Work Text:
Catra
Last night wasn’t the first night I went to bed alone. Today is the first day I’ve woken up that way. I throttle the surge of fear I feel at the cold spot next to me where Adora should be before it can send me into a spiral of terror that this is all a dream, that I’m finally waking up alone in the Fright Zone again, or on Prime’s ship again. With slow, deep breaths, I control the fear, let it pass through me, and close the door behind it once it’s gone.
That done, I move on to anger. I roll out of bed with a growl, because waking up next to Adora is the only thing that makes mornings even slightly bearable. That and coffee. I swear, if the Horde had given me coffee, I would have conquered the planet in a couple of weeks, tops. Probably a good thing they didn’t have coffee. I would have even more reconstruction to manage if they had.
I need to find either Adora or coffee before anyone tries to speak to me, otherwise I’ll be spending a few hours cleaning up bloodstains. My heart says Adora but my brain says now , and I know where the coffee lives. Stars know where Adora is. Another spike of panic threatens to take root in my belly, but I sic my anger on it and it goes away. If Adora doesn’t want to sleep with me, I won’t rush off to find her. That’s fine.
The only cook on duty flees the kitchens after one look at me. Alright, I may have a bit of a reputation. I may have even encouraged it a little. I don’t feel bad. Mornings are not made for speaking.
I’m clawing my way through the pantry in search of precious bean when someone stops outside the kitchens. Bow. Great. Hopefully he can take a hint and will postpone any feelings talk until later. After coffee at least, after I find Adora preferably.
“Good morning, Catra!” He greets me cheerfully on his way into the kitchen. Being that chipper in the morning is a sin. I say something to that effect, which comes out as a grumpy growl. “Oh, right. Not until after coffee.”
I go back to ignoring him. I have to stand on the tips of my toes to search the last shelf of the pantry, because the only bigger coffee fiend in the palace than me is my stupid tall hot girlfriend who has absolutely no respect for normal-sized people. There. My fingers brush the bag, and in my haste I accidentally shove it back deeper in the cabinet.
I consider a number of responses: shaking the cabinet until the bag falls out, smashing the entire thing for daring to deprive me of my coffee, hauling Bow over and standing on his shoulders to reach the bag, and just screaming in primal fury.
I close my eyes, summoning my best self, and take a deep breath. Perfuma calls it ‘finding my zen’. Yes, she says it with a straight face and a serene expression. No, I don’t know why I’m friends with her either.
Moving carefully, because being crushed under a falling pantry would just be embarrassing, I climb up the wide cabinet and stuff my head and free arm into the top shelf. There it is. A glittering black bag with a crumpled top, containing the lifeblood upon which the world runs. I snatch it up-
And discover that it’s empty.
If anyone in the palace was still asleep at this hour, my scream definitely fixed that.
I hang there for a moment, empty bag of beans crushed in my right hand, various ways of hiding dead bodies filling my mind because someone put an empty bag of coffee beans back in the cabinet and who does that seriously what is wrong with these people. Bow creeps in, his steps tentative.
“Hey, uh, are you okay, Catra?”
Great, he’s actually worried about my safety. Or maybe my sanity. Not that I can really blame him. If I walked into a kitchen and saw someone half-stuck inside a pantry cabinet screaming into the void I’d be a little worried about her sanity too. I extricate myself from the cabinet and present the empty bag to him. It’s still impaled on my claws. He looks at it for a second, then up at me.
“You know there are more bags in storage, right?”
I try to melt him with a glare. Something that looks like the beginning of a smile but had better not be one tugs at the edges of his lips. “I’ll be right back. Don’t kill anyone while I’m gone.”
I’m pretty sure he’s joking. Just like I’m pretty sure I won’t use my claws if anyone bothers me right now.
Thankfully Bow makes it back before anyone comes to investigate what that horrible noise was. Then again, it’s not the first time I’ve needed to let a few things out before. The palace staff is probably familiar with that particular brand of Catra scream by now. Among others.
“Here,” Bow says, handing me a fresh, unopened bag of beans. I snatch it away from him, make a noncommittal grunt that he knows is gratitude, and set about brewing my antidote against the day.
Twenty minutes and two cups later, I’m approaching functional. Maybe.
