Chapter Text
Glimmer was sadly, entirely used to her overprotective mother stopping by the duplex without warning. While Glimmer couldn’t call the visits unfair, because Angella was their landlord, she certainly wouldn’t consider them wanted. Angella was a helicopter parent and the originating source of Glimmer's own stubbornness, infamous as it was within her (smaller than many would suspect) circle of friends. No matter how much Glimmer huffed and grumbled Angella could usually be relied upon to stop by with coffee and breakfast pastries for her daughter and her daughter's roommate, Bow, every weekend. Bow, the traitor, had the nerve to look forward to the visits and was usually up to greet Angella at the door with his blinding, cotton candy smile.
What Glimmer was decidedly not used to was the sound of a moving truck screeching to a halt on squeaky brakes right outside her window, loud enough to yeet her from deep within the velvet confines of REM sleep, at 6 AM on a Sunday.
She groaned with the tired fury of the undead as she rolled free from her memory foam throne, dragging her purple-pink comforter with her. She fell to the floor with a thump, and if not for the shag carpet her bum probably would have been on it’s way to bruising. Not that she had the bandwidth in that moment to register the pain; what little brain power she had available to her then was focused on getting revenge for her stolen sleep. Judging by the time flashing from the home screen of her phone when she grabbed for it (as most millenials did first thing in the morning) she had just missed out on what could have been another three hours of blissful, uninterrupted slumber. Someone was going to be made to pay for lost time.
Glimmer wrapped the comforter tighter around her shoulders. The downy softness would be her cape, her badge of office when she confronted the offender. It was also freezing in her room and she didn’t have time to change.
She wandered from her room like a drowsy bumblebee lilting through the sky, intent on finding Bow. There was strength in numbers. If they were going to intimidate the offender, better to do it as a united front.
“Bow…” she called out, eyelids heavy and voice rusty. She needed liquid. Water or coffee? Both. Hopefully Bow had brewed a fresh pot.
“In here, Glim.”
Glimmer followed the sound of her best friend’s voice. He was there in the kitchen, midriff exposed as it nearly always was (Bow owned a lot of sweatpants and crop tops and very little else), wearing the fuzzy heart-print socks she’d gotten him for Christmas. He was busy at the coffee pot, two mugs on the counter before him with gentle wisps of steam curling from within them. Beside them was an assortment of cinnamon, sugar, milk, and cream. Bow liked his coffee sweet, Glimmer liked hers with kick. They were both fussy when it came to their coffee and a bulk of their early days as roommates had involved getting to know the in’s and out’s of morning and nighttime routines. As active as Bow was in the morning, Glimmer was at night, and vice versa. Glimmer had never completely abandoned her theory that Bow was some sort of sun-gifted fae child, rising with his solar parent and failing fast once her light had gone for that cycle. How else could he be so chipper? And why else would he require so much night coffee to stay awake for outings that barely stretched past nine o’clock at night?
“For you, your majesty.”
“You’re the best, Bow.” Bow smiled as she took the proffered mug. When she made contact with the warmth of the ceramic she could feel the valve holding back the steam of her irritation turning just a bit, the slightest bit of pressure easing off. More was released when she took her first sip of coffee, and she almost could have forgotten that she was mad.
“So how ‘bout those brakes?” Bow asked, the false ease in the smirk on his face betrayed by the wariness in his eyes.
Almost.
“Don’t remind me. The moment this coffee is finished we are confronting the monsters driving that junk heap down our street at the ass crack of dawn.”
“Glimmer! Language.”
“Sorry.”
Bow could only tut before he grabbed his own mug. He went to the window and pulled back the curtains (a handmade gift from their friend Perfuma, decorated with entirely too many knitted flowers) to peek outside. He let out a brief whistle. “Yeah, that’s a clunker alright.”
“They’re out front?” Glimmer asked. She held her coffee in one hand and tried to rub the sleep from her droopy eyes with the other. Her eyelids could have each weighed fifty pounds with the way they kept trying to slip shut.
“Yeah…” Bow answered, his voice unsteady. Suspicious. Like he was suddenly very worried about something but didn’t want to tell her because he knew it was going to make her even angrier. “You’re not gonna like this. It’s a moving truck.” He turned away from the window, the look in his eyes frantic. “And it’s parked right in front of our place.”
