Work Text:
To Haymitch Abernathy, being unpleasant is an art form.
What makes a child an adorable rascal makes a grown man a sleazy bastard and that, for better or worse, is something even the most adventurous Capitolites are hesitant to get up close and personal with. For over a decade, now, the same qualities that once made him worth a bet have kept him from some wealthy socialite’s satin sheets, surely too fine for his rough humour and even rougher voice, notoriously grating when inebriated. And since sober he’s less pleasant a company still, even those who used to find his demeanour charming rather than plain vexing stopped bothering after his third year or so. Plenty fresh faces to fawn over, by then. New always beats old.
His pathetic excuse for a heart aches for them, at times. The young Victors all dressed up in furs, and feathers, and flashy trinkets, paraded around like fashion statements by anyone rich and rotten enough to purchase their time in gold. But then – better them than he. Fancy how he’s grown into the selfish asshole he advertised himself as. Whenever one of them brushes past, arm in arm with their patron for the night, he has a private toast to them, spares a passing thought for cat ears and gilded cages, then moves on with his life.
It’s been working out splendidly for him, so far.
But alas, there are forces beyond a lone man’s best efforts. The implacable machine of the Hunger Games chef among them.
In a near-unprecedented feat of desperation the boy from Twelve made it to the top five, this year. Before dying a dog’s death at the hands of his opponents, of course, but that is inconsequential. District Twelve among the runner ups. It’s exciting. It’s a novelty. It’s not happened in the past fifteen editions. Most of all, it’s interesting – which makes Haymitch interesting by proxy. The most dangerous thing you can be in a room full of Capitol élites.
He can smell it in the air as soon as he walks into the Sponsors’ Lounge. The stench of perfume, fancy booze, and anticipation. A hitch in the room’s collective breath. He might not risk ending the evening on his knees for a spoiled aristocrat anymore, but the alternative has his stomach churning all the same. The City’s upper crust is as greedy for flesh as it is for tragedy.
He lets one patron thrust a complimentary drink in his hand, ignoring what in a minute he won’t remember whether they were condolences or congratulations. Either way, the man is swiftly dissuaded. All it takes is a sideway glance from deep-sunken eyes and he’s slinking back to the refreshments table, tail between his legs. His companions won’t be as merciful. So he drains the glass in slow, unhurried sips letting the warm burn spread from his throat down to his extremities. That’s all blessing he’ll be granted to steel himself against the barrage that’s sure to come. Might as well enjoy it.
Ever since his victory, he’s been living one small mercy at a time.
Tonight, his mercy wears purple and the smile he last saw half obscured by a handheld camera, goading him into showing more pathos for the regrettable loss of his first ever pair of Tributes. It tells him play along. And, Fate, he’s so tired, so wearied already by the prospect of entertaining the grief-hungry crowd with the tales of his woes, that he just might.
“Can I talk to you?” Plutarch utters the question in the inflection Capitolites use when they want to say one thing and mean another entirely, believing they’re being so very subtle about it. The emphasis strategically placed, like the hand on his shoulder, a touch too close to his neck to pass for innocent.
“Shouldn’t you be in the Mentors’ Hall taking reaction shots?” Haymitch asks in response. “I hear Lyme’s girl is doing wonders.”
Leaving his boy to bleed out in a ditch, among others.
“Oh, it’s all very automated, these days. Has been for a couple years, actually, but I don’t blame you for not keeping track,” the other man replies and, if the liquor is not playing tricks on him yet, there’s a hint of conflicting emotions there. Nostalgia battling fascination. After that, he loses sight of the reason why he approached him for a bit. “The room is fitted with remotely controlled cameras able to record from a dozen different angles, including close-ups. We only come in for the final editing and, even then, it’s a one-man job. Or one-woman, as it were. I left Cassia to take care of it. I want her to be thoroughly acquainted with the ins and outs by the time… well, that’s what I wanted to talk about, in fact.”
“I’m assuming it’s the kind of talk that calls for a private setting?”
“Preferably, yes.”
