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Catra can’t sleep.
It’s not all bad. She’s spooned up against the soft but solid muscles of Adora’s back, her bony hips flush against the warm curve of Adora’s butt. Adora who still smells the way Adora has smelled all their lives, plus or minus the strange sweet soaps of Bright Moon—a definite improvement over scorched metal and industrial antiperspirant, in Catra’s opinion. But nothing compares to her Adora.
Not long after Adora left Ca—left the Horde, Catra went into their bunk and destroyed the bedding she’d left behind in a fit of rage. It wasn’t until she’d stuffed the tattered remains of pillows and sheets into the incinerator and stolen a fresh set that she realized that bedding was the last thing she’d had that still bore even a trace of Adora’s scent. It felt like losing her all over again, and Catra had fallen to her knees right there in the supply closet, wanting to scream, wanting to cry, unable to make a sound.
Here, in the present, in Bright Moon, Catra wrinkles her nose and tries to force the memory away. She tries to remember some, any of Perfuma’s advice. Ground yourself in a sensory experience, she’d suggested the other day. Catra buries her face in the nape of Adora’s neck and inhales her scent deeply. Adora’s hair tickles the bridge of her nose and that’s a sensory experience too, Catra figures.
You can do this any time you want now, Melog reminds her softly from next to the bed. You haven’t lost her. She’s right there in your arms. Between Perfuma’s surprisingly practical advice, Adora’s constant physical presence, and Melog’s pep talks, long dark nights of the soul aren’t what they used to be for Catra. Another improvement, she thinks.
She’s feeling better now, but she still can’t sleep. Bow tried to teach her how to read the strange mechanical devices they use to keep time in Bright Moon, obnoxiously more difficult than the digital displays of the Horde; Catra’s not confident she could name the hour, but she can tell dawn is still several of them away.
The longer she lies awake in bed, the more restless she feels. She doesn’t want to wake Adora by tossing and turning, so she kisses her girlfriend’s shoulder and tries to extricate herself from the bed as gently as possible.
She wakes Adora anyway, at least a little bit. “Catra?” Her voice is so small and sleepy it tugs fiercely at Catra’s heart. “Wh’ya doin’?”
“Hey, Adora.” Catra finishes climbing out of bed and pulls the covers around the space she’s left, carefully tucking Adora back in. Then she kisses her on the forehead, just because she can. “Everything’s okay. Just gonna walk around for a bit. I’ll come back to bed soon, I promise.”
“’Kay,” mumbles Adora, already slipping back under. “Y’better.”
It’s all so fucking perfect Catra almost can’t deal with it.
She had never once allowed herself to fantasize about Adora coming back to the Horde of her own volition. As a subjugated prisoner, maybe. But to build a imaginary world for herself where Adora had come back, on purpose, for her—and then to leave that world and return to this one? Infinitely more painful than never imagining anything at all.
But even if she had imagined a better world for herself, a perfect world even, one with Adora by her side—she never would have, never could have imagined this. Not just Adora—Glimmer and Bow, too, and Melog, and Perfuma… even Scorpia. A place to belong. A purpose.
And she doesn’t deserve any of it, Catra thinks, let alone all of it. Melog’s phantasmal mane flashes a warning shade of red in the dim room.
“Deserve”? It’s one of Melog’s least favourite concepts. Who decides what it is you do deserve, then? Who shall quantify it? Who shall enforce it? What gives them the right?
Catra scowls at the now-familiar litany. Stupid psychic magic alien, she thinks pointedly. Acting like you’re always right.
I am always right, Melog purrs, getting up just long enough to nudge Catra affectionately towards the exit. Go walk for a while. I’ll stay with Adora.
It’s hard to argue with the last of an ancient magical race sometimes. Catra doesn’t even try. She looks back at Melog and Adora for just a moment before leaving the room, easing the door shut behind her with a quiet click.
She starts walking without a specific destination in mind. This wing of the palace is mostly bedrooms, she’s learned; she’ll have to roam a little further to find anything interesting to do. It might be cool to check out one of the libraries. They’re in another wing, but she’s relatively confident she can find it, given enough time.
It doesn’t take nearly that long for something interesting to happen. Just as Catra turns the first corner, she hears a soft but familiar click—the same click she just heard from her own bedroom doorknob. Curious, she ducks into an alcove and carefully peers out.
Queen Glimmer, of all people, slips into the hallway. Catra’s still getting used to seeing her dressed for occasions other than battle, and she’s definitely never seen her dressed for bed before. She’s so thrown by the incongruity of seeing Glimmer in soft cotton pants and a pale blue tank top that it takes her a few seconds to notice some other salient details.