Glimmer’s first thought was, She wouldn’t have. She promised she wouldn’t. “No.” Her voice trembled with both anger and fear.
“Yes.”
Glimmer set her mug down on their kitchen counter with more force than was probably reasonable, but thankfully no coffee sloshed over the rim. One thing Bow wouldn’t have to clean up. Her boots were still by their back door, the one that led straight out of the kitchen and out onto the deck. She pulled them on and was stepping out into the chilly, foggy morning before Bow had finished his eye roll and exasperated sigh. ‘Glimmer, wait!’ she heard him call, but she was on a mission. From the deck she began to descend the wooden stairs leading down to the ground two at a time, hiking up her comforter so she could remain bundled in it’s warmth without tripping over it.
Her boots barely touched grass before she was stunned into stillness. Her mouth dropped open, lips parted into a surprised little ‘o.’ Glimmer had never seen a magicat before. Not in person, anyway. What with her mother being on the Council, Glimmer’s upbringing involved basic education on all the major branches of magical families in Etheria, so she knew of magicats. Actually knowing one was very, very different. They were scarce, and secretive, and rarely made connections outside of their own kind.
The warmth of Bow’s body heat appeared behind her, and Glimmer turned to meet his gaze.
“Do you see her too?” Glimmer asked. Part of her was hoping this was all just a very realistic dream. Maybe she was actually still sleeping.
“Yeah,” Bow replied, crushing Glimmer’s fragile hopes. “She looks… mean.”
Glimmer couldn’t exactly disagree.
The magicat, twitchy as she was, seemed to be even less of a morning person than Glimmer. She had a great, thick mane of dark brown hair with lighter tufts protecting her tall ears, and the sleeker fur covering the rest of her lean frame was a sandier color. She had tawny, stripe-like markings on her biceps and forearms. She was also packed tight with wiry muscle, and definitely wearing less clothing than she should have been. Her leggings had holes in them, her form-fitting shirt barely had sleeves, and her feet were… bare?
She was also very openly scratching an itch on her rear, with no apparent concern that people could be watching. A long tail swished back and forth, twitching in the morning gloom.
“What do we do?” Bow asked, head hovering over Glimmer’s right shoulder. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard magicats bite.”
“We make sure that my mother didn’t go back on her promise, and we help this magicat with the desperately-in-need-of-an-oil-change truck find the right address. Because she’s clearly lost.” Glimmer knows she sounds a lot more confident than she actually is. She’d perfected the art of the bluff when she was younger and had to lie through her teeth to her very intimidating mother about where she’d been all night. And with her bluff voiced, Glimmer gathered herself and marched on. Part of the selling the bluff relied on the follow through, after all.
The magicat sensed their approach, which was unsurprising but still unsettling, and turned to meet their advance with shoulders squared and eyes narrowed. Eyes that were, upon closer inspection, mismatched. One eye was a bright, sunflower yellow, practically glowing in the fog. The other was a brilliant blue. Both were glowering at the approaching pair, dark circles of sleeplessness only enhancing the irritation.
"Can we help you?" Glimmer snapped, still bundled up in her comforter.
The magicat had the nerve to hiss at her, mismatched eyes (beautiful eyes, really, Glimmer wasn't blind) narrowed in distaste. The magicat looked envious of Glimmer’s thick comforter. Judging from her lack of winter-appropriate clothing, Gimmer guessed that she must have been cold.
"You can start by backing up.” The magicat said. Her voice was raspy, but feminine. “Fair warning, I'm not a morning person."
"What, and you think I am? You're the one that woke us up with your stupid truck."
"Not my problem. Not sorry about it." Glimmer blinked, outraged. The nerve of this cat! She glanced up at Bow, looking for support, but he only shrugged. He had never been good with what he called, ‘negative’ people.
Groaning, Glimmer let her eyes fall shut. When she spoke again, her voice betrayed her fatigue. “Look, just tell us where you’re trying to go. If your GPS isn’t working we can look up where you’re going and tell you how to get there.” Because I know you’re not staying here. Mom would never. At least, I hope she wouldn’t.
The magicat finally looked something other than annoyed: confused. “Isn’t this Bright Moon Court?”
A chill went down both Glimmer and Bow’s spines. Oh no.
