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“I think sometimes when we find love, we pretend it away, or ignore it, or tell ourselves we’re imagining it. Because it’s the most painful kind of hope there is. It can be ripped away so easily.” - Rae Carson
Catra could hear her phone buzzing against the baseboard from where she had tossed it to the other side of the room. The couch was her new home. She gave it approximately four more hours before her skin started melding to the fabric. The evening was three pints of ice cream away from being a textbook breakup without any of the joy of actually knowing she had had her, for even a second. Not at least in the way she wanted.
The room was quiet except for the occasional purr from Melog when she shifted and woke him up - that was until the lock clicked open. Her blood went cold.
She had forgotten about the spare key. Fuck. Adora barged into the room. Melog hopped from his spot on Catra’s thighs and looped his way around her shins, ignoring the rain that clung to her clothes. She made eye contact with Catra and walked towards the living area. She threw her jacket onto the closest chair and sat criss-cross on the floor in front of Catra’s chosen place of moping.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“I’m not letting you freeze me out again,” Adora replied, her voice level. It was that version of detached that Catra knew meant Adora had made her mind and was sticking to it. As much as she admired Adora’s usual flavor of dedication, her stubbornness always brought out the worst in Catra. They were alike in that way.
“So that means you’re allowed to break into my apartment?”
“You gave me this key.”
Catra had first given it to her to check on Melog for her while she was driving Entrapta to a nearby conference for the weekend. They had found that it came in handy for those nights when Adora made it to Catra’s apartment before her. And the subsequent early mornings after. It was a domestic in a way that was ill-suited for whatever situation they had found themselves in, but neither were willing to call that out. That would have required admitting they wanted it to stop. And that would have been a lie.
“With explicit instructions of when you could use it. This isn’t fucking one of them.” Catra pointed to the door. “Get out.”
“I’m not leaving until you talk to me.” She grabbed a nearby pillow and tucked it behind her back, leaning against the coffee table. Making herself obnoxiously at home. It made her chest sting. It made her shoulders lighter in a conflicting way like she knew it would. Seeing Adora fighting to keep her around. It was the very thing she had been trying to avoid.
In her mind, the only way out was to make herself as prickly as can be. If Adora could see, even if only for a second, that sticking around was not in her best interest, then maybe she could hurt herself for Catra. Maybe she could leave before Catra was forced to ask her to. It was a false hope. “I can’t keep doing this.”
“Doing what? Talking to me? Seeing me?”
Catra scoffed. “Is that what we are doing?”
“You know what I meant,” Adora said, her voice growing more and more desperate. “Please just tell me what’s going on.”
“I don’t think we should speak anymore.”
Any sense of confidence Adora had during her crusade through the door fell away. “Did I do something wrong?”
Catra groaned. “Fuck.” She needed to spell it out, had to. Like the bullshit Scorpia said, it would be a disservice to her feelings if she didn’t, but God she would rather chew through her right hand. She took a deep breath and gripped the edge of her seat with her shaking hands. “I can’t keep pretending that I’m not in love with you, okay?”
“Then stop. Stop pretending.”
“And what? Date you?”
A small smile broke through her anxiety. It was gentle, and it fucking hurt. “Yeah. Date me.”
She could see that future. She’d thought about it often. Like extension of what they already were to each other, but would it be enough? When they had started their arrangement , they hadn’t even been friends, really. It was a door they had both mutually closed, which meant when it all crashed and burned into the ground, there wouldn’t be much of a wake to be left in. Or at least that was what she had been telling herself since day one.
It was tempting for her to let herself lean in, just for a second. She could let herself keep living in a fantasy where Adora wanted her, cared about her, needed her. But she knew where that dream ended. She saw it in the way they ran into each other. Adora at a party, lingering for a second, but never speaking to her in person. And the few times they did, it was in the way her shoulders tensed in fear of being found. She liked Catra, sure. It was a bit of an obvious fact. But it was conditional.
“I’m done being a secret. Your friends-”
“What about my friends?” Adora interrupted, ready for an argument, but pulled up short. Maybe it was the look on Catra’s face that stopped her in her tracks. Maybe it was because she was tired too. “Would it change your mind if they knew?”
Catra shook her head. “That doesn’t matter. Even if they did, it wouldn’t change the fact that they hate me, and you care about what they think.” Adora opened her mouth to respond, but Catra continued, “I’m not blaming you. I just can’t do it. Not anymore.”
Adora dug around in her back pocket, pulling out her phone. It was tilted far enough away that Catra couldn’t make out the words on the screen, but she had some ideas, maybe fears, of what was going on. “What are you doing?”
“Shh,” Adora said, holding up her finger. “Hi, Glimmer.” Her voice shifted to a happier tone, the one she adopted when she had to lie, or speak to children under the age of nine. “Adora,” Catra said, a slight warning to her tone. Adora ignored it, yet again.
“You know the girl you’ve been asking me about?”
If Catra strained, she could make out the words on the other side of things. “You mean your secret girlfriend you keep pretending you don’t have?”
Adora took a deep breath and looked up from the floor. “It’s Catra.”
The line was dead for a moment. “Where are you?”
“Why?” Adora asked.
There was some rustling, and she thought she recognized Bow’s voice through the small speaker in the background. “I’m coming to kick your ass.”
Adora let out the nervous giggle she claimed she didn’t have. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“You little-”
Adora turned off her phone and tossed it towards the wall alongside Catra’s. “She has my Snap map turned on. She’ll be over it by tomorrow.”
“Why did you-”
“I love you too.” Adora sat up a little straighter, and grabbed Catra’s hand, still holding the corner of the couch cushion in a death vice. “And I have, I think, for a really long time. I didn’t tell Glimmer and Bow because I wanted to respect your boundaries, not because I am ashamed of you.” She turned her head, focusing on the Still watching? screen spread her television. Anything to pull herself away from the full scope of whatever look Adora was giving her at that moment. “Catra, look at me, I am proud to know you. I am sorry that I made you feel, for even a second, that I didn’t.”
“If we do this,” Catra began.
“If?” Adora asked.
“If we do it, it’s all or nothing. No more bullshit. No more lying.”
Adora let go of Catra’s hand, and her heart sunk straight to her feet. Adora stood and held out her hand, a grin across her face. “This sounds like a Gentlemen’s deal?”
A watery laugh sprung from Catra’s throat as she eyed the outstretched hand. “You’re such an idiot.”
“An idiot that you’re apparently in love with. So do we have a deal or what?”
“What kind of business arrangement doesn’t have a spit shake? What kind of woman do you take me for?”
“My apologies,” Adora responded, pulling her palm towards her mouth.
“Do not!” Catra yelled and kicked her foot out from underneath the blanket to knock her heel against Adora’s shin.
“Fine, fine. It’s all. I choose all,” Adora said, hand going back to hover in the space between them. Catra reached out, grabbed tight, and pulled.