SHEETCAKE PARTY #1

[goneawaymod]

SHEET CAKE MEETUP

“Who the fuck is Linda?”

The question pops up every few minutes, a little tack of punctuation above the offensively-inoffensive music being piped in*. The room the hires have been ushered into is clearly just a conference room, with a layout that requires either sitting at awkwardly-spaced intervals around a giant table or milling and scooting around the smaller folding table, where the “big surprise” the corporate officers promised them is on display: a sheet cake.

A sheet cake that that still bears HAPPY BIRTH DAY LINDA in blue icing across the top, although someone has, at least, gone to the effort of writing welcome, to the team new hires in Sharpie on a purple flashcard and used a Popsicle stick and tape to plant it like a dismal flag right in the middle of Linda’s “DAY”. Dedication aside, the cake itself looks pretty suspect too, not as if it were poisoned but more like if it were salvaged. The cake part looks dry, and the frosting seems strangely...sweaty. No one’s eating yet, and yet there’s already a piece missing.

However, there’s no lack of enthusiasm around the room. A projector hooked up to a laptop casts an off-center, warped rectangle of WELCOME TO, THE BEST TEAM. NEW HIRES!! onto a wall. The many paper plates have a festive print, although they all seem to be Christmas themed. The table cloth looks as if it came from both 4th of July and potentially a war, given the scuffs and tears. The shot-glass sized paper cups are inadequate to hold a satisfying amount of sparkling cider, but at least they don’t leak. There are many more plastic knives than forks, which could prompt some hires to give in to their animal instincts and just use their hands, or perhaps start a barter economy for the better utensils.

“I’m so jealous,” a corporate employee keeps saying as she ushers hires into the room. “We haven’t had a good party in this office since Kelly’s baby shower, and that little girl practically has teeth now!”

(An eagle-eyed hire may suspect that the box of donuts next to the sheet cake might have come from said baby shower, on account of the fact that the few stale hunks of donut remaining have Pepto-Bismol pink strawberry icing and that there’s still the paper envelope for a gift card with ITS A GIRL written on it.)

Most of corporate slips out after the hires get set up - this is clearly an event for the hires to do some “team building” and work on “rapport” in addition to filling their bellies with cake that tastes remarkably like sand. There’s a karaoke machine in the corner, but hires are instructed not to touch it because, as an employee points out, last year’s Christmas party demonstrated that karaoke is the worst thing in the entire world for morale (“in any world! even before this one got eaten away by the bombs!”).

There’s an additional big glass jar filled with scraps of paper, which the hires are informed are filled with prompts for ice breakers and activities in case the party needs a pick-me-up. Any hire who investigates will find that most of the ice breaker activities start with three benign questions (“what’s your name?” “where are you from?” “what’s your favorite animal?”) and somehow, always a fourth question that feels a little invasive (“what are your feelings on unions?” “under what circumstances would you kill an innocent person?” “do you use the same passwords for all your accounts?”).

“Please enjoy yourselves and all the desserts Jorgmund has generously supplied you with,” one of the employees says on her way out, “and don’t worry about making a mess, janitorial gets paid too much to sit around as is.”

*All music that can be summarized as ’grocerycore’.

Comments

[wheyoftheadept]

"Not in any detail, but I got the gist. Horde pick you up as a baby, too?" She considers mentioning Shadow Weaver, but then holds off; there is a tension in the girl's shoulders that makes her think she should wait until Adora shares her take.

"Oh, and she talked a little about the poral business but, uh - no offense, Catra - she seemed to understand that about as well as I understand the portal business I've been through, which ain't very well. Somethin' about being caught in a stable reality bubble and needing to get back to your primary physical plane?"

[heterochrocatic]

"So what?" Catra shoots off at Adora when she seems surprised that Catra had talked to someone else about her problems. She scowls and crosses her arms, looking away when Adora seems to seek answers in her face. She stays stubbornly quiet. Saturday can answer if she wants, but Catra isn't explaining anything to Adora right now. When Saturday gives that brief answer, Catra tenses.

What if Adora thinks 'portal business' means something else?

[princesspower]

"Which portal business...?" Adora wants to clarify, but then Saturday continues and she understands what she's talking about. That bit of portal business. She purses her lips again, still looking a little suspicious about all of this.

"...something like that. Our home planet was trapped in its own pocket dimension by Mara for... good reasons, honestly, but that's a long story."

She glances at Catra, eyes narrowing a little.

"And yeah. I got picked up as a baby, too. A lot of us were."

i did not realize i would not get alerted to responses not directly to me sorry sorry!

[wheyoftheadept]

"Like I said, rough time." She sets down her increasingly wilted paper cup. "Huh. I just got pulled out from a similar situation into this one - a piece of my world's past pulled itself into a pocket dimension a while back, and me and my crew got stranded."

She leans up against the table. "Sounds like your story's as interesting as mine."

it's okay!!

[heterochrocatic]

Catra has lapsed into sullen silence. She's got her arms crossed tight across her chest. She's tense and unhappy. Why is this happening? Why is Saturday here? She glares at the other woman.

"I don't need your help," she hisses under her breath.