First detail: that wasn’t Glimmer’s own room she just left. Glimmer’s room is around a different corner. In fact, Catra’s pretty sure the door Glimmer just stepped through is the door to Bow’s bedroom.
Second detail: Glimmer can definitely see her.
Third detail: Glimmer’s hair is even messier than—
Wait. Shit.
A pink-fingernailed hand grabs the back of the oversized t-shirt Catra wore to bed. “Not one word,” Glimmer hisses in her ear. “Come. With. Me.”
Catra lets herself be dragged down the hallway, trying desperately not to laugh. This is so funny she could easily wake up the entire palace if she doesn’t keep a lid on it.
Glimmer at arm’s length is still close enough for Catra’s feline nose, and oh, okay, yep. As expected, there’s that fruity soap Adora uses too, under the pleasant tang of Glimmer’s sweat, familiar from the workouts the Best Friend Squad has started doing together—
—so Catra definitely recognizes the smell of Bow’s sweat, too.
Glimmer yanks Catra around the last corner before her bedroom and Catra is seriously about to lose it. She barely makes it through the door before she’s cackling hysterically, trying to muffle it in the crook of her elbow. Her vision is blurry with tears of laughter, but she can see Glimmer’s hands on her hips, can see her stomping one slippered foot in frustration, and it’s all just too funny.
By the time Catra calms down, Glimmer looks ready to chew glass. “Are you done?” she asks tightly.
“Yeah,” says Catra. “Why am I here?”
Glimmer blushes from her cheeks to her collarbones. “Y-you saw…”
Catra quirks an eyebrow. This feels almost as good as sleeping next to Adora. “Hmm? What did I see, Sparkles?”
Glimmer is an open book to rival Scorpia, and Catra has never really known how to feel about that. It used to seem like a ludicrous vulnerability, and Catra could never understand why she would display such a weakness so openly. Now that Catra can call Glimmer a friend—not that she would without a gun to her head—it can throw her a different kind of off-balance.
But sometimes it’s just nice to know exactly what she’s thinking. Like right now, for instance. Right now Glimmer is wondering what Catra did see in the hallway, and what Catra might have extrapolated from that, and how much she can accuse Catra of knowing without giving up something she might not.
Too bad for her, Catra already knows everything.
Glimmer’s body language all but screams that she’s made a decision, and she narrows her eyes. “Exactly. What did you see?”
Catra hums noncommittally and lets her eyes slide down Glimmer’s neck to her exposed shoulder. Glimmer actually shivers, and Catra can feel the thread of tension between them from Spin the Bottle the other night. If Adora were here, Catra would probably tug on that thread—just a little, just to see how they’d both react—but without Adora, it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.
So Catra makes direct eye contact with her instead. She wants the queen to look annoyed, or frustrated, or maybe flustered. Confused would be fine. But Glimmer looks genuinely upset, worried even, and Catra drops the game instantly.
“Whoa. Glimmer. I was just messing with you.” She pokes her playfully in the arm. “We ran into each other in the hallway. What’s the big deal?”
Glimmer frowns and doesn’t answer, folds her arms and looks away.
Catra pokes her again. “You’re being weird. Is—I mean, is everything okay?” Glimmer nods, then shrugs, then shakes her head, avoiding Catra’s eyes all the while. “Okay, that’s three different and mutually exclusive answers,” says Catra. “Do I have to go get Adora?”
Glimmer’s eyes go wide and she lunges forward to grab Catra’s wrists. “No! Don’t!”
This is… starting to freak Catra out. She closes her eyes and takes a long, slow breath before opening them. Glimmer is practically shaking.
“Sparkles,” Catra says, trying to sound both as gentle and as firm as possible. She has no idea what that’s supposed to sound like, so she aims for a combination of Adora and Perfuma and hopes for the best. “You are clearly freaking out. That’s, like, my whole deal, and I can help you if you want. But you gotta talk to me.”
Glimmer nods pitifully and lets go of Catra’s wrists, only to throw her arms around Catra’s neck instead and start sobbing.
Maybe Catra did manage to fall asleep. Maybe this is a nightmare. Maybe she’ll wake up snuggled next to Adora and not have to deal with a randomly sobbing princess who smells distinctly post-coital.
Unfortunately, the tears soaking into her t-shirt are real. Feeling like a badly operated marionette, Catra puts her arms around Glimmer and hugs her back. She knows how to do that much, at least.
It takes Glimmer a minute to stop crying, which is fine by Catra—standing here hugging is way easier than talking. Glimmer sighs and slowly untangles herself. “Thank you,” she says softly.
