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A week before sophomore year, there’s a flu outbreak in the South Side dorms at Bright Moon Campus: overly concerned parents screaming at overworked administrative workers on the phone, hordes of students sent home, mass hysteria on various levels that have Catra’s admittedly minimal faith in humanity dwindling at a truly unforeseen pace—the works.
All uncontaminated South Side residents are either sent home, or promptly transferred over to the nearest bougie-as-hell hotel—Crystal Castle Resort—for the next 14 days awaiting further developments.
There would be two students assigned to each room, which Catra found kind of strange. Wasn’t isolation from other people supposed to be the whole point of quarantine? But, whatever. She’ll digress.
In most cases, the duos would be randomly assigned. If, however, yourself and another student living in South Side were savvy enough to submit coinciding ‘Roommate Request’ forms to Bright Moon’s housing department at least 24 hours before move-in, you could most likely have your choice of bunkmate throughout the stay.
Had this been happening a year earlier, she’d have easily ended up with Scorpia as her roommate for the 14-day quarantine. But as it was, Scorpia had forfeited her spot at South Side (in a three-person suite with Catra and Entrapta) over the summer in favor of choosing to live with her girlfriend Perfuma over in the off-campus Plumeria apartments a couple miles out… Ergo, no quarantine for her, just a mandated county-wide lockdown requiring her to socially distance herself (along with Perfuma) until the order was lifted.
Entrapta, meanwhile, had hopped on a train back to Dryl the very moment her parents had caught wind of the campus-wide epidemic.
Which meant Catra had no use for a ‘Roommate Request’ form. Instead, she’d be rooming with someone she didn’t know and probably wouldn’t even like. A rando, a complete stranger.
Catra didn’t do well with complete strangers.
Honestly, she didn’t do well with people in general.
She was still about 99% sure convinced that her friendship with Scorpia and Entrapta was nothing more than a fluke, because Scorpia and Entrapta were like Manx cats, all cuddly and playful and full of life, and Catra was… well. Catra was Catra, and that didn’t fit. She didn’t fit.
Or, at least, she shouldn’t have.
And yet…
Whatever.
Point being—she didn’t ‘like' people, okay? And people didn’t ‘like' her.
So, her plan is as follows. She’ll show up for this stupid 14-day lockdown, try to do as much sleeping as she possibly can (thereby avoiding any meaningless small talk with her new bunk-buddy), and if she’s lucky (which she rarely ever is), it’ll be done before she even knows it.
And that's just fine, as far as she's concerned. Absolutely fine.
— —
She checks in to the hotel on a Tuesday afternoon. It’s kind of late, she supposes—4:04pm, according to a digital clock at the front desk. Still, they’d given all students a wide time frame for arrival (12:00pm - 5:00pm), so it’s not like she’s late late, or anything.
And yet, the tall ginger desk clerk seems less than pleased with her right off the bat. After giving her a bored once-over, he’s thrusting a pair of pink-and-purple-striped hotel keys her way along with two sheets of bulleted information, then informing her in a clipped nasally tone that she’s the last student from Bright Moon to arrive.
She takes the keys and the two sheets of paper, resists the urge to flash Carrot Top a snarl. Hell, she even manages a (somewhat) polite “Thank you” before she’s traipsing off in search of the elevators with her two suitcases in tow. (Really, she deserves a fucking medal for that.)
She bypasses a gleaming escalator, three ornate gilded chandeliers dangling from the ceiling, and a real-life cascading indoor fountain made of smooth obsidian-black stone and flowing water that gleams like molten gold in the afternoon sunlight.
It’s insane. It’s ostentatious, and brazen; a truly garish display of wealth and opulence… but then again, most everything on this side of the Whispering Woods is.
Catra refuses to be cowed by it.
No, instead, she strides swiftly across the shiny granite floors of the entrance hall with a confidence she doesn’t quite feel. Hits the ‘UP’ button at the elevators and impatiently taps her foot waiting for her ride like she’s bored rather than unnerved—anything to reassure herself (and whoever else might be watching) that she is bigger than all of these riches; that she has earned the right to be here.
The golden elevator doors slide open with a pleasant ding! a second later, and she’s glad for something else to focus on.
She hangs back to allow the carriage's singular occupant (a middle-aged woman with a bob-cut and a terse expression) time to dismount. Then she’s clambering hastily inside, lugging either 40-pound suitcase behind her with a not-insignificant degree of effort.
