goneawayworld | SHEETCAKE PARTY #1

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SHEETCAKE PARTY #1

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’.

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"Some party," Catra says with her usual unhappy look around the room.

"This is the second party I've ever been to and the first one was way better. Just saying." She's not going to count that crap that went down in the portal reality as a separate party. Nope. Nuh-uh.

"Is a cake supposed to look like that?" Catra has seen like one other cake in her life and she's pretty sure this one is wrong.

"No. Cake is not supposed to look like that. Don't eat this shit. If you do I'll feel like I've failed you somehow." Idly, Saturday pushes at the lump of alleged pastry on her plate. How can it be too soft and too hard? Like once you dig back the mush the frosting made, it's pure geology. Absolutely wild.

"It's not really a party, anyway," she says, lowering her voice. "More like another eat-shit-and-smile test."

"I wasn't planning on it. Even the ration bars back home looked better than... that." Catra rolls her eyes. Catra hasn't even taken a plate. She refuses to touch this stuff.

"I hate those," Catra says. "Well, if they think I'm smiling they have another thing coming."

"Think," Saturday corrects absently, becoming her best friend for a moment without meaning to. It is the only example she has of being the level-headed one, after all. "And if all they want is a smile, that's fine for now. Smile politely and plot revenge."

It's what her pops taught her.

"Anyway, whether you fight back or play along, they'll find a way to turn it to their own ends. The real question is, do you wanna be the sucker who gets to play public example for the first time?"

Catra rolls her eyes at the correction, but it's relatively good natured. She still isn't sure how she feels about Saturday--but the fact that Saturday knows so much about her already inclines Catra to at least tolerate her.

"I'm used to it," Catra retorts. Not that she wants to be that person, but she's kind of at the point that she doesn't care right now. She's already lost everything else, what's a bit more pain and suffering?

"Jesus," Saturday mutters, without thinking, and winces. "Sorry. Just. The Horde sound like a bunch of real assholes."

"Like I said. I got used to things being my fault," Catra says, trying to be dismissive. It doesn't bother her. It doesn't. Really.

"Yeah, well, like I said - they weren't." Saturday glowers a little, even though this is really just one more tiny drop in a massive bucket of impotent rage. You'd think she'd be used to it by now. "Especially not here. Jorg likes head games, so - be on guard."

She wishes the other shoe would just drop already, frankly.

"Whatever," Catra mutters dismissively. Sure, it wasn't her fault--they just said it was. And Saturday was right, it wasn't. She knew that.

"I know how to take care of myself."

"Yeah, I know you do," she says automatically. "Just - don't like waiting around for someone to hit me. Rather be out there hitting back. No choice right now, though."

"Sometimes you just have to let them hit you," Catra says, her voice betraying more resigned exhaustion than she'd wanted. It been supposed to be angry, but... it hadn't quite worked.

"And that's all you can do."

Saturday doesn't say anything. She puts a hand on Catra's shoulder, careful but certain, and pats it a bit.

"Like I said. No choice right now. But there'll be a chance. Just wait for it."

"I waited my whole life. What's a little longer, right?" Catra asks. She laughs, though it's not really an amused sound. She laughs because she doesn't know how else to express the exhaustion she feels. As Saturday reaches out to touch her, she flinches, jerks herself back.

"Don't--I don't do the touchy-feely crap." Catra adds, her voice hardening.

"All right." Saturday removes her hand. "By the way - you seem all right now, physically, but what was with the wolfman thing?"

Catra growls, the sound low and angry.

"That jerk in the sunglasses wouldn't stop talking to me like I was an animal. Wolf-lady stopped me from messing him up. That's all."

"Now, why'd she go and do a thing like that?" Saturday knows why, but Catra should be encouraged not to take that shit. "Sounds like he deserves it. What was his deal, did you find out?"

"No," Catra snaps. "I don't care what his deal was. I want him to leave me alone." This was stupid.

"Why are you asking me about this?"

"Because I like you, I'd like to consider you a friend, and friends ask after each other and bitch about stupid shit other people do." Saturday explains this calmly, without condescending. "So, you know, if you want to vent about it or something, listening is a thing friends do for each other."

"I don't have any friends. They all end up leaving." Catra looks away from Saturday, still frowning. While technically true, she left out the part where she had deliberately pushed Scorpia away and betrayed Entrapta. Oops.

"Why do you want to get close to me, anyway?"

"Dunno. You seem neat, and I guess you remind me of some people back home." Saturday shrugs, leaving off the rest - that Catra also reminds her of herself, in some ways. Who she might have been if Pops hadn't taken her in and turned her wildfire into a forge. "And you came up to me in the first place. So same question to you."

"I didn't see anyone else outside, that's all." Catra retorts. She should push now, separate before it becomes too hard. She wants to, because it will be easier. Less complicated. Even if it stings.

"I didn't ask for you to shove your nose into my business."

"Mmm. That's how we ended up drinking coffee and talking about our childhoods at three am. Because you didn't want anyone in your business."

Saturday isn't buying it, and Catra can't make her.

"I didn't. Ask. For that." Catra is shoving harder now, glaring at Saturday. She doesn't want to be reminded of being weak and helpless. Doesn't want to think of spilling her vulnerabilities into the first ear that came along.

"Just leave me alone."

"Was it the glasses kid got this far under your skin or the fight with Adora?" Saturday is blithely ignoring the hurricane of anger Catra is flinging her way, dodging with the same coolness that she might dodge bullets. But when Catra snaps at Saturday to leave her alone, she raises her hands in calm surrender.

"All right. Take your time. We'll catch up later. Gym should be empty now, if you need to work off some steam."

She isn't getting rid of Saturday for good that easy.

Edited 2020-04-20 20:57 (UTC)

"No, it was you. You think you can just come into my life and solve my problems by being nice. I don't need you or your help or your stupid advice so leave me alone!" Catra snarls, then turns to stomp away to the far side of the room. She's not allowed to leave yet, so that oh-so-helpful suggestion to go exercise it off can't really be followed for the moment. Not that she was thinking of following it anyway.

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wheyoftheadept - 2020-04-20 21:58 (UTC) - Expand

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