AN: Hello, me again. I know what you're thinking, if you've been reading my other fics that is: why the hell don't you update them instead of writing something else? The answer is that I would love to do so, but at the present time, writer's block has set in on those particular fics and so I tired to keep my mind ticking by writing a one-shot that I could think of instead.

I was flitting through lists of prompts the other day and came across one that jumped out at me: embrace. This is my first Hunger Games fanfic and even though it's not exactly cannon, I very much ship Hayffie. I adore both characters, especially Haymitch (who happens to be my favourite). I love both the books and the film (I cannot tell you how excited and impatient I am for Catching Fire coming out in November) and I feel that the majority of actors and actresses that were chosen for each part fitted the roles so well. Elizabeth Banks and especially Woody Harrelson play their characters to an absolute tee. Since seeing the film, I have become a huge fan of Woody Harrelson and he has vastly become one of my favourite actors (after Johnny Depp of course). So, getting to the point I was trying to make, I thought it would be a great idea to use this prompt word for a fic about one of my favourite ships. I love the sort of love/hate relationship they have going on and even though they argue...a lot, I think that at some point, their feelings would grow to something else - all it needs is a little spark. This is not set in any particular time frame - it's definitely not the year of the 74th Hunger Games, so it could be during any Games that they were working together before then. I tried to keep to the characters as much as I could and hopefully I have.

Rating: I have rated this fic T, for a bit of slight violence but not much.

Disclaimer: My name is not Suzanne Collins unfortunately, therefore I own nothing.

Embracing Possibilities

To cut it lightly, the damn woman was an absolute nightmare. Nag, nag, nag, nag, nag. Couldn't she do something which didn't include whining in his ear every five minutes? Probably not, it was her favourite pass time...apart from painting herself up like an Eighteenth Century clown, keeping to that blasted schedule she spent half of her life creating and of course, sentencing two children a year from his district to their immediate death. Yes, like any other disgusting Capitol citizen, she relished in the 'entertainment' that was the annual Hunger Games; found excitement in the idea of twenty-four children battling it out to the death until there is only one survivor, not caring that twenty-three families will have to endure watching their babies die most vicious deaths via a television screen. None of those fancy, sadistic people of the Capitol cared because their families were safe - they didn't have to worry about whether their children/grandchildren/siblings/friends would return home alive or stuffed in a coffin. They didn't have to sit in a state of absolute shock while viewing someone they love most dearly die because of not knowing what foods are poisonous or dehydration or being stabbed in the chest repeatedly until the blood is flowing thick and fast out of the multiple wounds that will never have the chance to heal.

There she walked now, blissfully unaware that she and the rest of the city's occupants were sick-minded and twisted, treating children like they were circus animals. She continued to yap about something totally unimportant (a rant about how he should change his clothes regularly and wear ties more often, to make him appear as a normal, hygienic human being perhaps? He wasn't altogether sure – he seemed to obtain selective hearing whenever she happened to be near) while he stared daggers at the back of head; it was at moments like these where he could not help but think of violent thoughts because all he wanted her to do was shut up and make her aware of the world she lived in and those who she figuratively bowed down to were dictators of evil and chaos.

"Would you just shut the hell up?" he snapped, interrupting her tangent of how beastly he was.

"And that is another thing, Haymitch," she trilled. "You cannot just interrupt people while they are talking in your brutish manner. Either interrupt politely or for goodness sake, wait till their finished."

"Sweetheart, if I wait for you to stop jabbering on, I'll be on my god damn deathbed. I can see my headstone now: 'Haymitch Abernathy. Bored to death but finally found the peace and quiet he was looking for'. There'll also be a warning sign for you to hinder someone other poor sod and not me when you finally pop your clogs." She tutted at his rudeness and his ability to talk about death in such an abrupt manner. Why did she even bother to try and change him? He was never going to change, that much was obvious. Not his hygiene, his vileness, his drinking habit or the ability to charm not even a weed.

"If you carry on drinking like a fish, you'll be on your deathbed way before I put you there."

