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The day he’s deemed fit for release from solitary confinement is one for discoveries.
First come the basics. That District Thirteen operates on a schedule, of all things, but isn’t especially strict about compliance so long as you’re wearing an armband labelled recovering addict. That nobody uses a map to navigate its claustrophobic halls, despite them having clearly been designed for newcomers to get lost in. That the texture of the uniform provided to all residents doesn’t agree with his skin, adding that of scratching his neck and the insides of his wrists to the count of his self-destructive impulses.
Just as he starts to think he might be getting acclimated, evening rolls around bearing a brand-new set of epiphanies. That, since down in the bowels of the Earth there’s hardly any distinction between regular and hospital food, his dwindling appetite might be a blessing in disguise. That the drugs they stuffed him with to alleviate the symptoms of not having a drop of liquor in his blood for the first time in twenty years are either starting to lose their efficacy, or a placebo that stopped working the moment he began doubting their usefulness. That he can’t stomach the gazes of the woman and child in the framed picture sitting atop Beetee’s nightstand in their shared compartment without reaching for a glass that isn’t there.
Most aggravating, that unlike them humble refugees Plutarch’s got his own private quarters only one level below Command, and that he sleeps in regulation boxer shorts and short-sleeved undershirt, each a different, unflattering shade of grey. For that, more than the privacy and extra space, Haymitch envies him. He’s reached a stage in his sobriety where it no longer hurts to keep his eyes open, but the chill that tormented him during his isolation has worked its way under his skin, in every crevice between his joints and bones, turning him an almost insane kind of restless.
Like his hand-eye coordination when he first tried pouring himself some water to go with his meal, his wit fails him and the wisecrack about believing he was sharing a bed with President Coin, by the way he talked about her on the hovercraft, and again during his visits to the med bay, dies on his lips.
“I can’t sleep,” he ends up fumbling. “There.”
He points emphatically down the hallway he came from, trusting, if not his tone, then the two decades and a half they spent as accomplices of the same fiasco to convey the rest.
Plutarch looks at him with the bleary gaze of the insomniac through a crack in the doorway. After a long pause, he says, “Alright.”
As it happens, an unruly conscience is not all that stands between Haymitch and a whole night’s rest.
Plutarch’s room may be a luxury compared to the living conditions of the average District Thirteen citizen, but the cot is the same size. That is, too narrow for two. Especially two grown men in what many a Capitolite would call not their best shape in a disingenuous effort to be tactful. Even back to back, there’s little space to breathe without disturbing each other’s attempts at sleep. Haymitch pulls the sheets up to his chin, cursing the day he allowed himself to get used to the commodities of Victor’s Village. He instantly regrets it. Their roughness is amplified on his oversensitive skin, less cheap polyester and more sandpaper rubbing him down to raw flesh everywhere his uniform doesn’t reach, and still the cold refuses to subside. He casts them off in a fit of frustration. He tosses around some, then buries the side of his face deeper into the only pillow.
“Settle down, Haymitch,” Plutarch mumbles.
His voice carries an edge from the past. The harrowing times of his Victory Tour, when after hours of shooting under the blistering sun of Four, in a moment of respite between the violent downpours of Eleven, Haymitch wandered off-script again and he had to call for another take. No need to see his face and try to pick shadows apart from frown lines in the semi-darkness. His inflection betrays all the exhaustion the unnervingly chipper attitude he always brought to his courtesy calls never did. Who knew he was a good actor, besides a halfway decent director?
Perhaps they ought to put him in front of the cameras, for a change. Let Katniss off the hook, revise the entire concept, go for intimidatory rather than inspiring. Spin it, as he would say. They’d only need to batter him up a bit with makeup, add a pretty collection of faux cuts and bruises to his natural dark circles, and broadcast it straight to every Capitol home. Their prized Gamemaker turned war prisoner to show the nation how unkindly the Rebellion takes to those who try and opposite it. Now, that would be a sight!
