Chapter Text
Fire House 184. Ladder 184. LAFD Unit 184. ‘The Alliance’. However you said it, the definition was the same: the best of the best of all first responders in Los Angeles. Led by in-house Chief Glimmer Moon (firefighting nepo-baby extraordinaire of Fire Marshals Angella and Micah Moon) their team was the most decorated crew on the West Coast, whether it was A-shift, B-shift, C-shift, or probationaries; Unit 184 was known far and wide as the ones to beat. Yes, even walking would-be arsonist Solomon ‘Sea Hawk’ Hawkins, responsible for 2% of all yearly calls himself.
Glimmer would be the first to tell any reporter, journalist, or smooth-brained cop that she didn’t do it alone, though. Deputy Chief Adora Grayskull was her right-hand woman, her rock and her battering ram and the team’s inspiration. Whenever they thought ‘no f*cking shot I’m getting back on that ladder/in that house/down that sceptic manhole’, Adora showed them ‘yes, the f*ck you are’. And they were grateful for it, in the end. She’d climbed the ranks faster than any other firefighter in LAFD history, including Glimmer herself, and no one who’d actually ever met the woman would buy the rumors that she’d had help climbing the ladder.
Leading the best paramedic firefighters in the state was Battalion Chief Mermista ‘f*ckin’ Jindal, not that she could ever be assed to remember her rank patches. Or to answer to the title at all. She was, in her own words, ‘a paramedic first, and a state-sanctioned show-pony when she got to it’. Glimmer had met her in probationary training, and despite the age gap, had decided then and there that as long as she was on the 184, so was Mermista. In their six years of service, Mermista had only ever lost three lives, and saved hundreds. She’d earned every one of the medals she never wore, and even if she claimed otherwise, would be the first person running into the fire if that’s where they needed her.
All brawn—hold the brains— Glimmer’s two subordinate Fire Captains were the muscle and the daredevils and the ones always putting themselves on both Instagram and the sh*t List. Sea Hawk, naturally, and Scorpia Hong. They could move sheetrock walls, downed trees, pry open cars and survive anything, but god help them every time the reassessment exams came around. Still, there were no two better people to comfort scared kids, distract people from the worst pain of their lives, and bring a bit of light wherever they went.
And aside from the team’s Probationary Firefighter Frosta, that just left Catra Delgado. She was Mermista’s partner, a paramedic firefighter who’d been on the team only a year-and-change less than her best friend, Adora, but was already among the most talented of the department. She hadn’t lost a life yet in her two years on the team, and she’d earned herself more medals and awards than any other firefighter of her rank and seniority (which was to say, almost none). It was widely agreed upon that, barring Adora, Catra was the hardest worker among them, as well as the smartest. She’d learned from Glimmer when to plow ahead, buckle down, and run her battery out for the sake of the job. But she’d also learned from Mermista how to conserve energy, pick battles, and lay low. She was the fastest, the lithest, the most acrobatic and possibly even the most stubborn among the Alliance.
Alone, they were talented and gifted. Together, they were unstoppable; a well-oiled machine of respect, integrity, and determination.
Or at least, they had been.
Until Glimmer went and dropped herself down a thirty foot hole and broke her femur, slipped a disc, shattered her collar, and got a concussion that made Rocky’s fight look like a playground tussle.
Turns out, the chain of command really didn’t adapt well to a sudden switch in, well — command.
Catra kept these mutinous thoughts to herself, though, as she slammed the door of the ambulance behind her, using the sound to mask her colorful swear. The job hadn’t gone poorly, per se, but it hadn’t been… great. It didn’t help that Mermista had switched shifts, and she was sharing the goddamn truck with f*cking Kyle.
“Delgado!”
Oh, right. And that.
Logically, when the Chief goosed it, the Deputy took over. Which meant that Adora, Catra’s lifelong peer and best friend and, yeah, maybe a little more, was now bossing her around for pay.
“What?” She snapped, whirling around. “I’m hot, I’m tired, I’m sweaty, I wanna go home, so make it quick!”
“You disobeyed me!”
“I do that a lot, Adora.”
The (Interim) Captain’s cheeks were puffed out, and honestly, it was hilarious. Five or twenty-five, she was the same. “You can’t just run around and do whatever you want! I give orders, you follow them!”
She snarled. “Adora, I had eyes on the cave in, and you didn’t! If I’d done what you asked, those spelunkers would be mincemeat!”
“You don’t know that-”
“Oh, and you do? Because you got promoted by default and now you’re f*cking Jesus or some sh*t?!”
“No!” Adora’s cheeks were red, and it would be cute if Catra didn’t feel like ripping either of their eyeballs out. “It’s my job to keep you safe! What you did risked your life!”
“But it saved theirs!” Catra shouted back. Vaguely, she was aware they were attracting an audience. “That’s the job!”
“I- You-!”
“Friends!” Boomed a familiarly grating voice. A tanned palm landed on Catra’s shoulder, while a red hand snagged her other elbow. Scorpia grinned nervously at her, and even Sea Hawk’s smile looked strained. “I suggest we let this matter drop for the sake of morale! They’re safe, we’re safe, we’re tired, let’s let sleeping dogs lie. Aye? Aye!”
With a gentle shove, he pushed her further into Scorpia, who tugged her toward the locker rooms.
“You okay, Wildcat?”
Catra didn’t want to see the genuine sympathy or concern in Scorpia’s eyes. It wasn’t a big deal! It was just… Adora. Same old fights, same old circles to run ragged. It didn’t matter that those fights had been slightly more frequent lately. And a bit more intense.
It didn’t matter that their brunch and antiquing date was definitely canceled now. Which sucked cuz Catra really needed new salt and pepper shakers.
It was fine.
“Yeah, s’good. Just tired. Later, Scorp.”
She finished tying her Docs and shoved past her friend to escape out the back door. Adora was still huffing and puffing to Hawk, who looked like he was in far over his head (serves him right), so Catra’s escape was unnoticed. When she got to her car, a beat up Jetta that hadn’t seen better days, but had definitely been slighty nicer once, she got inside, punched the AC up, and just… sat.
If she went home now, she’d just wallow and watch Chopped until her eyes bled.
Going antiquing alone was just too low to stoop. She and her therapist had so not built her confidence up to that yet.
Brunch alone was worse.
Entrapta was out of town for some Nerd Conference with her vampiric tax-evading boytoy.
Scorpia was Scorpia. Loved the girl, but small doses.
Double Trouble… nah. She wasn’t that down. Or that suicidal.
Not yet, anyway.
Catra paused, and shot a text to her therapist.
Lonnie, Kyle, and Rogelio were only fun with Adora.
Sparkles was still on bedrest, and Arrow Boy was hovering.
That only left one option.
—---------
“Get off my porch.”
“No.”
“You being here, darkening my goddam doorstep, is an omen. And I want literally none of it. Goodbye.”
Catra wedged her boot in the doorway, shouldering it open with a mean smirk. “C’mon! I’m bored and you left me stuck with Kyle. You owe me.”
Mermista glared at her with such baleful indignance that Catra did briefly consider leaving. But then she remembered her apartment, and her lack of new novelty salt and pepper shakers, and shook the brief moment of cowardice away.
“What happens in that truck when I’m not clocked in is not my problem.”
“Yeah, but I am.”
“Since wh- hey! Aht! No- god damn you. Really, I hope one of them does.”
Catra ignored her, shoving her way past Mermista and into her house, taking her shoes off by the door and bending around her to drop them outside with her partner’s work boots.
