Soft and Drunk

Shadows settle on the place, that you left.

Our minds are troubled by the emptiness.

When she crawls into bed next to him and cries, he wonders if she hates him. He was the one who had, fully aware of the consequences, told Peeta that Katniss had been playing him. He had ripped it off like a band aid and left her there, clutching flowers and staring at the ground – he had hurt her, whatever his motivations. By all rights, this should be an act of cruelty.

But it's not. It's just a young girl who used to be tough losing a boy she sort-of loved, and going to the one person who can understand. He wraps his arm around her and pulls her close, her tears warm and salty on his shoulder, her cries muffled by his own skin. She smells sweet, like hot chocolate and pine trees, the complete opposite of the alcohol he can still taste on his tongue.

"I'm here, sweetheart," he whispers, "I'm here."

How he wishes he could tell her it's all okay, but it won't be. Never again.

Destroy the middle, it's a waste of time.
From the perfect start to the finish line.

When he wakes the next morning she's so lovely beside him, but Peeta's standing in the doorway, eyes empty. He knows he should tell him it's not what he thinks, that Katniss tucked under his arm is just one Victor providing comfort to another, but he doesn't. He waits for him to leave, ignores the expression on his face – if he doesn't see it what he's doing, who he's hurting, what he wants isn't a betrayal.

For the first time in twenty four years he touches another's hair, pushes the strands back. Her closed eyes mock him with their serenity, with how peaceful she is. He knows she doesn't like him that way, and a part of him doesn't either, but she's different from the rest. It doesn't matter that this is wrong, because she, she is right.

His eyes land on the decanter by the bed, still half full of gleaming amber liquid. His fingers itch for it, and he knows it's only a matter of time before he caves, but not yet. His hands find her waist and he allows himself – just the once, because she won't be suspicious if it's just the once – to tuck her into himself like a lover.

He sleeps well that morning.

And if you're still breathing, you're the lucky ones.
'Cause most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs.

She finds him a week later, after the reporters have finally gone, with a dictionary in his hand. He's making a list but won't let her see it – she laughs, and he writes another word.

Hollow.

Now she's curious, but he smiles at her through a tipsy haze and warns her that she might be fast but he's a long standing Victor, the epitome of paranoid. She takes it as a challenge; shrugging to her feet, her hunters gaze asses him. Like a snake from its den her strike is sudden and nearly perfectly timed, a dodge to the right, a swerve to the left, and his chair knocked over in his struggle to evade her. He's drunk, stumbling, running but laughing all the same. She's warm and close behind him, so soft he wants to turn and catch her mid-stride, but instead he corners himself across the kitchen table.

He scrambles for a pen, pins the paper down. Young. Her cheeks are aflame, eyes the same colour as his and hair he wants to run his hands through.

"No braid today?" He asks, surprised. She shrugs, lips spread in a smile, not the Katniss he knows but one he really likes.

"Too much effort. I don't wear it every day, you know."

He nods, considers it, writes another word down. Free. He never thought he'd see it associated with a victor, and it leaves him breathless, staring. He almost doesn't notice her sneaking round the table and he certainly doesn't stop her.

Strong.

Survivor.

Loving.

Fragile.

Wounded.

Hollow.

Young.

Free.

He wraps his arm around her, lets the words sink in. For a long time, she says nothing.

"Haymitch… can we get drunk?"

Setting fire to our insides for fun
Collecting names of the lovers that went wrong
The lovers that went wrong.

They set up a routine, where she comes round in the evenings after playing mother to Prim and pretending it's going to get better. One day she curls up on his sofa, pours herself a glass then putting the bottle away. "I know I need an addiction," she says when he sits on the sofa across from her, "but I don't want to become a drunkard."

It's the first time in a long while it hurts to be called that. But he shrugs and tips his own, stronger bottle back and lets the white spirit numb it all. "I admire your ambition," he says with a smile that doesn't reach his eyes, "but you know you won't succeed, right?"

Good god, she's too young to look at him like that, so… accepting. She shrugs a little, glancing towards the window. Peeta's lights can still be seen, the curtains drawn around the only lit room… He knows how wrong it is, but for one bleak moment, he feels a sliver of dislike that just whispers that he regrets saving Peeta. It's not the anger in her gaze that causes it, though he's so damn fed up of how sad her life is, but the longing. The smallest, suffocated glimpse of desire.

