Haymitch And His Ducklings

political science major!coriolanus, whose idea of a night of unwinding is reading a chapter of machiavelli’s ‘the prince’ with a glass of pinot noir in hand. well versed in debate, often dramatically pulling out notecards with bullet points on them as you argue over where to have dinner.

nursing major!sejanus, who is well liked and trusted amongst his peers and professors, being known for a tenderness that you can only find in bob ross painting demonstrations. you help him study by quizzing him until dawn, a kiss for every correct answer energizing him more than any red bull could.

music performance major!lucy gray, always carrying around a honey burst colored guitar, her fingers absentmindedly strumming the air as she walks. she refers to you as her muse, and soothes you to sleep on rough nights with a hushed lullaby specifically written with confessions of love whittled between lyrics.

fashion design major!tigris, who fills out sketchbooks and sketchbooks with extravagant designs she someday hopes will hit the runway. she has appointed herself as your personal stylist, and kisses your temple as she gets your measurements for custom-made pieces.

THE COLLEGE AU??? NURSE SEJANUS?? PLOTICIAN SNOW FASHION DESIGNER TIGRESS AND MUSICIAN LUCY I NEED ALL OF THEM

i’m more than willing to write and expand on this universe, or at least the vision i have of it!! request anything you want :D

the term ‘peacekeeper’ left a bitter taste in sejanus’s mouth. something in contrast to the gumdrops he used to carry around as fresh meat in the capitol. he recognized the irony of the two words strung together in panem’s climate, and thought it to be completely ridiculous. this isn’t the occupation he wanted to spend his days in district 12 pursuing, but he needed to start somewhere. dreams of becoming a medic bloom inside him, and he is optimistic both he and the blond he followed outside the capitol will live out the rest of their lives in contentment. in doing good. in change.

the cup in sejanus’s hand feels light, and he plays around with it as he watches coriolanus’s expression change from anticipation, to shock, then a third thing he can’t quite place, but can only discern due to the way the shaven blond clenches his jaw, as the covey’s performance commences at the hob.

the audience cannot be contained as lucy gray proceeds to weave through melodies, from rhythm to rhythm, song to song, strumming her guitar and bantering with tipsy inhabitants of the hob, cheering her on and clapping to the beat. he glances at coriolanus from time to time, whose gaze on the songbird never falters, intense and burning, a ghost of a smug smile on his face as if to say, ‘yes, you’re all cheering on my girl’.

there’s a small intermission between the first and second half of the covey’s act, and sejanus finds his feet walking him to get another drink. his tolerance is somewhat average, and he figures he can at least catch up to the rest of the audience in terms of intoxication. a full day of ‘peacekeeping’ awaits him tomorrow, after all, which the brunett is absolutely dreading.

the clear liquor fills his cup, face scrunching at the strong smell wafting from it as he brings his head down to sip from the top before it trickles down to his fingers. sejanus closes his eyes to regain his composure after tasting the liquor. this wasn’t like anything he has had at the capitol. it’s too strong, too raw, and the tiniest swig has gotten his cheeks rosy and his fingertips buzzing.

he turns to walk back to the crates the other peacekeepers have settled on, but crashes into you instead, the liquid in his hand spilling somewhat, and begins to apologize profusely.

“steady there, big boy, i don’t think you should be drinkin’ more”, you giggle, bringing a hand on his shoulder to stabilize him.

“no, i—” sejanus looks up at you, his words caught in his throat as he catches your eyes. once he realizes it’s probably odd to just stare at you silently, he begins to speak again.

“uhm.. this is my second drink.” he smiles shyly, lifting his cup for you to see, as if worried that you’d doubt him.

“doesn’t look like it, but it does look like you’re enjoyin’ the show.” the brunett nods quickly in agreement, feeling himself just wanting you to continue speaking to him. “or at least that’s what it looked like from up on stage.”

sejanus takes a brief pause, this time, examining you, however accurate a tipsy person could. your golden hoop earrings, colorful eye shadow, and finally, the feathers in your hair. he doesn’t miss the way your cheeks glow under the dim lights of the hob too, and he thinks it envelops your face like a halo.

“oh you’re… performing? you’re in the covey?” the plan to go back to his seat disappears from his mind in half a second, deciding that he would much prefer standing here with you and bask in the way your voice sounds.