“They already have,” she yawned. “So whatcha up to?”
“I was heading to bed, but sure, come in.” Mermista followed her into the kitchen, scowling when Catra grabbed a mango out of her fruit bowl and opened her refrigerator. “Please, help yourself.”
“Thanks, man!” Her faux sincerity only made the other woman glare harder. “Were you out all night?”
“Uh, yeah, that’s why I switched my night shift.”
“Why?”
“I was running over stray dogs on Rodeo.”
“See, you’re joking, but I could so see-”
“You’re such a bitch,” Mermista groaned, flopping into a chair at her island. “Seriously, why are you here? Unless it’s to make me breakfast.”
Catra pondered that. “I’ll make you breakfast if you hang with me and tell me what you were doing.”
She didn’t necessarily need to know. It could be boring. But being nosy about her partner’s life was a nice way to turn the tables; she’d been hounded for the sake of it in the driver’s seat of the ambulance more times than she could count. Plus, it could take her mind off Adora.
“I’m not that hungry.”
“I’ll strum every single one of your guitars if you don’t.”
“Now that’s a bitch move. Proud of you.” Mermista grabbed a few grapes out of the bowl, speaking between bites. “I was playing bass for a friend’s gig over in Santa Monica. It was a battle of the bands type thing on the pier, and I needed the practice before the music festival in, like, six weeks.”
She knew vaguely that Mermista played the guitar, and had a lot of connections to the indie music scene in LA, but it had never occurred to her to really delve into ‘why’. The other paramedic was neurotically private about her life outside the firehouse, and unless she was trying to piss her off, Catra respected that.
She made a considering noise and turned back around to the fridge and grabbed out the wooden crate of brown eggs. “Are you a farmer’s market bitch?”
“I can’t eat processed foods, you know that! Do you literally ever listen to me?”
“Not if I can help it.”
Mermista groaned long and loud. “Why. Are. You. Here.”
Catra debated keeping the banter going as she cracked eggs into a sizzling pan, but ultimately came to the conclusion that there was really no point. Mermista was many things, including nosy as f*ck. She knew everything about everyone on the 184, and a lot about all the other LAFD units, too. To her credit, she didn’t do anything with the information. She wasn’t a gossip (unless she was drunk beyond her usual, a rarity), just… nosy.
She was gonna find out either way. From Scorpia, who cracked like these eggs when questioned, or from Sea Hawk, who would sprain his dick lunging to please her. Something they all often capitalized on.
“Adora and I had a fight.”
“Seriously? Another?” Mermista snorted. “What happened now?”
Catra described the last call, the spelunkers stuck in a cave-in up in the hills, and how if she’d listened to Adora’s call, yeah, she wouldn’t have been at risk of dying when she shifted the rocks to get to the stranded. But she also couldn’t have saved them in time to beat their remaining air.
Mermista hummed at the end of the spiel. “You made the call I would’ve made. So, you made the call Glimmer would’ve made, too. Adora’s just too blinded by her giant f*cking lesbian crush on you to think logically.”
Catra blushed, back still to Mermista. “That’s not it.”
“Oh, we’re playing this game again? I thought you two were… y’know. Ish.”
She sighed and plated the eggs, avocado, toast and turkey sausage with chorizo sauce, salt, and pepper (Mermista’s shakers were two dolphins, and Catra once again lamented the antique shop in Glendale). She tended to overcook when she was stressed. Like Madame Razz.
“We almost were, I guess, but now she’s this,” Catra muttered. “She’s ditching me constantly, or reprimanding me, or undermining me in the field. She’s treating me like a goddamn Proby, and I’m losing it.”
Mermista nodded, spearing the scrambled eggs and chewing before speaking. “Not to toss her too much of a bone here, because she did f*ck up today, but I just don’t think she realized that being Chief would mean being in charge of you.”
“What else would it mean?” Catra rolled her eyes. “I’m only a firefighter.”
“Yeah, but you’re her equal. And she’s used to listening to your voice as reason, and now she feels like she can’t, I guess. Like, she could, but she’s too…”
“Adora.”
“Yeah.”
Catra pushed her eggs around her plate. “I wouldn’t be so pissy if it didn’t feel like we were kids all over again.”
“I thought you guys were best friends since utero or whatever.” Mermista raised an eyebrow.
“You could say that,” she snorted, “It’s complicated.”
“You invaded my house and threw off my sleep schedule. I have time for ‘complicated’.”
She mulled that over, and shrugged. “Aight. You know Sergeant Weaver?”
“Who doesn’t? Hate that crone.”
“She was my foster mother.”
Mermista choked on her coffee, coughing hard into the mug as she tried to gasp and speak and drink all at once. Catra laughed at her misfortune, earning herself the finger. Even depressed, she was still her.
“That f*cking sucks,” she coughed when she had her air back. “f*cking hell. Yikes, dude.”
“She was Adora’s, too.”
“...Yeesh. To put it lightly.”
Catra sighed. “Yeah it sucked. She abused us constantly but in different ways. Adora could do no wrong- literally. If she did, I got punished and blamed, which made her hate herself. If I messed up, I just got knocked around. Whatever. But Weaver played insane mind games with us, anything to make us hate one another.”
“But she couldn’t.”
Catra looked away. Mermista blinked.
“...Right?”
“Look,” she sighed. “There’s a reason Adora joined the team before me. She was supposed to join the police academy, and follow in Weaver’s footsteps. But she failed the exam on purpose. I got blamed, and Adora… didn’t step in. It was bad. I snapped, I ran away because I was finally eighteen, I joined up with DT’s gang, she went into the Fire Academy. I was so angry at her… or I thought I was. I was really just angry at everything. Life. Weaver. My bio parents.”
“Hear that,” Mermista muttered, sipping her coffee carefully.
“She saved my life when she was a Proby on the 205. There was supposed to be a turf fight near Skid Row, someone brought a molotov to the warehouse, and the whole thing went up… I was nearly dead. But she got me out against orders. Stayed with me in the hospital and helped me with physical therapy. Took me in when DT kicked me out. We talked. We made up.”
“Fell in love.”
Catra flicked a piece of sausage at her. “Yeah, yeah. Well. Sort of. It’s still complicated. I still have these moments of misplaced anger, or whatever. Except right now… I think I’m just angry.”
Mermista nodded, pondering that. “Well, you have a right to be frustrated. Or whatever. But it sounds like you’re both coming from that f*cked up place. Trauma responses, et cetera.”
“Those bitches,” Catra joked hoarsely.
“Yeah, they suck,” she snorted. “Look, what do you do to calm down and center, like Perfuma’s always yapping about? Hobbies and sh*t.”
“Uh… all my hobbies are for two.”
Mermista blinked. “Sooooo, you’re codependent?”
Catra bristled, and then faltered. Was she? “Uh.”
“It sounds a little like it.”
“And you’d know?” She snapped.
“Yeah,” she shrugged, “I would. I was there once, and it didn’t end well. So, don’t let yourself repeat the sh*tty patterns. Duh.”
“You… were?”
“This isn’t about me.” Mermista brushed her off, and Catra rolled her eyes. “This is about you finding meaning in life that isn’t tall, hunky, and blonde, or bleeding out on a gurney.”
“What do you recommend, O Guru of Wisdom?”
“Racist,” she quipped, “And I dunno. I dig music. And taking care of exotic pets.”
Catra tilted her head. “...Oooookay.”
“You asked!” Mermista flushed, huffing and looking elsewhere.
