First Person: Haymitch Abernathy
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I awoke at four in the morning to loud banging on my door. I sprung up from my seat at the kitchen table, and shoved the two liquor bottles into the cabinet beneath the sink. What day was it?
Four months had passed since Becca had seen the victors from her show that she put on, meaning four months since Snow tried and failed to kill her friend.
Becca asks about the victors from time to time, and gets excited when she wakes up in the morning and walks downstairs to see Chaff sitting at the table or Finnick and Annie asleep on the couch. My house is like a safe house. Whenever any victor needs a break from their clients and the Capitol, they hop a train and come down to 12, where there's a bed waiting. They can't stay for long though, someone is always calling.
...
These few months had been particularly rough for Becca. A few weeks after the show she had for the victors, her grandmother, her last relative that actually cared about her, passed in her sleep. Becca whole-heartedly believes that it was natural, she was old, she passed in her sleep.
Becca found her first, ran to my house and got me. Then I got the doctor, and Becca still believed it was natural, but everyone saw through it. Everyone saw the white foam bubbling from her mouth. Everyone saw the small drops of blood leaking from her nose, and everyone saw her veins practically popping out of her skin.
However, I was the only one to see the singular white rose on the floor of her bedroom.
Not to mention once her grandmother died, her deadbeat mother showed up to her house in the middle of the night, banging on the door like a wild woman. Becca opened the door, happy to see her mother, and her mother gripped her by her hair and started screaming, trying to drag her somewhere. Luckily, Will was there to swoop in and push her mother off her.
I thought her mother was dead, so when I asked her, she revealed she flat-out lied to the entire country. In her words, she wanted to save her mother, and the district, the embarrassment.
"District Twelve already has so much to deal with. The last thing we need is for the Capitol to be calling us all Morphling addicts."
Ever since, Becca's been sleeping in my house. Her mother, who people believe is addicted to Morphling, is constantly seen hovering around the Hob, wrapped in a shaggy blanket with glazed over eyes. Becca constantly sees her because when you see the woman that you came from, who you are a carbon copy of, you will always lock eyes. Her mother often comes to me, begging for her daughter to come home.
Becca likes to move on quickly and pretend things never happened. She likes to bottle everything up and pretends she's fine, and I tell her that one day she'll just explode.
Being a teenager, she discards my advice.
Although, sometimes in the dead of night, I wake to her quiet sobs, and on the nights that she wakes up screaming and wailing, and when there is no blonde boy crawling through her window, I go up and hold her until she falls back to sleep.
I walked to the door and opened it, letting the crisp winter air hit my cheeks.
"Hello, Haymitch!" Effie greeted me, walking into my house, followed by Ophelia, Cinna, and a team of photographers and avoxes wheeling in a pile of clothes that could probably clothe the entire district.
"What are you doing here?" I ask, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.
"Haymitch!" Effie scolds, "manners, and turn some lights on." she huffs, welcoming the other people into my house. "It's the photoshoot for her victory tour!" She gasps, offended that I forgot.
"That's today?" I ask, flicking a light on, the warm yellow light filling the room.
"Yes! Haymitch!" Effie scolds, wearing a white blouse under a hot pink blazer and a navy blue pencil skirt. She batted her hot pink lashes, "now," she says, brushing her blonde hair out of her face. "Where's Becca? We tried her house, but no one answered."
"Upstairs sleeping," I said, "she doesn't really sleep at her house no more," I say, "after her..." I motion my hand and Effie sighs.
"Poor girl," she says, "go get her will you? Cinna and Ophelia already started to set up in the kitchen!" She smiled, pushing me towards the stairs. I groaned and rolled my eyes. Sure, she said poor girl now, but when she's thrown into a death game, she's called a tribute. When she's forced to wear short and revealing dresses, she's called a temptress, and when her only family is dead, she's called tragic.
I ascend the stairs and turn the hallway light on. I slowly walk towards Becca's room and tap on the door before walking in.
For once, Will isn't asleep in the bed or on the floor, and her window is shut. Her body is turned, facing the wall and the covers are barely covering her. Restless sleeper. Her snake, Milky sits in a glass box full of small rocks and plants next to her bed, staring at her like some sort of guardian angel.
I walk over and gently set my hand on her shoulder.
"Hey," I whisper, giving her a gentle nudge. "Becca, wake up." I say, and she groans, swatting her hand backwards. "Hey! Don't kill the messenger," I laugh, and she groans.
"What?" she mumbles as she flips over, staring up at me. For a second, my heart squeezes, and my lungs close up. I hated to wake the girl up from the first peaceful sleep she's had in ages.
"It's the photoshoot," I say, and she rubs her eyes.