“Uh, anytime,” Catra mumbles. “You wanna tell me what’s up before I lose my mind wondering? Like, seriously: are you okay?”
“Yes,” Glimmer says immediately, and Catra lets out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. “I’m just… really scared of something.”
“Something dangerous?”
“No! Not that kind of scared. I just—please promise you won’t tell Adora.”
Catra’s not sure how she feels about that, and it shows on her face, because Glimmer immediately continues. “It’s not… I didn’t mean… ugh, fuck.” She hides her face in her hands, and then starts to speak through them, muffled but audible.
“Bow and I are having sex.”
Catra waits for the rest of the sentence, or paragraph, or essay. It doesn’t seem to be forthcoming. “Duh. And?”
“What! What do you mean, ‘duh’?!”
“Sparkles… I caught you sneaking out of his room in the middle of the night. You smell like him. You smell like sex. You have…” She gestures to a series of faint bruise-like marks that trail down Glimmer’s neck and disappear under her tank top. Glimmer claps a hand over them in horror.
“And you’re not…?” she squeaks.
“Huh? Not what?” asks Catra, legitimately confused.
“Not… mad?”
“Mad? Is this… are you sleepwalking or something? Why would I be mad about you and Arrows hooking up? I might be surprised that it took you this long, or relieved that you two might be less insufferably sappy in public now that you’re getting it on in private—”
“Catra!” Glimmer shoves her with both hands. “First of all, you’re the last person who gets to complain about being insufferably sappy in public. You and Adora are the queens of sappy.”
“Whatever,” Catra dismisses her. “Seriously though, why would I be mad? Why would anyone? Listen, you never heard me say this, but I’m actually happy for you. Shut up! Never said it! Moving on! Why are you so worried?”
Glimmer slumps. “So much has changed lately. So much is still changing. I’m worried this is one thing too many. I’m scared this will mess up the Best Friends Squad. I love Bow, and I want to be with him—you know, like with him—but I love you and Adora too. And I’m terrified I can’t balance everything. I’m going to mess something up, I just know it.”
This might actually be a conversation Catra is equipped for. But first, she can’t help herself. “Wait, wait, wait. You love me?” Glimmer rolls her eyes. “No, run that back. You said you love Bow, and you love Adora, and you love…” She’s smiling so wide her cheeks hurt.
“Fuck off,” says Glimmer. “You heard me the first time. I’m not saying it again.” Her face slides into a pout, and Catra realizes she thinks a joke is all Catra is going to offer.
So she steps forward and takes Glimmer’s hand. “Hey. Glitter queen. Don’t mope. I love you too.”
She’d never said it before Adora; now she says it to Adora a dozen times a day. But this is the first time she’s said it to anyone else. It’s terrifying.
Glimmer’s lips part in shock. She looks like a cartoon. For a dizzying second, Catra wishes Adora were here so she could watch her kiss that expression right off Glimmer’s mouth—then she takes that train of thought and deliberately drives it into a ditch. Keep it in your pants, she scolds herself. Life isn’t a Spin the Bottle game. You could hurt people.
She just squeezes Glimmer’s hand instead. “Nothing’s going to change,” Catra tells her. “Not between you and me, not between you and Adora, not between Bow and any of us.”
“You think?” Glimmer manages a thin smile.
“Uh, yeah I think,” Catra says. “Adora and I are having sex. Does that change anything?”
Maybe not, but it does make Glimmer’s eyes go a little wider. After a beat, she shakes her head firmly. “No. Of course it doesn’t.”
Catra shrugs then, smirking like there’s nothing left to say.
Glimmer thinks about this for a few moments, then appears to deflate with relief. She drags Catra over to a small sitting area and they sink into a couch together, Glimmer letting out a long, contented sigh.
Holy shit, Catra thinks. I helped. Aloud, she says, “You were really scared, huh.”
Glimmer nods. “And I couldn’t ask any of the other princesses. They’re all way more experienced than me—well, except Frosta.” She laughs with more than a little self-deprecation. “I guess she’s the only virgin in the Princess Alliance now.” Catra’s jaw drops at the joke, and Glimmer claps a hand over her mouth. “Oh no,” she says. “I don’t know how to talk about sex with people. I’m just saying anything now.”
Catra cracks up. “I learn new things about you every day, Sparkles.”
“So, um,” says Glimmer, clearly eager to change the subject. “If it’s okay to ask… was Adora your first?”
“Yeah,” Catra says quietly. “First… everything.”
“Wow. So when you kissed her at the Heart of Etheria, was that—”
“Hey!” Catra nearly shouts, forgetting the lateness of the hour. “How do you know about that?”