The number ‘806’ is scrawled across her card sleeve in sloppy black ink. She takes that to mean the 8th floor, and hits the corresponding button. It’s silver, and shiny, and she can’t help but feel as if she’s sullying it with her grimy paws—which is silly, because it’s just a fucking button.
The rest of the elevator’s interior is much the same—fancy as all fuck. Catra finds herself glaring around at it like it’s spectacularly wronged her in some completely unforgivable way all throughout the short ride up.
The golden doors open up about ten seconds later to a reception area that’s much the same—glamorous and gaudy, all spotless carpeting and gilded wallpaper and a bunch of those fancy indoor lights lining the walls all around.
Catra resolutely refuses to pay it any mind.
She follows the arrows, glances once more at her room key to make sure she’s on the correct path, and finds herself outside room number 806 in a matter of seconds.
She almost knocks like an idiot before she remembers that this is her room (… well, hers and her mystery roommate’s).
She swipes the key, watches the card reader blink green, and pushes open the door with a quiet sigh.
Here goes nothing.
— —
She damn near claws her own eyes out when she lays eyes upon who she’s rooming with: A messy high ponytail, golden-blonde hair strewn across the stark white sheets; a lithe, muscular, half-naked back rising and falling with every languorous breath; an expensive-looking lacrosse stick leant up against the nearest wall alongside a battered sky-blue backpack (with the surname ‘ETERNIUM' stitched across the front pocket in white thread) that Catra would know anywhere…
She barely gets three steps into the room when the full weight of it hits her like a sack of fucking bricks, and she prays that the ground beneath will open up and swallow her whole. Her roommate… is Adora.
Goody two-shoes, infuriatingly self-righteous, D1-lacrosse scholarship Adora with bright blue eyes like the sunlit ocean and toned drool-worthy muscles for days.
Catra’s ex-foster sister, ex-best friend, ex-…. something.
Her ex-… Adora is sprawled face-first on the covers like she hasn’t a care in the world. She lets out audible snores on every exhale, her face turned out towards the window, leaving Catra to gape down at her stupid ponytail, jaw hanging open in abject horror.
No, no, no, no, no, no—
She leaves her suitcases by the door, pounces up onto the vacant bed (the nearer of the two, thankfully), snatches the plastic black phone off its cradle.
She jams the small rectangular button that reads ‘Front Desk’ when she finds it, then tucks her knees up to her chest and holds the phone tightly against her ear, praying that someone will pick up soon.
A second later, and—
“Hello, this is Marsha at the front desk. How can I help you today?”
“Hi. Um, I’m Catra,” Catra chokes out awkwardly, then damn near smacks herself in the forehead for sounding so stupid. “I’m in room 806, on lockdown with the Bright Moon University program?”
“Yep, I have your reservation down for room 806 right here, funded by BMU. What seems to be the problem?”
Catra chances a nervous glance over at Adora, who’s still snoring peacefully across the covers. (And seriously—a sports bra and grey joggers and nothing else? She can’t be serious right now… ) “Well, um, I was wondering if it’d be possible to, like… switch rooms?”
“Oh, did you find something wrong with the suite? It looks like your roommate, Adora Eternium, already filled out the room check paperwork and reported that all facilities were in working order… "
Catra clenches her jaw at the mention of Adora. “No, there’s nothing wrong with the room, I just… would like a different roommate, or to be by myself.”
“I’m so sorry, but you’ll have to take that up with University. They’ve only paid for so many rooms, and as is, every spot has been filled. Even so, I’d wager it’d be hard to switch accommodations now that the University’s 14-day lockdown has already begun.”
“Right,” Catra says, hating the way her voice wavers. “Right, that makes sense. Um.. Thank you.”
“Absolutely, Miss, and feel free to let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Bye-bye.”
“Bye.”
Catra drops the phone back in its cradle with a heavy sigh.
Great, she thinks, watching the gradual rise and fall of Adora’s stupidly muscular back with narrowed eyes. Just great.
— —
She lasts about an hour or so before deciding she might as well just bite the proverbial bullet.
Thus, the next ten minutes or so are spent playing a game she’d just made up called ‘Let’s see how many books and random doodads I can stack on Adora’s back without them falling or her waking up.’
