Chapter Text
Catra has pissed someone off with enough influence in her previous life that it's fucking her over in this life because why in the fuck is the first game of the season this year against Bright Moon Prep.
Catra lets out a huff of air and tries to shift a bit in her spot in the middle of the line. Lonnie notices, raises an eyebrow out of the corner of her eye. Catra tries to keep her face from twitching because Shadow Weaver's attention is already starting to drift from where Prime is speaking in the middle of the auditorium.
Catra's attention snaps to Prime's speech shifting from reminders about behaviors for the game tonight to introducing the cheerleaders and the football team. The football team roars from behind her, banging on the bleachers as they hype the crowd up. She is trying very hard to keep her face from twitching again and it is going very well, clearly, judging by the way Shadow's gaze has locked onto her.
She tries to ignore it, willing her eyes not to roll up to the blinding lights of the auditorium as she thinks. If she were to let her eyes slip shut she would be able to see Entrapta's wide eyes and betrayed face flashing in her head as Weaver turned on her after nationals last year. Bile rises up in the back of her throat, body tensing as the crushing guilt she hasn't been able to rid herself of all summer comes roaring back now, of all moments. Catra pushes the guilt down to her toes.
Prime finally backs off and her cheerleaders go flipping and tumbling out into the auditorium to the deafening cries of the Horde Academy student body. Catra blinks once, and then slowly, dramatically, walks behind her team, her hands gripping her pom poms, and crossed behind the small of her back, the strings trailing on her thighs beneath the pleats of her short skirt.
Someone wolf-whistles sharp, clear, and loud among the din, and the team settles into formation while Catra comes to a stop, and turns on one heel to face the student body crowded into the bleachers. She drops her pom-poms as the rest of the team has already done, but instead of bringing her fists to her hips, she raises her arms in the air, high, and lets her eyes slip closed for just a moment as a hush settles over the crowd.
There's nothing else like this.
Entrapta's face flashes in her mind, unbidden. Catra breathes in deep.
Fuck Shadow Weaver, fuck Bright Moon Prep, fuck — whatever god or Being she pissed off in her last life but nothing else could ever matter as much as this.
Lately, Catra has felt like a spinning top, the hand of whoever the fuck reaching down from the heavens and setting her in motion, and she gains energy as she spins. Gains power. She stays in motion, and she spins and spins and spins. She doesn't know how to stop, doesn't want to stop, doesn't know how to want to stop, so she stays in motion, surviving by collecting more energy, more power, doing all she knows how.
She feels like she's spinning out of control.
But none of that matters now. She's back to where she's familiar with: on this stage, in this room, on that field, with her squad — there. Here. She has power. She's spinning.
She opens her eyes. The music starts.
.
Someone clears their throat from behind her and Catra just barely holds in a full-body flinch. The rest of the girls are already back out in the auditorium, doing stretches alongside the football team as they wait for her.
Catra came down from her dorm, passed Shadow Weaver headed to the auditorium and was hit by the urge to check every detail of her appearance in the locker room before she showed her face to the team.
She shifts in the mirror to see Lonnie standing behind her awkwardly, so Catra continues gathering her curls in her hand to redo her pony and bow. Lonnie, almost unconsciously, runs her hands over her braids and straightens them where they all gather into her own pony before she meets her eyes in the mirror.
"I just wanted to say — you did great out there," Lonnie starts, and Catra snorts. Lonnie looks like she's fighting the urge to roll her eyes. Catra appreciates that.
"Is that it?" She says shortly. Lonnie's lips tighten into a line. Catra finishes on her pony and smooths her hands over her hair, tucking in fly-away's. Once she's satisfied with that, she tugs on her white tee, neatly tucking it down into her shorts.
"We- I," Lonnie clears her throat again. "Just wanted to check in on you, Catra." Lonnie's tone makes Catra stop from where she's bent down, folding down her knee-high socks so they rest on her calves, and making sure they're perfectly even on both sides.
She rises, slowly, and turns around to look Lonnie in the eye. She looks anxious. Catra feels something building in her chest — she's not sure if it's guilt or anger.
"I'm worried about you, Catra." She says. "You-you don't talk to anyone, anymore, I'm not sure if you've spoken to Scorpia, after all that shit that happened with Entrapta last year, and–"
Lonnie takes a step forward. Catra's suddenly glad for the sink at her back, preventing her from taking a step back. Not that she would have.
Lonnie just stares at her for a second, searching her face. She should say something, anything. She opens her mouth. Lonnie interrupts her.
