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Catra needs to talk to Glimmer. It might not be easy to get her alone—it’s her own mother’s back-from-the-dead party, after all—but Catra’s head is spinning after the conversation she just had with the party’s guest of honour, and she knows Glimmer will be able to help settle it.
She and Angella had parted ways at the cemetery gates—Angella was going to take the long way back into the party, “for the sake of a few more breaths of fresh air,” the queen had said. Then she’d actually winked, which definitely didn’t help how spun round Catra’s feeling.
The party’s still packed, but it’s a different, more manageable kind of intimidating than when she left. The challenge now won’t be keeping her breath steady and her thoughts from spiralling out of control, it’s just going to be finding Glimmer in the crowd. It’s not like she’s particularly tall.
But it turns out she doesn’t have to find Glimmer at all, because Glimmer finds her as Catra is skirting the edge of the dance floor. “Catra!” she cries happily, rushing up to her. “Where have you been?” Adora and Bow are nowhere in Catra’s admittedly lousy sightlines. Maybe this is her chance to take Glimmer aside for just a few moments.
But then the band strikes up a new song.
Glimmer smiles at Catra and it’s just—it’s really just the way Glimmer usually smiles when she sees Catra, but for some reason it hits Catra in the solar plexus this time; she almost literally feels winded.
When Adora smiles at her like that, it takes out Catra’s knees instead.
Before she can unpack the many, many, moon-shattering implications there, Glimmer’s up in her personal space, taking hold of Catra before Catra has a chance to catch her breath.
“Dance with me,” Queen Glimmer says, and Catra can’t possibly refuse.
Glimmer’s wearing a midnight blue cocktail dress that stops just above her knee and seems to reflect light from deep within itself. The halter neck—disappointingly high, in Catra’s opinion—leaves Glimmer’s shoulders bare, and—Catra’s hands come up to discover—Glimmer’s back too. Catra takes the lead and carefully positions her hands to avoid brushing Glimmer’s little pink wings: at best, she’d tickle her and risk an “accidental” knee in the stomach; at worst, she might provoke Glimmer into breaking her own public-behaviour agreement.
“I missed you,” Glimmer says, her voice as sweet as the strawberries and champagne on her breath. After the cool night air of the cemetery, she’s so warm and alive in Catra’s arms she almost feels hot to the touch.
Catra clears her throat. “I, uh… huh. I missed you too. I thought it might be weird to say ’cause we just saw each other, but… yeah. I was actually looking for you too.”
“Awwww!” Glimmer leans her face into Catra’s neck for a second and inhales deeply. A tingle starts under Catra’s ear and travels all the way down to her toes. “Well, I’m glad you said it. Is something up? Or did you just want to dance?”
Catra twirls her around to give herself a moment to think.
“Something good is up,” she says when Glimmer is back pressed snugly against her. “Kinda want to talk to you about it, when we can find a minute.”
“Oooh,” says Glimmer, and there’s a sparkle in her eyes that has nothing to do with her magic. “Something good? Can I get a hint?”
“Oh, I mean… it’s not a big secret or anything, I just… I was outside just now, for a little while. That’s why you couldn’t find me. I was, uh… I was talking to your mom.”
Glimmer almost stops in their tracks, but Catra gently leads her into the next step, and Glimmer’s muscle memory takes up the slack.
“And it was a good conversation?” she asks. Catra can’t really read her tone of voice.
“Yeah,” Catra says. “I mean, I was… I was super awkward, but that—I didn’t say anything stupid.”
Glimmer squeezes her a little. “I didn’t think you would.”
“I just… it really wasn’t what I was expecting. In a good way, for sure, but also—a lot to process.”
“Oh, yeah, okay,” Glimmer says, “I bet. And you’re okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay, just… gonna be processing for a while, I think.”
Glimmer nestles herself even closer to Catra, until their hips are flush and it’s hard not to trip over each other’s feet.
“Do you wanna get out of here for a minute?” Glimmer asks, right in her ear.
