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It’s strange having to get used to peace. To a quiet hallway, a filling dinner. A hand resting in your own. More than anything though, it’s strange having to get used to a bed; specifically the comfort of one.
Sleep was never a comforting experience for Catra though. If anything, sleep was a moment between rage and chaos, plagued by its own grueling nightmares. Sleep, in her experience, did not guarantee peace. Sleep was another thing to get used to.
Catra stretches out over the bed for the tenth time in the past few minutes, back on a downward slope, knees tucked beneath her, and her claws tearing up a different section of the comforter. She curls her body in on itself and shuts her eyes, afraid that if she keeps them open she will actually see herself sinking into the mattress which would only further her aggravation and, by default, her inability to go to sleep.
“This is ridiculous,” she grumbles as she sits up for the eleventh time that night. “Stupid bed in stupid Bright Moon.” Catra picks up a pillow and slams it down on the mattress. As she goes about “fluffing” it each word is punctuated with a punch. “Stupid! Princess! Comfort!” Catra throws her body down, landing face down on the pillow, and screams. “What’s the point?”
When Catra sits up again it comes with a purpose. A purpose to find comfort and if that cannot be achieved then to at least go somewhere to complain about it. So, naturally, her purpose forms into leaving her bedroom to make the short trip across the hall to Adora’s.
When she steps out of her room she’s hit immediately by the silence of the corridors. No distant sounds of dripping water from loose pipes, no slamming steel doors as soldiers make their nightly patrol. No shadows hissing just inches from her ears and consuming her into the darkness of an unfortunate night.
There’s only the peaceful kind of silence.
And Catra’s not used to it.
She scampers across the small distance between her door and Adora’s and opens it carefully, thankful for Bright Moon’s interior upkeep that prevents any sort of creaking that would have been customary in the Fright Zone, and shuts it behind her once inside, her full body against it as she cranes her neck to see Adora sleeping in her bed, her body almost entirely consumed by the mattress.
“Adora,” Catra whispers and takes a step forward when she doesn't move. “Hey, Adora,” she whispers again, this time letting her voice sound a little stronger. Again, Adora doesn’t move and Catra walks more fully into the room, her eyes ignoring the leftover battle plans and breakdowns tacked to the walls as they remain trained only on Adora.
Catra stands over Adora and leans forward. “Adora…. Adora, wake up.” Adora continues to sleep or continues to be dead seeing as both would make sense for how much she was moving. “Adora, get up,” Catra demands, no longer interested in waking her up with a kind voice. Catra leans forward more and shakes Adora’s body once…twice…seventeen times. “Adora, come on!” Catra moves to place her knee on Adora’s bed and lifts the rest of her body with it. As soon as Adora sinks (more than she already has) her body shoots up and her hand swipes a strike across Catra’s face.
Catra shrieks and jumps back to the foot of Adora’s bed, her hand cradling the side of her face.
“Catra? Catra! Ooo! Ooo! I’m sorry!”
“What was that for?!”
“I’m still a little jumpy from everything! I couldn’t tell if it was you or a clone or-”
“And slapping is the best defense you can think of?!” Catra snarls as she rubs against the side of her face. “You can say five words and become basically invincible but you chose to slap me?”
“It got you to back off didn’t it?”
Catra groans to herself and tucks her legs up against her body, her tail wrapping itself around them as the end of it flicks back and forth. Sitting in her brooding state, Catra notices the unmistakable feeling of her body sinking into the plush around her. She grumbles unintelligibly and crosses her arms.
This bed is just as bad as the last one.
The bed dips again, not from Catra’s weight, but from the movement of someone else’s as Adora crawls her way over to Catra and places a hand on the side of her face that had recently been slapped.
Alright, maybe not just as bad.
Adora squints, using the lone glow of the moonlight to inspect the slightly rumpled fur on Catra’s left cheek. Adora brushes a thumb over it and sweeps her view from the reddened spot to Catra’s eyes and back again. “I’m sorry, Catra,” she leans forward and kisses the spot and Catra’s nerves come to life with the sensation. Oh right, she thinks as her tail ceases its flicking and instead wraps itself lightly around Adora’s lowered wrist, we can do that now.
