Written for the Caesar's Palace New Year's Exchange for Johanna's prompt, "first kiss". Happy New Year, Johanna! I'm sorry it's not Odesta. Have some AU Jonnick. (I attempted it, at least... )
1.
Homemade cards emblazoned the childish pink walls, covering the designs of smiling ducklings and prancing cats, which were beginning to peel off with wear. "Baby's First New Year!" they proclaimed. And there was "Congratulations, Mark and Samantha!" The child had been born in May, and Mr. and Mrs. Mason still couldn't find it in themselves to take down the congratulatory cards. The "Baby's First Christmas!" cards had been shunted into the shadowy corners of young Johanna's room. The New Year's cards had arrived in such quantity that little Johanna's first words had been "Thank you!", because she had heard her parents say it so much.
Later she would learn the reason for her neighbors' kindness. Later.
Presently, she was being cradled in her mother's ample lap, giggling and tugging at Mrs. Mason's dark brown locks of hair. Mrs. Samantha Mason precariously fended Johanna off with one hand; with the other she held a very full glass of homemade wine, a gift from a neighbor down the street with grape vines winding around his house. Adults filled every corner of Johanna's room, the center of the New Year's party, making their resolutions loudly and gulping down their drinks.
When it came for Mrs. Mason to make her resolution, she said, "To be as kind to you as you have been to me!", which was greeting by many "aw"-s and "how charming"-s.
"What about little Jo here?" called a rather drunken voice.
Mr. Mason, standing behind his wife's chair, grinned. "To stop waking up my parents at the dead of night!" he said in a voice that was obviously an imitation of a baby's. The room burst into laughter.
8.
"Mom!" Johanna cried in distress, hurtling into the kitchen, where Mrs. Mason was making another platter of cheese and crackers for the children. "Mom!"
Her mother sighed. "What is it, Johanna?" she asked.
"Timothy from down the road says that his parents said that they only like you because you and Dad give your money to them so that they won't die on the streets, and if all of our neighbors didn't help us get by we'd be stone poor like they'd be if we hadn't- Oh, Mommy, what's going on?" Johanna asked all in one breath.
Mrs. Mason set down the cheese knife. Her face was very serious, and Johanna knew that the look was not a good one. "Honey," she said, "it's about time we tell you something."
It was a terrible New Year's party for Johanna. How was she to know it? She both hated her parents and admired them even more than she already did. She knew no other adults who would only keep a small percentage of their wages and divide the rest among their needy neighbors. That was why the neighbors were so kind! That was why they got so many Christmas cards, so many bundles of food dropped off at their door as thanks for a favor that she never knew was being done! Johanna felt like she was waking up for the first time in her life. She avoided all of the other children and instead sulked in the kitchen.
After midnight -January first! It had arrived!- a voice called out. "Johanna! Where are you? What's your resolution?"
"To..." she started quietly. "To be a nicer person!" she called from the kitchen. No one knew just how much she meant it.
14.
Johanna felt quite grown up, sitting in her room with a gaggle of other teenagers and several bottles of sparkling grape juice, laughing at the silly things they'd all done that year. She and the other teens of the neighborhood had vacated the Masons' annual New Year's party in favor for a better party without the adults. Just as her friend Brigid was recounting a tale of Johanna's unlucky encounter with a bucket of sawdust, a voice began to count down. "Ten! Nine! Eight!"
She joined in, and when the clock switched to midnight, the whole population of the room stood and shouted, "Happy New Year!" and toasted with their plastic false wine glasses.
They all went around in a circle, announcing their resolutions. Johanna, who had been thinking about hers for quite a while, blurted out, "To chop down that oak tree in old O'Brian's woods!" She was apprenticed to Mr. O'Brian as a lumberjack, and was still mastering that particular art; she still wasn't strong enough to chop down that damn oak tree that Mr. O'Brian was tasking her with. Her resolution got a few laughs from those who knew her well.
"To have my first kiss!" said Brigid. She blushed, giving Johanna a look. She had already told her best friend what her resolution was.
One of the boys laughed. "Well, why not now?" he asked. He glugged down the rest of the sparkling grape juice and tossed the plastic bottle to the middle of their circle of people. "Spin the bottle!"
Johanna wasn't going to admit it, but she hadn't had her first kiss either. And she certainly didn't want it then.
The bottle spun round, but it didn't land on her or Brigid. She was forced to watch another awkward teen kiss a leering boy. And then another. To her horror, as Rob Archer, the most perverted, skirt-lifting, girls-reminding-him-'my-eyes-are-up-here' boy in the freshman class spun the bottle, it pointed to none other but her.
She called it luck, or perhaps bizarre divine intervention, but right then she threw up the beer she had stolen from the kitchen and was therefore disqualified from the game.
19.
So much had changed, and yet so much was the same. There she was, at the Masons' annual New Year's party. Or rather, the Mason's. She was the only Mason left. "There was a fire in your old house. Tragically, your parents did not survive. At least you have your new house in the Victors' Village, Miss Mason." Snow's every word to her was another nail in his coffin. He was already dead to her.
None of her old neighbors had shown up to the party. She was all right with that. After all, Mr. and Mrs. Mason had been the life of their parties, and without them, the neighbors would feel quite uncomfortable.
For her 17th and 18th years, Johanna had put off holding the party. But two things changed that for her. The first was her happy memories of the parties before. Whatever her mood was at the time of the party didn't matter; afterwards she always looked upon the memories fondly. The second reason was the pressure.
Johanna hadn't realized that a victor's party was a big deal until President Snow himself brought it up to her when she mentioned hosting a New Year's party. "You'll invite the other victors and the camera crews, of course," he said. When she blanched, he said, "Come now, Miss Mason. I know you still have friends. Expendable friends- I don't mean the other victors, you foolish girl. Times are... hard in the Capital currently. The district people need a distraction from it so they will not find out. Your party will be that distraction, or you will pay."
So she had hosted the party, and was currently dreading midnight and the coming of the new year. Johanna had no idea what her resolution should be. Something that would sound good to the Capital. Something supportive. A lie.
She came up with it seconds before the glowing red numbers of the clock changed from '11:59' to '12:00'. In attempted unison, the victors bellowed, "Happy New Year!" at the camera, which promptly switched off. The camera crews were from the Capital, and, as they explained, could not abide staying up so late because they would miss their 'beauty sleep'. Johanna inwardly cheered. She wouldn't have to lie about wanting to go to a Capital party after all!
"What's your resolution, Johanna?" one of her victor friends, Enobaria of District Two, asked her. She had just made the humorous resolution of getting shark teeth embedded into her mouth in place of her sharpened teeth.
With a grin, she echoed her old friend Brigid. "To have my first kiss!" She had drunk a quantity of Capital-made alcohol, and was quite unbothered at revealing such a personal thing. She even made eyes at one of her best friends, Finnick Odair, for whom she had always nursed a secret crush. He appeared rather startled at this.
He laughed and blushed and tried to cover it up with an incredulous, "You haven't had your first kiss yet?"
"It's a wonder, I'm so beautiful!" Johanna joked, with a badly executed flip of her hair. She silently cursed herself for being so awkward around him.
"How would you like to fulfill your resolution right now?" Finnick asked with a smile. Johanna's heart leapt into her throat, which perhaps was the reason she was unable to choke out a "Yes". Instead she nodded vigorously.
As the two kissed, Johanna realized first kisses weren't all they were cracked up to be. They were sloppy (on her part, at least), and awkward. But she couldn't care less. She wondered why she hadn't kissed Finnick earlier.
There was a sudden burst of laughter, and the two broke apart to find that the camera crew had returned, and was snapping a wild succession of pictures.