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[Middle school means absolutely nothing to Johanna. Which isn't surprisingly, really. There's a lot that Panem doesn't have, and usually, she just carries right over the differences, ignores them outright, and it always comes out fine. There's no use in looking stupid, except by calculated choices.

The tickle and cool press of Kate's fingertips makes the corner of Johanna's mouth twitch, an infinitesimal sign of enjoyment. The larger tell is that she doesn't shove Kate's hand away.]

I didn't think so. So how did you get the boys. In middle school.

[--in a very sarcastic rendition of Kate's voice, but also maybe a little telling: no Panemian middle schools. So what.]

[ Kate's turn to snort at that impression of her, and she dips a finger into Johanna's navel, a tickling rebuke. ]

I didn't have to do anything. I was pretty and popular, they came to me. [ She says it in her snobbiest voice, almost an impression of herself. Her hand smooths across Johanna's abdomen again, a quelling sort of caress as she shrugs a little. ]

Danny Trello kissed me backstage after our orchestra concert when I was twelve. I shoved him and he tripped over his tuba and everybody laughed. Nobody dared try again for a while until Brad Harper got me for Seven Minutes in Heaven at a birthday party.

[Her stomach caves a little at the press of Kate's finger. Being tickled is a weird and foreign feeling, and her mouth twists a little--but she doesn't punch Kate, as a reflex, and she doesn't pull away. It helps that Kate's given such a good answer.]

Oh my God. Good.

[Who doesn't like a little violence with their kisses, right? Johanna is obvious in her support.]

More people should get shoved during their first kiss. Then they'd be faster at figuring out how to be decent kissers. [And here's yet another thing she doesn't know, a colloquialism that Kate drops like it's commonplace. Seven Minutes in Heaven. For her, it probably is. For Panem, not so much. And this is actually a greater sign of Johanna's relatively good mood, because she asks:] What the hell is Seven Minutes in Heaven?

[Relatively good mood, remember. Still not sweet.]

It's a game. Very popular at middle school parties.

[ Kate knew the chance of Johanna understanding that reference was slim to none, she just wanted to gauge the level of interest before explaining, trying not to put too much strain on this fragile relatively-good-ness by boring her. Actually being asked gets a quick flash of a grin, out of sight, not quite against Johanna's shoulder. ]

Everybody sits in a circle and you spin a bottle and whoever it points at, you get locked in a closet with them for seven minutes. You're supposed to make out but mostly it's just awkward and cramped and the people on the other side of the door tease you.

[There's that middle school again, but she's starting to get it.]

That sounds-- [wait for it] --stupid. Do you get to break the bottle over their head if you don't want to make out with them?

And why is there a bottle anyways.

[and thank god she doesn't see or notice any hint of smiling or else this coziness would quickly come to an end. now explain these things to her please answer for modern society]

No, it's definitely stupid. It's a kids' game. [ Kate shrugs, and she's near enough for the motion to ruffle fabric on fabric. Her hand drifts up across Johanna's ribs and back in a slow, lazy circuit. ]

If you don't want to make out with them you can just refuse to go in the closet and get made fun of even more. Or go in the closet and just stomp on their foot if they try anything, or whatever. But I had kind of a crush on Brad Harper so I didn't mind. The bottle's just tradition, I guess. [ See, not modern society's fault. Old timey society's to blame. ]

How about just making out, if you want to.

[Like, duh, has no one thought of this. The sharpness in her tone is sort of exaggerated, and that's given away by the fact that she's still not pulled away from Kate, or the lazy gentle drag and push of her hand. Whatever, it's not worth it.]

Tell me about Brad Harper.

No way, that's not cool. What if you let him know you like him and he doesn't like you back? Then you're a joke. And I was nervous. I was just a kid.

