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Adora, Catra thinks, is the worst drunk.
The perks of growing up as an orphan can be counted on one hand: Aside from Saturdays spent with a clunky TV and the never ending stream of cartoons for every age because nobody simply cared enough to make you do something else, there were a whole bunch of children to choose from to become the one and only person you trusted enough for the first tentative friendship in your formative years.
Of course, in Catra’s case, that one friend from childhood turned out to be a people’s person who got along with no matter who. Of course that one friend is the person that breaks your habit of Saturday mornings working and streaming cartoons and eating unhealthy amounts of cereal for the first time in a while. And they don’t even make you regret it for the first half of it.
In conclusion, Adora’s ability to defy social status is the only reason Catra is here now, and why she, her wacky temper and Adora are currently braving a party full of college students even though it’s the last place Catra thinks they’d fit in.
It doesn’t matter that speaking from a strictly legal point of view, there’s no reason they should be drunk. Catra and Adora both only hit their twenties this year, birthdays three months apart from each other, usually celebrated together with the inglorious exception of this year, and both without a drop of those toxicating liquids that smell bad and taste worse.
One month later, in a stride to redeem what was considered broken of their relationship, they decided to come here and get both a little intoxicated.
It’s not as if being one year short counts on college grounds, Catra tells herself.
At least that’s what she’s ought to know from rows of b-rated, college kids movies that depict college life blissfully with parties, alcohol and drama, and the suspicious absence of any school work.
The reality doesn’t seem too far off.
“God, Prof. D sent me an e-mail and totally called me out on that one argument—”
“If I don’t take our student alliance to another level, my mother will totally hear about it. Ugh, she’s so controlling, why can’t she stay out of my college life, I—”
“And then that girl showed me her flower garden. But it was a code word for weed. Boy, I didn’t see that coming—”
Catra half-heartedly listens to conversations she’s not part of and feigns ignorance to those college kids’ lame worries, coolly leaning against the wall and scrolling instagram. She barely processes what her eyes see, her thumb only succumbing to a motion that makes her look busy and unapproachable, and not bored and socially anxious.
It could be easy to get to talk to someone here, after all, they are all young and impressionable like she once was, and so desperate for social contacts (which she isn’t, she tells herself). Not a single of their chosen conversation topics connects to Catra in any way.
She does take pride in her life as working class with a well-paid job, but an hour in there’s nothing she’d want more than to leave the party again.
With Adora alone, she never felt that self-conscious about never going to college. And maybe there’s something about those college students — that unadmirable air of unchallenged self-esteem — that keeps her on edge for a reason.
Catra doesn’t feel too bad, though. She’s been scrolling on instragram long enough now to realize that these students aren’t more special than regular people in any way.
For one, they all have three things in common: They are young, stupid, and drunk off their ass. The single one joy Catra had in the first two minutes of coming to the party together with Adora was to watch them do stupid and irrational things. For example, that drunk guy Kyle that started a fight with Lonnie, only to run crying to the bathroom when Lonnie as much as looked him into the eye.
At the beginning, Adora had put her hand at the dip of Catra’s back and guided her through, and they laughed together about all the people Adora knew and apparently knew her back.
They danced together, and even though Adora kept laughing and joking and Catra humored her, it felt special in some ways that Catra didn’t dare to grasp. Adora had looked at her, really her for once. And Catra wanted to bathe in that feeling forever.
They’ve stood in a corner together, and Adora kept hovering close, leaning into Catra’s space in a way that would anger her if it were anyone else. But with Adora’s stupidly beautiful face in sight, and her toned biceps in display, Catra wouldn’t complain.
At some point, Adora leaned against the wall next to Catra, and the warmth of her side pressed against her, the tickle of the blonde hair neatly kept in a ponytail on Catra’s ears and cheek, and the heaviness of Adora’s head on hers did their rest to positively drive her crazy. Catra could have drowned in that feeling forever, just them, the rhythmic beats of the music, the dim lights, the smell of cheap beer and Adora’s hair wash. But then Catra doesn’t pay attention for two moments, and the whole evening takes a gigantic turn.