Unformed feelings of loneliness and hope choke within him. Somehow she's become the closest thing he has to happiness and the only thing unattainable, the one girl he can't have, can't touch, but must be there for. It's probably the booze, but that night when he hugs her to him five minutes earlier than normal, and sleeps five millimetres closer on the manky old couch, he can see himself at the top of a slippery slope. And he keeps looking back, and he doesn't want to fall down, but she's a few feet ahead of him. And no matter what he shouts at her she just keeps going, over the edge, faster and faster, disappearing from sight till she's gone and all he can do is follow, every step of the way. He knows he'll never catch her. But by god he can't lose what little he has of her left.

And if you're still bleeding, you're the lucky ones.
'Cause most of our feelings, they are dead and they are gone.

It gets worse and worse and closer and closer. As the victory tour draws near, a ticking time bomb Katniss is completely unaware of, she and Peeta become more and more distant. Haymitch however evolves into her greatest, most used crutch. She stops leaving at dawn, starts making him coffee and cutting up bread for him. Sometimes she comes round in the afternoon, slamming the door closed and slumping on the couch. They never talk about the Games, or Gale, or Peeta or her mother. They discuss scientific advancements and the beauty of the woods and eventually they discover her talent – photography.

Cinna calls it perfect and advises her on what to photograph, but it's the way her brow furrows in concentration and the long hours she spends editing that makes him truly happy. They lie on the couch together, dependant on the other to feel grounded, and he watches as she painstakingly highlights images of the woods, of Madge, of the poor people of Twelve. Her work to show the Capitol is all happy families and Peeta teaching her how to bake, but those don't matter to either of them. She doesn't need to be good for them; this is for herself.

"What's your talent, Haymitch?" She asks one morning, using a new feature she's just learned about to make the two small kids seem closer. The dirt on their skin almost glistens and they take on the appearance of being very sick, very mysterious forest creatures. "Aside from shots, of course."

He chuckles, pointing out a small area that looks distorted. "Honestly? Chess."

"Chess? What's that?" Of course she wouldn't know, neither did he when first emerged as a Victor.

"I'll show you," he says, untangling himself with practised skill, "but I doubt you'll like it."

He sets up the board, teaching her what each of the pieces do. She's really, really bad but when he beats her, she actually wants another game. "Really?" He'd thought she was bored.

She grins impishly. "It's fun. And I want to win."

That he can understand. It's like his emotions have been filtered sometimes, and all the normal things just get blocked out or dampened down. It wasn't even the drink, but every day things like pleasure at being alive and pain at seeing the state of his life fade, distort.

He feels when he looks at her though. And it's red, red, red emotion he's just so tired of regretting.

And you caused it,
And you caused it,
And you caused it,

She takes him there, to the woods on the day of the tour. And they run through the trees, over the brambles, past animals that scatter in their week. She screams at the air, at the nothingness of it all, of all the things they're both so fed up of. She drops to her knees, cries. He watches.

He's always watching. He can't remember the last time there was anything he could do.

When she's over it, her eyes are puffy and red, her cheeks hollow. It strikes him how unwell she looks, physically ill, broken. She's not though, not yet. They'll never break her – just crush her, tear her down with year after year of the brutality. It occurs to him this is the first layer, the first step of a long, dark road.

"Katniss?" She turns towards him, numb, faded. He shuffles close and touches his fingertips to her face, runs them over the line of her jaw. Her eyes flutter closed, because that's all they have now, one last chance to not see and just feel.

He kisses her. It's wrong, polluted, a poison they'll have to fight. But it's needed, and it's true. With her lips against his own, he can remember. He can be.

"I'll see you on the train," he whispers, rising and heading back. Blind he staggers towards the light of the sun, of the world he no longer understands.

Behind him, she weeps. And she will continue to weep for many years to come.

A/N: I'd tell you how this became a song-fic, but I honestly don't know. If you're wondering why this is so unrelated to the meaning of Daughter's Youth, it's because I sort of went off on a tangent…

This was written for Caesar's Palace and their monthly one-shot – go check them out, it's a really great forum :-)

REQUEST: Choose one of these and copy and paste into your review:

'Your grammar sucks'

Or

'This has little plot'

Or

'Too repetitive'

That way I know what to improve. I'm a big girl, I'd rather you criticise than say nothing – please.