“Glimmer-”
“I heard her, Bow.” Glimmer sighed, dropping her head into her waiting hand, arms crossed over her torso. Angella and she were going to be having words.
The magicat broke the final straw when she started to laugh. The expression on her face couldn’t have been read as anything other than sheer disbelief. “Your name is Glimmer? Oh, that is rich. Adora and I are definitely in Disneyland now.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Glimmer growled, raising her head to glare at their unwelcome visitor.
"Speaking of Adora..." the magicat said, trailing off with a dramatic sigh, though the laughing smirk remained lying in wait. "She's better with people than I am. She can deal with you. I'm going back to my truck. Hopefully the warmth hasn’t leaked out of her yet." The magicat made a show of dragging her mismatched eyes over the both of them, a long, uncomfortable once-over that was absolutely meant to be a show of dominance. Neither Glimmer nor Bow missed it when the magicat flexed her long fingers and curved, black claws came free. Glimmer heard Bow gulp. Glimmer only narrowed her eyes, gray with a lavender shine she owed to her magical heritage. The magicat grinned and turned away. “Later, Glitter.”
“It’s Glimmer.” The magicat ignored her and sauntered back to the driver’s side of the beat up red pickup truck that had been parked behind the moving truck.Tall ears twitched as she opened the door and slid inside, pulling the door shut behind her with enough force to rattle the car’s frame. "Can you believe the nerve of that cat?" Glimmer grumbled, burrowing into Bow's side for warmth. He chuckled and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and together they headed for the back of the moving truck. They could hear someone, presumably Adora (who hopefully was not another fussy magicat), messing around.
“She certainly was something.” Bow said.
“Can you believe the nerve of my mom? I mean, how could she? She promised she wouldn’t do this. Not without at least a heads-up.”
But Bow had no answer. "Excuse me?" he called out, being the first to peek his head around the corner of the rental. Glimmer, short stack that she was, took a little bit longer to lean around and get an eyeful.
Holy shoulders.
The girl checking over the mismatched bits of furniture in the bed of the truck was tall. And broad. Taller and broader than Bow. She had a head of blonde hair buzzed short at the sides and long at the crown, pulled into a tail that reached between her angular shoulder blades. Shoulder blades that were practically traceable through the thin material of the thermal workout shirt the blonde was wearing. Glimmer's poor heart danced on the edges of panic mode.
Then the girl turned around. And Glimmer was doomed.
"Oh! Hi, hang on, I- sorry," the blonde jumped down from the truck, landing on steady feet adorned with old, old, heavy workboots. Workboots caked with mud. Her jeans were equally dirty, tucked into said boots with care. They looked to be about two sizes too big for her, and were held up by a thick leather belt. But Glimmer was too distracted by the girl's face to notice any of that. Her eyes were a pale blue, practically grey in the cool morning fog. Her smile was nervous, like she was trying to force it but hadn't fully committed. "Hi," she said again.
"Hi," Bow shot back, his smile genuine. "My name is Bow. This is Glimmer," he said as he pushed Glimmer forward a bit. There was a gleam in his eye that Glimmer didn't like. She could worry about him later though, because right now she had a pretty girl to avoid looking ridiculous in front of.
"Hello," Glimmer said, proud when her voice didn't crack. "You must be Adora?"
The blonde nodded, but she looked surprised. "How'd you know?" Before either Glimmer or Bow could answer Adora brought a hand to her temple and groaned. "Let me guess: Catra? Grumpy magicat with heterochromia?"
So. Catra was her enemy's name. Glimmer stored that information away for later. "You got it. She told us to talk to you. Said something about going to take a nap in her truck."
Adora frowned. "She better not be. She knows she’s supposed to be helping."
“About that…” Glimmer began. She wished they hadn’t left the magicat behind. It would have been much easier to accuse the magicat. How was Glimmer supposed to argue with someone this hot? She let out a nervous laugh, folding her hands behind her back. “What exactly are you ladies doing out here at six in the morning?” Judging by the way Adora’s blonde brows rose about a centimeter, Glimmer’s fatigue wasn’t entirely done making itself known. She had come across annoyed. She could tell.
“Uh… our landlady told us to meet her here. To sign paperwork. And, well, move in. We live here now. Or, at least, we will when the paperwork is signed.” Adora cocked her head, blonde ponytail falling to the side like a curtain of pale spun gold. Her eyes narrowed. “You… actually look a lot like her. That’s weird.”
