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Catra woke suddenly without knowing why.
This wasn’t the first time it had happened. She’d always had an uncanny ability to tell when something was wrong, even if it wasn’t apparent exactly what. That sense was only heightened where Adora was concerned.
And here, curled up in her bottom bunk in the middle of the night, Catra knew the only thing that could have woken her was Adora.
She stirred carefully, rubbing the grit from her eyes with her knuckles, spine popping as she unwound from her comfortable ball at Adora’s foot. Her ears pricked for any insight into the situation she was waking up to. Had Adora had a nightmare? Was she sick? Hurt? Upset? She had to wait a moment before her eyes adjusted to the low light, but once they did she zeroed in on the other girl’s face immediately.
Adora was half sitting up at the head of the bed, one hand cradling her forehead and hiding her expression from view. Catra could tell all she needed to from the shaky way she breathed and the faint sheen of sweat at her temples and neck. A nightmare, then. The way she was sitting with her head bowed meant she hadn’t seen Catra stir yet, so the feline cleared her throat softly so she wouldn’t startle her before asking, “Adora? Are you okay?” Better to start with a general approach, so Adora could decide how much she wanted to open up. As she waited for a response Catra scooted herself up toward her companion, reaching a comforting hand to rest against her shoulder.
But right as her fingertips met Adora’s shirt, the blonde flinched away, her hand dropping from her brow to curl into an instinctive fist.
Catra recoiled, shocked. Adora had never shied away from her affection before—not when they were alone. And certainly never like this. She studied her friend’s face with wide, searching eyes. “Hey,” she said gently, almost a question, not without a hint of hurt. Her gaze flicked to the blonde’s clenched fist of its own accord. Since when did Adora feel like she needed to defend herself against Catra?
The blonde winced, squeezing her eyes shut and letting her head fall again in shame before a deep breath steadied her enough to face her friend. “Sorry,” she whispered. Her expression was pained enough that Catra believed her. Instead of replying, the feline raised her hand again hesitantly, and this time Adora took it in her own and pressed it to her shoulder the way Catra had intended. She squeezed it reassuringly by way of additional apology. “I—I’m fine. I just—I had a dream.”
Catra tilted her head. “A nightmare?” she asked, because she didn’t know what else it could be. They had both had nightmares before; terrible ones. What could one expect from a childhood raised by Shadow Weaver? But something about this was different. They usually ran to each other in the aftermath of a nightmare. Not away, like Adora seemed to be doing now.
She wouldn’t even look Catra in the eyes. Her face looked flushed, too. What was going on? “No…” she murmured evasively.
Catra couldn’t have been more confused. She leaned closer, slowly so she wouldn’t catch Adora off guard again, and inhaled her friend’s familiar scent—sometimes a better tell to her emotions than any clumsy words could express. Only, this time it wasn’t so familiar. Catra’s nose twitched at the tang on Adora’s skin and she pulled back feeling utterly lost. What is that? she wondered to herself. And why is Adora so upset about it? “I’d call BS, but…you don’t smell like you do after nightmares,” she said aloud.
Adora jerked her chin up to meet her eyes now, looking a touch panicked. “What? What do I smell like?” she demanded.
“I don’t know,” said Catra defensively, sitting back on her haunches, out of range of any sudden outbursts, because she had no idea what to expect of Adora right now. She must be sick, she decided. Adora only got prickly when she was sick or in pain. But a new kind of sick? What would be afflicting her now for the first time in 17 years? “What was the dream about?”
“Um…” Adora looked away again. Her face contorted as she wrestled with some internal conflict, and Catra knew from experience that she was considering lying. It wouldn’t work—they both knew that. Catra was too observant. Catra knew her too well.
That and Adora was notoriously bad at hiding her emotions.
Even now she couldn’t completely disguise her increasingly coloring cheeks, though she tried her darnedest. She was picking at a frayed spot on her blue blanket as if nothing had ever been more riveting. There was a long, awkward silence during which Catra never stopped watching Adora’s face. The look she found there made a glimmer of something—realization, maybe—tickle at the back of her mind, but she quashed it down viciously. The possibility that was beginning to occur to her was too far-fetched. Too good to be true. Downright impossible, if she let her insecurities speak for her.
Except—
“You,” Adora admitted at a mumble.
Me? Catra went stiff immediately. Impossible, her cruel inner voice—which smacked of Shadow Weaver’s—insisted again. She probably just dreamed of us fighting again, it told her. That happened often enough that she suspected Shadow Weaver’s interference. It would be no surprise for it to happen again. There was nothing to be nervous about.