Haymitch basks in it for a bit. His imagination has never been too forgiving with the kind of pictures it provides in the dead of night, so he’s become rather adept at savouring his sick pleasures while he can. Once upon his early years of mentorship, the memory of the young apprentice’s dumbstruck expression a moment before being skewered by Maritte’s trident could lull him to sleep as easily as any good bourbon. Never mind that the dreams that brewed from it were the sort that had him sweating his shirt through by morning light and waking up craving a visit to Ripper’s stall.
He must have mellowed with age, however, because it doesn’t work nearly as well as it used to. Not even when he adds a few details for flavour – Plutarch kneeling, hands bound, his voice cracking with genuine anguish. Rather, it summons that nameless feeling from his first forays into public intoxication, when his suit felt tight and Plutarch’s was the only familiar, unpainted face in a sea of fineries. It took eavesdropping on the whispered gossips about his brilliant career to remember his resentment. They seem so distant, now. Resentment and fineries both. Only the man himself remains, closer than he ever allowed him after the conservatory, the bomb, and the cage, and maybe warm enough to soothe his freezing bones.
Rusty springs howl when Haymitch rolls over onto his other side. He shushes another complaint by muttering senselessly about how he’s just getting comfortable, is all, resting his chin on the other man’s shoulder. His next breath brings him a whiff of soap, the cheap one they use for showers and laundry alike. A far cry from whatever pricy aftershave had him always smelling like the citrus orchard in his ancestors’ gardens. He almost pities him, then. Poor, wretched Plutarch bereft of his material comforts. His companion in deprivation. Although the lack of silk waistcoats won’t turn him into a shivering wreck any time soon. Still, it’s somewhat like he’s doing them both a favour as he presses flush to his back – he’s reminded of an old saying about suffering shared and suffering halved. And since he’s never been good at abstaining once’s had a taste, pretty soon he’s wrapping an arm around his middle, seeking out more of him underneath his shirt.
To his surprise, Plutarch lets him. Maybe he figured he owes him this much. After all, he’s the reason why his Tributes survived the Quell to be left wishing for death, one tearing herself to pieces in her impotence, locked up in an aseptic Capitol cell the other. The reason why Haymitch is still alive, as well. Though the latter he hasn’t yet decided whether he should be grateful or resentful for.
“Comfortable now?” Plutarch asks, the tiniest smidgen of sarcasm slipping into the question.
Haymitch’s response is a noncommittal noise.
If with a flight of innocent fancy neither of them possesses it could have been taken for an attempt at making the best of their new sleeping arrangements before, all pretences crumble as his fingers start tracing the line of fine hairs above Plutarch’s waistband, idle and purposeful at once.
“You’re serious about this.”
“Got an itch to scratch,” he breathes close to his ear.
A stretch of silence. What Plutarch is debating within the secrecy of his mind – the pros and cons of an awkward tryst in such a cramped space, how long until his wake-up call – Haymitch doesn’t know, doesn’t care. He’s quite enjoying the feel of his soft stomach expanding in time with his breathing as something stirs in his own, demanding attention. If he’s too proud, too proper for it, that’s fine by him. As long as he lends him his body heat, it’s enough. Alright, not enough but something. He can settle for something.
But then, “I see.”
The bed protests again, and he’s face to face with this version of Plutarch he only caught a glimpse of earlier. Dark ringed eyes, five o’clock shadow, and all.
“You know, Thirteen has rules against fraternisation,” he drawls, and he’s never been less convincing with his hands already working at the buttons of Haymitch’s pants.
He can’t help a chuckle, which bleeds over into a sigh at the sudden warmth of Plutarch’s palm around his stiffening cock. “That how they call it?”
The other man just hums.
“I thought they encouraged it, what with their little underpopulation problem,” Haymitch continues then, struggling to keep his tone even although Plutarch hasn’t so much as started getting him off yet. “ ‘S a bit counterproductive, if you ask me.”
“Well, it’s only for those directly involved in the strategic efforts. The rule, I mean. I believe the rationale is to keep distractions at a minimum.”
That Haymitch must concede – the way his fingertips trail along the full length of him, sizing him up, before giving him a couple torturously slow tugs is distracting indeed. So much that he forgets the treatment he used to give his drunken conquests: crooked smile, borderline obscene banter, and a single promise seldom kept. Don’t worry, sweetie, I give as good as I take. He can be excused for doing away with the formalities this once, he supposes. Considering Thirteen’s commitment to eradicating all superfluous habits, it might even earn him a commendation.
