Whiskey and A Wig >> Haymitch X Effie

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Title: Whiskey and A Wig

Paring: Haymitch Abernathy X Effie Trinket

Warnings: none.

Spoilers: ...it wasn't cannon until now. So, yeah. Make sure you've seen Mockingjay Part Two

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The drunkard from twelve. The perfect capitoline woman.

And after what happened following the awful trial with Katniss, nobody was looking at the mentor and the dolled up accented lady who had helped the Mockingjay rise.

So in the effects of the ruins of the country, Effie Trinket found she could no longer look at the Capitol and see the goodness she had always found in the brash fashions and bold beauties.

So she left for the only place she knew she could be accepted into with an open pair of arms. District twelve, where it all began.

She took off her wig and stripped the piles of makeup off, abandoned the heels and found a pair of slacks and a loose cardigan and flats. When she found a mirror, she was surprised beyond reason.

Effie Trinket, who'd never seen herself as natural in her entire life.

She was a tad shorter without the thin stilettos and more demure appearing and hair much, much, longer. And blonde.

She took a train to district twelve, it stopping at every station. At one, two, three and four the ruins were almost unfathomable to have been places where people had lived. She kept quiet on the rest of the journey save a whimper for district eleven - she remembered the 74th games where Katniss couldn't save Rue - and finally Effie was in district twelve.

"Last station," the mechanised voice reminded her.

She smelt the acrid leftovers of dust in the air as she stepped out of the train, and hardly recognised the place. But it was still twelve. Effie made her way by memory to the place she knew he would be, in the Victor's Village, and silently wished he would be there.

He was sarcasm and she was spirit.

He was a headache and she was a painkiller.

He was broken inside - always had been, since his time in the arena - and she was stitched up enough to attempt to fix him.

Effie made it to the Victor's Village to see it hadn't changed as much as the rest of twelve had.

"I have gotten used to the smell," she whispered, crossing into boundaries of the rows of houses. Quietly she tiptoed into the proximity of the place he had last lived, and knocked on the door.

She heard the grumblings that belonged to a hungover man and the chink of bottles as she heard the door answered.

And there he was.

Haymitch Abernathy.

Effie still remembered the day he had come out of his games, victorious. She'd been younger then, much younger, and over the years with the experience, she'd grown to loathe the games. But Haymitch survived.

His hair hung lankly, eyes almost questioning her and then came his voice.

"Who're you?" he frowned.

Effie smiled, and kept her composure. "Keep your wig on," she repeated back to him from the time she had first worked with Katniss and Peeta. "Or, I suppose you'd remember me in it, since its the only thing everyone saw about me."

His face lost all its frown lines at once and Haymitch's hangover seemed to disappear and jaw slackened. "Effie? You're -,"

She shrugged. "I know. I came to ask for a place to stay, they burned down the Capitol and..." She looked down, feeling natural colour take over her cheeks. "I look absolute disgusting right now."

She felt a hand touch her cheek, and through tears she realised it was Haymitch and he wasn't completely disgusted with her like he had always been when she had been a Capitol girl.

"I'll let you in on a secret," he whispered. "You're damn beautiful."

She felt herself giggle. "You're not too bad yourself, Abernathy." She smiled.

"Now," he said, turning to let her in the house, "now that you've loosened your corset, how about a drink?"

Effie let out a sigh and closed the door behind her. "I'd love one."

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