“awh, didn’t notice me up there? hurts…” you fake a pout, glancing down at your shoes to fight the smile growing on your face as sejanus begins to stutter nervously. “kidding, kidding. yes, darlin’, i am. just needed a drink before the next half. swear, alcohol just makes me play better.” you point at his cup, continuing, “that shit is so strong it’ll make you take back shit you never even stole.”

sejanus lets out a belly laugh, the warmth from his cheeks spreading to his chest, and he doesn’t think he can still blame it on the liquor. the thought that you noticed him in the crowd long enough to remember his face made his nape itch, and he wrestles the urge to scratch it.

“yeah, i just tried it for the first time. curious to see how tonight’ll end after this cup.” he takes another sip, this time bigger than the first, and he can’t place whether it’s because he wants to impress you or wants to get drunk faster, but the way you giggle again at his scrunched up face makes it worth it. he groans at the aftertaste almost comically, looking up at you again, brown irises barely seen from the way his soft smile reaches his eyes.

“i’m sejanus, by the way.”

you bring your hand out for a formal shake, and that too makes him laugh. he repeats your name as soon as you say it, wanting to feel the syllables on his tongue. they’re sweet. your name, like all the members of the covey, contains a specific hue, one which he’s sure he’ll always associate with you after tonight.

the dim lights flash, and he watches you turn around to give maude ivory a thumbs up.

“that’s the cue, pretty boy, gotta head back up now. cheer for me?” your tone is so entrancing, and sejanus finds himself nodding before he can even verbally reply.

“of course. louder than everybody.” with that, you flash him an enthusiastic grin. so pretty, so full of life. he walks back to the crates, now disregarding coriolanus, but understanding why his stare was so fervent on lucy gray. in a room full of people, you’re performing for him.

can i just throw something out very quickly:

firebender!coriolanus snow, who aims to become fire lord someday (using methods deemed too cunning, although he refers to himself as ‘resourceful’). he utilizes his words to beguile his peers into loyalty, saving his firebending for times that call to instill red hot fear and discipline.

coriolanus has a strong distaste towards his classmate, sejanus plinth, who he adjudges too ‘animalistic’ and ‘grotty’ to live among firebenders, yet finds the airbending nomad he is to mentor alluring and mystical. the blond especially dislikes sejanus’ foolish rambles about how he wishes to become a healer someday, as he himself knows that the minute the brunet was born an earthbender, that dream was over, so surely sejanus must know that too?

he slightly looks down on his nonbender cousin, tigris, who has truthfully kept the two of them alive through scavenging and foraging for food, sewing up intricate outfits for him to fit in with the upper class atmosphere of the academy and keep up appearances.

for his final assignment to establish himself as the star student of the academy’s senior class, he must figure out a scheme to ensure that the airbender, his airbender, is kept alive when put in an arena with 23 other tributes, some honing their bending for years. coriolanus is aware that her only way out is through cheating on his part, but won’t that deem him as a traitor? if he’s not careful, he too will find himself trapped in an arena. air can very well live on without fire, but that same fire will extinguish without the presence of air.

currently no creative juices flowing.

request anything you’d like please! i’m open to writing about any character from all 4 books :)

"To this day, I can never shake the connection between this boy, Peeta Mellark, and the bread that gave me hope, and the dandelion that reminded me that I was not doomed." - The Hunger Games, Chapter 2, Suzanne Collins

[ID: A 8 page digital comic of the bread scene between katniss and peeta, interlaced with the text from the hunger games novel. End ID.]

O sweet november,

your winds gale, akin to the melancholy you carry.

a distinct smell of cedar-wood and fir fights to mask the notes of vomit and white liquor wafting through the home of the ash black haired man who rests disheveled on the couch, bottle tightly clutched in hand.

it’s more charcoal under this light, you think as you take your coat off and notice how the dim lighting darkens his hair a shade or two. you hang your coat and make your way to the fireplace, long accustomed to the gag inducing stench of the place. you've also grown accustomed, no, fond of haymitch abernathy. ever since you lost an impromptu bet to him at the hob upon meeting which declared you personal housecleaner for a week, he decided he liked the few times his home did not look like a rat feast. and so, he started paying you for it, and you began to visit more often.

this was a personal record, though. you came by the victor's village just two days ago to continue this routine, yet the smell you so diligently scrubbed and disinfected layers of had returned. haymitch wouldn't notice the difference in odour, though. the alcohol he associates with cleanliness smells the same as the alcohol he seeks to dirty himself.

throwing two more logs into the dying fire, you turn to the noiret. if there's one thing you've learned through your visits, it is that haymitch looks more peaceful awake. maybe peaceful is not the word. relaxed. there is a certain scowl that pulls on his features when he's asleep, as if he's living an entirely different life in his dreams. haunting, torturous dreams. his breathing is deep, his snores heavy.

you mindlessly retrieve the bottle he's got a vice grip on to set on the table, but the loss of it jolts haymitch awake, bringing his other hand concealed under the pillow out, slashing the air with a kitchen knife. this has you jumping back with a scream, falling to the floor. luckily, the knife did not claim you.