No, it isn’t. What’s WEIRD is that my mother promised me she wouldn’t rent out the vacant half of our duplex without letting us approve the potential tenants. And yet, here you two are! At six AM on a Sunday!
Glimmer was steamed. Absolutely steamed. But she wasn’t quite at the bursting threshold, not yet. “Your landlady. Hm. That’s interesting. And who would that be? This is a private drive, after all. None of these houses should be on the market.”
Glimmer ignored Bow pushing at her shoulder, whispering in her ear that she was being rude and sending Adora apologetic glances. Adora, for her part, didn’t seem to realize that she was lingering at the edge of a cliff. She made a confused (cute) noise and dug around in the front pocket of her jeans. She pulled out a caseless smart phone that was definitely a few generations old and began prodding at the surface. “Hang on, I’ve got her information here. We didn’t really set this up, our- hey!”
“Glimmer!” Bow shouted.
Glimmer had snatched Adora’s phone right out of her hands. As she gazed down at the screen, barely noting the crack in the top left corner, her simmering anger reached a boiling point. 'Angella Lunsk' stared back at her, hovering above her mother’s phone number.
“No,” she said. “No, no, no. No!” The volume of her voice only grew with each syllable that flew past her lips. “This isn’t right. You shouldn’t be here! Neither of you should be here!”
Adora was mirroring her anger now, her earlier nervousness and patience run out. Now she stood at her full height, shoulders squared. Her eyes were narrowed in a brilliant blue glare. “What is your problem?”
“My problem is you! And your nasty magicat friend back there. You two are trespassing and you need to leave.” Before my mother shows up, so I have a chance to talk her out of this. Adora’s abrupt turn towards combativeness shelved Glimmer’s attraction, and now the two were well on their way to an all out shouting match.
“How are we trespassing if we live here?” Adora demanded.
“You said it yourself,” Glimmer shot back. “You don’t officially live here until you’ve signed the paperwork. Do you see paperwork? Because I don’t!”
“When our landlady gets here, we will sign it. And you don’t get a say in that!”
“That’s where you’re wrong!”
Bow had taken a step back, eyes darting between the two opponents as they pitched their fit. Glimmer had stepped into Adora’s space, hands on her hips and her head tilted up so she could maintain fiery eye contact. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, too nervous to stay in one spot. On the one hand, Glimmer was right. If Adora and Catra were moving in, there was only one available unit on Bright Moon court they could be moving into: the empty unit next to the one he shared with Glimmer. Their building was a duplex, two matching townhouses in the same building connected by a shared deck on the second floor. If they were moving in, they were going to be Glimmer and Bow’s neighbors. Practically their roommates. Bow didn’t necessarily mind the idea of getting new roommates, he loved people after all, but Glimmer’s mother had promised them she would give them final approval on candidates before letting anyone sign a lease.
If Adora and Catra were here to sign papers, Angella had either a) broken that promise, or b) put Glimmer and Bow in a position where refusing would make them look like very bad people. How were they supposed to say no to Adora’s baby blues? Just imagining that sad face was giving Bow anxiety. And Catra? Catra would probably hunt them down if they said she couldn’t stay there. And Bow did not want to be on a magicat’s menu.
The yelling must have attracted Catra, because she was very suddenly standing at Bow’s shoulder. And she was growling. He screeched, jumping away. She ignored him, stalking forward, coming to Adora’s defense.
“Why don’t you take a step back, Sparkles?” Her request, no, her demand, was punctuated by the hold she took of Glimmer’s comforter. She gave a yank, and Glimmer stumbled out of Adora’s personal bubble.
“You again?” Glimmer said. She finally dropped her comforter to the ground. If she had to suffer an annoying load of laundry later to pull free of Catra’s grip, so be it. She was left in just her thin pajamas, a matching set of pale lilac shorts and sleeveless top. The heat of her anger protected her from the chill.
Catra eyed Glimmer’s pajama set with what could have both distaste and disbelief. She groaned as she muttered, “Of course she has matching pjs.”
“Wait, are you saying you don’t?” Bow asked. In his mind, nice pajamas were a necessity. Required to signal the brain that it was time for sleep. If they were cute, patterned, or fuzzy, all the better.