"Don't be so sure, sweetheart," he muttered. She scowled in his direction, letting him know that she did in fact hear him.

"Now do come on, Haymitch," she carried on. "Please look the least bit respectable will you? This party is important."

"And what the hell makes you think I'll be attending this stupid party?"

"Because you have to, Haymitch, simple as."

"And why is that?" he drawled.

"You have to gain sponsors, Haymitch, it is your job!" Effie screeched, as if she were dealing with an incompetent child. "All these years and you have done little to help each of those children – no longer!"

"We won't get any sponsors, darlin'," Haymitch slurred. "I don't know if you've noticed but we represent the lowest of districts. Those kids have had no experience and impressed no-one. Their not gonna last the bloodbath."

"You don't know that, Haymitch! This year could be different." He snorted at the obscenity of the idea. "Besides, if you do not attend this party, you will completely show me up and humiliate me in front of hundreds of the most important people in the Capitol." That did it. That was the final straw – he couldn't shake the violence away this time.

Before she could blink, Haymitch's hand was around her throat and he had her pinned against the nearest wall he could get to.

"Do you really think I care about you or you damn Capitol, princess?" he snarled, his face inches away from her own – she could smell the stale alcohol upon his breath. "I don't care if I show you up at your pathetic excuse of a party, where you'll only flaunt yourself in front of any rich man in a pair of trousers just to get a good name for yourself."

"Haymitch..." she gasped but the hand around her throat only tightened in response.

"It is rude to interrupt, sweetheart, is it not?" he taunted, relaying back the statement she tried to drill in his brain earlier on in the conversation. "You care about me and my district about as much as I care about you and your pathetic excuse of a Capitol so don't try to kid yourself.

"You have no idea what it's been like for me. All those years trying to mentor children that I know will just end up dying, having yet more blood on my hands. More lives I've become responsible for and failed them." His face was red and his eyes ablaze with fury.

"You are so god-damn full of yourself but all you are is another puppet on Snow's many strings but have yet to see how...sickening his whole system is. So you just carry on with your pitiful life, going to your pitiful parties while unknowingly to you, the rest of Panem suffers!" He released the hand that had been close to ending Effie Trinket's life and instead grabbed the shoulders of her expensive burgundy silk dress, swung her body away from the wall and flung her away from him. She gasped and spluttered as she steadied herself on her nine inch stilettos, trying to regain her breath from nearly being strangled by that beast of a victor. She looked at him with a mixture of anger and fear as he too tried to regain his energy from his little outburst.

"GO!" he yelled when he could take her gaze no longer and she ran, as capable as she could in her heels, from the room and to her own. Haymitch listened as the slam of her door echoed through the penthouse.

He shouldn't have lost his temper as such. But she deserved it, he thought, deserved to have her eyes opened to her not so perfect home. He could have handled it better however, less violently. Why? She was getting on my nerves. But the look in her eyes, she was absolutely terrified. So she should be, I'm a murderer. With that last thought and sick of his brain arguing with itself, he picked up the nearest vase and threw it at the nearest wall. It smashed into dozens of pieces and scattered across the tiled floor. Just like my life.

Hours later and Haymitch was slouched on a couch in the living room – the television was switched on to a ridiculous program which followed the lives of three different couples and how they tried to work their way through the struggles of married life. Haymitch had not turned it on of course, it was left on by Effie earlier on in the day and he not bothered to turn it over (apparently the channel was dedicating the whole day to show re-runs of the series). In fact, he was not even watching the absurd show – he was looking but not really seeing. The only thing he was aware of was the bottle in his hand moving towards his mouth and chugging back the brown liquid inside. He was jolted out of his reverie when he heard the sound of the front door of the penthouse shutting and the clicking of heels as the made their way towards the living area.

Wonderful, she's back. He turned his head slightly, just in time to see her entering the room. She was dressed differently to what she had been before she left: instead of the burgundy silk, she wore a sage green suede skirt and matching jacket. The skirt stopped at the knee, leaving her pale skin on view from there downwards. The jacket had a high collar and light pink suede buttons which were done up to her collarbone; the collar was lifted high to her chin so not even a patch of skin there could be seen by a wandering eye. Her wig and shoes were the same colour as the buttons.