“I used to play guitar,” Catra hummed, thinking back. “I saved up for two summers working retail to buy my first one, but I sold it when I was running with DT. Haven’t gone back.”
“Yeah? What did you play?”
“Classic rock and folk. I liked Fleetwood Mac and Carly Simon the most. Oh, and ‘Here Comes the Sun’. Adora made me learn it.” Catra smiled at the memory. “She liked to sing along. Even if she is tone deaf.”
Mermista chuckled, and stood up. “C’mere, follow me.”
Catra wiped her mouth and obliged. Mermista’s house was big, but not in a flashy ‘f*ck-you’ way. To her knowledge, her partner’s grandmother had left her, like, an insane sum of money when she died a few years ago, and she’d bought a house with some of it. God knew where the rest was.
Well, besides the literal wall of guitars in her living room. Electrics, acoustics, basses, banjos, even a lyre, a sitar, and a harp off to the side. A baby grand sat tucked in the corner, only a little dusty. And it wasn’t even all of them.
“Were you in Bowie’s will or something?” Catra muttered, looking around.
“Or something,” she snorted. Mermista was walking along the wall of guitars, examining them, looking for… whatever she was looking for. “You need a hobby. I need a backup guitarist for this festival, and you owe me for the San Diego Zoo incident.”
“I didn’t see the lemur!”
“Tough sh*t. We’re gonna help each other. Partner.” Catra really didn’t like how she smiled when she said that. “Pick one. Any single one you want, though I would really recommend an acoustic.”
“What about the harp?”
“Hilarious.” Mermista rolled her eyes and sat down on her couch. On the coffee table before her was a bass guitar, cadet blue with silver accents and a white face, in the middle of being restrung.
Catra left her to it, examining the guitars. Her old one had been a black Gibson with red etchings, gorgeous and so her it still made her chest ache. She’d tried hunting it down since having a real job with extra cash, but no dice. As far as she could tell, it had been limited edition.
Did she want to do this? She pondered as she meandered. She could say no, and Mermista wouldn’t really press it. But she could say yes. And risk public humiliation. Was Mermista even good? The woman was such a wildcard, she could just as easily be dogwater if not the next Sting. There was no telling. But Catra didn’t hate crowds. She liked music. She liked to sing.
Could it hurt?
Her eyes traveled up, and she paused. There was a light blue guitar, hand painted with waves and a whale, way high up the wall. It was broken, smashed to pieces but held in place by some wood glue and twine.
She pointed. “What’s that one?”
Mermista didn’t answer for a while. When she did, it was carefully neutral in tone. “My first guitar.”
“What happened to it?
“...My dad. He smashed it against a wall.”
Catra turned around. Her partner was focused on the bass’ strings, and not her. “Why?”
“Lots of reasons. Mostly cuz he f*cking hated me.”
“I hear that,” she muttered, turning back around. She had, like, nine thousand other questions, but everyone who knew the woman knew better than to push Mermista, like, literally ever. Especially about her nonexistent, never mentioned family.
Catra picked up a white guitar with gold accents and a sky blue design on the face. “How about this one?”
“That’s Dolly.”
“They have names?” Catra cracked a grin, coming to sit down.
“Uh, duh. This is Starboy.”
“...Okay, I was gonna be mean, but that’s kinda sick.”
“Right?” Mermista chuckled and pointed with her chin at the guitar in Catra’s hands. “Try playing something.”
“I wouldn’t even know where to start, dude.”
“Uuuuuughhhh, fine-uh,” she sighed, picking Starboy up. “You said you liked Simon, right?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, then you better remember this one.”
Mermista plucked the bass in a rolling, jumpy rhythm. It sounded almost Western, a little dark and dangerous. Angry. Impatient. It tugged at Catra’s ears with familiarity, and she shut her eyes to trace the memory to its root-
“Oh!”
Her fingers moved autonomously to strum the melody. Without the notorious piano backing them, and with almost eight years of rust clinging to her, it wasn’t quite right, but it had enough body for Catra to remember words she hadn’t thought of since she was seventeen and pissed all the time. Unlike now, when she was twenty five and only pissed sometimes.
“You walked into the party,” she started, voice cracking and scraping as she tried to find the key. Mermista didn’t wince or laugh, though, so she kept going. “Like you were walkin’ onto a yacht! Your hat strategically dipped below one eye-”
“And your scarf it was apricot,” Mermista joined in, taking the harmony. Her vocal fry lended itself more than well to the low, annoyed energy of the song, the inherent sarcasm of the lyrics. “You had one eye in the mirror, as you watched yourself gavotte…”
Catra’s pulse picked up, the indignancy of the song becoming her own. Her chest filled with a righteous, vindicated annoyance. Like her whole body was rolling her eyes. She thought about Adora, and the chip on her shoulder, her posturing for the team now that she was Chief, subconscious and unintentional but so goddamn grating.
“And all the girls dreamed that they’d be your partner- They’d be your partner and-!”
She thought about the set of her jaw when she yelled at Catra earlier, the way she’d puffed her chest when Sea Hawk and Scorpia came over. She thought about her friend, vanishing behind the mask of ‘captain’, and how much fun she was when she wasn’t this.
They came together on the chorus, both grinning. “You’re so vain! You probably think this song is about you!”
Neither made it past the first chorus, grinning as hard as they were, and laughing, but Mermista clapped for her anyway, slow and steady.
“There’s a jam night at Sharkie’s next Thursday. You should come. I’m gonna be there with a few other folks I play with here and there, and it’s a really chill vibe. No expectations, no grading, whatever. Just a stage, drinks, and music.”
“I don’t-”
“You’ll be there.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
—----------------
Catra stood outside Sharkie’s on Thursday night, loaned guitar case clutched in one hand, the other fisted in the lapel of her faded leather jacket. It was moments like this she briefly regretted giving up smoking. Briefly.
She relaxed a bit when Mermista melted out of the crowd on the pier. Sharkie’s was in Santa Monica, near the touristy spots, but not so far into the thick of the throng that it was going to be mobbed. There were far, far nicer bars just a mile up the shore.
Catra wore tight black skinny jeans, more torn than not, a maroon button up she’d cropped herself in a fit of boredom, and her jacket. Mermista wore ripped boyfriend jeans, a blue halter top that might have just been a bikini top, and a blazer. She eyed Catra up, smirking.
“Are you going to church?”
“...No?”
“Are you wearing a bra?”
“A bandeau, why?”
“Lose the jacket and unbutton the shirt,” she snorted. “You’re serving ‘nun’, not c*nt.”
“This is sexual harassment,” Catra huffed, but put the case down to oblige. “Good?”
“Can I do some eyeliner?” Mermista asked, overly eager.
“You’re a vulture,” she groaned. “Buy me a drink first.”
“Deal.”
Mermista dragged her around the back and through a door guarded by an absolute freight-train of a woman, who nodded at them and stepped aside. They were backstage, and they weren’t the first ones there. A lithe, tall man with thick hair, a thin beard, and deeply tanned skin turned and grinned at them. His black hair was streaked generously with sky blue highlights, and he wore bright blue contacts.
“Hey, Peekablue,” Mermista called. “This is my buddy, Catra. From the 184.”
“Oh, how charming!” He grinned, propping a hand under his chin. “Your paramedic partner, right?”
“Uh-huh. She’s gonna play tonight. Newbie.” Mermista put her case down, and Catra followed suit. She refused to be intimidated by this flamboyant man, who she could now see was wearing sparkly magenta eyeshadow and very sharp blue eyeliner. They shook hands casually.
“Nice to meet you. You and Merms play?”