The answer? Two Advanced Calculus textbooks (both hers and Adora’s) on her lower back, both mini hotel-issue bottles of water beneath either shoulder blade; the quintessential hardcover King James’ Bible atop the textbooks, the insulated ice bucket sitting nearby, the coffee pot, the TV remote, a First-Ones-English dictionary (Adora’s), and exactly three bars of soap from the very nice bathroom in the suite.
Catra places each one as carefully as she can manage. All the while, Adora remains dead to the world—face smushed adorably into the covers, back muscles twitching hypnotically, light mewling snores leaving her on every lax exhale.
And then—
Three sharp knocks against wood. “Room service!” a male voice booms through the door. Catra whirls around in place with about a half a second to register what that means for—
“Waaaah!” a half-asleep Adora exclaims suddenly, voice muffled against the sheets, and—
The books hit the ground with a series of thunks; the water bottles follow after with twin thuds. All other objects clatter across the hardwood in thundering discordant harmony—which makes for a truly spectacular (and hair-raising) cacophony of noise that makes Catra’s ears flatten against her head. Fuck.
“One second!” Catra calls back, cringing at the way her squeaky voice cracks mid-way through.
“Catra?” comes Adora’s perfect drowsy voice from behind, and Catra feels like curling into a ball beneath her bed and never coming out again. “What're you—?"
Without a backwards glance, Catra bounds over to the door, wrenches it open and glares at the pimply-faced teen on their doorstep. He’s got floppy brown hair, thin lips, and a blue-and-purple Crystal Castle employee uniform. In either hand, he carries a brown paper lunch bag stained with grease.
“Um… hi,” the boy says in an unusually low voice, words muffled slightly by the black facemask which covers his nose and mouth. “I have your dinner?”
He thrusts the lunch bags out, eyes wide.
Catra takes pity on him.
“Right,” she manages, accepting them with what she hopes at least resembles an assuaging smile. “Thanks.”
“Okay, um. Enjoy!”
Catra doesn’t think she’s ever shut a door so fast in her entire life.
“Fuck,” she murmurs to herself, then pastes on a neutral expression and turns back to face an almost comically slack-jawed Adora propped up on either elbow on the bed. It’s torture, but she forces herself to walk forward despite every modicum of her being screaming for her to run away, lifting the greasy bags and flashing Adora a grimace. “So… Dinner?”
“Um… " Adora sputters dumbly, bright blue gaze darting between the greasy bags to Catra’s face and back again at warp speed. “Okay. Let’s, um… Yeah.”
“Great.”
— —
They sit cross-legged directly across from one another on either bed, matching greasy meals sitting uneaten on the circular white table between them. A truly stifling measure of tension permeates the air between them; it’s positively ripe with it, coiling its way around the base of her spine and slithering down her throat, filling her lungs with noxious gas until it burns.
“So… " Adora says eventually, like the big dork she is, poking gingerly at her cheeseburger with a greasy french fry. “We’re… roommates.”
Catra resists the urge to scoff. “Don’t think this changes anything between us.”
“Why not?” Adora pushes out her lips in a pout, looking genuinely put out. “It’s been years since—"
“Since you left?” Catra finishes for her, arms crossed stubbornly against her chest. “Yes. Yes, it has.”
Adora winces, like it hurts her. Catra hopes that it does. “That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it? You knew how bad it was back in that house, with Shadow Weaver. You knew how much she hated me, and you still left.”
Adora’s silent for a long moment. “Maybe I deserve that.”
“You do,” Catra spits, feeling her eyes burn with angry tears.
“But we’re here now,” she says, her voice bleeding with false hope. “Shadow Weaver can’t hurt us any more.”
Catra can’t help it; she scoffs, shaking her head. “God, you don’t even know, do you?”
Adora frowns, leaning almost imperceptibly forward. “Know what?”
“She broke Kyle’s leg, snapped my clavicle,” Catra rubs absentmindedly at the scarred flesh splitting the hide beneath her collarbone, shuddering at the sensation of her T-shirt’s fabric against wounded fur. “All those injuries in kids from the same house… CPS came ‘round with the police, took old Shadow Weaver away in cuffs. There was a trial… We all had to testify. In the end, she got charged with felony child abuse. The judge sentenced her to 10 years on Beast Island.”