"fuck!" you breathe out between pants. "what the fuck was that?!"

haymitch is also panting, his grey eyes wide. a tinge of a desperation you can't place behind them. appearing dangerous for the first time in a while. upon registering your face, the knife drops to his side, and his features slightly soften, but the feeling this has instilled in him, or rather the memories evoked, are still there. you can tell by the inhuman dilation of his pupils, his hands shaking.

"shit, are you... are you okay?" he asks, caught between reaching out for you or letting you gather yourself. letting you piece together what he is. letting you finally understand why this big estate houses only him.

"who the hell sleeps with a knife under their pillow? that was so fucking close, haymitch! and why does your house stink already, i just cleaned it two days ago!" you know you shouldn't be yelling at him like this, piling it all on, but your heart is still trying to re-enter your chest. the adrenaline has gotten to both of you. haymitch slumps back on the couch, head in his hands, not able to look at you or the knife. his body is still trembling, and it is clearly not from the cold that november has brought over. as you pick yourself up, you hear haymitch's voice, hoarse, small,

"two days... for two days." he says. his mouth is partially covered by his palms, so the words come out muffled.

"what?"

"you didn't come for two days." haymitch repeats, putting his hands down to look up at you with an expression that throws all of your anger out the window. pure woe. his curly hair looked utterly frazzled, gaze begging to look away in shame but needing to drink you up. oh, how that is the only thing he knows to do. you weren't sure if the glossy reflection threatened tears, or was simply an adverse affect of his nighttime drinking routine, and you did not want to know. both answers you could not bear. both answers highlighted the deprivation that follows haymitch like a shadow.

you didn't dare touch the knife. instead, you again try to set the bottle on the table, most of its contents now spilled. raw and distilled. something else you'll have to clean up. "i've got other jobs, you know. can't just live off of this." you finally look back at him. a little playful at first, then solemn. "that made you drink more?"

"no, just... i got used to having you around. my voice doesn't echo in the room as much when you're here." the noiret smooths his hair out. rubs his eyes. fixes his sleeves. anything to look collected. he wordlessly slides the knife back under the pillow when you go to bring a mop, and pretends to fluff it when you come back.

"i'll always be around, haymitch. you need to take care of yourself more though, okay? i still worry for you like all-fire." this stiffens every limb, joint, and muscle in haymitch's control as though a blizzard has teared down the roof. his hands clench into fists before flexing instinctively to reach for the bottle once again, the tremor in them not abandoned. has not been abandoned in a long time. you finish cleaning up the spill and turn on your heel to put the mop back, and haymitch's last-second decision is to instead grab your wrist. his latest liquor of choice.

"no. stay." he pleads. two words. so much said. the pauses, the breathing, the tone. his voice hitches at the end, and his entire body is leaning forward, engulfed by yearning, but kept at a distance as to not cross any invisible lines he has drawn between you. lines that his hand has already overstepped.

“i’ve got the rest of the house to clean, i can’t—“

“the mess will still be here tomorrow. please.”

how can a boy so familiar with poison and punishment allow history to repeat itself? allow this feeling to overtake him again, and subjecting you to it? because he is a selfish rascal. haymitch knew that. it has been so long since he reached his hands out for something other than a drink or a knife. so roughly he has wrestled to keep this submerged within, barely floating; the warmth that radiates off another human being, and not just the fireplace in his house that on most days, he could not even look at.

haymitch doesn't say another word, but his grip does not falter. he awaits. and awaits and awaits. seemingly all he does. all he is good at. all he can do. people have so hastily come in and out of his life, he no longer can fathom object permanence. if he is not touching you, you will leave. disappear. another mourning dove cooing in his night terrors.

you perch the mop's stick against the table and settle next to haymitch. "of course. always." you whisper. and you sound so sure of this declaration that his head dizzies and his chest tightens with an ache that will never part from him.

haymitch drops his head to your shoulder. maybe from exhaustion, maybe from grief. you don't know. you don't ask. he will come around. and maybe sometime in the future, he can find a way to commemorate this grief and pass it. a safer future. a future where he no longer feels the need to sleep with a knife under his pillow.