[ Kate finally tips near enough for Johanna to feel the warmth of her stretched out almost against her back, and nuzzles at the nape of her neck. Before it gets too cuddly there's a press of her lips, too, all of it like her hand: gentle and lazy but not completely lacking in intent. ]

Brad was two years older than me. He was tall, and he played-- sports [ that she's not going to bother naming and explaining ] and was really cute. Broad shoulders and blue eyes. He was a terrible kisser but I didn't really know, I thought maybe I'd just imagined it wrong. We went out for a whole two weeks.

Don't let people make you a joke.

[Again, like: duh. So much of this is probably lost in translation, a disconnect between Kate's childhood and her own. Kissing games are pretty universal, even if they seem about a hundred years ago, a dim memory that she's put away with so many others.

It's easier, then, to just listen to Kate. Tall and blonde and blue-eyed, and a bad kisser. She smirks a little.]

And then what happened?

Kid. [ Kate repeats it like a mantra, presses it into the top of Johanna's shoulder. ] Middle school girls are vicious, and I didn't own an axe. [ The joke comes with a teasing press of her teeth through t-shirt sleeve. ]

Then I realized that Brad was also about as dumb as a box of rocks and half as interesting. So I told him I was too busy for a boyfriend. I mean I was, it was sort of true, but mostly it was that I was bored to tears and afraid he was going to somehow dislocate my tongue.

[No axe and young age are both theoretically explanations that should suffice--but that doesn't stop Johanna from rolling her eyes, hugely, even unseen.

The treatment of poor Brad gets her to laugh, pleased, so young Kate is forgiven for her lack of axes.]

God, you poor thing. At least you let him down easy. How did he take it?

He was very confused. I don't think a girl had ever not been interested in him before. He didn't really understand what was happening.

[ Brad must have been a pretty nice guy despite his incredible dumbness because Kate sounds a little bit pitying on top of amused. ]

He spent a couple days acting like we were still dating and then a week printing out bad song lyrics and putting them in my locker like that would win me back somehow, and then he started dating Mandy Moncrieff. I think they're still together. They might be engaged actually.

[Boys. Johanna rolls her eyes again, hugely. Her lack of connection with Brad Harper makes it easy for her to be disgusted with his stupidity.]

You're a real heartbreaker.

[But if anything, she sounds quite pleased about that. Kate isn't deserving of her scorn in this situation.]

No one's putting bad lyrics in your locker here, are they? I mean, you've been here for awhile. You've had plenty of chances to break some more.

[ Kate laughs. It's not the first time someone's said something like that about her, but it is the first time it's been said approvingly. And anything that comes so near to a genuine compliment from Johanna is to be filed away and treasured, obviously. ]

No, none here. The guy I hooked up with on and off for a couple months vanished at a jump before we got to the inevitable break up, which was good since listening to him fumble through it was going to be painful.

[ Not an entirely fair assessment of Aidan but that's another of the perks of him going home: nobody around to call her on being unfair. She props her head up just a little on a folded elbow, mouth tugged into a smile Johanna can hear in her voice. ]

He got so flustered sometimes. You should've seen his face this one time when I suggested he go down on me. Like he'd never heard anybody actually say it before.

[Johanna laughs, and it's mean--but of course it is. She's not even pretending to watch the shitty movie now. Instead, she's laying with her head on Kate's pillow, with her eyes shut and her grin sprawled across her face, very amused at the misfortune of others. Although in this case, the others is only partially Kate, and really only a very little bit Kate at that.]

God, you know how to pick them. But he had done it before, right? Don't tell me he hadn't--and don't tell me he was just too polite--

[The twist of her voice suggests just where politeness can get shoved.]

Hey, anything you say about my taste just comes back on you, remember. [ Not that Kate's offended in the slightest by that little dig, any hurt in her tone very clearly a joke. She's not watching the movie either, leaving the hapless teens to their on-screen fate. She's leaned almost against Johanna's side, one arm still draped around her, hand settled on her ribs for the moment. ]

But no, god, no, he definitely had before. With me, even. He was perfectly good at it, he was just totally taken aback when I suggested it in actual words, out loud. It was almost kind of cute, but, you know. A pretty good sign it wasn't going to work out.

