Hey everyone! This is my first Hunger Games story, so I'm a bit nervous. It's also my first real AU so double the nerves. But I'm very excited about this concept and I hope you will give it a chance. I'm really intrigued by AUs and I find it fun to consider how the personalities of different characters would play out in different settings. Characters from The Hunger Games are especially fun to work with because they are all so well thought out and unique. There's a lot you can do with them! I've enjoyed putting this together, imagining different possibilities, and working to make everyone act as realistic and in character as possible.

It's basically a modern day AU exploring the characters' interactions in high school, and how the challenges in their lives have shaped who they are. I've included characters that were originally spread out through Panem in the canon story, and have instead put them all in the same general area. Most of the main characters are 17 or 18 in their final year of high school, including Gale, so now he and Katniss are about the same age. I just found seniors more interesting to work with honestly, and it fueled the plotline better. But as basic and boring as all that sounds, it gets complicated pretty quickly. Anyway, hope you enjoy this! Please let me know what you think. Thanks!

I glance warily around the crowded living room, from where I half sit, half lean on the edge of a massive entertainment center, eagerly counting down the minutes until I can leave this place. Gale Hawthorne bet me I couldn't last a single hour at the party thrown by one of the guys at our school, so naturally I was determined to stay for at least two. But as the minutes slowly tick by, I start to consider that one hour alone might be more than I can tolerate and my resolve to stay for a second hour begins to dwindle. Really it was a silly stance to take in the first place. But I'd been so annoyed with him.

The whole predicament was Madge's fault. Gale and I were standing in front of our lockers, discussing our work schedules for the week when she sauntered up and asked if I'd go to the big party Cato Alistar was throwing in honor of the football game his team had just won. I opened my mouth to hastily refuse, but before I had gotten a chance Gale had erupted into a fit of laughter.

"Katniss? At one of those parties? Interacting with actual people? You've a better chance getting her to go with you to that fancy nail salon of yours, Madge," he said while eyeing her new manicure.

The decline of her invitation, still hanging in my open mouth disappeared with an audible clack, and I crossed my arms, subconsciously hiding my broken and calloused fingertips in the process. Something about the way he eyed her clean and polished nails had bit at me. I never expected him to even notice something like that, let alone comment on it. In my opinion a manicure was a waste of time and money, especially considering how my vocational and extra-curricular activities made it near impossible to keep my nails nice. My neglect of such things had been a practical choice, not a preference. I figured he of all people would understand why.

Shaking my head of the unfamiliar considerations, I glared at him with all the irritation I could muster. And then for reasons I still cannot fathom, I found myself denying his claims that I wouldn't want to go. "I have plenty of experience interacting with actual people, Gale," I chided. He knows this much to be true. I've been trading and selling produce from our household garden, at the unofficial Farmer's Markets on Hob Street every Thursday and Saturday since the age of twelve. I can barter and haggle with the best of them without batting an eye, and Gale knows me to be an excellent salesperson. "I enjoy socializing with people just as much as the next person! When I get the chance at least." That part of the statement was a bold faced lie and he of course recognized it as such.

"Ha!" he barked in my face. "You can't stand Cato, let alone his friends, or anyone else in this whole school, save for Madge and me."

That wasn't entirely true either. There are some genuinely kind people in my classes that have been good to me over the years, sharing notes, partnering with me in labs or sports activities, or other assignments. I've been on the track team since the start of my freshman year, and I've always gotten along well with the other girls on the team, save for Cato's sister Clove who is particularly abrasive. Admittedly there are a lot of people at our school that I find to be unbearable, and as for real friends, I only have Madge and Gale to call my own. It just never really occurred to me that I might consider needing more than them. Truth be told I hardly have the time. Gale is easy enough to keep track of. We're neighbors, and have a long standing trade agreement; his families' eggs and goat milk for our vegetables, and the occasional scarf and cap knitted by my sister Prim. Then when he turned 16 I was able to get him a basic janitorial job at the sports center my father had been a partner at, and our schedules there often coincided.

