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As a general rule, Adora has never been good at new things - with new social things being the furthest one on the list, right under “ability to rebel against authority” and beside “ability to hold liquor”.
In Adora’s mind, the 14 minutes and 21 seconds of composure were already sort of an achievement. This was a whole new level of foreign territory- she’d only been friends with princess Glimmer for nine months at that point and she was already hard pressed navigating the ins and outs of what was socially acceptable in this relationship.
Apparently standing outside one's room for three hours because you weren’t sure if your new friend was asleep or not wasn’t. And was labelled borderline creepy by certain retroactively insignificant guards.
Furthermore, the avante garde regalia of the ballroom, the slow violin music, the pretty, ornate dresses with even prettier girls wearing them was enough to put Adora’s innate lesbianism on high functioning.
But nothing could’ve prepared her for the smell of puff pastry at one of the endless appetizer carts. Adora remembered her manners, of course, and shoveled as many eclairs as she could using the right plate and fork but apparently that was still out of line because within twenty more seconds of indulgences she heard that tell tale laugh.
Impossible to fake. Almost squeaky, high and husky all at once. The familiarity of the sound causing a visceral reaction, almost, as she was thrust back to two- was it three?- years ago. To a different home with smaller rooms.
“Guess you can’t teach an old dog new tricks after all, can you, Adora?”
"Why new. Huh. We had that table manners course in grade 6."
But grade 6 hadn't prepared her for food that looked more expensive than. Than something expensive. Adora would have compared her dress but she wasn't even sure how much that cost, and considering Glimmer gave it to her, it must have been a lot. At least 2 appetizer trays worth, probably,
Catra was, almost predictably, wearing a suit that was less a suit and more what a suit would look like after an entire night out.
It was a good look on her, Adora's lesbian brain cell told her. Was she staring at her? Oh no. What was Catra even doing here. She didn't have contact to princesses. That is, she hadn't last time they'd seen each other.
“Why are you here, Catra.”
“Why do you think, Adora?” She shot back, her voice a teasing cadence. A morose code that Adora knew all too well.
She could only imagine Catra had snuck in, to steal something, maybe, to terrorise a princess or two because of her deep rooted hate of the bourgeoisie. Or maybe.
Maybe.
Catra had come merely to fuck with Adora. To put her down in another way, to steal parts of her that were already half-gone.
“Yeah that’s enough. You’ve had your fun, you snuck in, you didn’t get a rise out of me. C’mon, you’re leaving,” with a firm grip, she began pushing Catra towards the door.
“HeY-“
Immediately, it was as if the whole room had suddenly turned to look at them. The pretty princesses in their profligate dresses gazed over them with suspicion and derision, all their hands poised to gesture for security.
“You’re making a scene, you moron-“ Catra hissed, shoving her hands away.
“The last thing I need is to be lectured about scenes by you- "
Glimmer seemed to appear magically in Adora’s peripheral vision, a nervous chuckle to undermine the urgency in her voice, “Adora, I think we need to be less loud. Remember your position.”
“Yeah, Adora,” Catra sneered, straightening her lapels, her eyes meanly narrowed with enjoyment now that it was apparent that she’s been usurped from her role as savoir faire girlfriend, “Remember your position. We wouldn’t want to repeat the incident we had with Lonnie would we?”
"I couldn't know that they were her family-!"
"Yes, when I see a friendly man with a gift, I too throw him to the ground," came Catra's sarcastic reply.
"But his gift was a dagger! And he showed up out of nowhere-"
"You're still," Catra gave her hand a pat, "holding me." And the people were still looking, Adora was sure she even heard a whisper somewhere. She pulled away, startled and embarrassed, and she was so sure that Catra's grin grew wider.
"I hope this misunderstanding didn't sour your mood." Glimmer sent Adora a tight lipped smile, eyes slightly wide, flicking from her to Catra to somewhere in the crowd. Adora, pinnacle of subtlety and secret court language (and most of all still baffled that Catra was here, in a suit) raised an eyebrow. Did she gesture for her to leave? Point out that this was her first ball ever and Adora still had a lot to learn?
"Well, are you here with someone?" Her tone was clipped and formal now, hiding a hint of mockery. And Glimmer was looking at her like she was about to cry, or strangle Adora, or both.
Catra’s tail twitched, “Wouldn't you like to know, sugar tits?”
Before Adora could splutter, indignantly, Catra had already disappeared into the crowd. And all the prying eyes had averted, back to jazz music, champagne flutess and haughty remarks about the weather.