Out of all the drunk kids at this party, it turns out, Adora is the worst of them.
Adora is too popular with everyone for her own good, and when Catra comes back from the toilet, she immediately knows why it’s her downfall.
Everyone loves Adora, her stupid blond hair and blue eyes, and the fact that she’s a goddamn show-off who does the over-the-head keg-thing five minutes after being left alone.
It’s a goddamn show.
Catra comes closer to the sound of a whole crowd of people shouting her friend’s name: “Adora! Adora! Adora!” She stops herself short before joining in, by reflex.
She watches Adora, head-over-heels in the literal sense, chugging the beer down rapidly. It runs down her chin and her exposed abs, and Catra pretty quickly realizes that she can’t be the only one at the party who ogles them guiltily. Adora flexes her arms — one girl who’s really overdoing pink by having dyed her hair the color on top of being completely dressed in it swoons — right before she signals someone that she’s done.
The shouting only dies down when two buff women carefully help put Adora down to the ground, supporting her while she staggers on the spot for a moment. Then she regains balance, drums on her chest, and lets out a burp so loud that someone from across the room jolts up in surprise.
Catra’s neatly tucked away shame comes rolling back and hits her in the face.
That’s the girl you like, it taunts her.
There’s a small smile forming its way on Catra’s face when she paves her way back to Adora. It was pretty funny, but that doesn’t distract her from the slight horror that is the amount of random people who clap Adora’s shoulder in a reassuring and proud way, and then push shots into her hand in a second motion. Oh no.
Before Catra can reach her, more people push their way into her vision. “Adora!” a girl calls out for Catra’s best — and if she’s honest — only friend in the world, and waves at her enthusiastically from the other side. While Adora hasn’t noticed her yet, too drunk and focused on a conversation right next to her, Catra gives the girl a cold look and musters the colorful pink fluffy hair on top with disdain. She might be keeping the pink at bay unlike that other girl, but Catra definitely recognizes her as the one with the deafening wank-talk about her mom earlier.
Catra scrunches her nose.
She looks to her front again again, through small glimpses in between the crowd of people, where Adora takes another sip of her drink, likewise turning her head to Catra. As soon as their eyes meet, Catra feels as if the whole party around them stopped existing altogether, and the only thing she notices is Adora’s perfect face and her stupid, stupid, drunk smile, and her gentle, blue eyes.
“Hey, Catra,” Adora grins, and raises her hand. Catra feels her heart stop.
She doesn’t realize that her feet started walking on their own, and only notices when Adora finds her way to her. One foot apart from her, Catra opens her mouth to return something, but all her usual witty responses are wiped from her brain.
“Adora!” The pink-haired girl calls out again, this time right next to her. She must have stumbled through the drunk dudebros on Adora’s right side with sheer force, her sudden reappearance saving Catra from saying, or even doing something really stupid.
She looked beautiful, Catra thinks to herself. Then: Stupid Adora.
The girl with the pink hair pushes herself into Adora’s sight. Catra catches a quick glance at her face: It’s round and looks like it was basically dipped in glitter.
“Oh!” Adora looks up with a jolt, the movement almost making her drop the current cup she’s holding (courtesy of whoever patted her shoulder last). “Glimmer!” Adora’s eyes flick back to Catra’s face, then to the tiny figure in front of her. “Almost didn’t see you there!”
The goofy smile on Adora’s face makes Glitter, no, Glimmer’s heart nowhere clench as hard as Catra’s.
No, Glimmer only wears a look of impatience, lips pursed and eyebrows drawn deep into her face. She comes straight to her point. “Have you seen Bow?”
Adora takes a quick glance around, setting her cup aside. “Off with Perfuma. I think.”
Glimmer groans, slapping her hands against her face. “God, Adora, I—“
But whatever Sparkles wants to say, she swallows it. “Do you mind if I stay with you tonight?” Her eyes are pleading when she looks at Adora.
“Please don’t,” Catra says, faster than her brain can think. One look at Adora makes her rethink her phrasing. “...that’s what I would say if I wasn’t an extrovert and didn’t just love funky sleepovers.” Glimmer squints at her, and Catra offers a fruitless, “Yay!”