Haymitch takes stock of his options. The ice melting on the bottom of his glass; he won’t have to wait long for somebody to swoop in and offer him another round, though the price he’ll pay for it will far surpass any pleasure he might take revelling in his inebriation. White silhouettes at the corner of his eye; two Peacekeepers posted at the entrance to ensure he gives his best performance, hoping morbid curiosity overpowers revulsion and his miserable state somehow charms any one of the attendees into taking him home, thus sparing them the ordeal of escorting him back wasted and swaying to his quarters. A bejewelled woman’s gaze on him; her friends taking turns sneaking a look at the man of the hour, whispers and laughter, undisguised intrigue. Plutarch’s hand on his shoulder.
“Alright,” he says, giving it a small pat. “Lead the way.”
The mansion hasn’t changed one bit.
Sprawling carpets and white marble as far as the eye can see. At the end of a sequence of halls and richly furnished parlours where the more socially inclined among Plutarch’s ancestors must have held court, Haymitch takes a moment to greet old Trajan Heavensbee, smirking down at him from his painted prison, with a nod, as he would a long-time friend. Then, without waiting to be encouraged to make himself comfortable, lets sags onto one of the upholstered chairs strewn around the library.
Plutarch doesn’t seem very troubled by the breach in etiquette.
“I’ve been tackling pre-War philosophers, lately,” he says as he lingers by a writing desk stacked with volumes – much like every other surface, save for the one Haymitch is currently occupying. On his last visit, the collection only extended to the shelves. Whatever spare time technologic advancements earned him in the past few years he must have spent becoming the joy and terror of antiquarians citywide. “The writing style is somewhat daunting, but there’s some truly fascinating reflections in there. It’s astonishing how good of an understanding of human nature they used to have, even with the limited tools at their disposal.”
The purpose of his invitation has escaped him again. Haymitch would take more kindly to it, perhaps, if the image of scrawny limbs twisted in torment wasn’t burned into the back of his mind, barely affected by the drink and further sobered by their nighttime trek through the residential district. Just about starting to give concerning signs of lucidity. “You didn’t bring me here to discuss philosophy, did you?”
“I did not.”
“Let’s hear it, then.”
“There’s no rush,” Plutarch replies. “I have you booked for the entire night.”
A coarse bark of a laugh tumbles off of Haymitch’s lips. Ever-resourceful Plutarch resorting to making a dent into his inheritance for the dubious pleasure of hosting the most undesirable Victor in the history of the Games. He’s got half a mind to ask him about the hourly fee, but some leftover sense of self-respect surges up to stop him in the nick of time.
“It’s been a while since I heard that line,” he muses instead.
There’s no pity in the other man’s eyes. Just as well. No compassion in his tone, either. Only genuine curiosity. “And how does it make you feel?”
“Just like that? No foreplay? Jeez. You sure you don’t even wanna get your camera out, first?”
Now, that appears to shake him from his beloved role as impassive observer. The smile wanes, making room for what could almost be called a contrite expression. “Professional deformation, I apologise. What I meant is, I thought it would make the most sense if—”
“Relax, Honeybee. It’s just banter,” Haymitch cuts in. “’Sides, I have little use for your apologies. If you or any of your ancestors, here, happened to have some brandy set aside, however…”
By way of an answer, Plutarch walks over to the goat’s head. A flick of the wrist followed by a metallic clink, and his stash is on full display. “Pick your poison. The cabinet is at my guests’ full disposal.”
“Aren’t you an altruist,” Haymitch retorts with the exaggerated purr he always refused to put on for the unlucky sods who bought his favours to contrast with the biting sarcasm underneath.
He catches a twitch at the corner of Plutarch’s mouth. “I do what I can.”
The brand he keeps is different from the one usually found at downtown parties, where different means disgracefully light, clearly meant to be sampled by people intending to still be able to carry a decently witty conversation after a few shots. The unhoped-for improvement of his prospects for the night, however, has put Haymitch in a contented enough mood that he neglects to mention it. In fact, he even goes as far as muttering a half-hearted apology for hogging the only seat unencumbered by the weight of knowledge.
