was moving for good but she was not denying it either.

He would take what he could get.

He recounted the whole weird night for her during the flight, watching her change color when he told her about the parts where she had been a kid. By the end, she was even more convinced than he was about the whole ghost thing.

“I am not moving into that house.” she declared. “I will stay at the children’s. And you can stay with us too. Your house is haunted.”

“They said they were Christmas spirits.” he shrugged. “And I guess they made their point. It’s all fine.”

“How can you say that?” she exclaimed. “I can hardly wrap my head around the whole thing.”

“Then, don’t.” he dismissed. “Maybe I was just high. Maybe the parts about you were things I knew but I didn’t know I knew, right? You talk all the time. Maybe you told me all that stuff years ago and I just hallucinated about it.”

She pouted. “Perhaps.”

“Not the important thing anyway.” he insisted.

“The important thing is that you love me.” she replied.

“Right.” he smirked.

She beamed when he didn’t deny it or evaded and it was so simple to make her happy he wondered why it had taken him so fucking long to get his head out of his ass. They spent the rest of the trip aggressively kissing and making the attendants uncomfortable with their far too demonstrative displays of affection.

Haymitch couldn’t even bring himself to care.

Not about that and not about the fact that he was seen dragging pink luggage throughout the District. He wasn’t sure what shocked people more: how hard he was smiling or the merry Christmas he kept tossing at them just to see them stare back, obviously scared by his cheerfulness. That part was fun.

“You are acting entirely too smug.” Effie chided, grinning like a fool too. She slipped her hand in his and he let her, squeezing her fingers. “It is rude. Lower it down a notch.”

“You first.” he challenged.

She huffed but didn’t stop grinning and he didn’t stop with his childish antics until they reached the Village. All the windows in his house were opened wide and he wondered if the kids wanted him to catch pneumonia. The reason for that became clear once they were inside though. He had asked them to clean around a little and they had certainly done that.

The house didn’t smell like a dumpster anymore.

It actually smelt fresh.

Even if it was freezing.

They must have made some noise because Katniss’ head poked out of the living-room. “You’re back. Good. The cleaning’s your Christmas present, by the way. And I hope you were serious about getting rid of the booze because Peeta took that to heart.” Then she spotted Effie and her eyes widened. “You came!”

Effie smiled, suddenly a little hesitant. “Hello, dear.”

She only relaxed once the girl hugged her, so obviously pleased to see her that she forgot to be nervous. The kids had really done a good job with the place. Not only was it tolerably clean, they had hung on some Christmas decorations around.

“No tree.” Effie pouted.

“Next year.” Haymitch promised quietly, pressing a discrete kiss against her head. “You can even put fairy lights outside and I won’t complain. Much.”

She shook her head and took advantage of Katniss leaving the room to steal a real kiss. “I love you when you are in a good mood, you know.”

“Only when I’m in a good mood?” he snorted.

She pushed him back a little only to steal another kiss right after that.

“Mistletoe.” she explained vaguely before kissing him again.

If the noise Katniss made was to be believed, she hadn’t really planned on that mistletoe seeing any tongue action. She made a face and then declared loudly that they should all go over to her house while his got warm again so they could have dinner.

Peeta looked absolutely shocked when he saw Effie but it soon turned into delight. Once she had hugged the boy tight, Haymitch rolled his eyes for her benefit. “They had no faith in me.”

“They should know better.” she teased. “You can be very persuasive when you want something.”

“Right?” he triumphed.

He was ignored by everyone.

Dinner was a joyful affair and even though Haymitch felt the urge for a drink, he managed to hide his shaking hands and keep his anxiety to himself. It would start getting really bad the next day, he figured. He knew what was waiting ahead and it wouldn’t be pretty… But for now, right then, sitting at that table and bumping legs with Effie under the table every two seconds, sharing secret smiles with her and joking with the kids, it didn’t seem that important.

There would be time to fix that tomorrow. For now…

“To the best Christmas.” he toasted over dessert, with a glass of water.

“To the best Christmas.” they all echoed, clearly amused by his newfound enthusiasm.

He didn’t care if they mocked him.

Effie’s hand rested on his thigh and all was right in the world.

Finally, everything was fixed.

The End

AN: I hope you enjoyed this! Please doooo let me know, this was a loooot of work!

#hayffie #effie trinket #haymitch abernathy #hayffismas week #my hayffismas week #holiday themed #post mj #about H past #thg supernatural au #about e past #a christmas carol

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