“Where’s Adora?” I ask Bow, who’s still enjoying his modest breakfast nearby. He blinks at me.
“Uh, what do you mean? Last I heard she was heading to bed after she finished up some filing from that exploding apple thing in Alwyn.”
“She didn’t sleep with me last night,” I snarl. Then I realize what that sounds like. “I don’t mean- whatever. She never came to bed.”
“Oh,” Bow says, clearly pulling his mind out of the gutter. “Right. Uh, I’m sure there’s a good explanation for that. Ooh, maybe she was kidnapped!”
“Bow.”
“Right, sorry, not helpful.” A pause. “Do you want me to help look for her?”
“Because you don’t have anything better to do,” I remark. He shrugs, but I know I’ve scored. He’s as busy as the rest of us these days, managing the Etherian Maker’s Community in their efforts to support the reconstruction. Between that, Glimmer’s duties as Queen, Adora constantly flying or being teleported across the world to fix weird magical problems, and me administrating a planet-wide rebuilding initiative, it’s a wonder any of us get sleep. And no, the irony of me leaving the Horde and then immediately becoming a paper-pusher again for the other side is not lost on me.
“I do have-'' he counts off on his fingers for a second “-four meetings and a workshop today. I need to prepare. But if you need me, I can resche-”
“No,” I say, sharper than I need to. “No. It’s fine. I’ll deal with it.”
He nods, failing to hide his relief. “Okay. Call me if you need anything.”
I won’t, and he knows it. But I appreciate the offer. Not that I’m going to tell him that. I drain my third cup of coffee and stalk away. Now to find my wayward girlfriend.
It’s easier than I expect. I only have to check two locations before finding her. She’s hunched over a desk in the Bright Moon library, poring over some document or another. Oh, also it’s not Adora. It’s She-Ra, flowing ponytail and golden glow in all her glory. You’ve got to be kidding me.
I walk up behind her, doing my best not to stamp because I am an adult and not a petulant child and give her a stiff poke in the back of her neck, with just enough claw to tell her I’m angry.
She yelps, which is really cute- nope, you’re mad Catra right now, not happy Catra.
“Catra!” She twists in the hilariously-undersized chair to look at me. She takes me in, giving me a once-over from head to toe. She blinks a few times, her mouth dropping open. “Uh, are you okay?”
I catch a glimpse of myself in a nearby mirror (who puts mirrors in a library?) and wow. I look terrible. Bags under my bloodshot eyes, my tail snapping back and forth, hair an actual mess rather than an artful one. I look ready to commit murder, and not even in the fun way.
There are only two solutions to that, and I’m still mad at Adora, so I can’t jump into her lap and demand attention like I normally would. That leaves the nearly empty pot of coffee on the desk. I reach over and drain the pot directly into my mouth. It’s cold and terrible, and I really can’t care less. I feel Adora watching me, her surprise giving way to her usual anxiety.
“Um, Catra?”
I slam the empty pot back on the desk and stare at her. “What are you doing?”
“Working?” She says uncertainly. “Did- did something happen?”
“Working,” I echo flatly.
She gets that look where she’s trying to hide the fact that she’s feeling guilty and failing horribly.
“Why are you-” I wave one hand at her glowing form. The guilty look intensifies. “Wait. You’re using She-Ra to avoid sleep?”
“So what if I am?” She snaps, her face heating. “I need to keep up on this or-”
“Or what? Someone might, I don’t know, have to wait a day or two to find out precisely how you handled someone else’s apples detonating randomly?”
She hunches her shoulders again. “This is important.”
“No,” I say. “No, it’s really not. Not compared to you taking care of yourself. ” I decide to play dirty, because if there’s one thing Adora can’t resist, it’s helping other people. “And taking care of me. I was so cold last night I got about two minutes of sleep. I think keeping your girlfriend warm is more important than filing an incident report.”
“Last night?” She asks, confused. I narrow my eyes at her, looking for my zen again. With one claw outstretched, I slowly raise my arm to point at the huge bay windows on the other side of the library, where late morning light is pouring in. “Oh- oh, I didn’t realize- I was just so busy- I didn’t mean to-”
She transforms back and I watch as the fatigue hits her.
