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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"I do." It's a pretty quiet reply, but pretty forceful. She hugs herself by the elbows, shoulders lifting in a frustrated shrug, before she continues, less quietly. "We're stuck here with them, after all ... they can't be any happier about that than we are. Maybe if we know how to reach them, they'll be less ..."

She lifts one hand, gestures, fingers fluttery, around her chest area, demonstrably. "Invested, in being like this towards us." She smiles weakly. "Maybe -" and her smile disappears immediately - "or maybe they'll never care about us, after all." She swallows. "Can't find out if I don't try."

She's picking up enough about Catra's self-image and general feelings on the matter that she definitely does not say, much less offer, a "we". She doesn't think Catra would take well to being forcefully included in any kind of attempted get-along shirt.

She permits herself a slightly grim laugh. "It would be nice if they're not like ... what I think they're like." Her eyebrows knit, half quoting to herself in return: "We know what's best for you. Stay in line. Don't get ambitious if you didn't prove you've deserved it. Don't ever think we don't know what you're already worth to us."

She forces the frown back into a carefully constructed optimistic smile, after that. "They all can't be that terrible, though, right?"

"Trust me, they won't care. We're tools for them, that's all," Catra asserts with as much authority as she can muster. She's used to that. Used to being the disposable one, really. The spare. Even then, not a particularly good one. As self-centered as she is in the last twenty-four to forty-eight hours, Catra has been doing a real bad job at picking up on what other people are feeling and the trend continues as Catra exhibits a reckless disregard for Setsuna's feelings and bulldozes right into her hopes and dreams.

"Of course they can be. They can all be just as terrible as we think. Sorry, sometimes there aren't sunshine sparkles and rainbows in people's hearts," she continues bitterly. Her hands settling on her hips as she looks around the crowded room at its lackluster decoration.

"Don't you think I know that?" Setsuna says, a bit more harshly than she probably should, snapping, eyes narrowing with a sharp, distancing chill. She glares at Catra for a long, angry moment, expression dark, shoulders straight with disgust - only half at the condescension in the other girl's voice, the other half ... remembering something and someone else, somewhere far away.

Then she sucks in a sharp breath, relaxing the tension in her body as much as she can. "I'm not trying to be hopeful because I'm stupid," she says, the words braced against her teeth. "Like I don't think I know this is the careless kindness we only get as long as we know our place." Her words are bitter and hot in her throat. She takes another long breath, though, closing her eyes as her mouth contorts in a painful grimace, then ... lets it all go, as smoothly as she can. Which isn't all that smoothly, but she manages to settle for a calm frown. "But I can only think that. I don't know that for sure. And even doing all the wrong things for the wrong reasons doesn't mean I can't be helped."

She's lost enough in the raw scrape of her own remembered pain this brought to the surface, she doesn't even notice the demonstrative slip of her own tongue it's provoked.

Catra actually cracks a smile. A sad, resigned smile that she doesn't really know the source of. It's laughable, really. This whole situation. Another girl moralizing at her. It all seems so familiar. Over and over and over. She's stuck in the same situation and each time she seems to keep coming up wanting.

"I just don't have enough faith in people. No one ever showed me kindness except because they wanted something." Not true. Scorpia. Entrapta. Adora. All of them had been kind and loving and wanted nothing except for her to show the same to them in return and yet she hadn't been able to do that. Was she just broken?

"Doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons? Sounds familiar too." Catra says, hands shifting to cram themselves into her pockets. She doesn't know why. It's comforting, she guesses, when one confesses to being awful. Of course, she's sure all of them can see it in her, in some way. Why bother hiding it?

Setsuna's eyes tighten, bright with the threat of tears that never actually arrive. She gives Catra a sad smile of her own, then. If she knew the other girl better, she'd probably give her a hug. If she actually knew her well, she definitely wouldn't. As it is, she's sympathetic enough just to want to.

"I'm sorry," she says, emphatic and sincere. "I'm sorry to hear it. I shouldn't have snapped at you like that, either. You ... deserved better than that."

It probably will not help matters that she obviously means it, but she can't be anyone but herself. Unfortunately for her.

"Yeah, yeah I did," Catra agrees. She's trying really hard not to let this conversation get under her skin, but it's not easy. She looks down at her bare feet for a moment. This is awkward. Uncomfortable. She feels prickly and unhappy all at once.

"That was just the Fright Zone, I guess." She looks away. "There was one person who helped me and then she threw me away, so. I guess I took all the right lessons away from that one, right?" She laughs, hollow and sad again.

"But it's whatever. We're all stuck here, right?" Catra shrug again, her shoulder tightening as she hunches in on herself.

"You're not as... stupid as some of the other people here. I guess. At least you seem to get what's up with the people who brought us here. That's good." She's trying, honestly. She just also has to pretend to not be trying.

"They remind me of ... people I made a lot of mistakes for," Setsuna ultimately settles on saying. It's a lot to lay on another person, her own life, and she thinks ... she'd like to tell Catra about it, sometime.

So she makes a note to herself, that she's going to do that, that she wants to and that she will, and nods, with a smile. She hopes it's a reassuring one. "I don't want to make those mistakes again, either. So ..."

She offers Catra her hand, her expression as serious as a heart attack. "I know we've just met, so, really, you don't have to believe I won't break it, but I ... want to make you a promise. Whatever happens with these people, I won't let anyone else, even me, throw your feelings away like that. Whatever it takes to make that right, I'll help you do it. I know I ..." Her confidence and some of her brightness falter, the memory stinging. It comes out a little more bitter than she means it to. "... didn't want to be thrown away, either. So I know you deserve this."