Madge Undersee and I have been able to maintain a relationship simply because she is the most low maintenance friend on the face of the earth. She doesn't feel the need to text me constantly or call me to hang out every weekend. For the most part our interactions are limited to brief conversations we exchange in school. We met our first year of junior high during a particularly difficult time in my life. My father had died the year before, and I'd become rather withdrawn. I hadn't really noticed a first, since a lot of things escaped my notice in my grief, but Madge was having a tough time that year as well. Her father, the mayor, had been accused of some kind of political scandal, and had grown rather unpopular with the public. He'd eventually managed to clear his name in time to win the next reelection, but for a while the gossip about him caused a lot of trouble for his family, Madge included. She'd been the source of quite a bit of teasing, and was constantly being hounded with questions.

We somehow recognized in each other a mutual need for peace and quiet and naturally banded together. We ate lunch together in silence, collaborated on class projects without feeling the need to make small talk, and when one of us got picked on in the halls, we faced the onslaught together returning insults with our own fierce glares and biting remarks. Now that we've both progressed out of our particular rough patches in life, we've found safe topics we actually are comfortable discussing; things like my sports activities, her music, and our families and classes. Madge is quite a bit more feminine than me, but isn't one of those girls that feels the need to talk about fashion and makeup, just because it's something she cares about. I think she may have tried once or twice but when she figured out I had absolutely nothing of interest to contribute to the subject she never brought it up again. She's also not gossipy like some girls, which I find incredibly refreshing. On occasion I get invited over to her house, although more often than not I have to decline. Madge has always accepted this fact about me though without question, and has never acted offended about me refusing her invitations, and has not stopped asking me in spite of how many times I need to say no. She never lets it be awkward, and I appreciate her for that.

However, asking me to go to a party was a bit new. Neither of us had ever been very interested in those kinds of things in the past, and I imagined she was asking me because she wanted to have some moral support. Still, her reasoning for wanting to go in the first place was beyond me. I'd just resolved to ask her why she felt the sudden need to go to some stupid high school party, when I realized that Gale was still laughing at me.

"Honestly Kat, I bet you wouldn't last a single hour at that party! They'd eat you alive!" he declared.

And that was all it took to convince me. To imply I wouldn't have fun was one thing, but to suggest that I couldn't survive our schoolmates, with their shallow gossip, and unimaginative insults (I've been called nothing but Scarecrow since 7th grade) was a grave affront to my ego. My jaw immediately locked, my back straightened and two days later I found my stubborn pride had born me straight to the lame party just so I could prove stupid Gale Hawthorne wrong. I can't help thinking I'm getting the short end of this stick though. Yeah, I get to show him up, but at what cost?

I glance down at my phone for the third time in the last five minutes. The time reads 10:15, and I have no messages from Madge. She's late, and I still have 45 minutes to kill if I'm going to stay for the hour I committed myself to. Holding out for two hours is seeming less and less likely, especially if Madge isn't going to show. I scan the room again searching for something to do. What are you supposed to do at these kinds of events anyway? Talk to people? Not likely, especially since I don't know a single person here. It's remarkable really that I've gone to school with these people for 4 years and still can't recognize anyone. Maybe Gale's right, and I'm even more antisocial than I thought.

I force myself to stop picking at my nails in my nervousness and start chewing on my lip instead. I'd accidentally taken Prim's cherry chapstick instead of my own plain lip balm, and it is both sweet and gummy, two things I'm miserably unfamiliar and uncomfortable with. It also tastes nothing like cherries. But scraping it off my already chapped lips is distracting me from my nails, so I go ahead and indulge. I'd actually gone through the trouble of trimming my nails as neatly as possible and coating them in some clumpy red polish I'd found in the back of our medicine cabinet. The polish was old, and the color was most certainly out of fashion, and I'd applied it with an unpracticed, shaky hand, but I'm determined to keep it on through the night, just to prove to myself that I can. Another stupid unspoken challenge thrown down by Gale that I'd taken on without being asked. Why do I suddenly care so much what he thinks about me anyway?