[princesspower]

Adora definitely hears that and she shoots a look at Catra. That sounds familiar. It was just... usually aimed at her. For a moment she stares and feels something hot and sharp blossoming in her chest. Is she... jealous?

No, that's stupid. She frowns and glances away, trying to focus on Saturday.

"It's a long story is what it is," Adora sighs, "There's almost too much to explain."

She keeps an eye on Saturday, "So, what's Catra told you about me? Horrible stuff, probably."

She's prepared to have to watch her back around the both of them now.

[wheyoftheadept]

"It ain't help, it's makin' conversation," Saturday tells Catra in an aside.

"Ah - a bit about that Shadow Weaver character. Some guy named Hordak. You two have a lot of history, seems like."

Saturday is really wishing she'd gotten a description of Adora off Catra before all this; it would have made sense of hold off and let them try to work it out. Oh well. She rubs her chin thoughtfully.

"Anyway, I don't see how it means much here. We're all in the same leaky boat."

[heterochrocatic]

"Right. You just happened to show up when I was talking to Adora. You're definitely not helping," Catra's sarcasm is obvious and biting. She's still glaring daggers at Adora though. Part of her wants to just grab onto her and try to get her to take Catra back. Another wants to keep fighting for the sheer spite of it. Yet another wants to run and hide and let herself melt away into nothing because that's all she's got left.

"You don't have anyone from back home to weigh you down or tell people about how awful you are, either."

[princesspower]

"I told you, I don't want to fight while we're here!" Adora shoots back, distracted from Saturday by Catra for the moment, "But if you're going to keep pulling the same thing you did back home, I will stop you! And maybe people should know you tried to blow up the whole planet!"

[wheyoftheadept]

"...Cats, you didn't tell me what Adora looks like," Saturday reminds her, not at all peturbed by the attitude. "It looked like someone was giving you a hard time, so I came over. People do that when they like you - "

But Catra is already off and running, and then Adora chimes in and Saturday's brain record-scratches.

"Wait, I thought Hordak almost blew up the planet?"

[heterochrocatic]

"I'm not doing anything! Sorry, I didn't know I had to stop being angry at you just because you said so--" And Adora's next words are a gut punch of guilt and anxiety and fear all roiling into one mass of emotion. What does she do? What does she say? Catra's gaze slides over to Saturday.

"I." What is she supposed to say? How do you even explain it? Now, removed from the events even Catra isn't sure.

"I..." The energy and fight seems to drain out of her as she speaks. The anger and intense, never ending nerves replaced with a ferocious anxiety, a fear that she is broken and bad and all the things she is told she is.

"It was his machine. I turned it on." As if that explains it.

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday wants a cigarette. Saturday wants a cigarette so badly.

"Did you know it was gonna destroy the planet?" She even starts to reach for her smokes, then stops, because they are still in a closed room full of people. This is, she's decided, clearly a Jorgmundr plot. "Actually just - both of you, start at the beginning. One at a time. Hordak wanted a portal open so he could phone home; the portal ripped the world apart. He didn't seem to know what it would do aside from reaching his people, did either of you?"

[princesspower]

"Yes!" Adora doesn't quite shout, but she's agitated, put on edge by Catra being Catra, and also her own emotions are incredibly frayed by having been hijacked to a new dimension. It's a lot, honestly.

"I knew - we both knew! I told her and she decided she was going to turn it on anyway!"

She's committed to this now. She's honestly still deeply hurt by everything Catra has done and despite that, she still does care about her. She just doesn't know how to sort out all of her messy feelings just yet.

[heterochrocatic]

"Yes." Catra's voice is hoarse and strained, but there's not point in denying it. She knew what she'd done despite knowing it could very well pull the world into pieces. Knew that she had wanted so badly to hurt Adora, to make her feel weak and helpless and alone, that she had thrown the lever without hesitating.

"I knew and I still did it." Because I didn't want her to win again. It had been stupid.

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday takes a deep breath, imagining it's a thoughtful drag on her cigarette, and asks the next and necessary question.

"So if you knew it was gonna rip apart the world, why'd you turn it on anyway?"

reasserts original order

[heterochrocatic]

"Because." Catra starts to speak and finds it surprisingly difficult to put into words. Silence stretches out for a few beats and she finally manages to make herself continue.

"I wanted her to lose for once." There's a grimace. And that's true, though it's not the beating heart of the issue.

"I wanted her to know what it felt like to be weak and powerless and afraid." I wanted her to feel like me. Catra doesn't say that out loud. It would be too much, too raw and too vulnerable in the face of Adora's judgement.

[princesspower]

Adora listens in silence, expression set somewhere between grim and just sad. She knows this answer already and it hurts. Catra is - was - her best friend and knowing that she wanted (wants) to hurt so badly that she would've blown everything up just to do it isn't easy for her to handle. So she folds her arms and doesn't say anything. She just stares at Catra, stony-faced and silent. Well. She tries.

"Well, it worked. I was afraid and I felt weak and I felt powerless. I was terrified Catra!"

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday looks between them, fairly certain that she shouldn't say anything; there's nothing for her to say. But the silence stretches out a little too long, and she coughs a bit.