And Adora went back to being the background piece. And yet still, some light butterfly inside her was quivering, all the buried glass from yesteryear dug back up to cut her anew. And all it had taken was a fourty second conversation.
If she was here, she was someone’s date, wasn’t she-? Or could she be just a friend. Platonic company?
“Who was that?” Glimmer asked, still simmering, though not at Adora.
Words blossomed and died on her tongue. An old, childhood friend? An enemy? Ex-girlfriend? Lots of shards. None fitting anywhere.
“Someone,” Adora shook herself and forced a smile, “I think I’ll go, uh, get a drink!”
A drink outside. Cold air and far, far away from the groups she couldn’t - wouldn’t be able to penetrate. Not that Adora minded, really, it’d never been on her agenda. Her prime objective had always been to better at her work, to forward her career, play her little part in the machine as best as she could.
The champagne was pink, sparkled obstinately in the glow of the moonlight. Tiny, glowing ripples in her cup. Pretty.
She heard the soft footfalls of light feet on grass. Almost oppressively silent. She didn’t need to turn to know who it was. Catra had always been a stealthy woman.
Adora took a long sip, “You know. The break up, it wasn’t easy for me either.”
“Sorry, the long line of princesses simpering at your feet makes that a hard lie to swallow.”
"What are you talking about." (It most likely was sarcasm, all of it; Catra probably knew somehow that Adora hadn't dated before or after her, procrastinating on it with the excuse of putting her career first. Or could it be that Adora was looking at this the wrong way and in reality hadn't noticed the long line of simpering princesses?
Hmmm no.)
Catra dutifully ignored that.
“Well, don’t start thinking you’re the only lesbian fuck-boy going around,” Catra leaned her arms on the balcony railing, looking somewhere into the far away cluster of stars, “I’m now dating the princess of the Fright Zone.”
“But you HATE princesses?” Catra had always been very anti rich and very pro French Revolution. Down with Marie Antoinette except these Maries were decidedly less exploitative and the poor, for the most part, weren’t devoid of bread.
A shrug, and if this was any more a Noir movie, Catra would be lighting a cigarette, “Yeah, well, nothing ever works out the way we expect it to, does it?”
A beat. “I’m sorry.”
“For?”
“For our break up. I had been unreasonable and-“
“Yeah. I know. I sent you an alphabetized list on the reasons why you sucked as a girlfriend two weeks after we broke up.”
That was the Catra that grated on Adora’s nerves. So knee-deep in her quick sand of denial and victimization that she couldn’t see past anything but what she chose to hold. And she always chose vindictiveness.
Even still, it was calming, in a weird way. The vitriol. Reminded her of those nights where they had their limbs wrapped tight around each other under two layers of blankets. Adora trying to whisper sweet words and Catra shutting her up with her lips every single time. Telling her that if one more saccharine word escaped that pretty pink mouth of Adora’s, she’d take their bedside candle and set their bed aflame.
She’d made good on that promise, hadn’t she?
“You’re still allergic to responsibility, I see,” Adora’s voice was tired. The champagne glistened enticingly. She took another sip.
Catra shifted, almost uncomfortable. An affronted hand clench, “I’m not the one who wanted to break up.”
“You’re the one that left for three weeks- and even after that , it was - did you even give me a choice, Catra?” The trembling of Adora’s stomach has resurfaced, against her will, spilling out into her words, “I thought I was doing you a favor. I thought you didn’t love me.”
"I gave you a choice the moment I got rid of your fucking stress."
Because that's what it had been. Notes and work and studying had meant stress and fights. Adora's workaholics-ism had weighed down on them, an invariable rock; they could've ran away, dropped out, away from everything that made Adora upset even now. Just them and a cabin in the woods. maybe a horse or too. Catra wanted to ask why Adora hadn't followed her to that dream but wasn't intoxicated enough to listen to the answer.
"And I don't need you to decide anything for me. If I hadn't loved you, I would've broken up! Like a normal person!"
"Normal people don't burn other peoples' books! Especially not when they have an exam based on said books the next week!"
Catra groaned, face in her hands. "You don't get it."
"No, I don't, I don't get how you can be so okay with potentially ruining my life, then running away, then refusing to fix it."
“I didn’t ruin your life- look where you are now! If things had gone your way, the highest position you could’ve gotten is standing outside this very ball, guarding all these stupid women with an inflated sense of self-“
“One of whom. You are dating,” Adora deadpanned, for once giving Catra a dirty look, “You really kept up to your principals.”