Gale and I spend a lot of time together, so naturally people have assumed over the years that we are dating, but the truth is there's never been anything like that between us. I don't even know if I want there to be. However, the fact that people whisper about how Gale could do so much better than a scrawny tomboy like me, coupled with the way he's been eyeing Madge lately with her designer clothing and meticulous attention to her beautification rituals irks me. Gale's my best friend, practically like family. He's one of the few people in the world whose opinion actually matters to me. The possibility that even he might think I'm not good enough for him just hurts. I'm just not convinced that means I like him in a romantic sort of way, and I know better than to try and date someone just to prove I can. Besides, our relationship now is good; comfortable and familiar, just the way I like things. I wouldn't want to complicate things unnecessarily. Not to mention, we're both so busy all the time that I don't know when we'd even find the time to go out, unless we could count our trips to the Farmer's Market as a date, which I certainly wouldn't.

I sigh heavily and force my hands apart once I realize I've been absentmindedly picking at my nails again. This is not the place to be thinking over my feelings for Gale, even if it does succeed in killing a few minutes of my time. I look around the room yet again, watching the other people in attendance for some clue about what to do. To my left a group of boys are hooting and hollering as they discuss the recent game we're all here to celebrate. "Thrilling," I think with a roll of my eyes. To my right a group of girls are huddled together, whispering none too quietly about Cato's recent break up with Glimmer, the school's head cheerleader. They are simply on pins and needles in anticipation about which lucky girl he'll ask to the Homecoming dance in her place. The conversation the guys are having about football suddenly seems a lot more interesting. A little ways in front of me, I watch as some boy walks over to a girl. They exchange three words between each other before heading off to dance, and I feel certain that communicating the mutual interest in a dance in under five words must be some kind of record. They don't dance as much as they bounce up and down, their heads shaking like bobble head dolls.

There has to be more to this whole partying thing than this. At least I hope so, because I feel certain discussions about football and relationships are beyond my capabilities, and though I'm not one to waste my words, the three headed dance agreement and bobble headed bounce is a strange ritual I know I will certainly fail at implementing. But what else is there? As if instinctively answering my own question, my head turns towards the kitchen where people are getting their drinks from a large keg. I try not to recoil in shock. I imagine alcohol is common enough at these kinds of parties, even if everyone here is under 21, but I have no experience with it. I don't particularly want to try the beer, but there doesn't appear to be anything else to drink, and I am a bit thirsty. I wonder if I can snag a cup full of water without anyone making a big deal out of it. The beer really doesn't sound that appealing, but I figure I might as well try it just to kill some time. If it's really bad I can always pour it out in the bathroom sink and fill my cup up with water instead.

With my mind made up, I saunter over to the counter and wait quietly, trying to avoid notice until I can pick up my own cup. Unfortunately my plan to go unnoticed is almost instantly foiled.

"Katniss Everdeen?" comes a disbelieving voice to my side. "Dang, you sure clean up well."

I knit my eyebrows together and look up, and up further into the face of the blonde boy standing next to me with an amused, appraising smirk. His statement is odd. Aside from painting my nails and wearing my good jeans (the only pair without grass stains), I've done nothing special to 'clean up.' My hair is plainly braided like always, I'm not wearing any makeup, my Prim-knitted scarf is orange, and my sweater is shapeless and brown. I'm still trying to decide if he meant that more as a compliment than an insult when he reaches through the crowd and snatches a cup full of beer for me.

"Here you go doll," he says, handing me the cup. "I do hope you're okay with a red cup," he says with a wink and a suggestive tone that is completely lost on me.

My confusion grows the more he speaks, and I'm certain this is mirrored in my expression, but he doesn't seem to notice. "Thanks Cato. Red's fine," I respond in an even, clipped tone. I notice a few people around me have blue cups instead of red, but really I don't have a significant preference for either. I'm getting a sinking feeling though that the colors are a code of sorts, and when Cato's grin widens I am almost certain this is the case. Dang. What exactly have I gotten myself into, and where in the world is Madge?