The utterly ridiculous thought accompanies him as he lets his own hand wander lower and reaps his reward in the form of a quiet little groan just on the side of aggrieved. Haymitch doesn’t mind the drag – he’s very partial to the cocktail of discomfort and guilty pleasure blending low in his belly– but Plutarch must be used to a gentler approach. Before he has to hear him complain about having to do this dry in the same mildly peeved manner he bemoaned the loss of his regular dose of caffeine while Haymitch writhed in the throes of withdrawal, he spits into his own palm, snorting at the frown that pulls the other man’s brows together for about a second before distending again as soon as he regains a firm grip around him.
There’s a bit of testing the waters, there. What works and what doesn’t, Haymitch’s uneven, almost urgent jerks against Plutarch’s more experimental motions, doubling down only once he manages to wrench a proper moan out of him, or any other unquestionable sign that he’s done something just right. More than once they’re jarred off their pace by their wrists bumping against each other, more often still they’re forced to pause and shift around for better reach, a better angle, though it becomes clear fast that they’re each his own kind of starved and, like all desperate men, can’t afford to be picky. So trial and error it is, until they find a rhythm that has them panting in counterpoint. Haymitch is achingly hard by then, and burning. Both feats he believed beyond his capabilities. Looks like the body that has done nothing but betray him has finally come around.
As though reading his mind, Plutarch says something about natural urges, a remark Haymitch only half grasps for the smooth strokes he accompanies it with leave him shuddering not from the cold only he seems to feel, but from desire alone. He happily lets him blabber. Can’t ruin a mood that was never there. Besides, he suspects it’s more for his own benefit than anything else. His way to rationalise how little coaxing it took for a level-headed strategist such as himself to be reduced to a gasping mess, heavy and twitching in Haymitch’s fist like a much younger man. Leaking like one, too.
Idly, he wonders about his youthful escapades. What they looked like, if he had any at all. Opulent sitting rooms and plush velvet cushions instead of grass scorched by the sun, the clinking of champagne flutes down the hall in place of honking geese to muffle his noises, but the same exhilaration, the same exciting fear of being caught. The image of him fresh-faced and flushed all over, fumbling with those ridiculous eyesore-red uniforms rich Capitol kids are always strutting about in, lingers on the back of his eyelids as they fall shut and muscle memory takes over. It comes with a backdrop of nervous laughter too high-pitched to be his, can’t belong to the snotty boy or girl he snuck away with either, because it belongs to bronze curls and patched up overalls, and suddenly Haymitch’s throat is embarrassingly tight. A pang to his chest and one to his gut, shocking him into blinking his eyes back open to banish the memory.
Good thing Plutarch is still talking. His voice, steady despite the undertone of arousal, anchors him to a present he almost let slip him by.
“… pointless, of course. It’s not uncommon in times of great distress to seek comfort in, ah,” he pauses, swallows around nothing when Haymitch swipes his thumb over his tip. “Physical relations. It’s one of our base instincts. Trying to prevent it would be like trying to divert a river with your bare hands.”
Of all the experiences the underground District has to offer, listening to him talk about human nature while he feels one inch closer to tumbling towards and early finish with every upstroke has to be the most surreal. And there’s some valid contenders.
“Come on,” Haymitch taunts, not bothering to hide the amusement in his rasp. “Where’s your romantic soul?”
“I’ve never really had one, I’m afraid,” Plutarch says. His eyes are hooded with some combination of weariness and lust, and Haymitch adds pleasure-drunk right above reasonably tipsy to the list of states he doesn’t mind having him around in.