“I’m wearing my pjs, Charming. Do they look designer to you?” Catra sniffed. She stepped around Glimmer and stood at Adora’s side, throwing an arm around the blonde’s shoulders. It was clear from the familiar way Adora leaned into the touch, the way the twitch of Catra’s tail instantly calmed when she was touching Adora, that these two were close. Very close. Which meant that Glimmer had very likely insulted Adora when she’d insulted Catra. Perfect. Way to go, self. “Aren’t our new neighbors fun, Adora?” Catra asked, sarcasm dripping from every word. Adora didn’t say anything in response. She looked poised for a fight, if anything, with only Catra’s touch keeping her at bay. Glimmer would have thought it would be the other way around. Catra did lay hands first, after all, pulling at Glimmer’s comforter the way she did. (Glimmer would admit to herself later that she had been the one’s to make things physical. Stepping into Adora’s space like that, they’d practically been nose to nose.)
“You make an excellent point, Catra. We clearly aren’t compatible as neighbors. Why don’t you move along, find somewhere else to drag your hunk of junk truck?”
“As if!” Catra spat. “I don’t know what crawled up your ass and died, princess, but-”
“My name is Glimmer!”
“I don’t care!”
"What is going on here?"
Glimmer only turned because it was her mother's voice. Her mother's angry voice.
Angella looked as poised and perfect as ever. What time did she have to wake up, to be that perfect and put together before the sun had finished rising?
"Mom!" Glimmer shouted, relieved. She missed the surprise on Catra's face, who finally let her fur settle as she took a step back and resumed her post at Adora's side, curling her tail around Adora's waist for warmth. She turned and mouthed, 'Mom?' at Adora, Adora who could only shrug and try to calm her own nerves. While Catra was a firecracker, ready to burst at a moment's notice and fizzing out the moment the confrontation was over, Adora was a slow boil. When her dander was raised it took a while for the bubbles to settle. Glimmer being so rude and confrontational with Catra had left a bad taste in Adora’s mouth.
Glimmer hurried to her mom's side, stepping over her discarded comforter. "Mom, thank goodness you're here. Please tell these hooligans that they are not moving into our duplex!"
Angella was unfazed, used to her daughter’s outbursts. She slipped her car keys into her bag, swapping them for a thick folder that likely contained Adora and Catra’s lease. Her Audi was parked just a few feet away, pristine as usual. "But they are."
"Ha! You hear that? You two are-" Glimmer paused. The wheels in her tired head cranked, with great effort. "Wait. What? Mom, no!"
Angella sighed, bringing up a well-manicured hand to rub away the furrows in her brow before they settled. "Glimmer, we will discuss this later." The tall woman raised her head, offering a professional smile to Adora and Catra. Both looked awestruck by Angella’s arrival. No one would blame them; being nearly six foot and thin as a rail, it would not have been surprising to see Angella on the cover of a magazine. Her manner of dress only reinforced the impression. Designer business suits and tailored slacks, a bag worth more than any piece of furniture in their rented moving truck. “Adora? Catra? If you would please follow me, I’ll give you a tour and then we’ll get your papers signed. I should be out of your hair in no time.”
Catra’s ears only twitched. She seemed nervous, even shy. Adora was the one that snapped to attention. “Not at all, ma’am!” She said, in a voice that every parent loved to hear: respectful, polite. Not too loud. Eager to please.
Glimmer grabbed her mom’s hand tried to plead with her. “Mom, you promised!”
“Glimmer!” Angella scolded her daughter as she took back her hand. “Enough. You and Bow will go inside and wait for me. I will explain things after I’ve taken care of our new guests. Am I understood?”
Glimmer crossed her arms, glaring at the ground. She knew her mother was waiting for an affirmative, expecting it. She was definitely going to be getting a lecture for how unreasonable she was being, how disappointing her behavior was. Glimmer wasn’t trying to be a jerk, she knew that from Adora and Catra’s perspective she was being a bully, but it wasn’t fair! She didn’t want new neighbors, and her mother knew that! Knew that it was hard enough for Glimmer to make friends when she was at her best. How was she supposed to be herself when she knew there were complete strangers living not twenty feet away?
Bow nudged her shoulder. She looked up. Her mom was still waiting. Glimmer sighed. “Yeah, mom.”
