Unconditional

Summary: Haymitch never visits. Says who, sweetheart?

Hours die stark, natural deaths and illumination fades as it must. A quiet house swathed in twilight bleeds and goes dark and cold; day becoming night, white becoming black. It takes time, but within a room touched by neither day nor night, a form pulls itself from sheets moistened by sweat, throws a knife onto the bed stand. He moves in the dark. A crash assaults his ears, but he pays no mind as he bathes the bedroom in gray moonlight, brushing aside the heavy drapes at the window. For a long moment he stands there, gazing without, thinking nothing, seeing everything.

His hands find the dresser and close around the throat of a clear bottle, his best friend. He doesn't need to be sober, but then, when does he ever? He could walk this path in his sleep and probably has more than once.

He takes a drink to quiet the uprising demons threatening his brain with their hammers, feeling around for a shirt, any shirt. After a thirty second kiss that drains the bottle he pulls the shirt over his head and looks down to make sure he has pants on. Check. Good. He's ready to go.

On feet unusually steady he makes his way through the house, stopping for another bottle and a glass, then makes his way out into an ashen-colored street, sparing the moon a glare for being too greedy with her light. He sifts through the shadows flawlessly, maybe the one thing he can do right without fail.

The door he seeks is open, handle turning at his touch. Flickering light makes him squint for a moment as he finds and sinks into his usual spot in the back of the room, outside the glow from the fireplace where she sleeps. He leans back against the wall and watches the fire move for a while, hands doing their job with the glass and the bottle, keeping him blissfully thoughtless and content. The girl in the chair doesn't wake, which is good. He doesn't feel like leaving. Embers collapse as the wood breaks down and he watches.

Some indeterminate time later the ugliest creature on the face of the earth enters from the kitchen with a disdainful air and a hiss, followed by the figure of the one who had been making the noises he's been ignoring. Greasy Sae looks down at him as if his form leaves much to be desired. "How is she?" he asks, taking another swig and pouring another drink.

Greasy Sae shrugs, wiping her hands on her dirty apron. Haymitch leans his head back, fixing his eyes on a cobweb on the ceiling. He'd figured as much. Another drink, another inch closer to the floor. That part inside of him that can't get drunk anymore suggests he should sit up and the considerably larger, drunk part of him obliges. Blond locks fall in his face as he swirls the contents of his drink around, watching the waves on the surface. The older woman perches in a chair near him and asks, "Ever thought of morphling?"

Haymitch takes a drink, looks up across the room with a snort. "You ever catch me in my shorts pissin' daisies in the snow you got the go ahead to blow my brains out."

"You wear shorts?" she asks somewhat dubiously.

He waves his hand dismissively. "Metaphorically speaking." He watches Katniss sleep for a few minutes before asking, "What are you still doing here?"

Her eyes narrow shrewdly, raking across him. "Checking a hunch." When his eyes go sharp she shrugs it off. "She thinks you're too drunk to visit."

A bitter laugh escapes him. "Girl knows me too well." He tips back his glass, finds it empty and sets it down.

"Seems that ain't the case now," Sae observes, almost to herself. Her eyes are soft, fond as she watches the girl in the chair. Her words stay concentrated on him. "Demons don't come out at night?"

If only. "No, they come out alright."

"Then you're stronger at night."

Her musings irritate him, but he keeps it in check. Can't wake Katniss. "Maybe me and the sun don't get along, sweetpea." He jiggles his glass up at her.

"Maybe you think the darkness hides you better." Buttercup licks his paws by the firelight, stops to glare at the old woman's scrutiny. She turns back to Haymitch. "You could come when she's awake."

She'd never let him, not in the state she's in. Some things a victor has to work out alone. He's been down that harsh road before, knows every twist and turn. Still on it, he thinks bitterly, then pushes the demons back with another drink, this time from the bottle. "Last I checked the Creepy Old Man routine was badly out of fashion."

Sae cocks her head at him, looks around mildly. "And this ain't creepy?"

He takes another drink and empties the bottle, then pushes himself off the floor unsteadily and says, "Shut up, woman. You know why I'm here. Guess they figure a babysitter doesn't need too many brain cells, huh? Guess they're right." Hands trail his pockets, come up empty before he remembers and bends over to get his bottle.

"I know why you're here," Greasy Sae replies and he thinks she understands. Only she doesn't understand the words he says, the ruse behind the façade of an unwilling mentor forced into guarding the psychopath that brought down the house with a single arrow there at the end—although privately he applauds that, hell he'd shoot everyone if he thought he could stand straight for long enough. No, Greasy Sae understands the truth. The reason why there is no black or white anymore, only listless, unending gray, the cost of the unconditional. He'll never let her face this world alone. Sae stands with him, makes ready to leave as well. "They told you not to come back."

Haymitch whirls on her, well, what passes for a whirl in his current state of inebriation. He glares, but his hair falls in his face and obscures it, making it far less threatening than he'd intended. "How the hell did you know that?" By the look on her face he can tell no one told her but he himself. The drunk's downfall. He curses himself and turns back to Katniss to make sure she's undisturbed.

The conversation disappears from his mind as he watches her brow knit, her limbs stir roughly. The part he always hates has come. He recognizes the signs as surely as any expert in human misery. A moan escapes her lips, she stirs as the nightmares take hold. Time to go, to wrench back from the light and return to the grave that is his bed. Letting out an expansive exhale Haymitch gives her the one gift she'll accept, the gift of escape.

Walking towards the door he kicks her chair hard enough to wake her, then ducks out of the house, leaving Greasy Sae to look like the guilty party and a glass on the floor in the back of the room.

Hope you enjoyed! Love me some Haymitch. :-) RE: The blond hair, I'm with the director on this...there was no second choice after Woody Harrelson.