Plutarch waves his concern away with a little flourish. Would rather remain standing, he says. And indeed, he scarcely remembers ever seeing him anything other than on his feet. Always on the move, as if his body was trying to keep up with the perpetual machinations of his brain. In that sense, he hasn’t changed much.
Or in any sense, really.
He and the house united in their immutability.
Haymitch has no eye for fashion – much to Effie’s continued chagrin – but he’s pretty sure the haircut is the same. The cut of his suit, as well. And although he doesn’t doubt a fair amount of makeup went into ensuring his complexion is clear and even, he’s otherwise inexcusably, wonderfully plain. A sight for eyes sored by the technicolour nightmare of Capitol City’s nightlife. Were it not for the gold chain dangling from his vest, nicer than even Peacekeeper wages could buy you in Twelve, he could almost be mistaken for a townie all dressed up for Reaping Day. Somewhere down the line, he must have gotten his wires crossed between familiar and comforting for, as he listens to his impassionate ramblings, watches the amber liquid slosh in his glass in sync with his gesticulations, the feeling that overtook him when he saw him emerge from the throng of partygoers lusting after a taste of his misery finally earns a name. He’s happy to see him.
So much that it’s not long before he decides to derail their aimless conversation in favour of posing the question he’s been mulling between one sip and the next. “Aren’t you concerned about the repercussions. It was a good performance the one you gave out there, I’ll give you that, but being seen openly favouring a male Victor just for the sake of… what? Liquor and a chat? It’s a risky ploy even for you.”
“This city as the marvellous tendency to look the other way, if you’re useful enough. I’m sure you’ve noticed,” he answers noncommittally. “There’ll be some rumours, of course, but not the kind I haven’t dealt with before.”
Ever since their first meeting in the town square, the man has given him every reason to be wary of anything that comes out of his mouth. Yet, Haymitch finds himself believing him nonetheless. It’s not the vaguely forlorn air, but the context. He can picture it all too well – the Heavensbee heir all alone in his big manor, preferring the company of his dead relatives than that of the pretty young ladies willing to throw dignity to the wind in exchange for a glance, a nod carrying the faintest promise of a life of wealth and influence. It’s the kind of thing that raises eyebrows, in Capitol. Then again, his family has held the fame of eccentrics in a world of eccentricities for decades. Maybe that’s enough for him to get away with it, after all.
He snorts. “That’s a relief. I’d hate to think I was hindering your career.”
“I’m not overly worried about that, and neither should you,” once again, Plutarch offers him a smile from over the rim of his glass. The usual one, that takes over only half of his mouth, like they’re in on the same secret. What kind of secret, Haymitch isn’t quite sure, nor is he itching to find out. The last time they were, it cost him more than he knew he had. “I’m already where I need to be.”
“That’d be Two?”
Plutarch didn’t remain part of his entourage long. Barely the time to wrap up the special feature on his first year of mentorship and he’d disappeared alongside the rest of his troupe. Moved on to greener pastures – that’s what Haymitch always assumed, anyway. He didn’t have the disposition to care, especially once his substitute proved to be astonishingly susceptible to intimidation. By his own admission unused to working with people with a confirmed body count, being in the general proximity of anything that could plausibly turned into a weapon was sufficient threat for him to leave Haymitch carte blanche on his approach to the interviews. He just added it to the tally of his mercies and never once questioned he hows and whys.
Which had become apparent come the following Hunger Games. Turns out being subjected to Plutarch’s Special Treatment gives you an uncanny sense for it and he could swear the Tributes from District Two didn’t look half as compelling in the flesh as they had in their introduction footage. The rousing speech about the power of determination one of them gave a couple years later still, in response to Caesar’s question about the hardships of the arena, gave him the sense that he started dabbling in script writing as well and, if he was allowed his honest opinion, he might just have found his true calling.
Something like pride lights up the other man’s gaze. “You watched the coverage?”