“Good.” And then Angella was brushing past them, heading to the front of the house. There were two doors, both a bright pink that Bow had chosen when they’d first moved in. Glimmer and Bow used the right door. The right door led up to their half of the house. Angella fished a set of keys out of her bag and unlocked the left one. The brass ‘1’ screwed into the wood paneling to the left of it needed to be tightened, and there was no welcome mat to brush the dirt from your shoes with. It was the un-lived-in half of the house, the half that Angella occasionally had asked Bow to peek in and air out. He wouldn’t need to do that anymore, it would seem.
Adora and Catra followed her mother, Adora purposefully ignoring her. That made Glimmer wince. Catra clearly saw her discomfort and was grinning because of it. As the pair passed by, Catra stuck her tongue out. Glimmer released her frustration in a mangled groan, stomping back over to her comforter and wrapping herself up in it.
“Come on, Bow. We might as well make breakfast.”
XXX
Bow put the cups of coffee down and immediately stepped back, glancing with concern between mother and daughter. Both were engaged in a silent stare-off, and though Glimmer took after her father anyone could see the family resemblance between mother and daughter.
“Mom, you promised you’d never rent out the other half of the duplex without our approval! What’s the deal?”
Angella sampled her coffee before answering, taking her time to consider her words. “The ‘deal,’ young lady is this: though you are my daughter I am still legally your landlord. A verbal agreement is not binding in this situation. I understand that this is a shock to you both and I am sorry for that, but your behavior earlier was unacceptable. I had to apologize to both of them for your part in their unwelcoming arrival.”
I totally called that, Glimmer thought. “Unacceptable? Mom, have you met that magicat? I spent five seconds with her and wanted to claw her eyes out. How am I supposed to deal with her for a year?”
Angella’s voice was stern. “You’ll make due. As I understand it, you are the one that instigated the argument. Your status as a night owl notwithstanding, I asked them to be here at this time. If you want to be angry with anyone, be angry with me.”
Bow, thank goodness for Bow, jumped in before Glimmer could latch onto that juicy bait. Which was good, because she had am 'oh, I am-' ready on the tip of her tongue.
“We understand, ma’am. But it seems like there might be more to the story… I mean, you did promise Glimmer and I that we’d get some say on who moved in.”
Angella finally allowed herself to show signs of whatever struggle she was having on the inside. She sighed and leaned back in her chair, arms crossed. Silver bracelets twinkled on each fine wrist. “An old friend called in a favor.”
“Who?” Bow prodded.
“I doubt you remember Madame Razz, Glimmer, but she was your nanny when you were still very young. I hired her not long after your father died, to take care of you when I was in the office.”
“You had a nanny?” Bow asked, surprise clear across his features.
Glimmer shrugged. Maybe she remembered an eccentric old woman telling her stories and taking her out to pick berries in her mother’s greenhouse, maybe she didn’t.
“Well, Madame Razz comes from old money. Never had to work a day in her life, but that didn’t stop her. She’s always been eccentric, and fond of children. She’s been fostering for the last ten years or so. As she’s gotten older, it’s been harder and harder for her to leave her farm without assistance, so she’s eased off the outside caretaking and focusing on her foster children. She reached out to me and asked if I had any properties available for two ‘rambunctious little ladies’ that, quote, ‘needed room to grow into their destined shapes.’ I met with them and decided they should stay here.”
“Wait, they’re foster kids?” Glimmer was surprised. At first, she’d had the disappointing thought that Adora and Catra were dating, what with the way they were hanging off each other during the argument outside. Despite her residual anger, part of her was pleased with the realization that maybe Adora wasn’t off the market.
“Yes. That’s not going to be a problem, is it?” The way Angella was watching her made Glimmer sit up straighter.
“No?”
“Good. Because truth be told, you two have lived very privileged lives. You’ve been kept very sheltered. I think this is a good opportunity for you two to meet some young people your own age, that didn’t grow up on private estates. From what Razz told me, these two have had a hard go of it. Neither spoke a word to anyone but the other when they were first placed with her. I imagine they’ll continue to keep to themselves for the most part, particularly after the ‘greeting’ they just received.” Had her mother literally just used air quotes? She had. The nerve.
