Chapter Text
Chapter 12 - Free Bird
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Not everyone can be the flower growing in between the cracks of the sidewalks.
Not everyone can be the exception to the rule.
Some kids are just the rule.
Not everyone can emerge from the flames like a Phoenix. Some kids just get burned up.
Sometimes when all you’re surrounded by is darkness, you just stop looking for the light.
And sometimes being a gay kid is way harder than it needs to be.
The humid night air got stuck in Adora’s lungs. Horde Scum, perhaps it was the name, drew Adora in like a beacon of light. For the first time since she had left, Adora wanted to go home. She wanted to go back to the Fright Zone.
Horde Scum must have been the closest thing to, because Adora’s feet carried her there on autopilot. She didn’t even fully reister what she was doing until the little bell rang above her head, and she all but collapsed onto the cold sterile floor. Catching herself on her forearms as she crashed into the counter, Adora stared at the checkerprint floor and tried not to throw up.
She could hear Huntara’s voice hovering around her, but it couldn’t break through the pounding in her ears.
Was it possible to drown on land?
Catra watched Adra watch her hands, breathing heavily like she was trying not to throw up.
Catra and Huntara were thankfully the only ones in the shop. Catra was on her feet the moment Adora tumbled through the door, but found herself hovering with her back against the wall, unable to take a step forward. She felt frozen, seeing her lively neighbor hollowed out like a pumpkin on November first.
“Adora.” Huntara said firmly, placing heavy hands on Adora’s shoulders trying to get the girl to look at her.
“Kyle…” Adora managed to choke out. “I… I asked Lonnie to look after him. Fuck, he only had a year left. Huntara, he had a year.”
Before the older woman could question any further, Adora’s knees gave out from under her, and she collapsed on the cold tiled floor. Catra shot Huntara a worried glance, daring her feet to take a step closer.
“Kid, what are you talking about?” Huntara pushed.
“The Horde,” Adora’s small voice broke. “Kyle… he got outed.” Catra did not know what was going on, but she watched Huntara’s eyes darken in a way she had never seen in the woman before. Like those few words unlocked a deep level of understanding inside of her that she had put in a locked box. Huntara wrapped the smaller girl in her large, stiff arms. “He hung himself in the showers this morning.” Adora whispered.
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Huntara held the girl as she sobbed. Eventually they got her on the couch where she fell into a still, dreamless sleep.
Catra sat on the floor with her back against the couch next to Huntara, hugging her knees to her chest as she absorbed the woman's words. “Horde, huh?” she finally breathed. Huntara grunted. “How long?”
“Don’t know.” she said. “She knew Perfuma. So a while.”
Catra looked at Adora's milky white face laying perfectly still and cursed.
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Sadness can turn to fury faster than the scorn of a wronged woman.
The deep pit of despair planted in Adora’s young chest was now inflamed with a new type of anger and determinedness that feels like growing up. It felt like her emotions were on fire and heated up her veins from beneath her skin. She was so angry it physically hurt.
She wondered, briefly, if this is how Catra felt all the time.
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Catra never wanted to be this way.
But she was built this way.
Piece by piece, brick by brick, the foundation slowly laid with cement.
Her mother filled in the bricks of her personality and sealed them together with her words; sticky, sweet, and heavy. Her mother’s praise was like swimming through honey; impossible not to drown.
Her walls were built like skyscrapers that eventually stopped letting the light in over the top, and a little girl was raised in darkness.
Another little girl who was also raised in darkness would end up becoming her own light. What was Catra supposed to do with that? How was she supposed to feel when faced with the fact that that was apparently always an option?
It’s hard to care about when you hurt people if you’re in a constant state of waiting for them to hurt you first.
Caring is hard. It is really, really fucking hard. Because most of the time it blows up in your face. And even worse, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes you care, and someone cares back, and that bandage is even harder to rip off when the time comes. It leaves scarring.
How many times can you touch the fire before you learn it’s hot? Why do people like Adora wake up every day and stick their hand in the flame? How do people like Adora wake up everyday and care? Catra wanted to learn. She wanted to study her like a fucking textbook.
Catra wanted to be more. She just didn’t know how to. Did that really make her a villain?
Maybe it doesn't matter if you’re a good person. Maybe it just matters if you try to be.
Maybe they’re the same thing.
Adora woke up around four in the morning. Catra, not being able to think of any words and Adora, for once, being in the same boat, the pair found themselves on Catra’s motorcycle in complete silence. Catra knows more than anyone that when you feel stuck, it helps to keep moving, even if you’re burning gas driving in a circle.
Two hours later they ended up watching the sunrise from the balcony of the old mansion. The silence exuding from Adora was deafening. She was not a quiet girl. And yet the last words the girl spoke were Kyle’s name. After she had told them what had happened she seemed to be out of words. Like there was nothing else to say.
Catra finally stood and let the toes of her scuffed boots reach the end of the balcony without a railing. Drywall dust and bits of insulation blew from beneath her feet and out into the wind like when a receding wave takes the sand. Inhaling, Catra screeched at the top of her lungs and let the fury of her voice die out on the landscape.
Adora jumped in surprise but Catra didn’t turn around. She just screamed.
Catra turned, extending a hand to the bewildered Adora. The taller woman pulled her to her feet with ease. “Let it out, Princess.” Was all Catra said, pushing her towards the edge.
At the rotting mansion on the cliff upstate, Catra smoked with her back against the balcony doors and watched as Adora screamed at the tree tops until she didn’t need to anymore.
Adora screamed for as long and as loud as she could. It felt like something inside of her was ripping in half. She was a quiet kid. Head down, mouth shut. Screaming as loud as her lungs would allow her out into sweet nothingness, she felt that girl die. No, not die. She grew wings and flew out of her throat.
She screamed for the kids like Kyle, who died without ever being allowed to make a sound.
Sometimes the worst part of growing up is when you realize that you can’t fly, but you still want to jump.
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The following morning, Adora made her way up the stairs of the Horde Scum with a new fire and determination that she thought she had left behind her. With her head held high, she threw a sketchbook onto the keyboard Huntara was currently typing on, almost spilling the woman's coffee. “You said that you’d do anything for me, right?” Adora said. “Well, congratulations, you have a new apprentice. Here’s her sketchbook. She’ll be here on July twenty sixth.”
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