“Mostly against my will,” he replies, downing the last of his drink. After serving them both, Plutarch left the bottle within reach, so he only has to sprawl further into his chair and reach one arm out to grab it and pour himself a hearty refill.
“Naturally,” is Plutarch’s diplomatic response. “That’s not what I meant, though. I like to believe I’ve had a good run, but…”
“You’re ready to move on,” Haymitch completes for him.
“In a way,” he pauses. Maybe for the right words, maybe just for effect. Even from behind the scenes, he’s always had a good grasp on the tricks of showmanship, that much he can concede. Render unto Caesar, Plutarch once said, and went on a confusing tirade about lost civilisations when Haymitch asked him what on earth the famous anchorman had to do with it. “No sense in keeping up the suspense, I suppose,” he gives a faint chuckle, then, and looks right at him when he says, “My application for next year’s Gamemakers’ panel was accepted.”
For a moment, Haymitch thinks it’s a joke. A dreadful one, sure, but Capitol folks aren’t renowned for their sense humour and, for all his sympathy for the plight of the Districts, Plutarch is still a Capitolite born and bred. Except it lacks any obvious tells.
He balances his glass on the armrest, not trusting himself with it any more than he trusts his mouth to form words more eloquent than, “And you’re telling me this, because…?”
“I wanted to make sure I still have an ally in you. We might have to see more of each other from here on and, while I don’t doubt your discretion, now more than ever it’s imperative we act as if nothing out of the ordinary transpired during your Games. I need to know I won’t have to worry about you slipping and endangering us both.”
“So you can build yourself a brand-new career torturing District children instead of broadcasting their agony?”
“So I can learn how it works. Firsthand, this time.”
Haymitch buries his face in his hands. He plants his fingernails in his cheeks, his forehead, and digs until the sting shocks him into at least attempting to get a grip on himself. He draws a deep breath through his nose and, when he glances up, Plutarch is still looking at him. Unmoving, for once, with his half full glass in hand. Expectant.
“Just tell me that you know what you’re getting into,” he says after an eternity or two. “I’ll think you’re insane, but I’ll leave you be.”
For the first time, he can distinctly see the turning of every single cog as the other man searches for a good reply – never mind that there isn’t one. And indeed, “I’ve been in the Games business for years. It won’t be much different than curating communications.”
“And here I thought you were the clever one,” Haymitch scoffs, leaning forward with his elbows on his thighs. Pins Plutarch down where he stands with a glare. “There’s a pretty big fucking difference between watching children die and killing them with your own hands, take it from an expert. They both destroy you, but only one earns you a lifetime supply of sleepless nights.”
“I’m aware that it won’t be easy, but we all make compromises. You made yours. It’s about time I made mine,” he sets aside his own drink, and doesn’t let him speak the barbed retort dancing on the tip of his tongue before adding, “If it’s not me, it will be someone else. A young man fresh off the academy with his head full of Capitol rhetoric, and what good will it be, then? For you, for the children you speak of? Better it be somebody who can give a meaning to their sacrifice, in the long run.”
“The long run, always the long run! You love underdogs so much? Do what your fellow citizens are doing and put your wealth to use. Splurge on Sponsors, next year ‘round. Give them a fighting chance!”
“Is that what you’ve been doing?”
Oh, rip his heart straight out of his chest, then, won’t he?
Plutarch could have picked a table knife, any of the ornate silver ones he glimpsed all laid out in a pretty row inside a cupboard some two or three rooms down the hall, plunged it between his ribs and carved it out red and pulsating, and the pain still wouldn’t have held a candle to having the truth shoved into his face with nary a warning. No embellishments or grandiose music will ever make him come off as a caring Mentor. Haymitch knows. All Panem knows. He sees it in the looks of the kids that are gifted to him each year, hears it in the murmurs of escorts and oddsmakers. And it hits all the harder when, devoid of sarcasm and spite, of even the beginning of a sneer on those smooth features of his, it’s unmistakeably not and attempt at riling him up. That he could withstand. Could swear and curse him and his forefathers twenty generations up his family tree, and it would be cathartic enough for him not to mind playing right into his hand. But this – this earnest wondering with just a hint of compassion he has no right to be capable of, tears his gut open anew.