Bow sat back down, diffusing the tension in the room by grabbing the bottle of syrup that sat in the middle of the table. He’d put out quite a spread while Glimmer had paced back and forth, ranting to no one in particular about how unfair this all was. Angella had been with Adora and Catra for about an hour, which had given him plenty of time to cook. There were pancakes and fruit salad and bacon, and Bow went to work pouring a heavy layer of syrup over the small stack of pancakes he’d pulled onto his plate.
“Well, we can start by apologizing and seeing if they want any help with moving their stuff,” he said. He passed the bottle to Glimmer. His smile said two things. One: I know this sucks but there’s not much we can do about it right now. Two: Your pancakes will get cold, grumpy butt. Eat up.
XXX
Adora was diligently working on getting the furniture out of the rental truck. Catra seemed to be busy exploring their new place. All of the windows on their side of the duplex had been opened and occasionally Catra would pop out of one, shouting something down to Adora. Adora would shout something back, and Catra would disappear.
Glimmer felt better now that she’d eaten. She’d also gotten dressed, her and Bow both. They’d put on moving-appropriate clothing: Bow in a pair of sturdy jeans and a muscle tank that exposed his abdomen and almost the whole of his back if you caught him at the right angle. Glimmer was wearing an off the shoulder t-shirt and leggings. It was a good excuse to wear her running shoes, because she certainly never used them for actual running.
They ignored Adora at first, waiting by the deck stairs for Angella to finish chatting with her new tenants before walking her to her car.
“Be nice, Glimmer,” her mother reminded her.
“I’ll try,” Glimmer grumbled. She let her mother kiss her forehead without fuss, only batting her hand away when Angella tried to smooth out her daughter’s hair. Angella smiled, a soft upturn of the lips that made her look three years younger. She turned to say farewell to Bow, and Glimmer took the opportunity to observe Adora.
The buff blonde made moving look easy, shouldering what could have been a small bookshelf on one side of her frame and using her other hand to heft a coffee table. She had donned a thick utility belt laden with various tools, a few of which Glimmer did not recognize but that Bow would have likely been able to name. He was the handyman of their group, not her. Adora stepped to the edge of the track and eased the bookshelf off her shoulder, carefully sliding it to the ground and tossing the coffee table after it. It landed in the plush grass with a subdued plunk, and Adora jumped down after it. She righted both pieces of furniture and moved them towards the growing pile of things she’d already removed from the truck.
Bow took Glimmer’s hand and sent her an encouraging smile. She turned back around to see her mother’s car making a three-point turn, which would allow her to take the two-lane road back to civilization. Bright Moon Court was a private road, Glimmer hadn’t been lying about that. A lot of the Council families owned houses on this drive. The Lunsk family, Glimmer’s family, was just one of them. There was the Salineas house across the pond, the Dryl house that was kept up but barely lived in, the Perfumeria house that was more of a summer garden than an actual residence…
Glimmer would have to call her friends and let them know about the new neighbors. Mermista was not going to be happy, she knew that for a fact.
“Come on, let’s go say hi.”
“Do we have to?”
“We promised your mom, so yes. And we should apologize for what happened this morning, maybe explain why we were so caught off guard?”
Why did Bow have to be so kind and wise? Glimmer didn’t want to apologize. She wanted to skip ahead to some distant future where she wasn’t embarrassed and kind of attracted to the new neighbor she had but didn’t want. Or better yet, she could roll back the clock to Saturday. She hadn’t had neighbors on Saturday. Saturday was a good day.
She groaned and said a quick fine, allowing Bow to herd her towards the moving truck.
It’s not like I’m even going to be much help. Between the Valkyrie and my roommate-who-happens-to-be-a-fitness-instructor what’s going to be left for me to move?
“Hey Adora!” Bow called out when they were close enough. Adora rose from where she was crouched in the truck, a big cardboard box in her grip. She glanced in their direction but didn’t say anything until she’d jumped down and placed the box with the others.
“Hey. You back to yell at us some more?” Ouch. Glimmer felt her cheeks flushing.
Bow was unfazed, however. “Nope. We’re actually here to apologize.”
“You don’t really have anything to apologize for.” Adora said. Her eyes shifted to Glimmer, and the angle of her brows shifted. She looked defensive, as if she were waiting for Glimmer to start shouting again. Sixteen year old Glimmer probably would have. 23 year old Glimmer had learned that the solution to a problem was, unfortunately, very rarely yelling. So she swallowed her pride and took a deep breath instead.