If Glimmer was happy about Catra taking a 180° turn, she doesn’t show it. “What’s her deal?” she asks, with a questioning look at Adora.
Adora’s face looks drunker by the second. “Catra?” she asks, as if it wasn’t obvious who Sparkles just talked about. Then, in an all-too-obvious manner, she answers the question. “Oh, she’s just mean.”
Catra throws her a look of betrayal that gets angrier when Sparkles snorts. She’s not sacrificing the first sleepover they had in a while where she and Adora could get closer again to becoming good friends for Sparkle’s lame-ass relationship issues. How does that make her mean?
“Don’t look at me like that,” Adora complains, nose scrunched. “You didn’t talk to me a whole year—“
“And I said I’m sorry!” Catra interrupts before they can go through that again. Everything but making Catra’s life crisis and her pushing Adora away as a result their conversation topic—
“Oh, that.” Glimmer shrugs. “Kind of an old story.”
“Huh?” Catra spits.
Glimmer crosses her arms in front of her chest. “If I’m honest, I expected to hear another explanation,” she says, with emphasis on ‘another’.
All of a sudden, the banter with Adora is forgotten. Catra takes a step closer, looking threatening to overplay the fact that she feels threatened. “What are you talking about, Sparkles?” She punctuates every word.
Catra watches as Glitter uses the back of her hand to wipe self-consciously over her face, then rolls her eyes. “Well,” she huffs, “the way Adora talked about you, I just assumed that—“
Until just now, Adora was lingering in the back as the two girls talked, watching with lidded eyes and supporting her swaggering body with a hand against the table. But all of a sudden, life comes back into her, and her hand, that roughly slaps Glimmer’s mouth closed, so that only a muffled “hrmpfh!” makes it through.
Adora certainly didn’t want it to hurt, but Glimmer looks at her outraged.
“Assumed what?” Catra asks dumbfoundedly, but Adora’s eyes are panicked, flicking back and forth.
“Uh—“
Catra frowns, turns to Glimmer. “Told you what?”
The silent exchange Catra witnesses between Glimmer and Adora is anything but subtle. Worse, right after Glimmer’s lips get tight and she presses out a thin “Nothing!”
Catra looks at Adora again. Whatever she had told Glimmer, it can’t be good. Catra’s heart drops in her chest, and she bites her lips. “Whatever,” she states, and flees, just like she had one year ago.
As it turns out, college parties aren’t to be just easily left.
Catra takes two turns right and finds herself in the same friend circle of a bunch of dudes that try to flick cheetos from their palms into each other’s mouths. They look too much alike, almost like frat dude clones.
“Ugh, gross.” Catra shoves herself in another direction, not ready to admit that the house party is in a too big house for her to find the exit.
She’s also a little drunk. And nurturing her guilty conscience, while she’s already at it, worrying if Adora’s friends are good people who wouldn’t leave her here at this party full of weirdos, alone and drunk. Like Catra did.
Catra pushes the thought away when she finally spots the door that promises sweet freedom, but it turns out to be the door to the winter garden of Bow’s - who’s Bow? - parents. They, according to Bow’s friend, a lanky blonde lady with a self-crafted flower crown, would hate for anyone they don’t trust completely to pass through the winter garden where their sacred biological experiments and a ton of artifacts lay, that otherwise would have been trashed by the party guests by now.
With an angry grunt, Catra turns around, back to her never ending front-door-search.
After the third time passing by the frat dude clones, Catra praises therapy for giving her the tools she needs to cool down a little and rethink the talk from earlier. Maybe it was too much to go feral and assume whatever Glitter and Adora talk about her — behind her back, namely — must be something negative.
She’s already working on her anger issues, okay? Babysteps.
For now, Catra decides that she should at least check in if Adora’s still fine. When she looks over the crowd of people, balancing on the tip of her toes, she spots Sparkles, but no obnoxiously beautiful blonde right beside her.
“Adora?” Glimmer says when Catra moves to ask her. “Oh no… Fuck! Catra, she was just standing here a minute ago. GODDAMIT ADORA!” she shouts. “I should have known that she’d wandered off as soon as she stopped talking about,” she mocks Adora’s voice unsuccessfully, “Catra’s favorite number!”