Only, Adora had said that she hadn’t had a nightmare, and she couldn’t possibly have lied.
Catra felt her heartbeat speed up against her will. She tried to fight it down. Her teenaged mind was just jumping to conclusions. She needed more information, if only to calm the slightly nauseous excitement rising inside her. Catra’s nostrils flared as she tested the air again, trying to place the scent on her friend’s skin. Had she smelled it before?
She was beginning to think that she had.
Once, when Adora had thought she was alone.
“So what happened?” she asked slowly, calculatingly. She kept her eyes trained sharp and curious on the blonde’s face, bent on noting every single twitch and tell that might answer the question burning its way into her gut.
Adora’s brows were still drawn and her cheeks were still flaming but she gradually stopped trying to avoid Catra’s eyes, and Catra had to wonder if that was a good sign or bad. She saw the way the blonde’s jaw clenched as if chewing on the words that she so wanted to hear; the curl of her fingers into the blankets by her leg as if she were holding herself back; the flicker of her gunmetal eyes down to Catra’s lips before she could catch herself.
When her eyes went back to Catra’s, the look in them was unmistakable. “We, uh.” Her throat struggled through a dry swallow, and she wet her own lips. “We…”
She was leaning a bit closer to Catra now, unconsciously. Her eyes drifted back down. She left the thought unfinished.
It was enough. Enough for Catra to confirm her—well, she wasn’t sure if it was her greatest fear or her wildest dream.
All the pressure and tension that Catra had been shoving down around Adora for years, afraid to act on because she knew—thought she knew—that her friend would never feel the same—it was all back with a vengeance, crushing the air out of her chest with its full weight, making her breathing tight and shallow. Her head was light, her gut clenched, her fingers and toes freezing with the terrifying thrill of what was finally happening. All thought was crowded out by her increasing hyper-awareness of Adora and nothing but Adora, within her grasp at last. Her hands were fairly twitching with the desire to cross that distance that had always remained impassable between them. Her claws caught on the blankets as they flexed instinctively. She couldn’t have broken Adora’s heated gaze if she’d wanted to.
And it was going to burn her.
She forced words out past the anxious lump in her throat: “Did it go something like…like this?” she whispered, sidling right up to the point of no return, because if she didn’t act on her feelings right now, the opportunity might pass her by forever.
And, Merciless Lord Hordak, she wanted Adora.
She always had.
She lifted one trembling hand to Adora’s face and cradled her cheek, breath faltering as she realized that the gesture they’d exchanged hundreds of times before had just adopted a whole new meaning—one it might not ever be able to come back from.
They might not ever come back, if they destroyed that long-held barrier between them, years in the making.
But Catra didn’t think she wanted to.
She came up on her knees slightly, following her hand closer to Adora, feeling the warmth of the blonde’s body radiating from beneath the sheets. It ignited some warmth deep beneath her own skin, and she wanted more of it. She needed more of it, now that she’d had a taste. She ran her free hand up the side of Adora’s leg as she moved closer. Her ears twitched at the sound of the slight hitch that entered the blonde’s breath.
Catra slipped right past the point that they normally would have stopped, careful to toe that unspoken line in the sand—and then she went even further.
Adora gasped as Catra’s weight eased onto her lap, knees shuffling up on either side so the feline was straddling her blanketed hips, palms pressing hot against her cheeks. “Uh—” Adora’s first grasp at coherent speech came up empty. Her own hands settled against Catra’s waist of their own accord, seeming to hover on the edge between holding her back and pulling her in. The blue of Adora’s irises was clouded as she stared up into Catra’s own; just as filled with desire as Catra felt, but conflicted as well. “What are you doing?” she breathed unsteadily.
Isn’t this what she meant? Catra’s thoughts raced, stirring up her anxiety, stoking the roiling fire in the pit of her stomach. Isn’t this what she wanted?
She was in too deep to back out now. She slid one hand down to wind around Adora’s waist and with the other she brushed her thumb across the blonde’s lower lip, slow and intentional. “Isn’t it obvious?” she rasped, watching Adora’s eyelids flutter at the sensation of her touches and her voice.
But— “Wait,” Adora mumbled past Catra’s thumb, lifting her hands to wrap around the cat’s upper arms, still not sure whether to push or pull.
Catra tried to tip the scales for her. She was leaning in, regarding Adora with half-lidded eyes, tempting the blonde with the closeness of her lips, and she was rewarded when those stormy irises locked longingly on her mouth. Even as their breaths mixed across a mere sliver of space and Adora’s hands tightened around her biceps, the Horde’s golden girl protested, “Catra, wait, we shouldn’t—this isn’t—“ She broke off helplessly, expression torn, and pulled back a fraction.