“Bullshit,” he retorts. “You quoted poetry to me. I was sixteen and heading to my death and, oh, for that you didn’t care, but when you found out I knew the poem you were—” his breath catches somewhere between Plutarch’s fingers teasing the sensitive spot behind the base of his cock and the recollection of a smile so genuine he doesn’t think he ever saw him wear again. “—so excited that you just had to show me your little greenhouse. Would have walked me through your entire collection of poisonous plants and tragic love stories, if—”
“Love stories work well on the page, even better on screen. But reality, I…” another hesitation, another thick swallow followed by a ragged exhale. Haymitch fancies he can feel his pulse fluttering through his dick. “I often found to be underwhelming.”
The boy who used to lie on his back in the Meadow on long summer days, wishing he had any talent for words, so that he could use his own rather than another’s to profess his love would have argued as fiercely as his limited vocabulary would allow. But that boy shares a grave with a dead covey girl in an unmarked cemetery deep in the woods, and the man who crawled out of it by sheer force of alcohol and desperation can only agree. Even though he’d say, less underwhelming and more not worth the hassle.
“But I’m right, aren’t I,” he needles him on, realising he was expecting Plutarch to ask him how callous he thought him to be only when he doesn’t. “I could have been killed in that useless fucking scheme of yours and you didn’t care one bit.”
I wished I was, for so many years I wished I was, he doesn’t say. It’s not a conversation for a clandestine fuck among scratchy grey sheets, and a dangerous one when his spite is diluted by want, his gut tight with more than regret.
“You were aware of the risks,” Plutarch manages in between shallow breaths.
“I was desperate,” Haymitch wants to snarl, ends up gasping instead thanks to the other man’s unrelenting attentions. “And you knew.”
“I knew it was a long shot, and maybe I wasn’t… entirely transparent about that, but I’d—”
“You’d put me through it all over again if it got you here.”
Haymitch doesn’t know what shame sounds like in Plutarch’s voice. He imagines something small and fleeting, a few notes above his natural baritone, pale eyes averted and nothing like the flat intonation of when he says, “I would.”
No more deflecting nor hesitation, but a bluntness that to him might equal to kindness although it’s really not. After all the half-truths and subterfuge, however, even brutal honesty merits a reward.
“C’m here,” he slurs quickly, before Plutarch remembers his roots and asks him some idiotic follow-up question on how the knowledge makes him feel.
Which is sort of useless, seeing as they’re close enough for their breaths to mingle, their knees to touch where their legs have come tangled together, and all he has to do is cup the back of his neck to tilt his head into a kiss. That, also, takes some coordination. Plutarch goes for comically chaste, at first, barely even parting his lips. Haymitch huff-chuckles against them, then licks them open, earning a tighter squeeze around his dick for his trouble. Arousal does the rest. When they break apart for air, Plutarch chases after him, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth, another to his jaw, his cheekbone, his mouth again, deep and unhurried, as the hand not currently occupied driving any thought that isn’t a variation of indecent away from Haymitch’s mind rests on his cheek, lazily petting the stubble there.
Such a tender gesture, unsuited to a man of his kind. Their kind. That’s how it occurs to him that this – pleasure shared in secret as the world outside crumbles in on itself – might very well be someone’s idea of romance. And it’s nothing short of hilarious, because on one thing Plutarch was right: this is not about love. It’s about hunger, and heat, and survival, and many more selfish things Haymitch refuses to be deprived of any longer. The moment he convinces himself as much, it’s easier to buck into the other man’s touch. Plutarch lets out an approving noise like he’s proud of himself and Haymitch lets him have it.
He catches him glancing down at where they’re working at each other, seems entranced by it up until Haymitch twists his wrist a different way and his head falls back on the pillow with a groan bordering on obscene.
Haymitch’s eyebrow lifts up alongside his upper lip. “Really? That good?”
A wordless nod.
Ah, well. They’re both a little pent up.
Plutarch more than him, as soon he’s spilling over his knuckles, lips quivering around a string of breathy moans Haymitch knows will be a mainstay of his future lonely indulgences. He sees him through it with a few last decisive pumps and some inanities, that’s right, and there you go, and right into my hand, that’s good, not caring at all if he has stopped jerking him off in favour of uselessly clutching his thigh. The pinpricks of sympathy dancing up and down his spine as he watches, listens to him go over the edge are plenty. More than he’s had in a long while.
It takes Plutarch some effort to come back to his unruffled self.