“Why would she...oh my god, that’s so, uh. My favorite—”
Glimmer tilts her head, throwing a curious gaze at her. Catra stops short. “It’s irrelevant,” she breathes, and tightens her hand into a fist.
Glimmer blinks at her for a moment. “You too should really—” But she trails off before she finishes her sentence, shakes her head and turns to search for their collective friend.
Panic sets in for Catra too. Adora always looked out for her, but Catra left her drunk at the party. She wanders upstairs first, takes a look down from the top of the stairs, but she’s nowhere to be seen. The rooms upstairs are private — obvious since the lack of people there — but Catra suspects Adora could have entered any one of them. Unlike Catra, Adora is a ray of sunshine who likes speaking to people. Like Catra, her daily limit of people is sometimes quickly filled.
It’s the third door Catra slams open without a polite knocking first, and she finds Adora, curled up against the foot of a luxurious pink bed. The bed is soft and frilly, and looks like it’s right out of a cheesy disney movie, and nothing Catra or Adora would ever want to sleep on.
“Floor more comfortable?” Catra asks casually, stepping into the room and closing the door behind her. Adora barely looks at her, head hung deep between her shoulder blades.
“Catra?” she asks hopefully.
“Sure is me.” Catra moves to sit next to her. She tries not to let on how concerned she is.
“I-” Adora takes a deep, steadying breath, buries a hand into her hair, and messes up her usual perfect pigtail as a result. “I think I drank too much.”
“Duh.” Catra answers, but still takes Adora’s hand. She can’t help the prominent concern in her voice when she follows with, “Do you think you’re brain damaged?”
It makes Adora drunk-chuckle. It’s not as devastating as Adora’s usual laugh, Catra finds. Only cuter.
“No, no. No, Doktor Catra.”
“Okay.” Catra waits for a few moments, watching Adora’s head lull back and forth. “Let’s get you some water, princess.”
Catra’s about to lift herself up from the ground, when Adora grips her wrist tighter. “Wait.” Adora takes another deep breath, before her smile becomes mushy.
“You haven’t called me that in a long time.”
In an instant, Catra’s breath is taken away. Adora finally looks at her, eyes wide and shiny, blonde hair a mess. It all makes up for the sour, slightly bitter beer breath swaggering from her plush pink lips over to Catra. Catra easily loses herself in her eyes for a few seconds without even noticing it.
She’s so beautiful.
Oh, if Catra only knew how to stop this.
“Well. I don’t call you that because I like you.”
It’s a weak defence, but with good effect. Adora’s taken aback for a moment, blinking, mouth opening and closing. But then she gets that goofy jock grin that only fits a girl who’d do stupid things like keg stands or steal Catra’s heart in one swift move, without her ever noticing, and holding it captive.
And Catra hates her, hates her, so furiously.
“I don’t like you at all. Just so you know, you dumb jock.” She only wishes that part was true.
“Oh. Yeah?” Adora draws the question in that one word out, and leans back with a bratty grin.
“I see you are better,” Catra says in a high, artificial voice. “Which means we can go downstairs and get you water—”
Adora smiles, now eyes closed. “You came back for me.”
In Catra’s eyes, Adora’s not collaborating at all, not even at the expense of Catra’s dignity which she… oh, which she’s very afraid to lose, always was afraid to lose, when it came to Adora.
It’s just too easy to love her. Everyone does. Everyone wants to be her or with her. Catra knows, those feelings aren’t special. Catra knows those ugly feeling is what put them once to the point of separation with no return.
Before she can deny it or say that even she could not stomach the guilt if Adora had something happen to her, Adora’s smile crumbles.
“One year Catra, after you walked out on me. And all I wanted for you was to come back.”
Catra’s heart starts, and her body grows cold. “Didn’t take long for you to replace me at all,” she retorts, anger boiling hard in her stomach when she sees Adora’s clueless face. “Look at all your friends.” Catra can’t help that hot, warm jealousy flooding her body.