Please don’t. Catra’s heart was pounding at the prospect of being rejected after she’d risked this much, because she had no idea what she would do if she fucked things up with Adora right now. Trying not to let that fear bring a waver to her voice, Catra said in a tone meant to be reassuring, “Relax, Adora. It’s just me.” And, partly because she wanted to hide from the threat of rejection and partly to convince Adora that she didn’t want to reject her at all, she passed by Adora’s mouth and tucked her furry head against her neck instead.
“That’s the problem!” Adora was saying, voice a little too high-pitched, a little too thin to be convincing. “We shouldn’t—mmph…” The weak strands of her resistance snapped as Catra feathered parted lips over the light layer of tiny blonde hairs along the curve of her jaw. Every breath spilled across Adora’s sensitive skin, eliciting shivers that made Catra’s claws flex with some intense, primal drive. Adora’s breathing picked up, but she still tried to cling to reason, managing, “Catra, what if—“ before those lips landed a kiss just below her ear and her thoughts scattered again. Catra could feel the frustration vibrating beneath Adora’s skin mingled with the arousal she was coaxing out, and she got the sinking feeling that Adora would not stand for this very much longer.
She kissed Adora’s neck again.
“Catra!”
The way Adora said her name, harsh and authoritative, was what made Catra finally pull back. She was sure she looked terrifyingly desperate as Adora’s eyes met hers. The blonde’s jaw was set with resolve, and those hands had decided: they were holding Catra at arm’s length now. Her stomach descended to her toes in an instant. This is it, she thought, and even her mind’s voice was breathless with fear. I went too far. She hates me now. She could feel the rising threat of tears and she wasn’t sure she would be strong enough to suppress them. Not if Adora rejected her.
Luckily, before her wild thoughts could spiral too far, Adora huffed an explosive sigh and said in a strained tone, “I don’t want to risk ruining our relationship.” Her eyes were clearer now; earnest, even though her face was still a deep shade of red.
Catra clutched her hands together in an effort to stop their shaking. “Why would this ruin it?” she asked softly, searching Adora’s open expression for the truth. If you don’t want this, just tell me.
Adora looked at her from under beautiful, bunched dark brows as if begging her to understand without words. Her thumbs rubbed lightly against Catra’s arms; a small comforting gesture. She opened her mouth to speak but all that came out was another short, frustrated sigh. “I just—I don’t—“ She broke off and looked away.
Catra felt the familiar tendrils of disappointment snaking into her limbs, filling her with aching cold where moments ago had been rising heat. She felt herself shutting down; drawing inward, the way she did when she knew she was about to get hurt. She’d never been hurt by Adora before. Not like this. “You don’t want me,” she finished for her.
“No!” Adora’s response was instant. Her head snapped up to face Catra squarely and the intensity in her look was startling. The gentle touch of her hand against the feline’s cheek was a stark contrast. “That’s not it at all, Catra,” she whispered fiercely. “Of course I want you. I just—” Here her hand curled into a fist and lowered to rest between them instead, a gesture of defeat. There was a pause before Adora managed: “I’m afraid I’ll do the wrong thing and I’ll lose you because of it.”
The dark cloud of Catra’s disappointment dissipated with a shock. She almost laughed aloud. As it happened, she suppressed the urge and instead just regarded Adora with wide, disbelieving eyes. “Lose me?” she echoed. “That’s all? Adora…” She reached out to lift the girl’s chin and held her eyes with every fiber of warmth she was capable of. “This is the last thing you could do to lose me.”
Those gray-blue irises took their turn to flash over Catra’s face, searching for signs of doubt. There was nervousness in the way her brows remained furrowed, but an unmistakable glow of hope as well. She looked as if she wanted to believe it, but experience had taught her that most things really were too good to be true. Catra could relate to that. Even after Adora failed to find any hint of a lie, she swallowed thickly and had to be sure: “Really?”
“Really,” Catra affirmed. And just in case that wasn’t enough, she draped her arms around Adora’s shoulders and leaned in so that their foreheads touched, allowing herself a tentative smile. “You know, I…” This time when she let her gaze gravitate to Adora’s lips, it felt completely different. Not fueled by desperate, uncertain lust, but comfortably affectionate. “I’ve had those dreams, too.”
Adora’s hands had migrated back to her waist, and now they stroked up and down her sides with the same quiet assurance. “You have?” the blonde asked, voice hoarse with the implication of that.