It's not his intestines that spill out, though he wishes they would if only for the last thing he sees to be the disgust on Plutarch’s face, but something ugly and vile the alcohol has done a fine job keeping at bay so far, but that won’t stand him being put in front of its own guilt any longer.
His next motion knocks the glass over. Liquor streams out, seeps into the carpet, broken glass catching the light of the chandelier, but Plutarch isn’t allowed the chance to complain about it. Haymitch already has him by the collar.
“You like to think you’re so generous, don’t you?” He hisses an inch from his face. “Offering me your brandy, and your house, and a sanctuary from those vultures, so you can keep pretending to be a good person deep down, even while you serve them their great gruesome spectacle on a silver tray and call it a necessary sacrifice. Did you visit Beetee, after my Games?”
The other man doesn’t even do him the courtesy to flinch. “I was busy shooting your Tour.”
“Of course you were,” Haymitch lets out a harsh laugh. “You put all your pawns in place and knock the mechanism into motion, but can’t stomach the consequences. I bet that’s why you begged for a transfer—”
“It wasn’t exactly begging—”
“—so that you wouldn’t have to see what became of your precious little rebel. No time for Beetee, then. What about Mags? Wiress? No. If you did, you’d know. How…” he stammers, the effort has drained the air from his lungs and now he’s left slurring his outrage rather than shouting it. “How they all were. After. You have no idea what it means… to be somebody’s puppet, pulled around on a string to their heart’s content, then suddenly left alone to deal with the aftermath. What it does to you. You’re no better than me, Plutarch.”
Plutarch rests one hand atop his where it clutches the fabric, but doesn’t try to push him away or pry his fingers open. Just inflicts on him the weight of it, and that of his gaze, which despite Haymitch’s accusations hasn’t once strayed from him. What lies within it – is not fear. Looks like he’s not the only one with his wires crossed. “Maybe so.”
It should sicken him no less than the leering glances he received from the Capitol crowd, and yet the nausea shies from him. He drinks in Plutarch’s shallow breath, the faintest trace of alcohol in it, waits for the bile to rise. And waits. In its stead, a deranged craving to draw a crack in the other man’s unnervingly placid composure begins creeping up his backbone.
His grip eases a fraction. “Starting to regret your patronage?”
Knuckle still pressed against his jugular, he can feel the quickening of Plutarch’s pulse even as his expression remains a paragon of detachment. “Not in the slightest.”
Haymitch wonders if he’ll let him fuck him on the carpet or will insist on relocating to the bedroom like the pampered patrician he is.
Plutarch’s shirt has triangular buttons that are impossible to unfasten with any amount of urgency. Haymitch gets about as far as his sternum before his patience runs out. He doesn’t rip them off their stitching only because shattering his glassware didn’t seem to affect him much and he suspects he might harbour the same indifference for his wardrobe, resolving rather to unceremoniously shove his hands underneath the fabric where it came untucked from his slacks, feeling the meat and the fluttering muscle there, and relishing in the sharp intake of breath that it earns him. Not yet a gasp, but promising.
He doesn’t pause to wonder how long Plutarch has wanted this – that way lies madness. Instead, he applies all his efforts, mental and otherwise, to dismantling his poise piece by infuriating piece. Biting down on his lip when the other man tilts his head to deepen their kiss elicits a noise he can’t quite tell if displeased or merely surprised, but that spurs him on nonetheless. The taste of his blood sweeter than his brandy. Bringing his lips to his jaw, then further, down the side of his throat, has Plutarch’s fingers digging bruises into his bicep in retribution for his too delicate skin scratched raw by Haymitch’s stubble as he kisses and nips his way to his collarbone. He senses the struggle of keeping himself together, sick delight entwining with arousal at the idea of him having to fight a losing battle for those last pitiful dregs of confidence, and as soon as it warms up his insides it’s already not enough.