“Adora told me,” Glimmer says, as though it should be obvious. “She was so happy she was almost in tears. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to invade your privacy—”
“You didn’t, you didn’t,” says Catra, forcing herself to relax. “It makes sense she told you. And it’s fine.” It really feels like it is. “I’m… glad you know.”
Glimmer leans her head on Catra’s shoulder. It’s the weirdest, nicest feeling. “Good,” she says. “It’s probably the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard, so.”
Catra huffs softly. “And yes,” she says.
“Yes what?”
“Yes, that was our first kiss. At the Heart.”
Glimmer lets that sink in for a second. “Holy shit, Catra. That’s intense.”
“It… was, yeah.”
“Hmm. So you and Scorpia never—”
Catra doesn’t stand up from the couch, but she does twist her body away. “No, never, and can we please not talk about Scorpia? Not… not like that.”
“Of course.” There’s so much care in Glimmer’s voice that Catra has to recall one of Melog’s mini-lectures on the meaninglessness of “deserving” kindness. “I’m sorry, Catra.”
“It’s okay. I’m still… ughhh, I’m still working through a lot of guilt. About a lot of things. And Scorpia’s one of them, and I… there was nothing romantic about it, I was just… cruel.” She hangs her head. “I’m really glad she has Perfuma now. To protect her from me.”
“Oof,” Glimmer says. “I don’t think Scorpia thinks that way. I don’t even think Perfuma thinks that way.”
“No,” agrees Catra. “But maybe they should.”
The next thing Glimmer says sounds like a total non sequitur. “You make Adora happy, you know.”
“W-what?”
“Me and her and Bow, we had fun together, you know? In between battles. Best friend stuff.”
“Sleepovers,” Catra says, trying to catch up. “You’d eat cake with your hands.”
“Yeah, exactly. But, I mean—even right after we—when we were bringing you home on Darla, I mean—once the two of you were together—” Glimmer pauses, then shrugs. “We’d never heard her laugh like that. Ever.”
Catra can’t move. She’s not sure she’s even still breathing. She doesn’t react when Glimmer holds her hand again, but Glimmer continues anyway.
“It was hard to tell at first. I mean, we met her right after—right out of the Horde. We didn’t know her before that, obviously, and we’d never seen the two of you not fighting. But eventually we could tell… how much it was hurting her, that you two were apart.”
Catra makes a small noise of pain.
“And, I mean. Once we saw you and her, well, not fighting… we could just tell. How happy she was,” Glimmer says. “How happy you both were, with each other.”
“Glimmer,” Catra mutters through gritted teeth, “this is too much.”
“Oh,” says Glimmer, “oh shit, I get it. Too many feelings at once. I’m sorry. I’ll stop.”
It doesn’t even feel real. Catra had started feeling overwhelmed, had asked Glimmer to dial it back, and Glimmer did. Immediately. No resentment, no manipulation, no guarantee of some kind of payback later, not even a question. Catra doesn’t understand how people can live like this, everyone’s sore spots banging into everyone else’s, but she realizes she wants to learn. This is the world she lives in now. She wants to stay.
She leans against Glimmer. “Thanks,” she says softly, and for a few moments they just sit there.
“Um, Catra,” says Glimmer eventually, her tone of voice suddenly different. “When we came in here, you said I—you said I smelled like sex.”
“Uh, yeah, I guess.”
“D-do I still? Smell? Like sex?”
Catra yawns, then sniffs experimentally. “I mean, you don’t not smell like—”
“Okay!” Glimmer exclaims, leaping to her feet. “I’m gonna go take a shower! Right now! And you are going back to bed with Adora.”
Catra chuckles, but it turns into another yawn. “Works for me. Good night, Sparkles.”
Melog opens one eye when she quietly lets herself back into the room. You’re feeling better. It’s not really a question.
I am, Catra thinks back. And finally tired enough to sleep. She kicks off her slippers and crawls into bed, curling herself around Adora.
The big window in their room faces east. Just at the horizon, the sky is beginning to show the first traces of light.
Adora stirs, snuggling back into Catra. “Y’r here,” she mumbles.
“I’m here,” Catra says, nuzzling her. “Time for sleep.”
“Mmmm,” Adora groans happily. “You smell like Glimmer.”
“…I do?”
“Mm-hmm. S’nice. Bring me nex’time.”
Already starting to doze off, Catra tries to focus her attention. “Bring you?”
“Yeah, you ’n’ me ’n’ Glimmer. Mmmm, nice.”
Catra barely has time to count the implications of that, let alone consider them, before she falls fully asleep.