“Mm.”
There was a pause where Catra could hear Adora swallow hard again. “Do you…want to talk about it?” she asked in a strangled whisper.
“I’d rather show you,” Catra breathed back.
Their chests were pressed close enough together that she could feel all the air rush out of Adora’s lungs just then, and the excitement of having that effect on her made her hair raise.
“Okay,” Adora responded breathlessly, wrapping her arms tighter around the feline’s waist. Catra’s heart literally skipped a beat.
There wasn’t anything stopping her now.
She withdrew one hand from behind Adora’s back and instead rested it under her chin again, tipping her head up gently to bring the distance between them to nearly nothing.
Adora’s heavy-lidded eyes were so dark they looked black in the dimness. Her bated breath breezed against Catra’s lips and the feline could hear each one nearly become a whimper in her throat. Catra drank in every detail like she’d been parched all her life. That crushing pressure in her chest wasn’t just in her chest anymore.
“Adora…” she purred, sliding her hand up into the golden strands of Adora’s hair, and the resulting shudder sent a shockwave to her core. Her tail lashed as heat crawled steadily into every inch of her skin. This was what she’d wanted for so long. She couldn’t deal with the wait anymore.
Her fingers curled sensuously against Adora’s scalp. Those peerless blue eyes slid closed, and the breathless pause between them reached a crescendo.
Adora was the one to close the distance first.
They dove into each other, lips already parted, sloppy but long and savored and passionate—all of the feelings Catra had never allowed herself to express and all of the words she was never able to say finally channeled into this blazing contact. She hadn’t realized, in all her futile fantasizing, that kissing Adora would feel like this. She tightened her grip and pressed in harder.
The cushion of Adora’s lips and tongue was everything Catra had been longing for forever. It caressed her own in a way that was somehow comforting and arousing and riveting and satisfying all at once, just the way Adora was. It felt so new and yet so familiar, because it was Adora and Adora had always been hers, in a way, but now —
Catra leaned into Adora’s embrace and returned every overture just as hungrily, relishing the way the blonde had to gasp for breath in between liplocks but never slackened her effort. She thought Adora tasted a little bit like the breeze that wafted over from the Whispering Woods to cut through the Fright Zone’s smog once in a blue moon—like the promise of something better. The circle of Adora’s arms around her waist, almost tight enough to be uncomfortable, felt like a halo of safety, too. They held her close to Adora’s warm body and fueled the fire burning through her, raising it to a buzzing, raging urgency.
Before now, Catra wasn’t sure she’d know what to do if this situation ever—ever, because it was still just a wild dream then—came to pass, but now she could have laughed at her own doubt. With Adora, every motion, every act seemed perfectly obvious and natural. They fit together like two halves of a whole, and they were, as far as Catra was concerned. They were meant for this. For each other.
That thought hit her with the force of a laser blast and Catra suddenly needed Adora more than ever.
She tangled her claws in loose golden hair and tugged Adora’s head back so that when she straightened her spine, she was looking down on her. Catra found that she liked it this way—being on top for once. In control for once. It wasn’t affirmation from the people she was dying to prove herself to, but it was something, at least. She could beat Adora at something, at least.
For all of one moment.
Then Adora’s hands suddenly dropped to Catra’s hips and pulled her down firmly, grinding their bodies together as Adora rolled her own hips up, and—
A gasping moan jumped from Catra’s throat before she could stop it, and she clapped a hand to her mouth, face flushing impossibly deep. She had not expected a feeling like that. And right when she thought she’d gotten her feet under her, too. She was torn between staying embarrassed and chasing the glimpse of rampant pleasure Adora had just given her.
Adora looked up to laugh at her airily, blue eyes crinkling even through the haze of lust that weighed them down. Her thumbs rubbed Catra’s sides in a little half-apology.
“Shut up,” Catra growled sourly and gave a sharper pull on Adora’s hair than was really necessary.
The blonde let out her own noise of surprise, but of course hers was way less compromising than Catra’s had been, and she kept laughing afterward. Catra growled again, and Adora clicked her tongue and began to run her hands up and down the feline’s thighs in an attempt to soothe her. The attention had the opposite effect entirely. Catra was sure Adora could feel the shiver that ran through her from top to tail, because those blue eyes went sultry again, and she taunted, “Make me.”
Catra’s breath caught at the prospect of that—plus the way Adora’s hands stopped right at the top of her legs, so tempting. But, she was never one to shy away from a challenge.
