WHAT: Mini golf turns into destruction of property WHERE: A Mini Golf Place (that's what they're called, right?) WHEN: Yesterday WARNINGS: low but they're idiot and there's jokes about BALLS STATUS: Complete
Like, the rules were explained to her and she kind of - understood it? But she also kind of really didn’t, and she tried her best to mimic and immerse herself into this sport (hobby?? activity???) since Lance had raved about it on their way there. It was some childhood thing he happened to really enjoy, and she’d never heard of it but she was open to trying new things out because growth and all of that. Plus, it sounded fun.
Turns out that trying to get balls into holes was not that fun, and describing it like that sounded like the premise of a terrible porno.
“So, um.” How to say this without sounding like a total dick? Catra held the scorecard in her hands, squinting past the statues and tiny obstacles to spot that hole they were supposed to work towards. The tip of her tail curled in a funny way, looking like a curious question mark. “Is… that all we’re supposed to do? Whack it? What if you whack it really hard and it flies over all that - whatever all that shit is. Is that a valid whack??”
When he'd suggested mini golf as a solution to a fairly dull (for Vallo at least) evening when texting Catra earlier it had been a random thought that popped in his head of childhood memories that were probably more fond with the passing of time. And it remained firmly in the category of "good idea" through getting to the course, picking out their putts and balls (grab a ball from the ball bucket was sadly as funny in his twenties as it was when he was twelve)
Even as they stood at the first hole and Lance gave a good look down the green trying to suss out his strategy it was a good idea. He shrugged a little at Catra's question and laughed. "I mean, I guess there's really no true rules to mini golf other than get it in the hole?" Another laugh. Alright maybe his fond memories of mini golf from when he was twelve were just the openings for terribly immature jokes.
"But I think true mini golf purists might consider that cheating," he added as he dropped his ball to the ground and set up his shot. He hit the ball… and watched as it immediately went to the first obstacle like a moth to a flame, bounced off it and rolled right back to where he started.
It was then that Lance realized this might not have been as much fun as he remembered.
That was so anti-climatic. Catra watched it roll back, blinked, and then just - let out this squeaky, short-lived laugh.
“Don’t know, man,” she held the back of her hand to her mouth, trying to suppress any extra snickering coming through. At least Lance had been finding some humor in this too so maybe it wasn’t totally out of place. “Bending the rules seems like the only way to kind of spice this up.”
Was it her turn now? She had to claim a ball for herself (a first in her life - man, this game did have the potential for all the worst jokes) and set it on the tiny pedestal thing sprouting from the ground. Catra grabbed a club and tried to figure out the right way to hold it. Did holding it like a baseball bat count? “I mean - we’re not really being supervised. We’re adults.”
Totally reasonable adults, capable of making sound decisions on their own.
"Like this - " Lance said as he watched Catra's uncertainty with the club and got into stance again to show her. A stance that really wasn't going to win any PGA tournaments, but was passable for mini golf at least.
He laughed at the adults comment and shook his head. "I don't know, I spent like twenty minutes trying to find matching socks this morning and failed so 'adult' might be a stretch." Though in his defense that was likely more to do with having his stuff scattered across two different living spaces at this point than anything else.
"You just gotta time it right?" he suggested and grinned. "I believe in you and your mini golf skills."
The position of the club felt weird in her hand. Like, if she were to use this as a damn weapon she wouldn’t hold it like this? But this was also some family-oriented game, and not intended to be used for violence (even if she was sure she could fracture a skull with this) and this was how people were supposed to do it. Earth culture was fuckin’ wild, man.
It involved a slightly bent posture. Catra did a butt-wiggle like a concentrating kitten ready to pounce (reminiscent of her Christmas Tree Incident™ that obviously never happened), stuck her tongue between her teeth and -
Whack!
Catra hit it harder than she thought she would, and the tee was pulled out and the golf ball ricocheted off the side of a fake volcano and into the fountain.