She tucks her knees up to her chest, lets her tail curl around her shins. She feels small beyond belief right now, smaller than she’s let herself feel in a very long time. “I, um… I haven’t seen her since.”
Adora gapes. “I… Oh, my God, Catra, I’m so sorry—“
“Save it,” Catra snarls. Thankfully, Adora does. “And, you know, somehow, the asshat they sent me to afterwards was worse. Hordak the First—called himself the ‘prime’ Hordak in his more delusional fits of grandeur. A sadistic fucking bastard, even if he was batshit crazy—a good 10 times crueler than Shadow Weaver, and about 100 times better at hiding it.”
Adora swallows and lowers her gaze, a queasy expression on her noble features.
“So, you know what, Adora? I don’t want to hear it. I don’t care if you’re 'sorry.’ Sorry didn’t do shit for me then, and it won’t do shit for me now. Got it?”
Adora looks like a kicked puppy (the kind Catra aches to go and comfort, her general dislike for the dog species as a whole be damned), but manages a shaky nod. “… G-Got it.”
They eat their dinner (—well, Adora nibbles noncommittally at her food, and Catra has long since abandoned her plate entirely—) in silence.
— —
Nightfall comes fast. For that, Catra is grateful.
10:00pm sees Adora slipping into the shower, and Catra takes that as her cue to try and get some sleep.
After all, she doesn’t need Adora’s judgmental gaze upon her as she goes through her nighttime routine: Curls herself into a tight ball at the foot of the bed (the way she’s done since Adora first showed up on Shadow Weaver’s doorstep at the tender age of 7), lulls herself to sleep with soft purrs and rhythmic hums that sound a little too much like the First Ones lullabies Adora used to sing to her in the dead of night to be a coincidence.
She doesn’t need Adora witnessing all that, over-analyzing it in that big beautiful brain of hers, and drawing outlandish conclusions (even if they’re correct) about how much she meant to Catra… how much she still means to her.
Luckily, falling asleep quickly in high-stress situations is a skill she’s honed meticulously over the years. After all, it didn’t do her any good to be sleep-deprived on top of everything else back around Shadow Weaver’s creaky old house, or Hordak’s grimy apartment. Sure, sleeping was a risk—it always was.
But she’d found that Shadow Weaver wasn’t interested in messing with her beneath the cover of nightfall (‘cause she did it just fine in broad daylight), and Hordak the First wasn’t, either. (The same couldn’t be said for her previous foster parents, however.)
In minutes, she descends into a fitful sleep.
— —
She sees a younger version of herself, sprawled out across the bathroom floor, heaving soundless sobs and bleeding profusely from a cut just above her brow.
She’d run away from Shadow Weaver, fell and hit the bottom step of the staircase… with her face.
Adora’s small hands tremble as she dabs the split skin with a cotton ball soaked in cheap vodka from Rogelio’s stash out back. She winces with every whimper of pain Catra lets out, as if it’s hurting her, too.
“Promise you’ll stay?” Younger Catra whispers out, voice thick with tears.
Adora nods, blue eyes narrowed with staunch determination. “I promise.”
The scene shifts, and they’re in a grassy field—a lacrosse field. On one side, in a spray-painted circle where the opponent’s goal would sit, stands a girl with pale-pink hair and wide magenta eyes that glimmer like stars in the night sky. The grass around her is lush and green—thick with prosperity and life.
On the other side, in place of ’their’ goal, stands two tall figures shrouded in ashen-grey mist—one female, one male. One cloaked in mulberry-red robes with thin, veiny hands that end in claws; the other dressed in a pale-green polo and black trousers, bulky and broad-chested and frightening beyond words can possibly say. The grass around them is dead (or very close to it)—yellowed and brittle, utterly devoid of vitality.
And in the very center, at the mid-line circle (where Catra would watch Adora take ‘draws’ to kick off each game for her team): a conflicted Adora looking back and forth from Shadow Weaver to the sparkly girl like she’s genuinely torn... A silently crying Catra pleading with her like it’ll make a difference, begging for her to stay.
She doesn’t.
She tears off towards Sparkles like a gunshot, the dorkiest smile threatening to split her pretty face in two. If she hears the way Catra sobs and pleads and howls at her to come back, she doesn’t let on.
She looks… happy. (The kind of happy Catra thought was reserved only for the two of them.)