“Don’t call me that.”
They ignored her. “Oh, for ages now! We used to run with this band a few years ago, toured all over Cali, but most of ‘em are in jail now so it’s just us.”
She shot Mermista a loaded look. “Just who the f*ck were you?”
“Says the mystery foster who ran with Double Trouble’s gang,” she scoffed.
“Double Trouble?” Peekablue blinked. “The seedy strip club owner in Skid Row who has mob ties?”
“They’ve got more than that,” Catra muttered.
“And you lived?”
“Barely.”
Peekablue blinked. “Can I buy you a drink? I wanna be your friend.”
“Uhhhh-”
“Later, Blue,” Mermista snapped, grabbing Catra to steer her away. She called something else in Hindi that made the man pout and stick his tongue out before they were leaving from behind the stage to get to the bar. “He’s a piranha. Means well, but if you give him an inch, he’ll take a mile.”
She waved to the bartender, who slid over to grab their drink orders. Catra stuck with a basic vodka soda. She didn’t need to be drunk, but she did want this edge off.
“So, why’d you leave your band?”
“I overdosed,” she said casually. Catra’s eyes widened, and Mermista snickered. “Blue, too. The other jackholes gave us laced sh*t, and it was a whole legal thing. It’s why I became a paramedic.”
“I thought you were in law school before this?”
“That was before the band.”
“...Riiiiiiight.” Catra took a large gulp of her drink. “Okay, just… moving past that. What are you playing tonight? What’s the vibe?”
“Real talk? I’m stuck.” Mermista took another sip of her rum runner. “Blue asked me to duet Body Talks, but that’s too intense to start. Maybe later if I’m tipsy enough. You?”
“I wanted to do Valerie, but I couldn’t get the chords in time-”
“Oh my god, I love Valerie!” Mermista gasped with a rare amount of joy. “If you just wanna sing it, I can back you up. I think Cassie has done drums for that before.”
“There’s also… Raise Hell?”
Mermista blinked. “Brandi Carlile?”
Catra winced at her blase tone. “I know. It’s kinda ambitious-”
“Dude, no. You’d kill that. This would be a great place to give it a shot. And if you bring the house down, we can do it at Tears for Queers.”
“...Is that the name this year?”
“Look, I didn’t pick it.”
Catra laughed, and let herself get a little excited as they sat there and waited. A few warm-ups went up first, crooning or belting the usual bar standards; ‘Come On, Eileen’, ‘500 Miles’, ‘Sweet Caroline’. Mermista groaned more with every song, which only made Catra laugh all the harder.
After their second round, they moved to head backstage-
When Catra saw her.
Her.
Adora.
Adora, the woman who allegedly was too tied up in budget reports and scheduling to make it out tonight when Catra had asked her to get a drink or dinner before coming over here. Adora, who had canceled their shopping trip just two days ago. Adora, who had yelled at her again on the job on Monday.
“Are you good? You look downright homicid- oh, f*ck me.”
“She lied!” Catra snarled. “She ditched me just before this!”
Mermista rolled her eyes. “Look, brush it off. You’re up in like five. Who’s she with?”
She stood on tippytoes, craning to look. “Hawk, Scorpia, Perfuma, and- wow! Bow!”
Despite her visible nausea at ‘Hawk’, Mermista didn’t seem that cowed. “Well, I knew my luck would run out eventually.”
She whirled around. “Wait, no one knows?!”
“I’m a private person!”
They stomped backstage, shoving past Blue who was tuning his acoustic. A short, ginger man was coming offstage, and Mermista stopped to bump his heavily tattooed fist. He bulged with so much muscle, his battle-axe electric guitar looked like a children’s toy in his hands.
“Well, lookit what the tide washed up!” He boomed, laughing. He was like a short, viking-esque Santa Claus.
“Hey, Gershwin,” Mermista snorted. A greasy but kind-faced man stumbled backstage next, acoustic guitar clutched at his side like a sword, not an instrument. “Andy.”
“Mermista.” Great, he had Sea Hawk Disease. Primary symptom? Inexplicable Renn Faire Accent. “Who might this be?”
“Catra.” She stuck her hand out to shake both men’s. Gershwin had a grip like a grizzly bear, Andy like a willow tree with a vendetta. Weird. “I’m new.”
“More the merrier!” Gershwin slapped her bicep bracingly. “We’re from the UK, but we come to California fer the music festival summer run!”
Oh. Maybe Andy was just British.
That was worse.
“What do you play?”
“Acoustic folk,” Andy answered.
“Metal and rock,” Gershwin answered.
“And you play… together?”
“Certainly.”
“...Well alrighty then.” Catra’s eye twitched. “Mista, how does this work?”
Thing One and Two waved and melted into the growing backstage throng while her partner turned to her. “However you want,” she drawled. “You go up, you play, you sing.”
Catra’s palms were starting to itch and sweat. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“No backing out now.” Mermista’s bored gaze turned sharp. “C’mon, you save dying people in front of crowds, what’s singing?”
“I know how to save dying people!” She snapped. “I’m trained to save them! I don’t sing outside of my shower!”
“Oh, for Christ’s- fine. Do you want me to back you up?”
“...Yes,” she mumbled.
“Okay, what do you wanna do? Raise Hell?”
“Can we?”
“It’s an acoustic lead, I can’t come in until the second half of the first verse. Same for the percussion.”
Catra swallowed, but nodded. “I-I can do that. Is that okay?”
Mermista rolled her eyes, but squeezed her shoulder. “It’s music. It’s a group activity however you square it, dumbass. Meant to be, like, shared.”
“Aw, Mista! That was almost sweet!” She snickered.
“I’ll leave you out there alone, don’t tempt me,” she scoffed, then turned away. “Gershwin, can we borrow your drummer? Blue, get out your stupid tambourine.”
Another burly viking-looking man came in, long shaggy blonde hair and a beard making him look like a SDCC Thor cosplayer. Blue strolled over, rattling a magenta tambourine and a sand shaker. No one looked pissed off or annoyed, and Catra let herself start to relax.
She was allowed to ask for help.
This was a group activity.
This was for fun.
She could, in theory, walk away right now and there would be no major repercussions to any part of her life. Mermista would understand, and let her go without judgment if she started to seriously panic.
And it was that thought that made Catra walk over to the guitar case and pull out Dolly. Mermista knelt with her, pulling out a shimmering teal bass. It was a bit bigger and more sloped than Starboy, with a slightly shorter neck.
“Who’s that?”
“Davy,” Mermista hummed. “Just got her back from the shop. Semi-hollow, good for folk and country and casual playing.”
Catra nodded, committing it to memory just like she had everything Mermista had ever told her in the back of the ambulance, or on a field rescue. Her hands shook a little as she gripped the guitar, and her mouth opened of its own volition.
“It’s cuz she’s out there,” she blurted. “I- I’m scared.”
Mermista raised an eyebrow. “Why? Adora loves you, however she’s acting. If this is something you like, she’s gonna support you.”
“It’s not that,” she whispered. “It’s… it’s having something that’s just mine. We’ve never done this before. Everything I try, we try together.”
“Do you ride horses?”
“Wh- no, I hate horses.”
“Do you volunteer at dog shelters?”
“No?”
“Do you dabble in MMA?”
“Eh, not really.”
Mermista made a ‘well, there you go’ motion with her head and hands. “Those are all things Adora does without you. It’s time for the both of you to let Catra stretch her f*cking wings, kay?”
“...Yeah, alright, fine. I just feel weird. And what if Adora freaks out? She hates change!”