“Don’t talk to me about principals when all yours consist of working yourself to the bone and ignoring everyone that cares about you!”
“I was trying to make a better future for us- I’m sorry, did you want to live in a two bedroom flat on the outskirts of Bright Moon for the rest of our lives?! You got fired from your basic security duty because you took a 4 hour nap on the job. One of us had to be responsible.”
“I didn’t care where we were living- we could be two Buddhist monks living on top of Mount Everest, living in trees and eating acorns everyday and I still would’ve been fucking content!”
The sky was shades of purpled-blue now, half lit up by the glowing cities in the horizon. Bright Moon in particular. Somewhere in that direction was their first home, a foster house, and then three streets down would be their primary school, secondary, the police academy. Their first apartment, too. Adora had left all of their possessions there when she first left, were other people using them now? Were other people in their beds, whispering the same sweet nothings? Was the candle still perched precariously on the side table, threatening to engulf them whole at the slightest push?
“Could’ve,” Catra correctly stiffly, looking away, her nails almost scratching at the ice railing, “past tense.”
Adora felt sore, “Buddhist monks aren’t pseudo squirrels you know. I’m no religious expert but I assume Buddha wouldn’t have instructed his followers to sleep on branches..”
“You’re such a bitch,” Catra’s words weren't caustic, “despite what you said back in tenth grade, differentiation has never been pertinent to me in my adult life, ever. You should apologize to young Catra.”
“I’ll put that on top of my priority list if Bow ever manages to build that time machine,” Adora promised, the whistle of the trees soothing her. The music from inside had died down to slow songs, a sorrowful waltz was playing now, whispered from behind frosted doors.
“How are you- now, I mean, with your current life.”
The peace ended.
“How am I? Is that even a question? Do you expect me to start a sudden soliloquy about how my life now sucks since I don’t have your stick-ridden-ass on my case anymore? Are you asking if I’m eating enough, drinking the right things, if I’m staying away from all of my bad habits.“ Catra hissed, her sudden aggravation bursting unwarranted, but from two years of suppression, “Why? So you can calculate how much fucking guilt so you can feel better about how important you ar- were to me. And pity me at the same time. Because you’re such a fucking good guy, aren’t you, Adora?"
"You know, personalities exist beyond DnD character sheets," Adora said, missing the point. "I just want to know how you are! We haven't talked in years, someone has to start on the catching up part."
"Why don't you ask me about my girlfriend then? Or where we met, or about whether I did end up adopting a hawk, or why my hair is shorter, or-- or anything that doesn't imply I made a wrong choice?"
"I never implied that! This is just you being insecure-"
Catra put a hand over Adora's mouth. "Fuck, stop trying to pull your cheap psychological analysis thing on me. I'm going back, this is just pulling me down. It's not even fun bullying you anymore these days, huh."
Before Adora could say anything, Catra walked away, her steps so confident that Adora knew she had someone to go to.
Well, so did Adora, she thought to herself as she made a beeline for the bar.
Whatever superiority rush Catra had melted away into a dull boredom that almost ached. This ridiculous, muted down rich version of an actual party. Her resentment smoldered and she fought internally for that flame to overtake the irritating pangs of feelings that Adora had aroused in her,
"Catra! Where have you been!" A crushing hug, Catra looked up, still half annoyed and yet relieved. It was obvious enough that Scorpia had in fact been looking for her. The I don't know how to talk to anyone how could you leave me like that, now half the people here know about my top 6 fears because that's how you do small talk, right?? face was familiar to her by now.
"I met someone."
"Your friends are here?? Where?"
“Not a friend,” Catra said through gritted teeth, prying Scorpia’s hands away, “a nobody.”
The violins trilled softly, twinning with the purr of the piano. People spun in graceful, love struck circles of two. Catra decided to play her part. Stuck her hand out, “we haven’t danced yet. Practically a crime if you ask me.”
And the playful, borderline snarky reply that would’ve come from Adora was replaced with Scorpia‘s blush, bright and omniscient. Oh god.
Their height differences made dancing less fluid than it could’ve been. But they were together, and Catra stared pointedly over Scorpia’s shoulder to try and avoid her look of utter devotion.
It frightened her, in a lot of ways, like she wasn’t ready to handle it. Wasn’t mature enough. Was too selfish. Scorpia treated Catra like she’d hung the sun but Catra hadn’t, in fact, if she could, Catra would throw the sun far far away so light would never invade her bedroom before 11 am.
This kind of affection was a vulnerability. It was enticing to know that Scorpia would take almost everything Catra would throw at her. There was a power in that. But Catra wasn’t sure if she could stop herself from throwing everything.
