Work Text:
“Found more candles.” Haymitch called out right before he strode into the living-room, his arms full of all the candles he had managed to locate. Maneuvering around the familiar layout of the furniture in the dark, he dropped his bounty on the coffee table, tossing Effie a worried look.
She hadn’t moved as far as he could tell. She was sitting close to the fireplace, in the safe halo of light, staring at the fire roaring in there like it was her lifeline. Clearly, the couple of candles flickering on the mantelpiece weren’t enough for her.
He grabbed the plaid abandoned on the back of the couch and gently dropped it on her shoulders. She didn’t startle exactly but she was tense and she didn’t acknowledge him aside for burrowing in the added warmth.
Winter in Twelve was always harsh and he was used to those kind of nights when the wind blew so hard it felt like a small army was laying siege to the house. He was also more than used to electricity giving out because snow was piling high outside.
Effie though… She wasn’t used to any of that. It was her first winter in Twelve and while she had been steadily getting better during the last few months – since her visit had turned into something more permanent – she still wasn’t at her best. He had somehow figured out before that darkness was a trigger but he hadn’t expected it to be that bad. He wasn’t particularly fond of the dark himself, never slept with his blinds closed or in complete darkness, but it wasn’t enough to trigger a panic attack.
Effie, right now, looked like she was two seconds away from one.
He worked quickly, placing candles all around the room and struggling with matches to light them. It was a waste of candles, certainly, and he wondered what they were going to do the next day if the storm didn’t abate and electricity didn’t come back because there was no way he would be able to go out in this weather to buy more… Right now though, his priority was to make her feel better because he had become a bit too intimate with her panic attacks, her flashbacks and her breakdowns over the last few months and if he could help her in any way, he would.
“Hey, sweetheart…” he whispered softly, once he had more or less covered every corner of the living-room with a source of light. “You’re okay?”
Stupid question.
It was the middle of the night and she had barged into his bedroom – where he had been sleeping, thank you very much – to shake him awake like she never did – because she knew better, fuck – which, if anything, had alarmed him more than it had angered him. It had taken him a few minutes to make sense of her panicky rambling about her lamp going out and about the house falling down around them…
The house was in no danger of falling down.
If it was one single thing, it was sturdy. And he had made some improvements and repairs since she had showed up on his doorstep. He had fixed the roof that had been leaking for ten years, he cleaned the gutters now, he had repainted the walls and made sure the shutters wouldn’t be blown away by too strong a wind…
No, the house wouldn’t fall down.
But a blizzard could be impressive for someone who was only used to controlled weather. If he looked through the window right then, he wouldn’t see anything but gallons of snow being tossed about by the harsh wind. There was no visibility at all and it made the house seem even darker inside. That bit of explanation hadn’t helped her not panic.
He had offered for her to come sleep in his bed until the storm abated, thinking he might keep her calm until morning – hoping the sun would manage to shine through the storm – but it hadn’t helped at all so he had ended up settling her in front of the living-room’s fireplace with the poor excuses of candles he kept in that room while he went looking for more.
“Sweetheart.” he called more firmly when she didn’t answer.
The storm picked up in intensity, the sound of the wind increasing…
She flinched and closed her eyes. Hard.
“Hey.” he insisted, keeping his voice calm like he did when Peeta had an episode or the girl was in one of those depressed moods. He slowly sat down next to her, relaxing a little when the warmth of the fireplace washed over him. He had been running around the house in slippers and his woolen dressing-gown – and his pajamas because he had forced himself to wear pajamas at night ever since she had moved in – but it really wasn’t a weather to run around at all. If it had been left to him, he would have remained in bed, buried under his blankets and be content to sleep through it.
Effie was wrapped up too, a lot more than he was. The socks, the flannel pants and the sweater all belonged to him but he figured she had her own set of pajamas on under all that.
“I’m sorry.” she breathed out when he laid a hand on her shoulder, over the blanket, careful not to startle her.
“Don’t. It’s fine.” he dismissed, shaking his head. “It’s spooky weather when you ain’t used to it.”
“Do you think the children are alright?” she asked anxiously.
“They’re fine.” he promised. He was pretty sure Katniss had gotten up to check the fire was still roaring and then gone back to bed to sleep it off, exactly like he would have done. Peeta probably hadn’t even woken up at all. “We’re gonna be fine too, princess. I promise.”
She leaned a little against him. “How long will it last?”
“Not sure.” he answered honestly. “But we’ve got canned food. We’ve got a lot of firewood and there’s more under the back porch in easy reach if we need it. We’re gonna be just fine.”
“And the geese?” she worried
She had no love lost for the birds but he figured she didn’t want them to get hurt either. That made him smile a little but he hid it by pressing a small kiss on the top of her head. “They’re in their pen, they’ve got shelter. They’re resilient. They’re gonna be okay.”
He hoped so, at least.
“Alright.” she whispered.
He felt her relax a little more against him so he wrapped his arms around her. It wasn’t often he was allowed that much nowadays, not when she was lucid anyway… After a panic attack or a flashback or even a nightmare, it wasn’t out of the ordinary for her to seek his embrace… But spontaneously?
He wasn’t complaining though.
After what had happened during the war, it was already a miracle she had come to Twelve – to him – at all. He would take what she was willing to give and if that was only friendship then he would only take friendship.
Something banged somewhere.
Not a shutter, he didn’t think so, more likely something the wind had picked up outside and that had crashed against the side of the house.
She flinched and gasped at the same time, her eyes frantically looking around the room…
“Hey…” He tightened his embrace a little. “We’re safe. Effie, I promise. We’re safe.”
“When… When the rebels took the city…” she stuttered. “I was trapped in the dark. I thought I was going to die before… The sounds, Haymitch… Even in my cell, I could… I knew the sounds meant bombs… Explosions… I was trapped in the dark and…”
“You’re safe now.” he promised before she could work herself up too much with the intrusive memories. “No explosions. No bombs.” He wished she hadn’t said that because now, with every moan of the wind, he recalled the terrifying days spent in a bunker deep under the earth, waiting for the next bomb, hoping it wouldn’t be the one to take Thirteen out of the map… “Come here, sweetheart.”
He spread his legs a little so she could sit between them, snuggle closer to his chest… She could have found it overwhelming to have him basically wrapped around her but she seemed to sink in that comfort instead. She curled up in a tight ball, her head on his shoulder, tucked under his chin, her breath gently rolling against the side of his neck…
“You ain’t trapped and you ain’t alone.” he reminded her. “You’re free. You’re safe. I’m gonna keep you safe.”
That was an oath he intended to keep for the rest of his life.
He had failed her once, he would never fail her again.
“Here…” Struck by sudden inspiration, he guided her hand to his chest, held it spread over his heart. “Feel my heartbeat? Just focus on that, yeah? I’m right here with you, sweetheart.”
He wasn’t sure how long they remained like that but, at some point, his back started to ache and his butt became numb because sitting on the floor was definitely not something a man his age should have been doing. She was a dead weight against him and when he chanced a glance he saw her eyes were closed and she was asleep.
Without letting himself hesitate too much, he scooped her up as best as he could and relocated them to the couch. He would have spooned her and covered the two of them with the blanket but she couldn’t have been as asleep as he had thought because she had other ideas.
She pushed him on his back and settled on top of him like a sleepy cat.
“I want to hear your heart.” she mumbled as an explanation before laying her head on his chest and going straight back to sleep.
Well, he mused, slowly running a hand in her blond curls, it wasn’t the worst way the night could have ended…