The orgasm has wrung all composure out of him like water from a washrag, and left him winded, too drained to even attempt concealing his shattered poise, the perspiration beading over his brow, the blushing column of his neck. Haymitch might almost like him, this way. Unguarded and self-indulgent like he surely hates to think of himself as. He, the great advocate for sacrifice in the name of the greater good, wallowing in the echoes of his pleasure while his partner lies unsated beside him, the incontrovertible proof that he too knows how to be selfish.
Haymitch takes advantage of it to sit up against the bed’s dull metal excuse for a headboard and clean his hand off on the bedspread. That would be a good moment to start harping about what kind of pitiful lovers the Capitol breeds, if Plutarch wasn’t already tapping his side as a mute cue to lift his hips and allow him to pull his trousers down further. He tries nonetheless, only to choke on his jab the moment Plutarch bows his head and laps a broad, wet stripe up the side of his cock. Then another, from root to tip, and there’s no way in hell Haymitch can hold back a curse.
With more blood rushing to his brain rather than the lower regions of his body, he could give him quite a bit of grief for how he’s got less qualms about sucking him off than he did about kissing him on the mouth. Perhaps it’s simply easier to justify. A kiss is an accessory, loaded with meaning, easy to misconstrue. This is purely practical. Same as every lie he’s told and every life he traded, it has a point. And that point, evidently, is to make Haymitch come undone in record time.
Sensing the ugly mix of lust and impatience twisting his insides, or maybe just feeling his dick jump against his lips, Plutarch wastes little time warming him up. He only licks off the fluid that’s been collecting at the tip before he presses his tongue flat against the underside and tries swallowing him down. He manages about halfway – that’s when Haymitch instinctively thrusts into the nigh unbearable heat and softness of it, causing him to pull back with a cough.
Yet, it’s him who raises his hand in contrition.
“Apologies. I’m a little out of practice,” he says, voice raw to show for it.
Haymitch guffaws. “What, no mandatory team building exercises in your schedule?”
The other man wipes some excess spit from his lips with the back of his wrist and, if he was harbouring any doubts before, now Haymitch is sure he won’t last a minute longer when he gets his mouth back on him. “As I said, we’re expected to invest all our energies into strategizing. Maybe there’s a slot for it in the general population’s, but I wouldn’t know.”
“Sure as hell not in mine. Though I’m not really sure what Reflection Time should entail.”
“It’s up to you provided you don’t leave your quarters,” Plutarch replies, casually wrapping his hand around Haymitch’s cock again, stroking it perfunctorily a few times over as if there was a single chance of him going soft. “So I suppose it’s different for everyone.”
“What do you even do with yours?” He nags him on.
“Contemplate my own mortality, mostly.”
Haymitch’s laugh stutters. It gives way to a deep moan as Plutarch takes him back in, this time with one hand splayed over his scar to keep him still, the other gripping him at the base, and his prediction threatens to prove itself far too correct. Then again, he’s tired of spending his life delaying the inevitable. So he finds the place where the other man’s hair is turning grey and threads his fingers there until it’s over. One moment he’s almost convinced he can make it last, the next he gazes at the blond lock falling in front of Plutarch’s forehead, at his brows, somehow a shade darker, furrowed in concentration, and he’s coming too. He lets go all at once, of the helpless sounds trapped behind his teeth, of every tense muscle, and of each painful twist of his stomach and heart.
Afterwards there’s a damp towel to clean the mess and covers bunched up at the foot of the bed, because sleeping on the bare mattress is still preferable than sharing the wet spot. The chills are back in Haymitch’s extremities sooner than he’d like. But before they claim stake on the rest of his body, and the migraine lurking at the edge of his consciousness ever since he was discharged can sink its claws into his head, he’s already drifting off.
The sirens spare him the proverbial walk of shame.
Haymitch is jolted awake by a shrill wail piercing his skull from temple to temple, to find that nothing like the prospect of imminent death is able to revert humans to their ancient status of herd animals. In the ensuing stampede, nobody’s lucid enough to notice him and Plutarch stumbling out of the same compartment before being redirected to different gathering points. It’s a drill, of course, but of that he’s not informed until the panic has made way for a slow, begrudging migration back to daily tasks.
