Work Text:
On Wednesday morning, Catra heckled any and all passersby who dared gawk at her while she was busy working. From her vantage point crouching on a heap of trash bags inside the dumpster, she was above any concerned or disgusted looks, emotionally, but also uniquely suited to catching all of them.
She narrowed her eyes as a dog pulled its walker into the alleyway, sniffing like it hadn’t gotten a whiff of anything good in a month and this was its only chance to let loose.
She stretched, taking the opportunity to fully stand. “Hello. Obviously I’m an adult and I’m here for a good reason, reusing and recycling what the ignorant might call garbage for the sake of high art and saving someone’s self esteem.” She paused, considering. “Honestly? It’s probably one of the more practical things I’ve made in the past year or so. Now get your dog out of here and buzz off! I’ve got enough flies bothering me.”
By Wednesday afternoon it was sweltering, and Adora smelled before she saw the huge pile of trash artfully arrayed in the alley next to their apartment: a precarious stack of empty jars, cartons, foam trays, and various fruit peels in a vaguely humanoid shape, with a cantaloupe orange smile completing the figure. Perched perkily on top of the empty bin was an old canvas splashed with bold colors. The scratchy, clearly finger-painted lines on it could be variously read, when squinted at from the appropriate angle, as "no matter what u say!! you're not trash to me", or maybe "no maths uliat u soy!! yuri not trash tome".
Adora had arrived on the scene about four straight minutes ago, and in that time she hadn’t done much more than blink, more often than was strictly necessary to keep her eyes from drying out. Her lips were pressed tight with some unexpressed emotion. It honestly looked like there might just be something stuck in her eyes. Finally, with effort, she tore her gaze from the figure's squeezed lemon eyes and turned to Catra, who had set up a little fold-out chair on the other side of the empty trash bin as if for a Q & A.
Willing the washing machine tumbling nervously in her chest to give it a rest already, Catra shifted in her director's chair. She looked bleakly past the monument. "You should... what would you have done? Just tell me what you would have done, so I can stop feeling terrible about this."
"I would have just, you know, said something and thrown the trash and recycled like a normal person! Why couldn't you just tell me this instead of spending apparently the entire morning going through our garbage? Actually, when did you even have time to do this? I only left like four hours ago!"
"I did tell you! I've been telling you ever since you started calling yourself gym rat trash!"
"Catra..." She looked annoyed and abashed.
There was a long moment where they took each other in, then the art installation currently stinking to high heaven.
Catra burst out laughing, running a paint-spattered hand through her hair. "This is what I get for trying to be cute without making a dig at you first. The gesture basically becomes the dig. If you think about it, really I'm just being efficient, and you should be grateful I've been able to improve how much romance I can fit into literally a single week of garbage in our lives."
"Look, I'm just saying you could have made a card! I would have believed you and still appreciated it — you didn't have to go this far." Adora hid a smile behind the put-upon set of a hand on her hip. Her nose had stopped wrinkling up, and that was probably a good sign.
"Oh, so my heart's work doesn't fit into the expectations you had for it?" Catra hopped out of her chair in challenge. "No appreciation for the symbolism, the way I see us as more than our dumb flesh prisons, the whole promise of life coming out of the rotten fruit of the past?" She stepped closer, scoffing. "You're such a pleb, Adora." She hoped she didn't look too disgustingly fond.
“If I’m a pleb, then what does that make you for making something so hard for the common people to enjoy? Explain that, artiste.” Adora did a short little wave with her hand, presumably to demonstrate what an artist explaining things looked like. She was already starting to sport the beginnings of the expression Mermista had once memorably described as her ‘smug but also disturbingly into you, please get a room, thanks’ face.
Catra’s washing machine heart was doing slow victory loops. Time to seize the moment. “That’s why I was waiting here to explain it to you, idiot.”
It was clear Adora had no response prepared for her genius. She chewed on her lip before giving up. “Come here and explain it to my face then!”
As she leaned in, a chunk of watermelon rind completed its glacial dip off of a tower of slightly crushed up plastic trays, making a disturbingly inorganic 'plop!' as it hit the pink styrofoam base of the installation.
She shrunk back and winced. "We're going to take one picture for posterity — which I am sending to Glimmer immediately — and then we're going to clean this up."
"Fine by me." Catra grinned as she pulled her phone out and pulled Adora in. "Now let's say it together: just because I'm a hot jock — hey! I said together! Just because I'm a hot jock—"
"Wow, okay, fine, just because I'm a really hot jock," Adora mimicked loftily, knocking her sweaty hair poof into the tufts of hair above Catra's ears. The camera clicked.
"Just because I'm a really hot jock," Catra continued graciously, "doesn't mean I'm gym rat trash. I'm not trash at all, actually—"
"Just because I'm a really hot jock doesn't mean I'm gym rat trash, I know," Adora sighed, crossing her arms. "You realize it's just a thing everyone says, right? Like how Mermista would say she's cosplayer trash or something."
Catra ignored her and repeated, "I'm not trash at all, and in fact, I'm pretty much the complete opposite of trash, considering that Catra, who is the coolest person I know and who I’m going to listen to about this from now on instead of brushing her off, would do anything for me up to and including rooting through the garbage to make an impromptu art installation on the sidewalk, where people can see." She flicked her wrist to point toward a small crowd of dog walkers and kids who had gathered across the street at a safe distance before putting her phone away.