“She’s an adult woman, she’ll get over it,” Mermista groaned. “C’mon. Up. We’re on.”
—--------------
Adora checked her phone for the fifteenth time in an hour, guilt still clawing up her throat. Sea Hawk and Scorpia had dragged her out of her office by force, and bundled her into Scorpia’s car to meet Perfuma and Bow for drinks. They hadn’t told her where they were going, and she could see why. This wasn’t the type of bar she liked to frequent, not without Catra. Catra, who she’d turned down for dinner. And then went out anyway.
According to Sea Hawk the entire team had been invited, but Catra and Mermista had never answered. Granted it had been pretty last minute, and Mermista was a borderline recluse off-duty. And Adora had pretty much kneecapped Catra when she’d asked her to get dinner not six hours ago…
Yeah, she wouldn’t answer her either.
Another Mama Dukes IPA landed in front of her, and she startled, meeting Bow’s concerned eyes over the can.
“It’ll be okay, Adora,” he said.
A broad palm patted her shoulder, and she turned to see Sea Hawk, with Scorpia just behind him, nodding. Perfuma was off to the side, chatting up a willowy blonde man with the build of a newborn giraffe.
“Amends can be made at any time!” Sea Hawk boomed. For once, his volume wasn’t out of place in a bar this loud. “Your friendship with Catra has withstood the many tests of time, a few hours relaxing at a bar won’t be a nail in a coffin!”
“He’s got a point,” Scorpia agreed, “Even if ‘friendship’ is… not entirely the word I would use.”
Adora flushed, and grabbed up her beer to hide her scowl.
Bow shrugged. “She has a point. Did you two ever get around to talking about… anything? Literally anything?”
“Uh…”
“Right, thought so,” he sighed.
Whatever rebuttal she was going to use died on her tongue when the next set of musicians walked out. The viking drummer retook his seat, a tall Indian man with blue tips sat on a crate with his tambourine and an… egg, and they set up while the curtains rustled again.
Adora choked on her beer.
“Is that-?!”
“Mermista!” Perfuma gasped, clapping. “I didn’t know she was playing tonight! How fun!”
“You know Mermista?!” The blonde man squealed. “My husband plays with her at the metal jams!”
“Are you with Gershwin?” Perfuma gasped. “I met him at Park Riot last June!”
“Yes, he’s my husband!”
Adora blinked, trying to process… all of that. She turned to Bow, who looked equally confused, and Scorpia and Sea Hawk, who looked flummoxed.
Sea Hawk in particular.
“I- I didn’t know she still…”
“Still?” Adora shouted to be heard over the bar’s volume. “How long has she played?”
Sea Hawk froze. “D-did I say still? Ha ha! Silly me! I meant… uh… I meant- Catra?”
“You meant what?”
“Catra!”
She turned at Scorpia’s shout, and sure enough, there was her best friend. Well, her best friend plus… whatever. Something. Something important. Adora was having a hard time grabbing onto tangible thought, though, when Catra was shucking off her leather jacket, leaving her in a raggedly cut maroon button-up crop top, open over a lacy bralette. Her skinny jeans hugged her legs, lithe but built with muscle, so perfectly that Adora’s mouth was running dryer than dry, despite the beer she all but chugged to hide her gawking.
Slung around her neck was a white, gold, and blue acoustic guitar, held with expert care. Adora watched Catra swallow and fiddle with some sort of clip near the top of the guitar; she was nervous. Really nervous. She hadn’t seen her fidget like that in years.
She didn’t introduce herself like a few of the other musicians had done, she just started playing. Her long, black nails plucked at the strings like they were made to do nothing else, and Adora lost herself in the dark, teasing rhythm of the opening chords.
When Catra turned back to Mermista, waiting with a teal bass guitar around her neck, the older woman nodded, smirking, and Catra smiled.
An alien feeling, sharp and ugly, stabbed Adora’s gut, and she curled her unoccupied hand into a fist on the formica hightop.
Catra leaned into the mic, though, and all thought was wiped from her mind when she started to sing.
She couldn’t believe she’d forgotten how much she loved when Catra sang.
“I’ve been down with a broken heart since the day I learned to speak,” she sang, raspy voice stumbling only slightly over the first lines. It didn’t crack, and the key was dead on, and the crowd whooped and whistled. Catra smiled, and continued on a little stronger. “The devil gave me a crooked start when he gave me crooked feet…”
“Those pipes!” Sea Hawk cheered, jostling Adora’s shoulders. “Incredible!”
“I didn’t know Wildcat could sing!” Scorpia cried, clapping already. “Why’d she always turn down karaoke?”
“Cuz she hates singing in front of others,” Adora blurted before she could stop.
Bow shot her A Look. “Guess she got over it?”
Yeah. Guess so.
The feeling came back as Catra looked at Mermista again, almost pleading, and the older woman adjusted her stance to start playing, too.
“-Until I’m six feet deep!”
The kick drum came in, and in seconds the bar was stomping and clapping along to the earthy rhythm. Mermista’s bass kept time, her head bobbing ever so slightly to the beat as she played along. Next to Adora, Sea Hawk shifted forward slightly. She turned, and was caught off guard by the intensity of his gaze.
Not for the first time, she wondered what the everloving f*ck was going on with them.
Wait, she was the Captain now. Should she ask? Or investigate?
Should she ask Glimmer?
Catra’s voice grew louder, and effectively ground Adora’s train of thought to dust. She whipped back around to stare, likely mirroring Sea Hawk if Bow’s snort was anything to go off of. But how could she help it? Catra hadn’t smiled like that, sang like that in years. She seemed free and happy…
Nothing like she was when Adora was around, lately.
“You have a mind to keep me quiet, and although you can try-” Catra stomped hard, and the music cut out for emphasis. Her eyes found Adora’s, and in that moment, she was pinned. There was no one and nothing else in that bar but them, and those hypnotic eyes. Those burning, angry, hurt, smug eyes.
“Better men have hit their knees and bigger men have died…”
Ow. Fair but ow.
“I’m gonna raise~!” Catra wailed into the mic, a woman possessed, and Adora would never have believed she was nervous a minute ago. Her fingers flew over the frets, electrifying the air around her. “Raise hell!”
The chorus brought the bar to cheering, clapping feet, including the team. Bow was whistling with two fingers, while Scorpia was singing along. Perfuma and the Fruity Giraffe were stomping and bobbing their heads. She and Sea Hawk were firmly occupied by their staring, united in pretending they weren’t.
“It came upon a lightning strike, and eyes of bright, clear blue-” Again, she was staring at her. Adora squirmed, and felt the eyes of several patrons follow Catra’s gaze. “I took that tie from around my neck and gave my heart to you.”
Mermista smirked to herself on stage, looking anywhere but Adora, and she felt her temper flare again. What did she know? What inside joke was she laughing about up there with Adora’s- with her-
With Catra.
Guilt stabbed her again, every unnecessary or overly harsh critique coming back to haunt her. Mermista was her superior and partner, of course Catra had likely vented to her about… everything. Not that the older woman didn’t have eyes.
They swung into the chorus again, Mermista stepping forward a bit to take the first solo. The bass hummed as her fingers teased haunting, full-bodied chords from it, treating the instrument like it was an extension of her own body. There was something less than PG about it, and Adora found herself blushing more than slightly as the bar’s energy ratcheted even high. Next to her, Sea Hawk was gripping his now-empty glass with white knuckles Adora would rather die than bring up. His hungry eyes told her all she needed to know anyway.