Catra wakes with a gasp, then stiffens immediately at the sensation of someone’s calloused palm on her upper arm, a curiously familiar touch stroking at her fur.
“Catra?” comes Adora’s voice, gravelly with sleep.
Catra clenches her jaw so tightly it begins to hurt, shrugs Adora’s hand off her shoulder. “I’m fine,” she croaks out. (It doesn’t sound all that convincing.)
“You don’t sound fine.”
Catra heaves a sigh, burrows her blushing face into her arms and prays for Adora to just leave this be. “Just go back to bed, Adora,” she grumbles into her arms.
She doesn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed when Adora does.
— —
She wakes to rhythmic grunting and a shirtless (Again?! ) Adora doing knuckle push-ups on the floor between their beds at shit o’clock in the morning. (6:37, to be precise, but whatever. Same thing.)
“What the fuuuuuck ?” she groans, popping open a single eyelid to fix a sweat-drenched Adora down on the ground with a sleepy glare.
Adora stops her push-ups (for the moment) but remains in position, giving Catra an unreadable look. “What?”
“It’s 6:30 in the morning,” Catra whines, letting her eye flutter closed.
Another grunt (which likely means another push-up). “I wanted to get my work-out done early, since we aren’t allowed out of our rooms to use the gym.”
“Do you have to do it right now ?”
A brief pause. “You know, they’ll be knocking on our door for breakfast by 7:15 anyways… "
“I don’t caaare,” Catra moans, uncaring of how whiny she sounds. Really, is nothing sacred any more? “Is sleep time, ‘Dora. Let sleep time be sleep time.”
Adora chuckles, throaty and breathless and genuine. Catra hates the way it tugs at her heartstrings. “Alright, I’ll be quiet. Maybe… listen to some music, or something.”
Catra hums, not entirely listening. “Good for you.”
— —
Adora nudges her awake at exactly 7:17, two trays filled with croissants and mini strudels and assorted fruit in hand. And suddenly, Catra doesn’t feel quite as murderous as she normally does being awoken at such an ungodly hour.
(It’s not because of Adora, obviously.
It’s just… the food, of course.
She could care less about Adora and her twitching abdominal muscles and the way her entire body is gleaming with hard-earned sweat as she settles cross-legged on the floor across from Catra to eat their breakfast together like they used to…
Ahem.
Whatever, okay? She’s not a morning person, but she likes food enough that it evens out the scales.)
“Sorry I woke you,” Adora manages around a mouthful of apple strudel, and Catra doesn’t know whether she wants to punch or kiss her. “I just wanted to—"
“To get your work-out done early—yes, I know,” Catra interjects, popping a green grape into her mouth and shooting Adora a disdainful look that almost borders on playful (to her profound chagrin). “You always were insufferably diligent.”
“You love it,” Adora says with a wink that’s a little too flirty to be genuine, and Catra feels her heart stutter in her chest.
Catra rolls her eyes, stubbornly refusing to be won over by Adora’s attempt at their familiar banter all the while finding herself simultaneously unable to resist entirely. (Goddammit, I knew this was a horrible idea.) “You wish.”
They eat in silence, then—though it’s vastly different from yesterday. It’s free of asphyxiating tension, effortless and frustratingly habitual. Above all else, it’s comfortable.
(She’ll go to her grave denying this, but Catra kind of likes it. A lot.)
— —
(Catra makes it exactly three days before she’s falling into Adora’s arms like they’re home, surrendering to the strong fingers that gently tilt her chin up until she’s meeting Adora’s warm lips in a kiss that feels far too fragile and soft to be true… but it is.
It’s everything she’d never dared to imagine—tender, and sweet, and true.
Adora’s lips taste like maple syrup and butter from their pancake breakfast, and Catra purrs into her mouth mid-kiss because she loves it—loves Adora, even if she doesn’t think she’ll ever be bold enough to say it aloud.
Don’t get her wrong. She’s still hurt and bitter and angry beyond words can say. She still has a hard time walking the line between caressing Adora’s cheek and telling her to go to hell, between big-hearted gentleness and the blue flames of molten belligerence licking at her insides, between leaning into Adora's soft touch and smacking it away like every bone in her being screams that she should.
What’s more, she thinks she’ll be struggling with that for a long while.
But for now, it’s enough—more than enough, really.
For now, it’s something alarmingly close to perfect.)
— —