Catra smiles and leans forward enough to rest her forehead against Adora’s. “It’s fine. I’ve gotten worse from you before, right?”
Catra can feel Adora’s eyebrows furrow against her forehead.
When Adora pulls back Catra frowns at the loss of contact. Her tail loses its grip on Adora’s wrist and she’s left feeling horribly alone. Isolated once again from the one person that holds her happiness and responsible for depriving that same person of her own happiness. Catra can’t ignore the way Adora’s shoulders have slumped forward and how her eyes have moved slowly down from looking into Catra’s, to staring at her cheek, to going over each inch of her body that suffered injury from her, to finally resting on her own hands which were open and limp in her lap.
Catra’s ears flatten at the sight of Adora’s upset.
“I’m sorry-”
“It’s okay, Catra,” Adora interjects and Catra wants to believe it’s true but the sad, almost forced smile that Adora tries to push onto her face makes Catra understand that it’s not. That her words sliced a lot deeper than she intended them to and she was at a loss for what to do next.
The silence between them stretches on for a millenia, maybe two, and the whole time Catra’s eyes stay fixed on her tail and the lack of its encircling around anything.
“What are you doing up so late?” Catra looks up and sees Adora’s sadness has been replaced with concern and she uses it as an opportunity. Catra crawls across the mattress, across the distance between them and buries her head in Adora’s chest. Adora adjusts her body as the rest of Catra makes its way over. She opens her legs and moves her arms out of the way to allow for the rest of Catra’s body to be compact and comfortable between her thighs. Catra sits in that position for a moment, a beat long enough to give the rest of her apology, to let Adora know that she knows that she’s safe with her. That her body, her essence, her aura, her everything is a home now. A haven.
Adora raises her hands to Catra’s head and scratches behind her ears.
“My bed’s too soft,” Catra mumbles into Adora’s chest and is rewarded with the sound and feeling of Adora’s laughter.
“Yeah, it’s the worst,” she says and lets a hand slip down to Catra’s neck. “I had that same problem when I got here.”
Catra pulls back to look Adora in the eyes. She’ll later tell herself it was to make sure Adora wasn’t lying for her sake; anything to avoid admitting she just missed Adora’s eyes. She’s not used to being allowed to miss things like that. Not yet. “Really?”
“Mmhm. Bed too soft, no one at the foot of it to keep my feet warm.”
Catra’s ears perk up at the confession and her lips tug themselves into a small, embarrassed smile.
“You’re blushing.”
“I am not!” Catra defends but still lowers her head to Adora’s shoulder to avoid having her face looked at anymore.
Adora laughs again, this one sounding more childlike and teasing. She knows she has the upperhand and with one quiet snort the laugh starts bordering on a giggle. She sits up again and looks Adora in her eyes.
“You missed that, huh?”
Adora grins. “Just on the especially cold nights.” The admission of only sometimes missing Catra causes her to frown and pull back from Adora. “Every other night I wanted you up here.”
Adora lays down, pulling Catra with her so that her body ends up on top of hers, her head tucked under her chin.
Catra blushes again but allows for it because she knows Adora can’t see it.
“You can sleep here. I’m not as soft as the bed.”
“No kidding,” Catra responds as her tail skirts itself over one of Adora’s biceps before wrapping itself around it. She laughs when Adora flexes and moves her tail under her nose until she giggles and swats it away to let it return to its position around her arm.
“Get some sleep, Catra,” Adora whispers and presses another kiss to the top of her head. “You have years to make up for.”
“Try not to thrash around too much, Princess, I don’t wanna go flying.”
Adora snorts,“You’d better hang on.”
Catra smiles and does the best she can to wrap her arms around Adora’s body.
Adora wraps her own around Catra and mumbles an, “I got you,” into her hair. Only a minute later her words are replaced by soft snores and Catra is left alone with the room and its silence.
The kind of silence that is underscored by the sound of a heartbeat and the steady vibrato of a purr. The kind that comes from being body to body, skin to skin, heart to heart with someone you love. Someone you’ve waited for. Someone you’ll have forever with.
The peaceful kind of silence.