It’s always been an issue. First Lonnie, at the orphanage. Then her new friends. Adora did not bat an eye when Catra had told her about Scorpia and, ohgod, her stupid crush on Catra. Adora had just muttered and stuttered like an imbecile and ended it with saying that she was happy for her. Adora didn’t know that kind of jealousy.
And she definitely didn’t want Catra like Catra wants her.
Adora’s hand squeezing hers takes some of the anger away. “I, uh. I—” Adora mutters, the slur obvious in even those simple words. “I still want to be friends with you.”
“Great,” Catra says, and doesn’t mean to make it so sarcastic. But Adora looks hurt, and it’s worse when she’s drunk. “I mean. Uh. It is.”
For a few moments, the silence of the room feels deafening.
“I don’t get what’s your problem,” Adora huffs, the alcohol fuelling her anger. “A year ago you stopped talking to me, now you’re back in my life. But you’re still not talking to me.”
Catra frowns at her. “I said I’m sorry—” she starts, but Adora interrupts her, pulling her hand back.
“You’ve said so, but you’ve never explained why.”
Catra could stay composed. She’s arguing with a drunk, and nothing good ever comes out of that. Especially if it’s Adora, who can be fire and water at once, but most of the time is a genuinely, genuinely good person. Someone Catra wants to treasure. That’s why she can never know—
“Don’t you get it?” Catra shouts. “I was jealous!”
“What?” Adora yells back, eyes wide.
Shit.
There it is. There’s no turning back now. And it’s all because of this dumb stupid party, or because of Catra’s dumb feelings.
“Who are you jealous of?” Adora asks now, voice softer. She takes Catra’s hand again, face back to her drunk-slash-mom-self.
“I don’t know,” Catra groans, hand against her palm.There’s little to nothing to lose at this point if she keeps pushing Adora away.
“Huntara,” she tries after a while where they both bathe in silence, low thump of the downstairs bass sounding muffled from beneath them.
All of a sudden, the words seem to hit her and Adora barks a laugh. “What?” She looks so surprised. “Why?”
“You keep ogling her muscles,” Catra presses out between clenched teeth. “And I don’t have them.” She might as well give herself a death blow now. “Not a muscular lady,” she adds and points at herself.
Adora’s eyes shift to Catra’s visible biceps in that black crop top she wore tonight, and then slowly up to Catra’s eyes again. “I, uh—” she stutters. “Why would you be jealous of that? I like your muscles just fine, I mean—”
Suddenly, Catra’s boiling and confused feelings are wiped away, and something else hot and flaming rushes in. Adora’s red. She’s getting red, completely, tomato-red. And she keeps looking at Catra’s biceps, at her face and even at her stomach, only to realize that much in horror a split-second later, until she simply hides her face.
“Adora,” Catra coos, and decides for once in her life, to take the leap. “Don’t you get it?” She bites her lips, closes her eyes for a moment, before she looks at Adora, as open and vulnerable as she can manage. “I like you.”
Only slowly, Adora lets her hands sink again.
For a moment, they both look at each other. Catra’s heart pumps blood harder than an underground fountain pump, or harder than Adora pumped beer into her mouth earlier. A part of her wants to recoil, wants to laugh it off as a joke.
But another knows it’s been going on for too long. She’s only going to hurt Adora again if she’s not coming clean now.
Part of Catra has a last strand of hope that she holds onto. That in some crazy way Adora could love a fuck-up like Catra just as much as her. That some part of Adora doesn’t see her as someone she has to protect anymore, but someone that is… her equal.
“I’m having a drunk fever dream, don't I?” Adora says, blinking at Catra.
There’s nothing else. But it’s not as if Catra didn’t know how it would go.
“We’re going home,” she declares and stands. Adora completely looks like a basket case at this point, staring at Catra with her mouth going slack.
“Catra, you,” Adora starts, standing with weak legs. “I—”
Tonight, Catra simply cannot take rejection. Instead, she takes Adora’s hand and pulls her with her, out of the room, back to the disorientating sounds of a party in full swing.
“Let’s find your friend Sparkles for now. She’s been worrying her tits off.”
“Catra, no.”