“Careful what you wish for,” she murmured back, leaning in painfully close to Adora’s mouth before abruptly switching tack and dipping underneath the blonde’s raised chin. Lips and teeth met the tender skin of Adora’s throat before she knew what was happening, and this time she moaned.
And Catra wanted to make her do it again. She smirked and rocked her own hips down against Adora’s like the blonde had done before, but this time the jolt that shot through her wasn’t so unexpected. This time it thrilled her. It made her want more.
So she pressed harder.
She gathered her legs under her and practically pounced on Adora, shoving her shoulders back so she fell against the rock-hard mattress. Catra leaned over her, pinning her down, and redoubled her efforts at the twitching curve of her neck. Adora was panting now as feline fangs dragged over the vulnerable skin, but her strong hands pulled Catra ever closer, sliding up her legs to cradle her rear and—that was new, but Catra was not complaining. She slid her own hands down to the hem of Adora’s shirt and ventured her fingers underneath, feeling the energy vibrating through the muscled swells of her abdomen.
She could barely comprehend what was happening. She could barely fathom that the same body that defeated her every day in training, powered through bots and obstacles and challenges, effortlessly earned the favor of all of their uppers, seemed built solely of hard muscle and obstinate strength—It was now under her hands, hers.
Under her control again.
That thought almost burned her up with more pleasure than Adora’s touch itself. The insistent pulsing in her middle turned up its intensity. The feeling made her claws flex against Adora’s skin, and the blonde jerked in surprise. Catra chased that effect, wanting to fluster Adora, wanting to drive her into the same frenzy she was feeling. On a sudden whim she closed her mouth around Adora’s throbbing pulse point and bit down, not gently—at the same time she dug in with her claws.
Adora’s body bucked. “Catra!” she choked out abruptly.
Catra recoiled the slightest bit, even though her body was urging her to continue, to keep pushing and touching and taking until that bone-deep need coursing through her was satisfied.
“What?” Her voice was raspy and shaky but so much fire was threading through her veins that she no longer cared. All she cared about was Adora’s form beneath her and against her and—and— No, she supposed that that wasn’t true. Even amidst the tumult of desire and unfamiliar emotion that was scouring out her insides, Catra found that she still just cared about Adora. Her first instinct was to make sure Adora was okay. And if this wasn’t doing it, then…Catra would fight her deepest urges just to fix that. She slipped her hands out from under Adora’s shirt, chest aching with regret. “Is this—“
“No—yes, ” Adora groaned, pulling Catra in for a bruising kiss that the feline instinctively filled with heat and teeth, but then breaking away just as suddenly. “Just—“ she broke off and took a deep inhale and exhale to steady her trembling everything. Catra watched her, heart pounding.
Adora’s face was flushed red, and her lips looked swollen. Probably even more so now that one was bleeding lightly from the pinch of her fangs. I did that to her, Catra thought with a rush of guilt and excitement. All of that. Adora touched her fingers to the abrasion gingerly, but didn’t look upset. In fact, her eyes looked impossibly dark. But, still—
“What is it?” Catra pushed, dreading the answer. Adora had been responding to her, hadn’t she? Returning her efforts with just as much abandon. Was she still having second thoughts? Catra’s blue and gold gaze flickered over the blonde’s face, trying to pry the answer loose without having to hear the disappointing words aloud. Was this it? Their relationship gone up in a blaze of momentary flame, now reduced to ashes?
“Just—” Adora repeated between heavy breaths, fingers digging into Catra’s legs, “what if someone catches us?”
That’s all? Relief loosened the feline’s taut muscles, though it did nothing to quell the ache still radiating from her core. “They won’t,” she assured. Adora and her anxiety. She leaned down to give Adora a comforting, much gentler kiss, and the blonde let her before looking worried again.
“But what if they do? ” she insisted.
Catra looked at her with a hint of a smirk, feeling her face heat up as a wave of mingled lust and, this time, love, hit her hard. She shifted a little on Adora’s lap and watched those swollen lips part in a gasp. This is what she wanted. This is what she’d been dying for. To affect and control and tease, but also to reassure and care for and satisfy the one person who mattered to her most. And unless Hordak himself showed up at their door to stop them, she was doing to do just that.
Catra lowered herself down so her elbows were resting on either side of Adora’s head and she could comb her fingers through tumbled blonde hair. She looked into that gunmetal blue, the color of the sky over somewhere better, and made a silent promise.
I’ll take you there.
Then she leaned in so their lips brushed and spoke so only Adora could hear:
“Then we’d better hope we made this worth it.”
***