"So, Cats. How does that make you feel?"

[heterochrocatic]

Before, Catra might have said it made her feel good. It still does, kind of. It's the burning, self-indulgent joy of wallowing in feeling angry and miserable, though. Not actual happiness or triumph. Catra hugs herself, closing herself off and curling inwards a little. Her tail flicks, curls around an ankle.

"Why does it matter how I feel? I--" She grits her teeth. She hates this. She hates this conversation. Why is it happening?

"--I lost anyway. There's nothing left for me. And I did it to myself, is that what you want to hear Adora? You won! You won and I lost and I'm still alone and miserable and you get to go back to all your special friends who will keep telling you how special you are the rest of your life just like Shadow Weaver! Go back to Shadow Weaver, since she's on your side now, too! Like she always was! How does that make you feel, Adora?" When in doubt, go on the attack. Deflect. Get the subject off of her, because trying to talk about how she feels hurts too much. She doesn't want to examine it. Can't examine it, or she thinks it might rip her apart even more than it already has.

[princesspower]

"This was never about winning or beating you!" Adora yells and it comes out at the top of her lungs. Oh boy, they're doing this here. In public. Adora's stressed, at the end of her tether, and her patience with Catra (and her love for her) only goes so far. Especially when they're having an extremely painful conversation like this.

"Do you think I liked having Shadow Weaver around? If it was up to me, she'd be in a cell!" She's going to start ranting now. Because Catra's words hurt and she's tired of this. She's so tired.

"Every time Shadow Weaver looked at us, I was terrified that I hadn't done everything perfectly! You know why? Because if I didn't, she'd hurt you, even if I made a mistake. I wanted to protect you! And you - you don't get to throw my friends in my face like everything is my fault! You made your choices, Catra! You always had a choice! Stop blaming other people for what you do!"

[wheyoftheadept]

"All right, all right." Saturday puts her arms between the two of them, calm and precise, like a ref stopping two players from throwing punches on the field. "So what I'm hearing here is that you both carry a lot of resentment from your childhoods, yeah?"

That sounds like how a professional would put it. She continues.

"It seems like Shadow Weaver put a lot of pressure on Adora to be perfect, and used hurting Catra to motivate that; that left Catra all fucked up and wounded, and left Adora pent-up and stressed out. And wounded."

She tilts her head. "The common element here is that - you were used against each other. For whatever reason. Catra was used to control Adora, and Adora was used to keep Catra in line. Doesn't sound, end of the day, like either of you were actually the problem."

And if they can't figure it out from that she'll have to just come out and say it.

[heterochrocatic]

"...So what?" Catra isn't following this conclusion. "I should just forget about it?"

She stares at Saturday, her whole body aflame with anxious tension. She wants to run. Or fight. Or both at the same time. She doesn't know. Her usual angry yelling at Adora has been cut off and she doesn't know what that means for her in the moment.

"So Shadow Weaver hurt both of us. So what?" She knows. She knows that's why they're both this way, both so hurt and angry and she can't make herself say anything else. To come to this truth would mean confronting deeper hurts and deeper issues between the pair of them.

[princesspower]

"We both knew Shadow Weaver was a problem," Adora responds to Saturday, "That's not the problem! We both had a hard time in the Fright Zone - but we also fought each other in a war."

She's not sure where this is going. That they both had messed up childhoods? Absolutely. But that doesn't mean she can forget about everything Catra has done. At least, not without Catra genuinely wanting to make amends, anyway.

[wheyoftheadept]

"Because," Saturday tells Adora, choosing for the moment to ignore the vast understatement about the Fright Zone (god, these names), "whatever is going on back home, here and now, we need to stick together or we'll all drown separately. Which means getting to a place where you can work together, at least on the same team if not side by side."

She drops her arm.

"The other night, I told Catra that there's a difference between something bein' your fault and something bein' your responsibility. What happened between you two isn't your fault," she nods to Adora, "or yours," a nod to Catra. "Hell, it might not even be Hordak or Shadow Weaver's. Now, I know Catra has some things she wants to say to you that ain't yelling or blaming, and I bet you feel the same. So. Where does that leave the two of you, d'you think?"

She's asking them both.

[heterochrocatic]

What is Catra supposed to say here? She's already doing her best, isn't she? She's trying and she already lost everything and it hurts so much. Why does it have to keep hurting? She's not even sure she remembers what being really, actually happy felt like in this moment.

"...I..." Catra hesitates. Clenches a fist.

"I'm sorry." Her voice is flat, quiet, subdued. In essence, entirely un-Catra. "I was--I am really hurt. And angry. All that stuff I did wasn't... good. Or right. And I'm sorry." Hesitation. She tries to remember the words she had said to Saturday the other night.

"I don't want to be enemies anymore, but. I don't know if we can be friends again. Right now. I don't know." It hurts. All of it hurts. She wants to just disappear into a hole in the ground or scream or just start running but she can't escape from this and Saturday is right there, a silent pressure for her to do something.

"I felt weak and helpless and scared all the time except for the times you were there." She trails off into uncomfortable silence. What else is there to say?