"Ah, there she is!" Haymitch announced drunkly. "How was your spectacular party, your highness? Was it to your liking?" Effie completely ignored him as she made her way towards the kitchen, pulling out a bottle of wine from the fridge and a glass from a cupboard. She turned and made her way towards the balcony. "Now, now Trinket, mind your manners. It is completely rude to ignore someone." She still paid him no heed as she stepped outside and slid the balcony door shut behind her. Guilt ate away at him from his earlier actions but pinning it down to wanting to her annoy her some more, he followed her outside.

"Come on now Trinket, I want to hear all the details," he taunted sarcastically, waving his arms around foolishly in the air. "Was there romance? Drama? Excitement?" She didn't look at him but continued to look out at the city, gulping back the glass of wine in one and refilling it with more. "Not to your liking after all?" he chuckled. "Your drinking is almost matching with mine." He was again being sarcastic of course, it was no where near to matching his drinking habits. His eyes once again glanced to the high collar of her jacket.

"That style is a bit prudish for you isn't it, sweetheart? What's the collar for? To hide all the hickeys you were expecting to get or the fact that I nearly strangled you to death?" He wasn't a fool, of course he knew the reason was him that she had changed clothes. He'd held onto her so tightly that it obviously would have left hell of a mark. She still refused to acknowledge his presence however he was too curious for his own good. He leant over and pulled against the material of collar, forcefully enough that the top button ripped away from the jacket and fell to the floor. It was at this that she swivelled around quickly to face him, so quickly in fact that Haymitch nearly lost his balance. Her eyes were full of nothing but fury.

"Don't...touch me!" she spat, pointing a finger towards him. Her neck was now fully exposed and apart from noticing that she wore a frilly top which was a darker pink than her wig and shoes, her neck did indeed show evidence of his actions. Her skin was red and inflamed and his finger marks were still slightly visible. There it was again, the twinge of guilt twisting in his stomach. "You're a hooligan, Haymitch Abernathy, nothing but a violent hooligan!" And so the guilt disappeared.

"Me violent? What about where you call home?" he shouted. "You don't think that the people around you don't act like Neanderthals?"

"They don't..."

"You don't think that because half of them don't actually act abruptly that their still not viscous minded? You watch a television show where children are forced to kill one another, for entertainment, Effie!" They glared at one another before Haymitch continued. "And you, you're worse because you're involved – you pick those names every single year, doesn't that make you feel..." He didn't finish his sentence because two soft hands suddenly pushed him back against the railing forcefully; to say he was shocked at the woman standing before him was a slight understatement.

"Now you listen to me, Haymitch Abernathy!" she howled. "You don't think that I feel guilty every single day? You don't think that it's been eating away at me ever since I saw the first ever tributes I sent into the arena, who were only twelve years old, killed before my very eyes? You don't think I regret becoming an escort?" Tears were running down her painted face, smudging the make-up she had carefully caked on hours previously. "You don't know anything."

He couldn't believe it. He never thought that little Effie Trinket, the woman who usually only thought about herself and herself alone, would actually feel guilty about what she did for a living. He never thought she would (perhaps) secretly despise the Capitol after she realised what torture Snow put the rest of the districts through each year.

"It may surprise you," she carried on, wiping away her tears with the back of her hands but her actions were in vain for they were still falling thick and fast. "but what you said earlier, I do realise it. I now realise the type of world I have been brought up in and the type of person I have been taught to become and yes, I used to take pleasure in watching the Games every single year.

"I would gossip and bet and find it just as exciting as every other Capitol citizen..." Haymitch was about to interrupt her but with a glare in his direction, she continued to talk. "But I have since seen the error of my ways – I became aware of the sadistic being that I am and I have learned to hate everything: the Games, my home, my job...even my life."