“You’re right. I need to apologize. And I am. Look, the way we reacted this morning was totally rude, I get that. We were just surprised because my mom wasn’t supposed to rent out your place without letting us meet the people that were going to be moving in. When you just suddenly showed up with your truck, I freaked out.” Adora didn’t say anything, which was unnerving. It would have been nice to receive an ‘oh, I get it’ or a ‘that would have bummed me out too!’ Glimmer even would have settled for something as simple as gotcha. Instead, what she got was expectant silence. Baby blue eyes, watching her. Guarded. “I am also not a morning person,” Glimmer continued. “If you’d shown up at like, three in the afternoon instead of six when I was barely awake, I probably wouldn’t have been in such a sour mood.”
“She's not lying, she really isn't a morning person,” Bow jumped in. “Never has been! Trying to wake her up when we were in school was downright impossible. I had to bribe her with frappuccinos and let me tell you, those things will put a dent in your wallet.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Adora said. Finally, she speaks! “I’ve never had one.” But why did her words have to be so sad?
Bow’s eyes went comically wide. “You’ve never had a frappuccino before?”
“Nope.” Adora abruptly turned back to the truck, hopping up and resuming her task of emptying the bed of all possessions.
“Wait!” Bow called out, raising a hand as if it would call Adora back to him. “Do you want help? It’ll go faster with four people.”
Adora didn’t bother to turn around. She was already hoisting her next big box, tools jangling around in the pockets of her belt. “No, we’ve got it. Once I get everything out Catra’s going to drive the truck back into town. We get a discount if it’s back before noon.”
“So you’re going to carry everything inside by yourself?” Glimmer asked, incredulous. Was Adora just being stubborn? Was she still mad?
“Yeah,” Adora replied. “We have Sundays off, so I can’t get my usual workout in. This is perfect. And it’ll give me a chance to map out the house a few different ways before Catra gets back. If I let her decide where the furniture goes, everything will just end up wherever she pushes it and we’ll never properly get moved in.”
“Look, if you’re still mad-”
“I’m not.” Adora’s voice was firm. She didn’t sound not-mad though, so Glimmer didn’t buy it. It must have shown on her face because Adora sighed and looked away. “Look, you didn’t want neighbors. I get it. But we’re here now. Ignore us, if that makes it easier for you. We both work long hours so you won’t see us much during the week. And Catra’s usually out with her girlfriend on the weekends, which just leaves me.”
Adora looked like she wanted to say more, but Catra chose that moment to come out of the house. She’d thrown on a ratty sweatshirt with the words ‘Straight Offa Beast Island’ in bold, blocky letters on the front. The string tie was missing from the hood, which looked too small to ever have the hope of containing Catra’s thick mane. “Adora, you done moving stuff yet? Scorpia just called me. I want to get out of here soon.”
“Almost,” Adora shouted back. She was smiling now, and a sad pang went through Glimmer’s chest. So, Adora would smile for Catra, but not her? Even after the apology, which was as genuine as Glimmer could make it, she was going to keep her distance? Fine. If that’s how it was, that’s how it was. If Adora wanted Glimmer to ignore her, then ignore her she would.
“Well move over, loser. Let’s get this show on the road.” Catra joined Adora in the truck and with that it became very clear that Bow and Glimmer had been dismissed. Catra began to grab boxes and tossing them onto the ground with very little care. Adora didn’t seem to mind.
Glimmer forced herself to make an abrupt turn, an about face. “Come on, Bow.”
“But-”
“Didn’t you hear them? They don’t want our help. We’ve been dismissed.” And Bow did consider pushing harder, further. He didn’t want things to end like that, didn’t want their to be bad blood between both parties on the first day. But, as he followed Glimmer back up the deck stairs, he reasoned with himself that pushing wasn’t a guarantee. And they would have plenty of time to build bridges, after all. He could even start tomorrow. If Catra and Adora really did work all week, he could pretty up the front entrance of their unit for them, maybe put out some new plants on the deck. He could even call Entrapta and see if she’d come out a few days early to help him with tiny cupcakes! Because he knew Glimmer wasn’t angry. Not really. Embarrassed, more like.
If she’d been angry, he wouldn’t have caught her wistfully staring out the living room window, watching Adora carry box after box with her big broad shoulders. Glimmer had always been a sucker for shoulders.