"We're seniors this year, Catra." She says lowly, eyes still mapping her face. "I want to win, I do."
A memory floats behind her eyes, crystal clear, at her words, of another team, winning. Holding high a trophy that really, in the end, doesn’t mean anything, she knows. It's what it represents, what it holds, for her. Catra thinks if she feels the weight of that trophy in her hands she'll finally know what it feels like to want to stop spinning.
"We can't do that when you're off your game." Lonnie finishes. Catra stops breathing. The sink behind her drips, once, twice.
"Off my game?" She whispers. Entrapta's face enters her mind again, and she sees red. "Off my game, Lonnie?" She straightens. "You don't get to talk to me like that, I'm your captain. No one, no one tells me when I'm off my game."
"Maybe those were the wrong words then," Lonnie concedes, eying her warily. "But something is clearly wrong, and you're not thinking clearly."
"Which is it, Lonnie? Am I doing 'great out there', or am I off my game, not thinking clearly?"
"I'm just trying to be here for you, Catra." Lonnie says, lips straightening to that thin line again. Catra hates it, hates her at this moment.
"Trying to be here for me or trying to win, Lonnie? What you can try to do, is stop goofing off with Kyle and Rogelio during practice all the time," Catra spits. "What you can try to do, is leave me the fuck alone, and get outside and stretch and wait for me to tell you what the fuck to do, is what you can try to do."
Lonnie blinks at her, once, and then scoffs and marches out.
Catra forces her shoulders down and clenches her fists to keep them from trembling. She squeezes her eyes shut. Entrapta appears to her again.
In. One, two, three four. Out. One, two, three, four. In. One, two three, four.
Catra bends down again, straightening out her socks, and then making sure the laces of her shoes are tied and neatly pushed into the insides. She turns around to the mirror, and fluffs her lashes up with her fingers, and smooths out her eyebrows. She reaches up and takes down her pony again, gathering her curls and smoothing them back one, two, three, four times, before she finally wraps her band around the mass and then her bow.
She turns on one foot and leaves the bathroom.
.
Catra pushes back her curtain to look down, eyes searching the crowd of people until she finally sees Scorpia and her moms pushing luggage into the building. Catra moves back and lets the curtain fall shut, turning to plop down on her bed as she tries to decide how long an acceptable amount of time has passed for her to go to Scorpia's room.
She lazily reaches over to her nightstand and grabs her phone, which has been woefully dry all summer. She's not surprised, not after what happened with—
She pushes that thought down. Sniffs to herself and ignores how it's loud in the quiet room, ignore how the bed across the room is empty now, and is going to be empty because her roommate is not moving back in because she-
She sniffs louder. Turns on the TV and puts her phone back down. Maybe Scorpia never texted her because she just wanted to wait to catch up in person. Catra can accept that. She hates texting.
After a few episodes of a sitcom she doesn't remember the name of and doesn't laugh at, she figures enough time has passed and shuts it off, grabbing her phone and standing. She opens Instagram as she heads out, letting the door slam shut after her and ignoring the looks she's getting from the early move-in parents helping their kids back into the Horde dorms.
The first picture that loads is Adora so she immediately turns it off, and definitely doesn't stare at her blue eyes crinkling in the corners until the phone idles and shuts off itself. By the time she looks up she's already made it down the hall and Scorpia's waving goodbye to her moms as they make their way to the elevators.
Catra's secretly glad, she wasn't in the mood to make small talk with the D'reams.
Scorpia turns around to go back into her room, her eyes locking on Catra and the fall slipping from her face. Catra feels a pang and forces a small smile on her face.
"Scorpia, hey." She says, slipping her phone into her back pocket. Scorpia just looks at her. "How-how was your summer?"
"It was good, Wildcat." She says, softly, a feeling rises in Catra's chest. "How was yours?"
Catra shrugs, stepping closer. "I missed you," Catra tries. Scorpia's eyes flicker with something for just a second before they shutter again. Catra takes another step. "You never….you know…."
Scorpia sighs and takes a step back into her room, holding onto the door frame.
"Look, cat," She glances back into her room. "The team has a mandatory meeting in a bit, and I still need to do a bit of unpacking before I head down there. I'll text you, ok?" And turns, and closes her door.
"Yeah, right, okay," Catra says to the door, thrumming. She turns, marching back to her room and pulling out her phone. She sends a message to the cheer group chat. Weights and conditioning at 6. Mandatory. Anyone that doesn't show up is off the team.