"Nice, nice," he says making an obvious point of bumping his own red cup against mine in a toasting gesture before raising it to his lips with a satisfied grin. He downs the whole thing in few quick gulps as I try my best to figure out what in the world is going on. Cato and Clove, the renowned Alistar twins, pretty much trade places for my least favorite people at the school on a day to day basis. They're both rude, condescending, aggressive bullies, and though Cato is definitely the worst of the two, the fact that I have to deal with Clove on a regular basis in track practice puts her at the top of my hate list more often than not. It doesn't help that I keep beating her best times for the long distance run. She's made it abundantly clear that she likes me a lot less than I do her. But while Clove only targets the select few students in our school who are actually willing to cross her, Cato is much less particular about who he harasses. He will immediately shove any freshman unfortunate enough to cross his path into the nearest locker or trashcan, constantly heckles the members of the baseball, tennis and soccer teams (simply because he considers these sports to be wimpy), and regularly intimidates and threatens those he labels as 'preps' or 'geeks' to do assignments for him, or hand over lunch items he fancies. He also has a particular disdain for the poverty stricken people of Old Seam, because he thinks we make the rest of our school and town look bad by association. Really, there aren't many people he doesn't take issue with and I honestly have no idea how he finds the time or energy to torment so many people during the course of his day.

This is nothing compared to how he treats the girls at our school. He's been dating Glimmer Skies on and off for their entire high school career, but this has done nothing to keep him from hooking up with most of the cheer-leading squad, and various other 'lucky' females he considers worth his interest. If the rumors I tend to avoid listening to hold any water, a fair number of those hookups were carried out with dubious consent…

I make a mental note to toss out my drink the first chance I get…

Up until today I have always managed to fall outside Cato's field of interest, and I've always considered this to be a major stroke of fortune on my part. It's hardly surprising though. My appearance is nothing special, I wouldn't be caught dead in a cheer-leading outfit, and not once in my life have I been accused of having a 'great personality.' Plus, everyone knows I'm part of the un'seam'ly crowd that resides in Old Seam. I've personally heard Cato declare on more than one occasion that he wouldn't ever touch a Seam girl, even if they are 'notoriously easy.' So why is he suddenly making a point of talking to me at his party, when he's never uttered a single word to me in the past? I honestly had no idea he even knew my name. Although come to think of it, he did make a point of handing me a flyer for his party earlier this week, and told me in a low purr, uncomfortably close to my ear that he was really looking forward to seeing me there. I attributed it to him mistaking me for someone else though, and quickly threw the flyer in the trash.

If the way he is glancing me over now as he rambles on about football and how he's practically guaranteed a full sports scholarship is any indication, he did not mistake me for someone else. Ugh. And I actually came to his party, as if his personal invitation had been irresistibly enticing. I know that's exactly how it looks, because why else would I have come to his party? Really Madge, why?

I'm not stupid enough to assume that Cato is coming onto me now because he actually likes me, or even that he wants to get something unsavory out of me. Well, at least that's not all there is to it. I've seen Cato and his friends play this kind of game before, trying to butter up some unsuspecting female, only to turn around and humiliate her the moment they've gotten what they want from her. Honestly I don't know why anyone would be stupid enough to hook up with Cato after all the things he's done to the other girls at our school. No amount of good looks can negate a person's bad actions in my opinion, and I couldn't care less about his popularity or his status as our school's star quarterback. I think back to the girls giggling in the living room about who Cato would take to Homecoming. I guess to some people popularity and looks meant a great deal, and excused almost anything.

I do know that refusing Cato's advances never works out well for anyone either. He's not one to take rejection well, and with the influence he possesses over the rest of the student body, it's not hard for him to make someone's every minute at school downright unbearable. It's not that I care overly much what people say about me, but I've seen girls getting tripped constantly in the hallways, and watched their possessions and assignments getting stolen and vandalized. I can barely afford the school supplies I have. Replacing them would be near impossible. And then of course there's the track team to consider. If all goes well at the upcoming qualifying event for track, I should be able to win a fully paid scholarship for college next year. All my hopes of getting into a good college are riding on the races in the upcoming months. College is my ticket out of this miserable town, for Prim too. Once I'm done I can get a job somewhere far away, and take Prim with me, maybe even help her get into a college of her own. It's her dream to be a doctor, and I know she would be great at it.

But if I take one bad fall in the hallways, or if my track shoes go missing right before a race, all those plans, and all those dreams for the both of us could be gone in an instant. I can't let this happen. None of it. The best thing I can do is get out of here quickly and hope Cato will have moved on to someone else by the time Monday rolls around. Forget Madge and my promised hour. I'll call her once I'm out of here and tell her to stay away from this place. Forget Gale and his admonition that these people would eat me alive. In this instant I'm tempted to agree with him. I try and tell myself that I shouldn't be scared of Cato, that I'm overreacting, but I've clearly gotten his attention somehow and my well-tuned survival instincts are warning me that this is a very, very bad thing.