Catra shivers again. “Don’t you—I mean, aren’t you supposed to—I can wait till—”
But Glimmer just laughs fondly. “There’s nothing left to do tonight besides dance. We can sneak out for a few minutes and talk, if that would help.”
Glimmer’s offering to leave the party, for a few minutes at least, for her. It feels like more than Catra should be allowed to ask for. Glimmer’s the queen. It’s her mom’s… party. Who’s also the queen. And it’s not even that she’s feeling bad, she just needs—
It’s okay to ask for what you need. Nearly everyone in her life tells her that, each about once a week. It’s helping. A little. And you don’t have to ask, Catra reminds herself. She’s offering.
“O—okay. Yeah. For a minute. It would help, thank you. I—thanks.” Glimmer gives her a light peck on the lips.
“My pleasure, silly. Come on.”
She tugs on Catra’s hand like they’re 10 years younger and pulls her towards the edge of the room. Catra thinks they might be ducking behind a pillar, but the pillar obscures a subtle door in the wall. “Staff,” Glimmer explains. “We just gotta stay out of their way.”
The service halls of the Bright Moon palace aren’t as ornate as the ballroom, of course, but they’re still a lot nicer-looking than anything in the old Fright Zone. They don’t see anyone to stay out of the way of before Glimmer pulls her through a plain wooden door that looks like any other door they’ve passed.
They’re in a small pantry Catra’s never been in before. It looks like overflow storage: Catra sees things like tea and rice here, and she knows the storeroom where she gets tea and rice is much closer to the kitchens. Glimmer hops up to sit on a barrel labeled SUGAR, crossing her legs demurely. Even in the most mundane surroundings, she lights up like a jewel when she looks at Catra.
“Hey, uh—can I kiss you in here?” Catra asks.
Glimmer cocks her head, blushing a little. “Um… you’re my girlfriend. Why wouldn’t you be able to kiss me in a pantry?”
“I just… what if someone comes in?”
“Pfft. No one ever comes in here unless it’s the day they’re restocking the kitchens. I used to hide from parties here all the time.”
It’s a cute mental picture. “With Bow?”
“No,” she smiles, “if Bow was there I’d just hang out with him. But he couldn’t make it to every party my mother had, and well, I didn’t really have any other friends, so if I got bored or overwhelmed or… whatever, just needed a break, I’d come down here for a little while.” Her smile gets wider. “And now we’re here.”
Wait, Catra thinks. So this is—this is a special place of Glimmer’s, just hers alone, and she’s sharing it with Catra? Catra’s the first person she’s ever shared it with?
Suddenly Glimmer takes a deep breath, derailing Catra’s train of thought. She’s looking at Catra from under her eyelashes, and when she’s sure she has Catra’s full attention she holds out both hands and slowly uncrosses her legs.
“Now come here and kiss me already.”
She doesn’t need to tell Catra twice. Before she even realizes she’s moved her feet, Catra’s standing in front of the barrel, Glimmer’s legs on either side of her hips and Glimmer’s hands already deep in Catra’s hair by the time their lips meet.
Catra can’t help it. After the emotionally exhausting conversation with Angella, the sensory overload of the party, and the ache that’s pummelled her heart every time she’s thought about Glimmer for the past 20 minutes or so—as soon as she feels Glimmer’s mouth against hers, a whimper of relief comes rising up from her chest and she almost swoons against Glimmer, who moans in return and just deepens the kiss.
Catra brings her arms up around Glimmer and remembers they’re in private now. She lets her thumb accidentally-on-purpose run along the bottom of one of Glimmer’s wings, and Glimmer practically convulses in her arms.
“Mmmf,” she says, pulling back from Catra for a second with a hungry look in her eyes. “Slow down, hotshot. I didn’t say we could fuck in here. And if you keep doing that…” Then she goes back to kissing Catra breathless.
Right. I’m getting a lot of that tonight, Catra thinks, with an odd mix of pride and despair: she’s so hot she’s driving both her girlfriends wild, but they’re somewhere they can’t do anything about it. Still, she doesn’t need to get Glimmer off, she just needs her, and this is more than enough.
