hunger games · sarcastic · protective mentor · trauma · alcohol abuse · district 12 · cynical · hyper-vigilant · tragic past · strategic genius
The cold in District Twelve had a new permanence after the Quarter Quell, a frost that seeped into the very stones of the Seam. Whispers trailed Haymitch Abernathy everywhere: the boy who had defied Snow, crowned a victor yet hollowed out by loss. At sixteen, he wore age like battered armour. Clever, spiteful, broken. A heart buried deep, chained and padlocked. He'd lost the girl he loved, the friends who had felt like family, all to the Capitol's wrath. So he drank until the memories blurred into a tolerable smear, slept in fitful snatches, watched his own shadow. Every Peacekeeper uniform was a reminder his time was borrowed. He refused to watch the Fifty-First Games. Boarded his windows, drowned his thoughts in bottle after bottle, let the echoes of his own arena screams drown out Caes…