That’s the whole purpose of drills, Plutarch will remark later with a smile way too serene and the collar of his uniform buttoned askew. His first concern upon finding him again among the crowd is of an entirely different kind, however. Looking rather troubled for the first time since they fought their way out of Capitol airspace, he takes Haymitch aside. A quick word, he assures, and Haymitch goes willingly, if nothing else to enjoy the sight of a rattled Heavensbee once more before it comes to the real deal and they’re blown up to gory bits alongside the rest of the District.
Turns out his unease has little to do with the bombs, and more with, “What happened last night—”
“Won’t happen again,” Haymitch interjects. He’s familiar with the whole morning after song and dance. There’s no alcohol to be blamed, down there, but he doesn’t doubt Plutarch can come up with a believable excuse or two anyway. Ones he doesn’t feel like hearing, honestly. “It was a terrible lapse of judgement. Yes, Madame President, I’m fully aware that our chief of propaganda can’t afford any distractions. What do you say? Good enough?” He fakes taking on a pensive air. “Maybe I’d sell it better if I got down on my knees.”
The promptness of his answer appears to displease Plutarch somewhat. Go figure. He always thought him one to value efficiency above all. Maybe the excuse he prepared was just that good and he’s miffed about not getting to use it.
“If you’re dead set on coming clean, I won’t stop you,” he tells him. “But I hoped you’d be willing to hear me out, first.”
Oh, Haymitch knows that tone. “What are you suggesting, Plutarch?”
“An arrangement of sorts.”
“You scratch my back, I scratch yours?”
“Life in Thirteen has a lot of stress to offer but not many ways to relieve it, I’m sure you’ve noticed,” says Plutarch by way of explanation. “I indulged you because—”
“Indulged me,” Haymitch scoffs, interrupting him mid-sentence. “That’s a nice way to put it. You seemed pretty into it to me, once—”
“—the last thing we need is the man most closely associated with the emblem of our revolution wandering about in a frenzied state, ruining morale and disrupting everyone’s routine. But I admit I slept more soundly than I ever did since we arrived here, afterwards. Actually, I feel like I could have slept the whole night through for the first time in months, if…” he motions vaguely in the direction of the speakers mounted on the ceiling.
Aggravation morphs into disbelief, then into hilarity on Haymitch’s face.
“Look at you discovering the benefits of a good lay!” He doesn’t mention having shared the very same impression himself. Instead, he delivers a mocking pat to his back, which Plutarch takes in surprisingly good humour, merely casting him a glance he interprets as a request to lower his voice. For the sake of the arrangement they haven’t yet sealed but he already loathes to endanger, he complies. “Better late than never, I guess.”
“Of course it will have to remain inter nos, so to speak.”
One thing the hardships of the rebellion haven’t yet managed to scrape off him – the tendency to ramble in long dead languages only he understands. Still, Haymitch believes he gets the gist.
His smile turns sardonic with a touch of cruel. “Scared of the presidential send-off?”
Previously close to a whisper, Plutarch’s voice drops even lower, so that Haymitch has to lean in to make out the words above the din. “Unlike my former employer, she’s wise enough to know her new collaborator dying of a mysterious illness less than two weeks after being appointed would raise some eyebrows. And I doubt she’d throw me on a hovercraft and fly me right back to him after she gave me a guided tour of the military facilities, here. But I do believe she wouldn’t be above restricting my privileges, few as they are. I’ll, uh…” whatever he was meaning to add falls by the wayside as he glances over at something beyond him.
Following his eyeline, Haymitch sees his production assistant – a tattooed wisp of a woman by the name of Cardew – making incomprehensible gestures in their direction.
“Catch you later?” He completes.
Plutarch reaches for his own waist, appearing dismayed to find neither pocket nor watch, though he quickly recovers. He then checks his wrist, frowning at the smudged remains of his previous schedule. “Quite right.”
He gives Haymitch’s hand a small pat where it has unconsciously drifted from his back to his shoulder, and with that he’s off.