Glimmer’s kisses get a little slower, a little less intense, and she presses her lips against Catra’s one last lingering time before reaching up to stroke the line of her jaw.
“I love you,” she says with a happy sigh. “Do you want to talk about…”
It takes Catra a couple of seconds to remember why they came in here in the first place. “Right. Um, yeah. Yeah.” She steals one more quick peck on the lips. “I needed a break too, right. So I went outside for some fresh air. And… yeah. I ran into your mom. And we talked. And she was way too fucking nice to me, Glimmer, what did you say to her.”
First Glimmer lets out a shocked little gasp, then a peal of laughter. “Catra…” She smooths her thumb against Catra’s cheek one more time and then reaches down to take Catra’s hand. “Okay. Let’s start with your personal definition of ‘way too fucking nice.’ You knew she wasn’t going to punish you.”
“No, I knew that, you and Adora talked me into that, I just… I guess I wasn’t expecting her to… care? Not at first, I mean. I was trying to be optimistic about the future, but… not before we ever even talked. And she said you’d talked about me. So like… what on all the islands of hell did you say?”
Glimmer answers her with a kiss, then another one, then another, much longer one. Catra’s about to pull away and accuse her of avoiding the question when Glimmer breaks off first. The little pantry they’re in is lit by magic lanterns set into the ceiling, but Catra thinks Glimmer’s smile could light the whole palace all by itself.
“I told her the truth, Catra. I told her our story. Yours and mine and Adora’s. Adora talked to her a couple of times too. And Bow talked about you for like an hour the other day.” This is not helping Catra’s head spin less.
“I told her you saved me,” Glimmer continues. “You sacrificed yourself to get me off Horde Prime’s ship and save Adora. Adora told her… what happened after, and how we rescued you. How you and Melog got us home. Bow talked about how cute your space helmet was. I’m kidding! I’m kidding, don’t look at me like that.” She gives Catra a conciliatory kiss and runs her fingers through Catra’s hair, scratching her fingernails against Catra’s scalp until she purrs, notices she’s purring, then stops purring but starts blushing.
“Bow talked about how hard you’ve been working. To heal, and change, and grow, and connect with people. We all talked about that. I don’t know everything my dad said, but if it’s anything like what he says about you around me, it was mostly about how bad he feels that you got hurt digging up that horrible plant.” Catra can’t help but laugh a little at that. Micah seems to have more lasting trauma from the dreadbalm incident than she does.
“Catra, I—” And this time she cups Catra’s face in both of her hands, looking right in her eyes. “You are surrounded by people who love you, do you understand that?” Catra tries to shake her head, because that doesn’t sound like something that could ever happen to her, but Glimmer’s hands are actually holding her pretty firmly. I see what you did there, Sparkles.
“I love you, Catra.” She punctuates it with a hard kiss on Catra’s lips. “Adora loves you more than anything in the universe. Bow loves you. Perfuma loves you. My dad loves you. My mom—if she doesn’t love you yet, and she might—she definitely will.”
Glimmer kisses Catra again, slow this time, and sweet, and when she pulls back her eyes are shining a little.
“Things are different now, Catra. You’re different. We’re all different. And you’re so fucking loved. Okay?”
Conveniently, Glimmer’s tight hold on Catra’s head still allows her to nod in agreement. Her vision is starting to get a little blurry, but Glimmer’s standing close enough that Catra can still see the look in her eyes.
You’re so fucking loved.
Catra thinks back on the past month or so of her life. She’s been so focused on picking out things for her daily gratitude journaling that the part of her brain that looks for unpleasantness feels a little rusty when she tries to put it into conscious use. Bad things—not terrible, but not great—have happened to her. And every single time, someone—often more, but at least one—was there for her. To literally, physically catch her; to listen to the things that would have burned her up from the inside if she couldn’t speak them; to remind her that things are different, she’s different, she’s loved.
It feels like a gargantuan effort not to cry, but Catra’s up to the task.
“Okay,” she says, and kisses Glimmer one more time.