now that the hunger games is once again getting popular, it’s all over my fyp on tiktok.

i literally hate the “we’re the capitol” and “suzanne only writes when she has something to say” and “we shouldn’t be getting another hunger games book” blah blah blah

just shut up and enjoy the series. my god. you’re not “part of the capitol” for wanting another BOOK in a POPULAR book series. it’s the hunger games. it’s a fascinating dystopian society. you’re allowed to be curious on how it works. and other POV’s of how other characters perceive it and their personal experiences.

and the suzanne thing is fucking stupid too. she’s allowed to write regardless of “having something to say”. that’s not required. she can have ideas later on down the line and add onto her series. esp now that her original audience has gotten older and matured enough to see the real horror that’s IN that original dystopian trilogy. we can now handle other perspectives like Coriolanus, and enjoy the way he thinks without boiling it all down to “i hate him because he’s the obviously the bad guy”

i feel like people need to enjoy things and stop being so english teacher mode. relax.

also PS. this is not to say that you can’t read into things but you have to remember it’s not that serious. it’s REALLY not that serious.

[5.25pm, wip]

coriolanus. swoony type, curly hair, bedroom eyes, cheeks like wine.

above tipsy coriolanus snow was a sight to behold, rare and cartoonishly bizarre. his half lidded expression, playful grin, and most importantly, wandering hands. he can’t quite tell if he’s moderately intoxicated due to the posca he’s been mindlessly sipping on, or the feel of your warm skin against his own. the blond had not had the opportunity to develop a tolerance towards posca, as he’d much rather spend scraps of money he and tigris pull together to buy food, or at least a variation of that.

with his inhibitions out the window, he was much less guarded. less skeptical of the world around him. simply an academy student who had a little bit too much to drink, and uncharacteristically giggles at anything.

coriolanus would not normally put himself in a position where the next words out of his mouth were not thought of and analyzed thoroughly to procure the upper hand in a conversation, but he’s cursed with a nervous fidget of sipping on the contents of whatever glass he’s holding, which got him into this predicament. unaware, bashful, completely and evidently enamored by you.

you were coriolanus snow’s rosebud.

a head of styled and silk soft, golden locks, and eyes so icy blue that they contrast the heat that flushes the two of you as you gasp — pant — for air in a secluded hall of the academy. his pupils dart between yours with a subtle knit of his brows, so blown and full of need that you feel a second, more intense blush creeping up your neck.

could this really be the academy’s star senior? the most diligent student they could offer? skipping a lecture because his yearning is stronger than his desire to learn? those questions are rhetorical, of course, as all three were answered with a simple tug of your sleeve on your way to class, urging you to follow him wordlessly.

“what’s gotten into you, coryo? miss me too much?” you say, lightheartedly. his tense expression never falters, instead offering a twitch of his eye as he takes a short breather. he has a hand sprawled across the fabric of your uniform, holding you close by the small of your back, pushing you up against him, and another cupping your cheek.

coriolanus was emotionally complex. his conditioned way of thinking sadly did not get along with his feelings. he had a compulsive need to control, control, control, and you knew that. he struggled to not let anything slip through the cracks, but hid that behind the facade of a social chameleon.

the blond in front of you, however, was not the coriolanus people were accustomed to. so overcome with hastiness that he was borderline shaking.

“just… just need you… need you and nothing else. tell me you need me too. say it.” coriolanus whispers, demands, and you think for a second that it might be so others meandering through the halls don’t hear, but doubt that, judging by the way his fingers are digging into your skin and the urgency in his eyes. you take a moment to process his request, and nod your head briskly.

you admire the way a curl falls over his temple, so perfectly marigold and twisted, the way his irises look almost crystal-like and so clear that you can see yourself distinctly in the reflection. his lips, pretty and plump, like a meticulously cared for peony that you oh so dared to pluck.

“say it.” so lost in thoughts of admiration, you’re almost startled by the hoarseness of his voice. his tone is imposing, but the pleading pinch of his eyebrows begged and begged for your answer, afraid it might hear different.

“i need you, coriolanus. nothing else.” immediately, the blond’s features soften, wrinkles formed on his forehead finally smoothing over. you don’t question him in moments like this; he’s just in need of grounding every once in a while. the thumb placed on your cheekbone begins to caress you, and he rushes to your lips. hungry. needy. almost as if trying to devour you to keep you all to himself.

class can wait, you decide.