[Johanna just snorts, dismissively, at that chiding. That is to say: obviously she was the exception to her cutting assessment, just like she's always the exception.]

Please. I'm breaking your run of bad luck.

[And you better be grateful for it. The longer they lay in this position, all pushed and draped together, the more used to it Johanna gets. Soon she'll catch herself, and get away. For now, it's all right (more or less); she can put up with it.]

And that's not cute. Did he want it to always be his idea or something? Like a surprise, every time? [Her voice gets all coo-y and purry and pouty, a tone which dissolves instantly with her next pearl of wisdom:] Men are so dumb.

[ Kate's chuckle is definitely not at the idea of Johanna breaking her run of bad luck. Not at all. (She's definitely breaking her run of something.) It's vaguely tempting to roll in closer, maybe hook a leg over Johanna's nearest, but she's comfortable as she is and inertia saves her from pushing her luck for the moment. ]

No, I don't think that was it. I think I just caught him off-guard. It was sort of-- we were having kind of a serious conversation and he'd just woken up from being coma'd and I'd just gotten back from the hallway nightmare and it was kind of conversational whiplash. [ But that's more information than she suspects Johanna wanted, so she adds, not insincerely, ] And men are so dumb.

[It is more information than she wanted, actually, but. Whatever. Maybe one day she'll figure out how to have a normal conversation about abnormal things, instead of just skipping around and disdaining half of what she's told.

Actually, it's more disdaining three-fourths of what she's told, and that's on a good day.]

Really? You'd think he'd just have offered, after all of that. As a welcome back present or something.

Seriously. I thought it was a pretty obvious idea.

[ Boys. Still smiling, Kate shrugs, and shifts a little to brush hair off the back of her neck, letting it spread across the pillow before she tucks her arm beneath it again. ]

You must've broken your share of hearts here or at home, right?

Edited (right right right right) 2015-01-27 20:09 (UTC)

Yeah. With my axe.

[Her eyes open, narrowed to slits, as she grins--all teeth, all exaggerated. She hasn't actually chopped anyone's heart into pieces, but she's thought about it. More than once.]

But you're right. I guess I've had the chance to do my part so by now, people know not to mess with me.

[ Kate huffs a little laugh at that and rolls her eyes, but it's a sort of fond expression, not that Johanna can see it anyway. ]

You must have have a story. Of some poor person long ago who didn't know not to mess with you or some poor dumb boy who didn't understand break ups? Or girl, I guess, but boys just seem dumber.

[Not like Kate's. Nothing like Kate's. Johanna shows her teeth in another grin, and her face is turned up toward the ceiling, and Kate's face is turned away, so she'll never see it; it doesn't matter that it's all teeth and no amusement. She makes herself think of before: District 7]

Mica Comfrey. When I was fourteen, they took half the boys out of our troop and made them work in the sawmill in Creek Village. They were doing some huge project at the Capitol and needed the logs cut faster. Double work for everyone. Mica went with them, and when he came back, two years later, he was twice as tall and twice as good looking and twice as stupid. He told me he was in love with me the day he got back. We hooked up for a week, and then I pushed him in the river when he got too annoying.

[She sighs.]

He pretty much got it then. But I'd still catch him giving me these pathetic little looks.

It's a shame the pretty ones are so often the stupid ones.

[ Not really fair to any of Kate's actual boyfriends but whatever. They had their moments of stupid even if they weren't Mica Comfrey level, whatever that is. Johanna's threshold for stupid is a moving target anyway. ]

How about that first boy, the one who was terrible, did you push him in the river?

Vitus.

[Her eyeroll makes it into her tone of voice.]

No, I pushed him out of a tree. God. He didn't leave for the sawmills. His dad was team captain when they picked the boys, so of course he didn't get picked--and we were the oldest ones in the camp for a few years, so we kept having to work together...

[She sighs.]

It sucks, being surrounded by the same hundred people all the time.

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alsohawkeye - 2015-01-29 23:38 (UTC) - Expand

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all right all right all right all right

your tags keep getting older but mine stay the saaaame aaaage

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