“Ummmmm,” she blinked and turned to look at Lance, cocking her head to the side. “How many points was that worth? Wait - I don’t have to get the ball, do I? I can’t just go in water, that’s inhumane!”
He wasn't laughing at Catra, but more at the ridiculousness of it all as she concentrated and hit the ball. Because this was just that. Ridiculous. Especially as the swing was less mini golf tap and more let me whack this ball down the fairway.
Lance watched as it bounced into the fountain. "One?" he offered. "But points are bad? And not points? You gotta get it in the hole under par, so like under three shots or whatever," that sounded right, right?
He moved over to the fountain and gave a look over the edge. It wasn't deep at all, barely a few inches of water and about a hundred balls. "Uhhhh - what colour was yours?" he asked, but didn't wait for an answer before leaning down to pluck the closest one out. He rubbed it on his hoodie to remove any offending water and handed it to Catra. "You're blue now," he said with a grin.
"Uhm, try not so hard this time? It's putting, not long distance," he suggested.
Shit, points were bad in this, weren’t they? Catra forgot. Talk about counterintuitive. Her nose scrunched up, and the face she made could accurately be described as a disgruntled pout. She was going to suck at this game. Usually she was the competitive sort but most of the activities she was used to were a little more aggressive and not so… weirdly passive??
At least she didn’t have to get the ball - Lance was nice enough to retrieve it for her, and when she held her hand out to take it she couldn’t help herself: “Hah, blue. Blue balls.”
It was immature and stupid and made her throw her arms up (club included) in the air. “Fuck, sorry, this game is just so easy to -”
“Ma’am! There are CHILDREN here!” someone scolded from across the fountain.
“Aw, shit,” Catra cursed and caught herself too late. “I mean - sorry!”
He snickered at the blue balls, because he was twelve.
"They've heard worse!" he lobbed back at the outraged mom. Her kids being at least preteen if not early teen and if they were in public school then they definitely had heard worse. He just offered a grin at her appalled look as she carted her boys away, going so far as to hold her hands over one set of ears.
"Man she is in for a rude awakening with those kids," he muttered to Catra, if she was convinced her boys hadn't heard a few swears by now in their lives.
He dropped his ball down and looked to Catra. "Alright, take two," he proclaimed and lined up his shot once more. And once again, hit the stupid windmill arm as it moved in front of the hole he needed to get the ball through. Lance let out a looooooooooooong sigh.
"Fuck it," he said and walked his ball to less than a foot from the windmill, took another shot and again hit the stupid windmill arm. "Nooooooooooooooooo…." he let out and sunk to the ground to fall on his back. "Stupid windmill."
“Pretty sure ‘fuck’ was like, my third word,” she mumbed under her breath, doing that awkward shifty eye thing to avoid the lady’s death glare. Oh well. Catra would, uh, do her best to keep her language as clean as possible since this was a family hotspot or what have you. Would she be successful? Probably not. Point was that she was trying, okay.
“Okay, we just - need to get a ball in a hole sometime today, otherwise the day’s going to feel like a waste,” Catra sighed in exasperation, contemplating. That fake mini windmill was starting to really get on her nerves. It couldn’t be that sturdy, could it?
Huh. Why not test it and make it her bitch.
Club dropped by her feet, Catra approached the structure with some caution (even leaned forward to sniff it - leave her alone, she’s a damn cat). It wasn’t anything big, and the blades seemed to be made of flimsy plastic and its circular motion could probably be stopped with a little muscle. She could handle that. Adora might have the most muscle in their marriage but she wasn’t a twig.
She caught a windmill blade, stopping the movement in its tracks with a slight wobble in strength. “Hurry up!” This was allowed, wasn’t it? Catra didn’t remember anything in the rulebook that specifically prohibited this. They’d be fine. Totally fine. “Ball in th hole, ball in the hole!”