Catra came back to take the next solo, not as familiar with her guitar as Mermista but clearly well aware of what she was doing. As she played, Mermista and the man on tambourine took the backing vocals, humming along in harmony so low it almost wasn’t there. Adora was entranced, enchanted… bewitched. She couldn’t have looked away from Catra if she wanted to- and she really, really didn’t want to.
“I dug a hole inside my heart to put you in your grave!” Catra sang with breathless power, almost angry. Righteous. Defiant. She was staunchly avoiding Adora’s eyes now, but she knew who she was singing to anyway. “At this point it was you or me, and Mama didn’t raise no slave~!”
Now she met Adora’s eyes again. She was mad. She was hurt.
And Adora had never been more in love.
“You took my face in both your hands and looked me in the eye-”
Again, the rest of the bar faded. There was no Mermista to be jealous of, no patrons to stare at them, no Sea Hawk to worry about or Bow to avoid. Just her. Just Catra. The way it always felt when they were together.
But they weren’t together.
All thanks to Adora and her stupid pride.
“And I went down with such a force that in your grave I lie,” she sang, voice rasping deliciously over the lyrics. “I’m gonna raise~! Raise hell! There’s a story no one’s telling…”
That was true. Adora wasn’t telling her the whole story. She wasn’t being honest. She wasn’t turning to Catra with her stress and her fear like she’d promised she would. She was just taking it out on her.
“You gotta raise- raise hell! Go on, now, ring that bell!”
They finished the song, and the bar erupted. Hawk, Scorpia, Perfuma, Bow, the Giraffe, all of them stomped and whistled and hollered their support. Catra’s stage presence faded, and she seemed to come back to herself all at once. Her grip on the guitar tightened, and her smirk became a small smile full of so much wonder and shock that Adora wanted to kick herself. She stood up on the struts of the hightop chair above the others and whistled and clapped along. When Catra met her eyes, the smile dimmed a bit, and she knew that a simple ‘sorry for being a butthead’ wasn’t gonna cut it.
The order on stage shuffled a bit, and Mermista vanished backstage with Catra. Again, Adora’s jealousy flared, and her pout must have been more noticeable this time because Bow rolled his eyes just enough.
“Adora, they’re playing together. That’s all.”
“But how!” She burst, startling Sea Hawk out of a reverie so hard his elbow slid off the high top. “Since when? Where did this come from? Catra doesn’t even own a guitar, hasn’t since she was nineteen, and now she’s in a band?”
“Not a band,” Sea Hawk grunted, rubbing his funny bone. “It’s a jam. These are all independent musicians coming together to have fun. They’ll swap positions, there’s no set list, it’s a free for all. And the guitar is Mermista’s.”
Adora’s mood got darker. “Oh, so she gave her a guitar.”
“Seems that way.”
Perfuma floated over, squeezing Adora’s tense shoulders. “She’s just trying new things, Adora.”
“Without me?” With Mermista, was what she really wanted to say. But that was still her teammate, the woman who’d had her back come hell or high water, and she wasn’t about to spit on that now. Probably.
“That’s life,” Bow shrugged. “People, even couples, have different hobbies.”
“We’re not a couple!”
The Giraffe man tossed her a Look. “Then why do you care so much, babe?”
Adora flushed, and got up to get another drink.
—-----------------
“What a f*cking rush!” Catra cheered, throwing herself into Mermista as she finally swept backstage. The older paramedic grunted, but patted her back mostly-happily. “Let’s go again!”
“Give grandma a minute,” Peekablue snickered, slapping Mermista’s ass as he passed.
She threw a sharp elbow into his sternum, the resulting wheeze music to her ears. Then she glanced down at her partner, her dual-colored eyes bright and alive like she hadn’t seen in weeks. Jeez, Adora really had done a number on the kid.
But that particular circus was not where her monkeys were. She only had this one in front of her to worry about, and even that was decently hands-off. Usually. Unless she got plastered. Mermista shook her head lightly to clear her thoughts and recenter herself.
“Do you still wanna do Valerie?”
“Hey!” Blue popped up. “You owe me Body Talks, bitch.”
“I knowwwww-uh!” She groaned. “I’m just getting my sh*t together.”
“You havenae sang much yerself yet,” Gershwin added, tossing her a dripping water bottle. She’d have preferred whiskey, but sure. “Why not make the peaco*ck happy before you start on Winehouse?”
Mermista grimaced. She hadn’t exactly planned on singing much with her entire team in the audience, but she was backed into a corner now. She especially wasn’t thrilled about singing in front of Hawk. Especially a song so… aggressive. But she had promised Blue, and at end of the day, it wasn’t like they were-
“Mista!” Blue’s voice cut through her train of through, and she turned to see him holding out an electric guitar. “Give Davy to Gershwin, we’ll take lead.”
Christ.
“Yeah, okay,” she shrugged, handing over her bass to the stout Scottish guitarist. “You gotta adjust the straps.”
“Ach, no sh*te,” the red head grumbled. “f*ckin’ bird shouldered broad.”
Mermista laughed, and accepted the gold guitar from Peekablue. She checked on Catra one last time to make sure she’d be okay alone, but she was already palling around with Andy and his wife, a drop-dead gorgeous pianist Mermista constantly lamented not making a move on before she knew she was married.
“Ready, Mer?” Blue asked, adjusting the tune as the girl on the stage currently wrapped up her impressive cover of ‘Do You Wanna Touch Me?’.
She took the time to adjust the capo, tighten a few strings to her preference, and make sure her grip was ideal. Mermista wouldn’t say she was nervous, but she wasn’t at ease. Especially with the glares Adora had been tossing her.
If looks could kill, she’d be in her own ambulance right now.
“As I’ll ever be.”
“Got someone out there tonight?” Blue asked, one eyebrow raised knowingly.
“Uhhhhh,” she faltered. “You could say that. Catra and I’s team showed up, and they didn’t exactly know this was something we did. So it’s… weird. I guess.”
He blinked. “Do you still wanna go on?”
Mermista scowled. “Well, I’m already standing in the wing now, dipsh*t. Let’s just do it.”
“Ugh, fine, but if you don’t put your whole damn puss* into this, you’re buying my drinks all night.”
A pricey gauntlet had been thrown down before her, and if there was one thing about Mermista ‘f*ckin’ Jindal, it was that she never backed down from a direct challenge. She was a little stupid like that.
“Just try to keep up, Blue.”
Mermista was so used to living her life as some sort of performance— hyper aware of everyone around her at all times, swapping between masks as life dictated, never really bothering to be her actual self because it got so damn exhausting— that she felt nothing stepping onto the stage. Another character, another costume, another mask. That was how she lived.
It didn’t, like, suck, she mused as she adjusted the mic and filter. She honestly preferred it. It beat the weird looks and the judgy stares and the embarrassment she felt when she said the ‘wrong’ thing, or got too excited about something. Things were easier this way, and if there was ever any one way she was going to opt to live her life, it would be ‘easy’. Everything else was hard enough.
Cassiopeia, one of the ‘Star Sisters’ who ran in the indie-Cali rock scene, slipped out with a tambourine, while her sister Andromeda took the drums. She made sure to toss Mermista a loaded wink, too, which really didn’t lend itself well to their occasional thing being ‘casual’.
Probably time to nip that in the bud after tonight, then. The last thing she needed was a messy situationship.
Been there, done that.
About twelve times. Or so. Who kept count these days?