He wants him humbled, dishevelled, stripped of his aplomb. A pale imitation of the man holding all the cards and dishing out roles as he pleases. He wants him debased, and with that single purpose in mind he pulls back, lets Plutarch tug him into another kiss that’s more teeth and tongue than anything else by the back of his neck, just so to have him distracted enough to hook his fingers into his belt loops with impunity and drag him, half stumbling, right where he wants him; neither the carpet nor the lavish four-poster he imagines lies behind one of the doors upstairs, in the end.
A pile of books wavers but doesn’t topple when Plutarch’s back collides with the desk, the edge of it driving into his spine in a way that’s bound to be uncomfortable – which is good. And yet he doesn’t protest – which is underwhelming. The resulting sight sort of makes up for it, at least. He might have lucked out with his impatience, after all, because no aspiring child murderer has the right to look so fetching with a stray curl plastered to his brow and a patch of flushed skin disappearing into the artificially deep neckline of his shirt.
“Won’t you let—” he begins but never finishes, for the upward slant of his mouth is still there somehow, taunting him, and Haymitch must do something about it too before the evening is over, or this time he really won’t be able to look at himself in the mirror.
He kisses him again while he busies himself with both their belts, and takes the same pleasure in swatting Plutarch’s hand away when it comes to rest on his hip with clear intention, refusing him his twisted altruism this once, as he does in feeling him swallow audibly the moment he gets a tight grip around them both.
Nothing’s dignified, after that.
Shame has been Haymitch’s loyal companion since the day of his crowning, but for Plutarch it might just be a disconcertingly new experience, and that is consolation enough as he too loses all pretences of control, and they end up rutting into his palm, against each other like the careless teenagers neither of them has been for a very long time. Pressed chest to chest, hardly any space in between, with the way Plutarch is panting on his skin almost making him forget the whole purpose. There’s no pretending he’s doing this to his aggravation when he’s got his fingers in his hair, clutching at the root, and mumbling that’s it, that’s it, against the corner of his lips at an especially well-timed twist of his wrist.
He does it again for good measure, and Plutarch curses. He curses – a choked up little “fuck, Haymitch” – and it’s glorious. His façade going down without even the grace of one last hurrah, no more empty quotes or pretentious vocabulary, only inarticulate moans, and the knowledge that, at least in this, he’s just as desperate and wretched as he, until he makes a mess of his own shirt and Haymitch’s hand.
He wants to see it, how the realisation complements his thoroughly disgraced state, but when he makes to untangle himself, although he’s still on the cusp and a part of him screams for release, Plutarch hooks the crook of his arm around his neck to keep him there. His other hand is between their bodies before Haymitch can catch up.
“Come on, now,” he murmurs, voice rasping and yet measured.
It only takes one, two unfairly soft touches and Haymitch is coming like that, almost on command, scar pressed against the other man’s stomach, gut aching, and shirt soaked through with sweat. And it’s his victory all over again, won by making a fool of himself also.
Several minutes of resting most of his weight against the other man and listening to his breath slowly even out trickle by before he regains the presence of mind to straighten up and stuff his shirt shoddily back into his pants. He wipes his palm on them just as perfunctorily, and grimaces when glass cracks under his shoe.
He needs another drink.
Plutarch could use one as well, if nothing else judging by the face he makes upon catching his own reflection in the gleaming shards scattered across the floor. There’s something indefinably amusing in how his fingers go for his hair to try and bring a shred of order to it before they bother with his slacks. “Do you think we can talk in a civil manner, now?”
He’s half squinting at him as he speaks. That, Haymitch realises, must be his tell for a joke.
“There’s nothing to talk about, really.”
As his final act of petty revenge, he seizes the forgotten bottle by the neck and takes a swing, then carries it with him across the room. He suspects it won’t last him the whole journey back to the front gates.
Only once does he hesitate.
“Word of advice,” he says on the doorway, the gaze of ten generations of Heavensbees and one stuck to his back. “White liquor helps with the nightmares.”