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Haymitch Abernathy's house was filthy.
After the war, he'd seen it fit to return to his old way of life. Based on his day to day actions, you'd think nothing had changed. He was drunk all the time. His floor was a carpet of broken glass from white liquor, dishes, and clothes he'd left where they were dropped. He slept wherever he happened to stop, whether that be in a chair at the table, on his floor, or even in the bath. He still slept with his knife.
Once he'd not had to muster the maturity and raw strength to keep his two mentees alive, it was like a rubber band had snapped. There was no reason not to drink, to pass each day in stupor. Katniss and Peeta were safe, so he could deal with his nightmares as he pleased.
Nowadays, it was much less the specific memory of the arena that had dominion over him. The memory seemed like a series of empty actions that were never going to happen any way other than how they did. No, nowadays it was what the sequence of events of his life had turned him into, that bothered him. He felt permanently internally scarred, like there was a black tar at the core of his being, tainting every day and covering everything with a blanket of negativity. He'd long gotten used to this, and often approached it with a sardonic resignation. But as of late, it had drowned him.
Katniss knew the path through the debris in the hallway, and picked through it with ease, slinking her way through each room on her usual round until she found him, sprawled on his bed face down, one arm which she now referred to as his knife arm, tenderly tucked under him. He was going to stab himself in his sleep one of these days, if he wasn't careful.
Nowadays, Katniss knew only the most creative of solutions would wake him up. She rather fancied getting a gong. At least then when she woke him up, she could be a little further away. As it stood, the most handy way to wake Haymitch up was icy water running from outside the house. It was Spring now, and everything was thawing out, but a bucket of water would still do the trick.
She filled it, lugged it inside, chucked it and darted back in anticipation, as Haymitch's reflexive curses filled the air. He jumped up, shirtless, and started slashing with his knife. Then he slowed, seeing her stood with hard eyes by the outer wall, and threw his knife to the floor.
"Stop doing that."
"Get an alarm clock," she replied, already walking downstairs to make dinner. She didn't look back to see if he'd follow her. She heated the stove downstairs and started cooking eggs. When Haymitch was hungover, he didn't want to eat, but that didn't mean she couldn't make him. Directly after the war, he'd started looking thinner than she'd seen him in years. Now she got breakfast into him every morning. Peeta didn't understand why she did it— and frankly neither did she. Maybe it was a reflex left from years of seeing Prim emaciated like that. Hunt. Provide. Feed.
Haymitch grunted and settled himself into a chair by the dining table. When she looked back, he'd pulled on a shirt, but was still just in his shorts and boots. When he walked, his feet dragged on the ground, as if he no longer had the strength to pick them up. Why clear the ground when he could get around this way?
Katniss served him a plate piled high with eggs, knowing getting carbs into him at this time of day would be like getting blood out of a stone. He numbly picked up a fork and began eating them, as if his mind was on other matters. He paused momentarily. "Salt?"
She handed it to him, and he glanced up at her warily. The two had been through years of horror together, and knew the other would never stab them in the back, but they were both so deeply scarred that they understood the distrustful looks. They went beyond reflex, beyond ingrained. They were integral.
After a breakfast of silence, Katniss stoked a fire whilst Haymitch sat very still. How things were at his house reminded Katniss of how things had been at her home, before her first Games. Quiet. Frugal. Constantly clearing away an onslaught of dust, trying to pile more food into thinning bodies, whilst the occupant sat, resigned.
From her position crouched near the fire, Katniss looked back at Haymitch and saw his eyes fixed on a point on the floor, his right hand clenched on the armrest of the chair. She knew how he felt. Like a part of him was constantly on fire, making him want to scream and cry and go through every unhealthy way to cope in the book. But he was so long gone that he couldn't fall apart anymore.
Neither could she.
She shuffled over and sat beside him on the floor, her back leant against the leg of his chair. The two sat, watching the fire grow in the grate and heat begin to emanate from it. They might have sat like that for an hour. Both had enough in their heads to sit for much longer.
When Katniss felt a stiff hand come to rest on her shoulder, she flinched. But it was the only hand that needed no explanation for the flinching, that did not feel the need to offer up an apology. It just rested there. That small movement was the gratitude Haymitch felt he had to offer, but that his mouth would never even begin to form.
Peeta tessellated with Katniss. All his soft qualities evened out her rough ones. He'd dropped his edge after the revolution, largely returning to his old self before the hijacking. Troubled, but kind and warm. A steady presence to be around, and on the off chance he wasn't so steady, Katniss feigned steadiness for the both of them. They, living together, were so different, but it worked well.
Peeta may have been a contender for a soulmate, if Katniss believed such a thing, but Haymitch was her other half. They were both borne of the same Seam material, almost burnt out by the Capitol, and now, months after a steady Victory, failing to regain their feet.
There was no explanation needed.
Haymitch was safe with Katniss.