Adora looks at her with a firm look, and in an instant, Catra’s grip loosens. Catra’s not prepared for the way Adora pulls her back, and staggers into her arms. Now she’s got no chance but looking at Adora, who in turn focuses on Catra. Suddenly, Catra feels smaller than ever before.
“What?” Catra spits.
The frown on the blonde’s face deepens, and she looks like she’s getting sick. “I can’t kiss you now,” Adora says, completely out of context.
“What?” Catra shouts, and Adora’s arms tighten around her automatically. Of every way that she could have told Catra she wasn’t interested, that somehow feels like the worst.
Catra tries to fight herself free, but to no avail. Adora doesn’t let go.
“Wait, Catra,” she slurs, “I can’t kiss you when I’m drunk.”
Mhm. Catra goes slack in her arms, cocks her head. “Why—”
“You know why,” Adora sighs, face slightly green. “I love you, too.”
“Adora—” Catra breathes, and for a moment, she can’t realize that this is really happening. She lunges forward, instantly, and Adora lets her, hands fitting on her hips like they’ve always belonged there. “Adora, I—” Catra starts again, looks into her blue, slightly dizzy eyes.
Catra’s hands sling around Adora’s necks as if they’ve always belonged there, and draw her closer with the next heartbeat.
For a moment, everything is bliss. The bass drops, but it doesn’t quite reach them and certainly not Catra who’s all too occupied with pressing her lips against Adora’s. The blonde swallows a surprised gasp, and her arms circle around Catra’s embrace her gently. A million thoughts race in Catra’s mind, but they are gone at once, when Adora thumbs over Catra’s bare shoulders, and deepens the kiss.
With how they are standing and kissing, every concept of time is lost. Catra just wants to keep going, keep chasing that sweet feeling. Adora likes her—
Adora actually, really—
She—
“Oh god,” Catra hears someone say right next to her as her lips are still locked with Adoras.
“I mean. Uh. There you are!”
Of course it’s Sparkles. And the guy, who Catra reckons must be Bow, stands right next to her.
Adora breaks the kiss, eyes shifting to the side. “Oh. Hah. Hahah. Yeah.” At least she’s not looking like she’s going to throw up at any possible moment any more. The parts of her face that looked green only a few moments before, were now completely red.
“Aw,” Bow says. Then the four of them just stand there, awkwardly.
“So, I know we just met but I already adore this lil’ cat bracelet you’re wearing. Catra right?”
Catra looks to Adora, who’s smile could not be wiped off her face even if she tried to. Adora shrugs, and then smiles some more.
“Pleasure,” Catra nods. Bow smiles. The longer he upholds the frozen grin in his face, the worse it gets. At some point Catra suspects he’s not smiling at all.
“Before we get further into this really interesting conversation,” Bow, eyes shifting to the women in front of him and back to the party, “my dads just called and they’ll be back soon.”
“Oh,” Adora says.
“Yikes,” Catra agrees.
“And if that wasn’t enough,” Bow continues, his voice reaching a tone so high it starts to hurt Catra’s ears, “someone slapped over Alplanto!”
Catra frowns.
“The plant,” Glimmer whispers.
“They were not supposed to go into the winter garden!” Bow blusters.
Glimmer chimes in, clearly not as stressed as Bow. “ Anyways! Bow’s dads are going be here in like, half an hour. And this place looks trashed.”
Catra knows exactly where that’s going. She ruffles one hand through her hair and points at Adora with the other. “Well, we both have to go back. I’m working Sundays! I know that’s incomprehensible for a college student's brain, but Adora promised to take me back.”
It’s one of her easy and good lies. No way Catra would stay with those people and tidy up this whole house. But Adora puts a hand on her shoulder and smiles.
“Catra, it’s time for you to officially meet everyone.”
At the happy whooping and cheering from both Bow and Glimmer, Catra realizes three things.
One: Adora is an absolute idiot.
Two: Adora’s her idiot.
Three: Tidying up is decidedly more fun when you’re cleaning up with friends and your girlfriend who'll dance with you to Lionel Richie, and when there's the promise of kisses as a compensation which Catra cashes in on. All night long.