When he leans in close to me and offers to show me around upstairs, my whole body grows cold, and it's all I can do to keep myself from turning and bolting straight for the front door. But I can't just run. I have to play this right if I want to get out of this situation unscathed. So I force myself to calm down, and am trying to decide if I should attempt to pull off a shy deflection, or a nervous giggle, when one of Cato's friends rushes up and pulls him to the side.

"Dude, Cato, you've got to come outside with me," the boy insists. Cato's attention is temporarily drawn away from me and I take the opportunity to quickly dump my cup in the trash, swapping it for a fresh one that I make a point of pouring myself.

"Not now, Marvel," Cato hisses. "I'm a little busy at the moment," he says making a not so subtle gesture towards me. I try not to cringe too blatantly, as I slowly start inching away from the pair of them.

"No seriously Cato, you have to see this. I think someone egged your car!"

"Are you fricking kidding me?" Cato growls menacingly as he rushes outside, Marvel trailing close behind. It's almost comical how easily I've been forgotten, only I don't feel like laughing. Instead I'm thanking my lucky stars as I start plotting the safest way out of here. I spot a door on the opposite side of the kitchen island that I'm pretty sure leads to the backyard. If I can just get outside, I can sneak around the side of the house, and watch from the shadows until Cato and Marvel head back inside before leaving this stupid place once and for all. It seems like a decent enough plan, and I've just started to edge my way around the counter when the very door I'm aiming for opens, and in walks none other than Peeta Mellark.

AN: Aaand scene. Hope you enjoyed the first chapter! Much more to come, and hopefully soon. I actually have most of the party written up, but this seemed like the perfect place to end the first chapter. The original draft I wrote didn't include Cato at all, but the piece just wasn't working right, and once I put him in the whole thing just clicked so much better. Which means Cato basically saved my story. Go figure. So now what? Who egged Cato's car? Where is Madge? What's with the red cups and blue cups? Are Peeta and Katniss going to do the bobble headed dance? The answer to that last one is no. They aren't. But you can find out the answers to the other questions in the next chapter! Maybe…

I suppose I should take a moment to say I don't condone underage drinking. Honestly I've never liked alcohol, and I'm well past an age where I get carded. But I know it's a common enough thing at parties, and Katniss doesn't strike me as the type of person that would say no to it just because it's against the law. Conversely I don't think she'd drink because of peer influence. She's basically just indifferent to it and curious about it as a means to kill some time.

I did want to take a few lines to talk about some specifics about this AU and clarify some things I glossed over in this chapter. First of all, this story takes place somewhere between October or November. Everyone is basically a senior, 17 or 18. That includes Katniss, Gale, Madge, Peeta, Cato, Clove, Marvel and Glimmer. Cato and Clove Alistar are twins. Cato plays football, and Clove is on the track team with Katniss. Prim is going to be about 13 or 14 in her last year of junior high. She and Katniss still live at home with their mom. Their father died when Katniss was 11, in 6th grade. More on that later. I have plenty of ideas about what Old Seam is like and why, and how the Farmer's Markets on Hob Street are run. Katniss has become a bit of an expert at growing things and has been selling and trading fruits and vegetables since shortly after her father's death. She also has been doing some odd jobs at a sports center her father was just starting up at the time of his death. She did stuff there under the table for a while, and got an official job as soon as she turned 16. Archery I'll address later, but hunting really doesn't do her family much good in a modern AU because bow hunting tends to be a rather expensive hobby, and considering she'd need to purchase permits, wait for the right seasons to go out, and have adult supervision, I don't see it working. Buying food would probably be cheaper.

There's a lot more that I've plotted out, but I think that's enough of the explanations for now. If you have any specific questions, let me know in a review and I'll be happy to answer them at the end of the next chapter, which should probably come out soon. And if my minor little cliffhanger at the end tells you anything, you'll get to know one of my favorite characters a lot better in that next chapter.

I leave you with a preview quote from an upcoming chapter:

"I know what you're thinking. Why oh why didn't I take the BLUE cup?"

Thanks for reading! Drop me a review and let me know what you think! Until next time…

-C