Blue jerked his head, and Gershwin picked up the baseline. She jumped in with the backing guitar, happy to let Peekablue lead. He smirked at her, and she felt the crowd swoon a little bit as she fought not to roll her eyes. co*cky bastard. She hoped his boyfriend was here tonight.
“Your eyes follow like a spotlight,” he drawled, “Two eyes like the sun. Go ahead, keep your distance from me. Soon you’re gonna… come.”
He winked, rocking to the melody he was making like the peaco*ck they called him. She couldn’t hold back the eyeroll this time, and won a few laughs for it. Her mouth opened, and she forced herself to stop thinking so she could sing and not choke.
“When you flick your hair like you don’t care, and you ask me where I’m from-”
They came together, facing each other as mirrors. Both tall, both tan, both dressed in leather and blue. He waggled his eyebrows, and Mermista smiled, like, just a little bit.
“That game that you’re running, baby,” he purred, “You’ve already won.”
She took over, rocking her body into the music like she could dance with it. “I need to know, know, know-”
Blue joined in, stepping forward as she stepped back. “What do you need, need, need? What do you like, like, like?”
Mermista let him slide as close as the guitars would allow, their lips sharing just the one microphone, six inches between them at best.
“Cuz I’m gonna be it tonight.”
Blue sprang back to his own microphone, singing loud and hard from the chest as they both started playing in earnest. Andromeda’s rhythm picked up hard, and the bar was on their feet again, stomping and whistling.
“You can be cool! You can be shy! Say what you want, say what you like ‘cause- Ooh! Your body talks! Your body talks!”
Mermista took back over just as her eyes landed where she hadn’t wanted them to. Sea Hawk was staring holes through her head, and her mouth ran drier than she’d have preferred while she was up here.
“You can pretend you don’t wanna know, but I read the signs from your head to your toes~”
Blue came back in and jumped out just as fast, letting her take the next verse. They were dancing their usual dance, sultry and teasing and overly flirtatious, but her heart and her head weren’t in it for once. She could feel his stupid f*cking eyes on her, never leaving.
She met them again as she sang, and thought ‘f*ck it’.
If he was gonna stare, she might as well give him a show.
Another mask slipped on. Or did her other one fall off? Whatever; sh*t- that was her cue-!
“Your lips are a conversation,” she sang at the crowd, eyes hooded and lips smirking, “That face is a song. If it’s my imagination-”
Sea Hawk’s gaze darkened, and his knuckles were white around his glass. Bow’s eyes were ping-ponging but she only had the bandwidth for so much at one given moment. Mermista spun back to Blue, back in her space like always. “Stop me if I’m wrong!”
Back into the pre-chorus. More two stepping, more hip swaying, more caressing the guitar like it was anything but. Mermista was getting hot in the stuffy bar, under the stage lights, and as they started up their respective instrumentals, ad-libbing the raunchy, suggestive asides that Kesha and Luke Spiller moaned at one another, she took a break to whip her leather jacket off. She tossed it to the side of the stage, and sent up a prayer that no freaks would grab it.
Ignoring the wolf whistles and shouting was rote motion. Ignoring Adora’s eyes widening, then hardening when she saw her two sleeves of definitely non-regulation tattoos was sliiiiightly harder. But Mermista was a champ, what could she say?
“Down, girl, shake your hips,” Blue howled in the mic, and she danced obligingly, laughing.
“Ooh, ooh, it’s on your lips! Yeah, you know- oh- you’re into this!”
Blue nodded, grinning as they circled one another like predators. “Yeah, you can try to hide it, but you know you can’t deny it!”
Mermista was running out of energy and breath, but she managed to nail the vocally-fried wail that Kesha slammed home in the song, grabbing the mic and moving her whole body with the sound. The bar shouted and cheered for her, and in that moment, she was untouchable.
f*ck Adora.
f*ck Sea Hawk.
f*ck every single inch of anyone who would ever want to sh*t on her joy in this moment. This was what she was teaching Catra about. This was why she did this. Not for the free drinks, not for the clothing (or lack thereof), not the drugs or the partying or the connections. This feeling of ultimate freedom, of being whatever she goddamn wanted to be when she was on this stage.
Not a paramedic, not a firefighter, not an ex-whatever a thousand times over, not a disowned daughter or absent sister or a disappointment or a law-school drop out.
She was the music, and everything else could go to hell.
—---------------
Adora made her way back to the bar, more than flustered for a number of reasons. Mermista had blown holes in her train of thought over and over again, and now she was… discombobulated was maybe too gentle of a term.
“Did you see that!” Bow shouted at her, grinning. “How amazing was she?!”
“Uh- yeah- amazing, yeah!” She tried to smile.
Bow was smart, though, and paying more attention than Sea Hawk was, still staring at the now empty stage like he’d seen a ridiculously hot ghost.
“Is it the tattoos?”
“They’re, um, they’re not regulation,” she spluttered. And she was right. There was a limit to how much ink the LAFD was allowed to show, and Mermista had two arms full of it. One was a sleeve of fish scales, stylized so that the skin around them was ripped away like a shark had torn at her dermis and revealed teal scales underneath. They were older, at least five years. The other was a grayscale underwater scene, highlighted delicately with white. The ‘surface’ of the sea curled around her upper bicep, a humpback whale reaching for the surface taking up most of her arm. There was a smaller, more distant shark inside her tricep, and a wrist to mid-forearms cuff of intricate coral and seaweed. There were other details she couldn’t make out, but she was certainly going to ask for a look at them.
“She never shows them at work,” Scorpia pointed out. “I didn’t even know she had them!”
Adora looked at Hawk, who merely took a suspiciously long drink and said, “I’m going to get some air, friends!”
Helpful.
The next group, the Star Sisters, was setting up, and Adora tried to distract herself by focusing on them. But every time there was a peal of laughter from backstage, or the curtains rustled ever so slightly, her heart stuttered and seized and all coherent thought flew out the window. When Catra and Mermista materialized by the bar, Adora ground her teeth together so hard she heard them creak.
Even as the swirling pit of jealousy twirled in her stomach, she knew it was misplaced and wrong—that they were entitled to do whatever they wanted off duty (within reason and legality). But she couldn’t stop it. As petty and dumb as it sounded, she wanted to be the one laughing with Catra, jostling her shoulder and putting her mouth on her ear to be heard over the bar. Watching the two paramedics, Adora slid from peeved to pissed to seething in a handful of minutes.
The end of the night couldn’t have come soon enough. When a few musicians started slipping out from backstage with their cases in hand, Adora made her move, beelining away from the table to intercept-
“Catra!”
Her best friend jolted, tensed, and turned toward her almost guiltily, guitar case bumping against her leg. “H-hey, Adora,” she stammered, glancing behind her.
Mermista appeared a second later, mozzarella stick between her teeth as she shrugged into her leather jacket. Adora must not have had the poker face she wanted, because the older woman went to jerk her head, and then paused.
“Uh. Hey…” She looked between the two of them, considered, and then shook her head. “Nah, not touchin’ that. Night, Chief.”
“Mermista.”
The paramedic turned back. Adora swallowed.
“My office tomorrow morning. Seven-thirty.”
Her eyes flashed, and rolled slightly, but she nodded anyway. “Roger that.”
She vanished into the crowd, and then it was just her and Catra. Catra stared at her, clearly anxious and on edge, and Adora hated herself for pushing her away to this degree.
“You were amazing,” she said.
“Thanks. Didn’t really expect to see you,” she muttered.
Adora winced. “I-I’m sorry. I was swamped in paperwork, and then they just didn’t take no for an answer-”
“I get it,” Catra said, cutting her off sullenly. “No need to rehash the details.”