Oh shit that was happening. Lance scrambled to his feet to get prepared. "Oh shit, Catra, good call," he said as he picked up his ball and set it down not too far from the now free space between the windmill blades. He lined up the shot and putted it through. "Success!" he declared with a grin.
But the celebration was short lived. An angry looking short man stalked over to them yelling "hey, you - you can't do that!"
Lance looked to Catra, wide eyed but amused. "Uhhhh we might be in trouble?" said as his expression turned into a dramatic cringe. "Let it go, let it go," he muttered quickly.
“Says who,” Catra hissed, straining a bit under the pressure of the rotation of the windmill blades she was pushing again. This, like - wasn’t breaking the rules, was it? It was a creative solution in her mind, and she had it in her to argue the point until her hands slipped and her claws were out and there was this sound that was almost like nails on chalkboard?
That sound was her claws slicing through a blade. It was an accident, honestly - they were sharp, the material kind of sucked, and the piece fell by her feet with a pronounced thud. The windmill resumed its spinning, at least.
She blinked, held up her guilty hands and stepped back. “Lance - I think I fucked up. Do we run?”
He shouldn't be laughing. This was probably one of those situations that was serious and he shouldn't be laughing. He could hear Shiro telling him to stop it in his head, knew he should be slipping into the whole diplomat thing they'd all had to figure out over the years in space. But he just couldn't help himself. It was so ridiculous. Catra with her hands up, claws and all and the windmill back to spinning with a huge chunk missing from it.
And even as the manager came screaming over all he could do was laugh.
"Okay we're definitely in trouble," he amended and stopped laughing to catch his breath as he looked at Catra.
"Running would be good," he suggested as he dropped his club. He quickly grabbed his wallet, pulled out whatever cash he had in it to maybe help offset the damages and all but threw it at the manager as he yelled "run!" to Catra and shot off.
Oh no. Catra definitely fucked up. She was also pretty sure she could take on the manager that was about to come at them but that was probably going to make things worse and, really, she’s grown as a human-cat being beyond the urge of senseless violence.
The adult thing to do was wave awkwardly, let Lance toss money at him (make it rain, like a stripper) - and run, obviously.
“We can’t get arrested for this, right???” she called out, having taken his cue to move move move. Catra was quick on her feet, and if she wanted to go even quicker she’d just run on all fours but right now it was feet only. “I can’t get arrested again, Adora would kill me!”
Lance could easily keep pace with Catra, at least with her on both feet, thanks to all the training he'd grumbled about over the years. And it wasn't long until they'd rounded a few corners, blocks from the mini golf place and he figured they were in the clear. He slowed to a walk for a few paces and then stopped entirely. "Oh crap, oh man, Catra…" he got out between a few deep breaths as he rested his hands on his thighs and leaned over a little to catch his breath.
"Can't get arrested if you don't get caught?" he offered with a sly grin as he straightened back up. Oh fuck, did they have their names??? He racked his brain trying to remember if they had to sign anything when they came but didn't remember doing so.
He started to laugh and leaned against a light pole beside him. "We tell no one about this," he said and looked over at Catra.
This was a safe enough distance. Probably. Right? No one was tailing them, her ears weren’t picking up the sound of sirens in the distance that would imply the authorities were onto them for their Big Bad Crime. Catra exhaled a sigh, hands on her lower back as she walked one restless circle around the pole before she forced herself still.
Then, after a second of scrutinizing Lance, she had no other choice but to laugh back.
“We go to the grave with this,” she grinned toothily, her tailing giving his arm a playful thwap. “Mini golf is dumb, dude, never again. We can salvage this with drinks. You’re buying.”
He gave back a playful ow at the thwap even if it didn't hurt. "That's fair," he said as he started walking with her to figure out where to head for said drinks. "We might have to stop by an ATM though if I'm buying - I think I threw all my cash at the guy back there," he added with a laugh.
"Never again," he agreed, and looped an arm loose around Catra's shoulders. "Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut," drawled out and he grinned, "you ever tried bowling…."