Catra doesn't know how to react to this. Someone else had made a promise like this to her, a long time ago. That someone else had, as far as Catra was concerned, broken that promise. Since then, Catra had been running scared, shoving away anyone who came close or tried to offer her comfort because if she couldn't trust Adora, then who could be relied on? She looks at Setsuna's hand, then at the other young woman's face, her expression twisting and uncertain.

"Really?" Catra laughs. Like before, it is not really an amused or happy sound. It's harsh and angry and wretched all at once, a tear of emotion that has to be released because any other way would probably break her into pieces.

"The last time someone made a promise to me like that, they abandoned me. Why should I believe yours?" It's her first reaction and first instinct. Keep Setsuna back, keep her at a distance and Catra can't be hurt or damaged if this doesn't work. Not that experience actually bears that out but she has to keep doing it because she has no other option except to trust people and that seems to be the most terrifying of all choices.

Edited 2020-04-21 22:53 (UTC)

"Well ... because I'm not asking you to?" Setsuna's face is grimly self-assured, a firm core of unswerving confidence meeting Catra's laughter like she saw it coming and had already decided to shrug it off. But she raises her eyebrows with the open question.

"Call me selfish, if you need to ... every promise we make is just as much a promise to ourselves, in the end. That's why anybody who breaks one, breaks their promises twice over when they do. And having a promise broken hurts a whole lot, even if you're the only one who believed it was one." She keeps her hand up, smiling - not exactly serenely, but undeterred. "And," this is the worst part to see, probably, because there is a genuine lack of fear in her face, only a gentle and earnest acceptance, that she must've had to learn because it doesn't seem like something she ought to be capable of doing on her own, "I believe in you, anyway. So you can believe me later, and take it for what it's worth now, okay?"

Catra has had one person who looked at her like that. Well.. not exactly the same way, but Scorpia had tried so hard to see the best of her and wished her well even when Catra had failed to live up to the expectations placed on her... it made Catra feel sick. Her face wrenches into a grimace before she controls it, settles herself.

"Fine. Whatever. Do what you want." It's not much and it's couched in annoyance and anger, but it's an acceptance of Setsuna and her intent. Sullen as it is, she's wrung a small concession out of Catra.

"I hope I can." It's a brittle sort of smile, one with ice in her eyes, the kind of ice that's breaking apart even as you register it's there, cracking under an unspoken strain.

But she lets her hand fall, accepting that this is the best she can get - well, mostly. Mostly she accepts that.

Not enough to stop her from immediately using both hands, instead, to shake Catra's one, quickly and with strength, keeping that brittle, icy smile of hers steady long enough it melts with unforced cheer. "Oh, and, I'm Setsuna. Higashi Setsuna. I'm really glad I met you."

It's gonna hurt a lot less now that she knows in some small ways she won't be hurting alone.

Catra stands there, her own brittle barrier of protective indifference keeping her from doing anything but giving a nod, quiet and almost uncaring in it's motion. There's a jerk, a surprised jolt as Setsuna suddenly reaches out to grasp her hand and she tries to pull herself back before the handshake is finished.

"Catra." She spits her name back at Setsuna. "Don't. Touch me." A pause follow, long and heavy and empty before Catra manages to make her mouth work again.

"...Don't touch me without asking," It's half-muttered, as if she's afraid it might actually be heard by someone.

Edited 2020-04-22 02:31 (UTC)

Setsuna flusters almost immediately, completely ruining the cool, almost hardcore sort of persona she might've sort of been about to pull off seeming capable of for longer than a minute there, and drops Catra's hand like she just touched a hot stove instead. "Oh! I -"

She puts one hand to her mouth, deeply embarrassed and a little guilty, even. "I'm so sorry, uh, Catra, I should have -" She moves her hand to the back of her neck, fumbling with her fingers beneath her hair, awkward and abashed. "Yes, I'll remember that for next time, thanks ..."

"It's--" Fine is not the right word, because it's not fine. Catra hates it when she's touched without warning and hates it even more when it's anyone but Adora (or it used to be that way). It makes her every nerve catch fire and begin to tell her that she is under attack and needs to fight or flee as soon as possible.

"Just don't so it again," is what Catra settles on. Distant enough that she doesn't have to acknowledge her own weakness. Her own worries. It seems a weak way to end it but she stands there, not sure what else there is to be said.

"I won't," Setsuna says. She almost adds an 'I promise', but, well, that might be too awkward under the circumstances, after what she's already said.

It's unfortunate, because the look in Catra's eyes makes her wish she could just give the other girl a hug, immediately; it's a look she's felt behind her own eyes before, and she knows how much it meant she needed a hug, herself, and desperately.

So she settles for, a bit hesitantly: "And, um, ... I won't tell anyone if you won't? If you ... ever need a hand, or something like that, again. It's ... fine!" She offers a shaky, uncertain smile. "It can be our secret?"

"Good." Before it might have been a sharp, peevish snap of an answer. This time, though, it seems quiet and restrained. Almost resigned. Catra swallows, her arms closing across her front as if she could hug herself. In the pit of her stomach she can feel the heavy, unhappy anxiety lingering, demanding more of her be free into it. Then Setsuna speaks up again,along an offer that Catra isn't quiet sure of. Can she trust the other girl?

"Sure, okay. Whatever." She's not sure what Setsuna means but she figures that it can't be all that bad. At least Setsuna listens to her. No one else here really has and that has to count for something. She shrugs, partially because she's not sure what else to do any longer.

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SHEETCAKE PARTY #1

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