"Too early. Tell them to go away." She mumbles, rolling over and shoving her face into the pillow.
"Can't, kiddo," I say, "five minutes, then come down." I whisper, patting her hair and walking out, leaving the door open and letting the hallway light flood her dark room.
I walk downstairs to my living room being completely rearranged. The furniture is moved to the sides, leaving an empty plot of hardwood floor. My kitchen is scattered with make up, and a rolling rack of clothing. In the middle of the room, a large brown crate that is sealed shut sits. Ophelia and Cinna sat huddled in the corner as Effie gazed out the window.
"Where is she?" Ophelia asked, "she needs to see what we've brought!" She squeals. I shoot her a weird look and sit down at the table. Just on cue, a tired Becca walks into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes and dressed in one of my shirts.
My heart squeezes a little tighter.
"Hi Effie. Hi Cinna. Hi Ophelia." She greets, pushing back her red hair. Although saying hello, she sits down at the table next to me first. "Hi Haymitch." She mumbles, leaning her head on her hands for a quick second before Ophelia and Effie were all over her. Telling her how grown up she's gotten, how much she's grown into herself, and how older looking she's gotten. Three different ways of saying the same thing with a nasty truth behind it.
"Alright darling," Effie started, "Ophelia and Cinna are going to start dressing you, alright?" She said, and Becca tiredly nodded. "Haymitch, we'll let them work their magic, now come into the living room." She says, taking my hand and dragging me out of my own kitchen. Once we are gone, a black veil is hung over the entrance to the kitchen for privacy.
I think back to around nine years ago, when Finnick Odair had just won. His victory tour posters were him practically naked, the only thing covering him was a woven net that was draped over his shoulders like a toga, and tan shorts that one could barely see.
I prayed that when Becca stepped out of the kitchen, she was fully clothed.
"So," Effie says, her high-pitched voice too much for the early morning. "How has she been?" she asks, sitting down on the couch that had been pushed from its usual position. Two avoxes set up a black curtain that was hung on a metal rod.
"I guess okay for a traumatized little kid who has no family left." I snark, and Effie rolls her eyes.
"She has you."
"What?" I ask.
"She has you." Effie repeats. "You think I'm stupid, Haymitch." Effie scoffs, "Do you seriously think I didn't notice the way you were so willing to go upstairs and wake her, no grumbling whatsoever. How soft you were when she came downstairs. How your face quite literally melted when she came downstairs wearing your shirt. How you're sober." She says, and I sit down next to her. I want to say something, but I have nothing to say. Not really sober, is all I can think of.
"You hate to admit it, but she's grown on you. Hasn't she?" Effie smirks, her bright pink lips forming a smirk. I grunt in response.
"Why are you telling me this?" I ask, and Effie sighs and goes a bit pale. "Effie." I say, a little harsher this time.
"There was this avox." She starts off with. The avoxes in the room continued their work, listening carefully, but it didn't matter. "He was put to death after sharing information through writing." Effie said, "before he died, he slipped a note into my mail, it went unnoticed.'' She explained, and I stayed silent.
"Snow has leverage on you now, Haymitch." She says, as if it's something I didn't know already. "According to the avox, Snow doesn't like Becca much, and will not hesitate to go after her." I feel my heart drop as I listen to her childlike laughs from the other room. "So that means you have to pretend not to have any resentment towards the Capitol. Think about it, every other victor does it because they have someone they need to protect. Now you have someone to protect," Effie says, sighing heavily. "And trust me, I do what I can to keep her safe in the Capitol."
What does she mean by that?
Fearing the answer, I don't ask.
We sit in silence until I hear Ophelia call out from the other room. "Get ready! Here she comes!"
With that, Becca walks in, she's laughing and splashing around the white dress Ophelia has her in, while Cinna pulls in the crate from the other room.
The girl wears a dress that's too old for her, sure, it's short, barley reaches down to her mid thigh. The white, see-through fabric trains behind her. The dress is pure white, and off the shoulder, leaving her collarbone exposed. It hangs low on her chest, and is loose around her chest and tight around her waist. Like a toga.
Tied around her waist and dropping down her legs is a golden belt designed to look like ivy vines, and there are golden snakes that slither up each of her arms. When I look closer, she is adorned with snakes. Her necklace is a golden snake, coiling around it, looking like it is seconds away from strangling her. Snakes drip from her earrings.
After an embarrassing amount of time, I realize she's Medusa.
Effie is immediately next to her, complementing everything. And I notice although she is decked out to the fullest, the only makeup she has on is a dark green lipstick.
"Alright, doll," Ophelia starts off, taking a crowbar from Cinna and using it to start prying open the crate. "Come see what we brought." All of us crowded the box to see.