“I didn’t mean to ditch you. If I’d known you were gonna be here, like this, I’d have said yes in a heartbeat.” Adora swallowed, alcohol loosening her lips like it always did. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
Catra’s eyes flashed familiarly. “Because I didn’t want to. I don’t have to tell you everything, Adora.”
“I know! I-I just thought… you used to play for me-”
“And now I’m playing for me,” she said, succinct.
But there was that angry, prickling barb in her stomach, clawing up her throat and prying open her jaw. “And Mermista.”
Catra blinked. She blinked twice. And then she barked a laugh. “Uh… what? Mermista loaned me a guitar and got me into the gig.”
“She played with you all night!”
“I don’t have four arms and I don’t play bass!” Catra threw her hands up. “Are you seriously jealous of my paramedic partner for giving me a chance at a hobby I had to give up?”
“Well, you didn’t have to give it up.”
The second the words were out of her mouth, Adora regretted them. Her eyes widened, as did Catra’s just before they hardened.
“Catra, no, I didn’t mean-”
“Just f*ck off, Adora,” she scoffed. But Adora had known her too long to buy into the idea that she wasn’t seconds from tears. She grabbed up the case, and turned away.
“Wait!”
“No.”
The door slammed shut behind her, and Adora was left standing there. Despite the overly crowded room, she’d never felt more alone.
—---------
Mermista hissed when the chill rolling off the ocean slammed into her as she exited the bar. She was by no means the least dressed on this pier, but she did feel exposed without her jacket. Bummer for her, someone had grabbed it from the side stage, so now she was roughing it-
“Missing something?”
She jumped and swore, ready to use her guitar case as a weapon as she spun around to face-
“Sea Hawk?”
He was smiling, and holding out… her jacket. She raised an eyebrow, wordlessly asking if he was the freak who’d grabbed it.
“I saw someone trying to leave with it. Recognized the embroidery on the inside, so I- well-”
She cracked a wry smile. “My hero.”
He took the case so she could slip it back on and zip it up. It was warm where he’d been holding it, and she shuddered a bit as her skin heated up.
“Need a ride home?” He offered.
“You sober?”
“I only had two,” he shrugged. “Wasn’t feeling it, but Bow and Scorpia insisted for the Captain.”
Mermista couldn’t suppress her eyeroll, and Sea Hawk caught it. They started walking together, shoulder to shoulder like assholes in the middle of the packed boardwalk. Whatever.
“Trouble?”
“Eh, probably,” she snorted. “Adora’s got a bug up her ass because I gave Catra a guitar and told her it's okay to have an Adora-less hobby.”
“Ah. She’s jealous.”
“In a way. I think she’s just so used to Catra being there that the idea of her possibly being elsewhere is scary. They’re, like, still super codependent. Whatever they think. Not a pretty look, end of the day.”
Sea Hawk’s laugh boomed across the pier. “No, it’s rather not, I agree!”
“Shut up,” she snorted, punching his arm just this side of too hard. “Anyway, she wants to meet with me tomorrow morning. Probably getting written up for non-regulation ink.”
“Bah, who cares?” He waved her off. “Happened to me when I got Lady Luck!”
The pin-up style mermaid on his calf. “Good, that thing deserves it.”
“Rude! What’s the whale’s name?” He poked her arm where said whale was.
“...Waldo.”
He giggled, and she rolled her eyes. “Anyway. I think they’ll be fine. Maybe. I dunno, I’m not them. I just think Adora should, like, pull her head out of her ass and say sorry for ditching the kid.”
“They’re twenty five.”
“Kids to me.”
They’d reached his car, and she paused. “Where’s the Chevy?”
“I may be a fool, but I’m no moron!” He crowed. “Bringing the Chevy to Santa Monica is a death wish.”
“So you brought the actual death wish?” She eyed the barely-street-legal Mazda with apprehension.
Sea Hawk just grinned at her, jangling the keys. “Ready to teleport?”
She groaned, but slid in. On the bright side, she couldn’t get written up if she was dead.
Catra texted her the whole way home, asking about the next time they’d play, or the next open mic, or even learning new songs to duet. She seemed almost manic, and if Mermista was a bit more sober, she’d probably, like, tell Sea Hawk to drop her off at Delgado’s and do damage control. But she was tipsy, tired, and ticked off as it was.
“I didn’t know you still played,” Sea Hawk said apropos of nothing.
Mermista glanced at him. “Yeah, got really into it a few years ago and never stopped, I guess.”
“You’re good. Quite good.”
“Thanks,” she murmured. “You still play?”
“I can still pluck a mean ‘Smoke on the Water’,” he preened, “So long as you don’t ask for more than the first twelve notes.”
She chuckled. “I’ll keep it in mind. So what’s your ‘thing’, then?”
The whole team had one. You needed something else to survive in the field, something to make the bad days good and remind you that you were only human, after all. Scorpia volunteered at a Big Brothers/Big Sisters-type youth reachout thing, and helped Perfuma in the community garden. Glimmer had her roller derby league—well, when she didn’t have pins in her leg. Adora had her horse up north, and the animal shelter. Frosta was a foodie with a popular instagram blog. Mermista had her music, and her menagerie.
“I fix up cars!” He said gamely. “All the ones I drive, I did myself, and I do customs for whoever, usually cousins and their friends.”
Mermista blinked. “Oh. Wow. We all just thought you had a rotating list of rentals you kept breaking.”
Sea Hawk giggled, hitting a vape that smelled like pistachios and vanilla. It wasn’t unpleasant, and it did beat the menthols she hadn’t seen him touch in… years, actually. When he offered her a hit, she took it. Drunk Mermista was not a health-conscientious woman.
“Nope! All mine, from fender to tailpipe. I do woodworking, too, but that’s just a stress relief thing.”
She nodded. “Huh. Neat. Good for you.”
“You still do theater?”
The laugh she barked was, like, slightly offensive and aggressive. “f*ck, no. Not since senior year. You?”
“I did a couple community theater things, but nothing crazy. Mostly helping out a friend here or there. Since taking on firefighting full time, I dropped it.”
“Eh. That’s life.”
“Cheers.”
He pulled up alongside her house, and got out with her to help her get the guitar out of his back seat. She wished him good night, but before she could walk away, he took a sharp, nervous breath.
Oh boy.
“If I may be so bold-”
“Can I stop you?”
He grinned, crooked. “It was really fun watching you tonight, Mista,” he whispered, so low that she’d have missed it if she wasn’t less than a foot away. “I haven’t seen you smile like that in a rather long time, and… I’m glad you found something that makes you so happy. Truly, I am.”
Mermista blinked, somewhat stunned, but managed to nod jerkily. “Uh. Thank you, Hawk. That… thanks.”
He reached out toward her face, and she felt herself begin to lock up. What the hell was he doing? Was he going to- oh god, he wouldn’t dare-
But then he withdrew, holding a piece of glittery tissue paper from the stage. “Apologies! This was caught in your hair!” He pressed it into her palm, squeezed her shoulder, and turned away. “See you tomorrow, friend! Sleep well!”
He only peeled away after she got her door open, tires screeching.
Mermista stared around her entry hall like she’d never been in it before. Her phone was still buzzing with texts from Catra, and now Perfuma and Bow. Her feet were insanely sore, and she’d torn a nail doing ‘Valerie’. Her ears were ringing from the volume of the bar, the cheers, and her head was a little gyroscopic from the whisky.
She tucked the tissue paper into her guitar case.