She blinked. After a moment she turned back to give them her best glare. She was gratified to see the crowd start to disperse.
Adora let out a breath, closing her eyes. "Okay. So... I’m not trash at all, and in fact I’m pretty much... well, that's kind of a lot to remember."
“I’m serious, though.” She turned to fully face Adora, reaching out to hold her hands. “You only call yourself that when assholes are making you feel bad about yourself, and it’s not ironic. You’re not gym rat trash, you like working out and you like taking care of yourself and anyone who’s making you feel bad about it can get the hell out.” She held Adora’s gaze. “Hey. Adora. Right?”
Adora glanced at the effigy again, with its steadily wilting carrot top mane and unwieldy protein jar body. Its neck drooped alarmingly. She blew a wayward strand of hair out of her face. “Right. Right, I’m definitely not like your art project over here. Whoof.”
Catra’s mouth twisted a bit wryly. Considering she’d only worked on it for two hours, tops, the installation had actually turned out pretty good, but — “Yeah, you’re not.” She squeezed Adora’s hands lightly, then pulled her phone out again. “Now come on, you said we were going to clean this up. Look, I’ll even send this to Sparkles right now so we can get a move on.”
The image she’d captured earlier was a perfect moment in time, and she took a second to admire her work: she was flushed and bright with victory, while Adora was caught in the middle of an unfortunate but hilarious mocking pose, with her eyes half lidded, her mouth in a weird blurry triangle and her hair poof disappearing into Catra’s head. The art installation — Artdora ? No, maybe that was too on the nose — loomed ominously behind them, body parts drooping like they might slough off if you looked at them too hard. Its cantaloupe mouth grinned soullessly at the camera.
Catra hummed to herself. Good art encouraged the viewer to ask questions.
Adora craned her neck to look and gasped. “What — no, I look terrible in this! Catra—”
Catra hit send. The best art stayed in conversation with real life.
“Gghh. You know she’s been collecting all the terrible pictures of me you’ve been sending her, right?” Adora ran a long-suffering palm down her face. “I know Bow and her have a scrapbook. It’s not even digital, Bow actually prints them out on fancy paper.
“Oh, believe me, I know.” Catra stretched her arms in front of her with deep satisfaction.
Adora groaned, her head falling back in dismay. “I’m really happy you’re getting along better, but at what cost?” She clutched at Catra’s free hand, holding it to her forehead. “Must I accept this betrayal for the sake of the best friend squad?”
"Yep. It's the price I'm charging, anyway." She ran her thumb across Adora's to soften the retort. "And hey, just so you know, they approved this little intervention. Possibly because Glimmer thought it would be hilarious for me to use trash for my work, but also because they've been worried about you, too."
She watched Adora’s face carefully. It was about 70 - 30 odds this was the right move; laundry moved onto the dryer in her chest and she readied herself to feel it burning.
Adora's grip on Catra's hand loosened and she dropped their hands from her forehead, a little stunned. "Has it really been that bad? I mean, have I really been that bad?" She looked crestfallen.
Catra rushed to forestall anything. "No, you're okay, that’s not what I’m saying. But I just needed— we just wanted to step in and say something before you got really hurt." She knocked their joined hands into Adora’s hip, her thumb circling around Adora’s knuckles. More softly, she added, “We know you. And I got you.”
“Catra…” Adora sucked in a breath, her eyes shimmering.
70 - 30… “Hey, wait, Adora—”
Her wobbly lips slid into a silly, triumphant grin. “You care about me!” She swung their hands around, pulling them into an impromptu dance. Her eyes sparkled as she broke into a dumb chuckle. “You all care about me but you care about me and you talk about it with my best friends and that’s so embarrassing for you, I don’t know how I would cope with it if I were you.”
“Shut up!” Catra laughed, pushing her shoulder. The laundry in her chest felt clean and dry and warm.
Adora was beaming. “No, you shut up! There’s no going back from this, I know you know I know you trust them now, and you can’t pretend to be too cool for nerd school anymore.”
“Ugh, whatever , I guess I’ll indulge you in this completely baseless accusation if it gets you to cut yourself some more slack.” She feigned turning away with a put-upon eyeroll, then leapt into Adora’s arms without hesitation. “So are you good now?”
Hoisting her up with a small grunt, Adora gave a light shrug. “I’m gonna be great.” Her arms were steady as she held Catra to her hips.
Catra hummed as she shifted to get comfortable, sliding one arm up to wrap around Adora’s shoulders and the other arm down so she could reach into her pockets. “Well, I’m glad to hear that.” She bumped Adora’s hair poof, and kissed her temple. “Hey.”
“‘Hey’ what?” Adora looked up with her eyes half-lidded and a doofy little curve to her mouth.
“Move a little bit to the left.”
Obliging, Adora moved. Catra leaned in and the camera clicked.
Adora pulled back with a question in her eyes. “Wait, is that mine?” She motioned for Catra to give her phone back.
Catra allowed herself a self-satisfied smile as she handed over the art she’d created today: them, framed by an alley wall, kissing softly in front of the collapsed and decaying remains of ‘gym rat trash’.
Adora zoomed in on the sign. “I think I’ve changed my mind about this piece,” she nodded sagely, letting Catra down. “You’re right and I completely agree. Yuri not trash tome.”
Catra stared at her. Then she picked up some wilted greens and took aim.