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[thebluewritingbench]

Surprise #14

surprise #14 from this prompt list

“Why do you smell like a dumpster, and if you say you were dumpster diving I swear to god.”

Lena is sitting on the floor beside their coffee table going over a financial report when she first notices it.

The smell.

It’s the smell of decay, of mold and the cloying scent of rotten fruit. She almost gags on it, pulls the neck of her sweater up over her nose to try and block the scent because what is that? She scrambles to her feet and follows the horrifying scent, and she catches Kara right at the door to the bathroom.

“Freeze.”

Kara pauses, her back to Lena, her shoulders curled in guilty defense. Lena didn’t hear her come in, but Kara is more than capable of moving perfectly silently if necessary, so that’s no surprise. But if she thought Lena was going to miss the smell, she was sorely mistaken.

There’s something smeared on the back of her supersuit, which Lena is pretty sure she doesn’t want to identify, and her hair is a disaster, bits of old wrapper tangled in her bedraggled blonde curls. She stands poised to flee, still not turning to face Lena.

Lena sighs, long and heavy, because her day has been a mess of conference calls and fires to put out already, and she could really do without her girlfriend making their apartment smell like a trashcan that’s been sitting in the California sun for a week.

“Why do you smell like a dumpster?” she asks. “And if you say you were dumpster diving, I swear to god, I—oh my god, what is that?”

As she’s talking, Kara turns around sheepishly, and cradled in her arms is the most disgusting looking kitten Lena has ever seen in her life.

The kitten squirms. It’s tiny, and filthy to the point that Lena can’t even tell what colour it is, hair sticking out at random angles off of bony limbs. Lena stares at it, and it hisses, scrambling tiny claws across Kara’s hands.

“Kara,” she says, in a very measured tone. “What is that?”

Kara steps forwards, immediately apologetic, and then steps back again when Lena wrinkles her nose in disgust. “Okay, I’m really sorry, and I wasn’t going to show you until I got everything all cleaned up but, um…” She holds up the kitten, who tries to bite her. “I was doing rounds, and I heard this little thing crying, and it was all alone stuck at the very bottom of this huge dumpster behind a block full of restaurants, and I just had to…” She trails off at the look on Lena’s face. “I wasn’t going to show you until we were all cleaned up, but… can we keep it?”

“You want… to keep a dumpster cat?” Lena can already feel the headache building.

“Don’t be mean! It’s not its fault it was in the dumpster! Please, can we keep it?”

She’s pouting like a child. Plugging her nose, Lena steps forwards to get a closer look at the animal. She can already see that it’ll need a lot of attention; it’s mangy and so skinny that its skin sags from its bones. Big, baleful green eyes stare up at her. The kitten gives a pathetic meow.

“I named it Lena,” says Kara hopefully.

“What did you name it?”

“Lena.”

“Yeah?”

“No, I named the cat Lena.”

“What?” Lena looks up at her. “What do you mean—you can’t name the cat Lena!”

“Why not? It’s my favourite name.”

“It’s my name, Kara. Do you know how confusing that would be? How would we know who you were talking to?”

Kara’s entire face lights up. “It’s only confusing if we keep the cat,” she says. “Does this mean we can keep him?”

“It’s a boy?” Lena says. “Why would you name him Lena, then?”

“Pfft, cats don’t care about gendered names,” Kara scoffs. “Cats have no concept of gender. He can be called Lena if he wants to.”

“Okay, but he won’t be, because that’s my name.”

“So, does that mean we can keep him?”

Lena looks at Kara’s face, bright with hope. She’s practically vibrating with excitement. Then she looks back down at the tiny, mangy kitten, who has finally stopped fighting and mews softly as Kara scratches him behind the ears. He looks like a disaster waiting to happen. Lena’s not even certain pets are allowed in the building, but then again, she owns the building, so maybe that doesn’t matter.

She sighs, pressing her fingers into her temples. “Fine. But only” —Kara’s already whooping joyfully, and Lena has to raise her voice to speak over her— “but only if you clean him up and take him to vet and rename him, for fuck’s sake.”

“Oh, you choose a name,” Kara says, holding the horrifying thing out to her. “I want you to, please.”

Lena looks at the kitten. The kitten looks at her. “Trashcan,” she says.

“You can’t name him Trashcan, pick something better.”

“Nope, it’s my final offer,” says Lena. “For the love of god, go take a shower if you ever want me to touch you again.”

“Okay, fine, fine, but we are coming up with a better name when I get out.”

Lena continues to call the cat Trashcan. By the time they’ve had him a month, he refuses to respond to anything else.