Becca took a step forward and peered into the box and stumbled back into me. She mumbled something incoherent, her voice shaking. When I looked in, I understood why she was petrified.
The thing that came so close to killing her in the arena was slithering in a box next to her. The box was full of thick green snakes.
"Awh, baby, don't be afraid, they won't bite," Ophelia cackled, looking at Becca.
"They did in the games!" She said, peering down. "This is the first time I've ever been afraid of a snake."
"President Snow actually requested these be in your photoshoot," she said. "Now, these babies are just replicas. Completely harmless, the ones from your games are all dead." Ophelia explained, and Becca hesitantly leaned back over to peer in. I realize how easy it is to gain a child's trust.
"Reach in, go on." Ophelia urges, and Becca looks at me for reassurance.
"Okay, if they bite me then you have to get them off, okay?" She says, looking at me.
"Yeah, alright kid." I say, and she takes my hand with her left hand.
Slowly, she reaches into the box, letting her hand dangle there for a minute. She freezes there, moving slowly so she doesn't scare them. She stays there, her fingers barely an inch from the mass of snakes. I feel her tense as one snake reaches up and starts coiling around her arm. I hear her breathing stop as everyone watches in anticipation, like they were waiting for it to bite her.
But it never did.
"Hi," Becca coos to the snake, "you're so beautiful." She says, dropping my hand to let the snake slither into her other hand.
"Good," Ophelia smiles, and Becca hums softly to the snake, and almost immediately, the snake slows and rests in her hand. The snake was thick and dark green, and as long as Becca's hair. "Sit down, now." Ophelia said, and Becca sat down on the floor. Effie and I sat back down on the couch.
Ophelia put on thick gloves and picked up a snake one by one. Once she picked them up, she placed them in Becca's hair, letting them slither up and down and coil through her curls.
She had about half the box of snakes placed in Becca's hair.
"Can I see?" Becca asked excitedly, wiggling around as the snakes tickled the back of her neck, Ophelia gave her a mirror and her face lip up when she saw the snakes in her hair.
"One last touch." Ohelia smirked, pulling out a white lacy scrap of fabric. She walked over to Becca and tied it over her eyes. Once it was over her eyes, they took a brush and pained golden tears cascading down her cheeks. My stomach churned with disgust and I rolled my eyes.
After that, they had Becca take a thousand and one pictures standing or kneeling against the backdrop. The last picture was her standing against the black background staring dead at the camera, a scowl on her face as the green snakes coiled through her hair and up her arms.
"Alright baby, you're done now," Ohpelai said, taking off the blindfold. "Go back upstairs and take the clothes and makeup off." Opelia said, and after Becca shook out all the snakes, she nodded and climbed back up the stairs, the exhaustion seeping back in.
The stylists had the avoxes clean up everything fast and swiftly, including pushing the furniture back into place. Just like they came, they were ready to leave in a second. Becca came back down in another one of my shirts and hugged them all goodbye.
"The posters will be out around the districts in the capitol soon, we'll see you next month for your actual victor tour!" Ophelia cheered as they all walked out of the house. Effie gave me a look and hugged Becca goodbye, then left. Once they were gone, I sat down on the couch with a mug of coffee that Effie had made me. Becca followed me and flopped on the couch with a loud, dramatic, and tired groan. I chuckled as she curled into my side, leaning her head on my shoulder.
"Too tired to make it to bed?" I chuckle as she curls in on herself. She mumbles something out that is completely incoherent, and reaches her hand up to hit my arm. "Alright, kid." I said, and she dropped her arm and made herself as small as she could and fell asleep.
As she laid there, I found myself humming whatever song she was humming to the snake earlier. I also found myself wondering if I ever had a daughter, what would she look like? Probably not like Becca, but right now, I'd consider Becca my own.
"I like when you hum." A small voice said, and I turned my head to see Becca's big green eyes staring up at me as the sun began to shine through the curtains.
"Don't get used to it," I chuckle, patting her head and wrapping an arm around her.
And for that moment, there is no Capitol, no snakes, no Snow, no leverage, no threats and no stylists.
Just a mentor and a victor.
Hey y'all!!
another long ass track meet tomorrow so please bear with me while I give you some early updates lol.
so how do we like? This chapter was loosely inspired by the song Dear Theodosia from Hamilton!
Please feel free to leave any thoughts or constructive criticism in the comments! Speaking of comments! I love reading all of them, and they truly brighten up my day when I see them, so thank you!
Anyways, I hope you liked this chapter!
P.S-Below is the inspo for her look during the photoshoot!
Love y'all!
xoxo,
regina