She only shocked out of her thoughts when the song ended and Adora’s irritating maybe-girlfriend appeared, glittering with anxiety, “Have you seen Adora? It’s getting late and- and I haven’t been paying enough attention to her because of Bow and-“
“No,” Catra lied, releasing Scorpia to shove her hands into her pockets, “haven’t seen her since she tried to bouncer me out of here.”
An unlimited bar and a potentially depressed Adora was possibly the worst two combinations of things. Aside from a vengeful Catra and a portal opening weapon but that was a different universe entirely.
Regardless, Catra was right; Adora was there, too many glasses of something in front of her, mumbling aggressively about horses to the bartender, who looked very much like she wanted to leave at that very moment.
“I got this,” Catra interrupted, sitting next to Adora and wrestling the current cup away from her.
Even when drunk, Adora was far from weak and Catra decided the best course of action was to shatter the stupid thing.
Adora started at the shards mournfully, “That was so mean. It was good champagne. A bottle of it could’ve probably paid the rent for our apartment... our... old... apartment.”
“Don’t start crying,” Catra ordered, but her voice held an undercurrent of soft that she knew only Adora got decipher. She shoved a tissue paper abruptly in her ex’s face. This was how Catra did tenderness.
“I miss you,” Adora mumbled, wiping restlessly her eyes with her arm, “I miss this.”
“Crying over broken bottles of liquor?”
“Of being sad in front of other people- in front of you. You’re the only one that knows to kick my ass when I’m...”
“Being a depressed bitch, yeah, I know.”
Adora sighed, and leaned forward, forehead on shoulder, their signature comfort hug. She inhaled, letting all the memories float back to her. Whispers of a different time when commiseration from Catra had been reserved for less menacing things; like being out of cheesecake on a sunday or grieving over a favorite cartoon show after they inevitable killed off the gays.
“Adora,” Catra hissed, her voice still carrying that soft tremor, “my girlfriend is here.”
Adora squinted over at a buff, very tall, very nervous looking woman who was waving at her in what seemed like both a fan and a warning flag. "Oooooooh," she said, unnecessarily loudly because Adora had no sense of volume in this state. "Hi, Catra's girlfriend! I'm her girlfriend too!" And then, in a whisper that was too loud but still sounded pitying, "I think your crab girl is upset."
Catra felt a part of her dying, somewhere far, far away.
"It's, uh, it's more of a scorpion, really! I'm Scorpia!"
"You're, like... a scorpion princess?"
"Yes!"
"And Catra is a cat girl..." Her words were slurred. Catra wasn't sure whether she had passed out or was simply thinking.
Finally, after she felt that Adora was ruining her one suit by crying on it, Catra stroked her hair awkwardly, "uhh Adora?"
"W... why... am I not a horse girl..."
Catra was this close to dropping her. She looked back, realizing Scorpia and Simmer or whatever her name was weren't around. Nice. Very nice. They had scared away their dates with their issues.
"All of you have such... such easy names... what the fuck is Adora supposed to mean... I can't even adore people... I keep a spider in my room because it's the one living being who I know of that they're my friend. Their name was and is Spider-Catra."
“I think the alcohol denatured your brain cells because none of that was English.”
“I’m actually quite stupid, despite what people think,” Adora mumbled, tearful, as if this was a secret admission.
“I’m pretty sure no one but Shadow Weaver has ever thought the opposite, don't worry. You know, our foster mom. In case the alcohol stripped you of your memories too.”
“I remember. She made you so sad, I didn’t like that,” Adora grabbed Catra’s lapels, suddenly and with great strength. The next words out of her mouth would’ve been threatening if they weren’t so shaky, “Tell me you miss me.”
“Adora...” This turned Catra’s stomach; somewhere in the distance. Scorpia was waiting. Alone.
“Tell me,” Adora’s mouth was so close, her blue eyes clear with desperation and grief.
“I miss you.” She pushed Adora away at that, guilty. “I’m going to go and call your friend Zimmer now. You need to go home.”
“I don’t understand,” Adora told the tiles. They were ice blue, like the rest of castle, and Adora could see her reflection, distorted and pale, staring back at her. Three years ago, they'd held hands, the future had been an optimistic mystery. Three years ago, they’d had everything they’d needed within their palms. What had changed.
“We can’t, Adora,” although Catra herself didn’t have an answer, didn’t want to dig deep enough to find an answer.
And once again, Catra left, leaving Adora on the floor with the invisible burn wounds.