Haymitch stared at her. He didn't know what to think – had she actually felt like this since the first children she'd sentenced to death had been slaughtered? Surely not, she had to be making it up; she was just like the rest of them. Looking at her now however and something told him that she was possibly telling the truth. She looked an absolute state, what with half of her ridiculous make-up rubbed away and her red eyes from turning on the water works. However there was something lacking from those eyes of hers: light. There was none of that usual spark, the usual life that took residence there – it annoyed him more often than not but he came to the conclusion that he would rather that than the sadness and betrayal that was there now...not that he would admit that to her.

"Y'know, it's dangerous to talk like that sweetheart, even the walls have ears." She nodded.

"I wondered as much and that's why I'll keep up this façade...the way I have been since I started this job."

They stood in silence for what seemed like hours, Effie back to staring at the city, which she used to happily call her home and Haymitch staring at her in astonishment. It didn't take him long however to cut out of his reverie and grab the bottle of wine that had seemed permanently stuck to her hand since she ventured out to the balcony. She jumped slightly as the bottle was jerked from her grip and turned in time to see him taking a swig from what little she had left.

"You're a complete hypocrite, Haymitch Abernathy," she said, finally breaking the stillness between them. "Here you stand, telling me of the awful things I participate in, when you..."

"I know how much of a monster I am, Trinket, you don't need to tell me. I lived through the Games, through the price which your government made me pay after I humiliated them and now I have to live through mentoring kids who have as much chance of winning the Games than I have of ever getting completely sober." Effie studied him for a moment. Since meeting Haymitch, she always thought of him as an imbecile, a drunk and a vulgar barbarian. Now however, she felt slightly sorry for him. She never thought of how much baggage he's carried since he was sixteen years old, the nightmarish memories he had to live around with him for the rest of his life. Now he was partly responsible for making other families' lives a living hell as he took their children away, watched them as they entered the arenas of their fate and did...could do absolutely nothing to help them. He hated it, as did she. She wished his suffering could be taken away...not that she would admit that to him.

"This is quite the life we live in, Mister Abernathy."

"That it is Miss Trinket, one that not even alcohol can take away," he slurred, holding up the now empty bottle save for the dregs to his lips, trying to empty them as best as possible into his mouth. He suddenly smirked. "It sure does help though." A whisper of a smile tugged at her lips.

"I'm sorry about that, y'know," he murmered, indicating to the bruises on her neck. "Kinda lost control."

Before she knew what she was doing, she strode over to where he stood and just as he placed the bottle on the stone ledge, she threw her arms around him. What the hell is she doing? He was frozen to the spot, not knowing what was happening or what he should do. After a full minute, he slowly wrapped his arms around her frame and returned her embrace. It felt good to be held – neither had been for quite sometime – no matter that it was the other they were doing so with. So many thoughts and feelings were put into the hug, all their troubles seeming to fly away for just a moment. Nothing mattered except that they knew what the other was going through, an understanding passing through them that they felt the same guilt, the same anger, the same agony. Too soon for their own liking, they separated. A blush spread through Effie as she realised what had occurred, what she had initiated. Why had she done it? She wasn't altogether sure but it felt like the right thing to do and it felt good.

"What the hell was that, Trinket?" Haymitch asked confusingly but with a hint of amusement.

"Ugh...I'm not entirely sure," Effie answered awkwardly. A smile then made its way onto her face. "But I'm pretty sure it helped also, do you not think?" He smirked widely.

"You can't make me prove a thing." She laughed heartily for what felt like the first time in years and made her way to the sliding door, pulling it open.

"You're forgiven by the way, but I'm sure you'll have me pulling at my wig by this time tomorrow. Good night, Haymitch." She then made her way inside and towards her bedroom, leaving Haymitch to his own devices. Something had passed between them in the last couple of minutes – they'd still annoy one another to no end but maybe now, with their unspoken understanding, a kind of respect could now form, along with who knows what else.

AN: Thoughts? Was it okay? I would very much like people's opinions, so if you could spare a minute, could you please click that little review button? It would mean a lot that people have actually been reading it haha. I hope I did the wonderful characters justice. Until the next time, dear readers :).