“You didn’t notice it was morning because you were using She-Ra to stay awake,” I say icily. “I get that you’re work-obsessed, but this is ridiculous. I’m calling Bow.”
“No!” She exclaims, real fear breaking through her sudden exhaustion. “You don’t have to-”
I raise my trackerpad in full view of her and hit the call button. She freezes, her face consumed by dread. One ring. Two rings.
“Catra? Did you find Adora?” Bow asks the moment he connects. He looks frazzled, as much as anything ever disrupts Bow’s calm. Then he sees Adora. “Wow, did you get any sleep last night, Adora?”
“No,” I say. “Because she was using She-Ra to magic away being tired.”
Bow sighs. “Adora, we talked about this. You can’t just postpone your needs until you combust. More importantly, you don’t need to. We’re not in a fight for our lives anymore. Yes, the work we’re doing is important. Really important, even. But it’s not worth hurting yourself like this.”
It’s not my fault if my whole body is giving Adora an ‘I told you so’ expression.
She stares at the floor. “I know, Bow. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me,” he says. “Apologize to Catra. And apologize to yourself.” He looks over at something off-screen. “Look, I gotta run. We’re talking about this more at dinner. Love you both.” He ends the call. I watch Adora expectantly.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to be gone all night.”
Something finally works its way through my addled brain. “This isn’t the first time you’ve done this. Used She-Ra to keep working.”
She shakes her head. “No.”
“Stars, Adora! You do realize that people get tired for a reason, right?”
“I know that,” she protests weakly. “There’s just so much to do! And I have to be useful, otherwise-”
Oh. So that’s what this is about. If it wasn’t the morning I would have figured this out faster.
“Adora. Repeat after me. ‘I am worth more than what I can give to other people.’” She just shakes her head and stares at her desk. “Say it, Adora. Or I’m calling Perfuma next.”
“Wow, that’s low,” she jokes. “Tattling on me to my therapist?”
“That you went to once,” I say. “Say it, Adora. Because it’s true. I don’t love you for what you give me. I love you for you.”
“You like me? That’s so-” I shut her up with a claw pressed to her lips. Summoning every ounce of seriousness I can, I look her in the eyes and drop the claw. She sighs. Victory. “I am worth more than what I can give to other people.”
“Again.”
“I am worth more than what I can give to other people.”
I lean down and kiss her chastely. “You are. You always will be. You could walk away from all of this right now and I’d still love you. But if you make me sleep alone again I swear to you that I will drop you from the roof of this palace.”
She chuckles. It’s a bit wet, but I won’t hold it against her. “You wouldn’t. You love me.”
I groan. “I never should have told you that.”
“I always knew you were a big softie at heart.”
“The roof is only two floors up.”
She wobbles to her feet and croons at me. “Catra loooves me!”
“Agggh. I take it all back. Work yourself to death if you want. I won’t stop you.”
She stumbles. I catch her without thinking, and she sinks into my arms. “I’m really tired,” she confesses.
“Yeah, that’s what happens when you stay up all night,” I say. “Come on. You’re overdue for a nap. I’ll be watching you, so don’t try to sneak off. And I know what it looks like when you’re pretending to sleep.”
“Why are you so good at this?”
Because I’ve been where you are. I’ve done the whole working-yourself-to-death thing, just for a much worse cause. It wasn’t worth it then, and it’s not worth it now.
“I guess I’m just that good,” I say instead.
I find myself regretting all of the coffee as I’m tucking Adora into our bed. Part of me (most of me) would like nothing more than to bury myself under the covers with her and forget about the rest of the day. But I’ve got more caffeine than blood in my veins right now, and I have plenty of work of my own to do. So, once Adora starts snoring away (which takes less than five minutes), I sit down at my desk in our bedroom and get to work.
Adora sleeps like a rock all day. It’s pretty apparent that she’s been skipping out on sleep for a while, and I kick myself for not noticing it sooner. I love her, but she’s such an idiot sometimes. A lot of the time, honestly.
Dinner rolls around, and I scan one last report on Salineas’s stone shortage before deciding there’s nothing I can do about it at the moment. Bow and Glimmer will be free soon, so I hop onto the bed and poke the tip of Adora’s nose with one finger.
She groans and tries to roll over to defend herself from attack. All that does is present her delicious back. I trace her spine with one gentle claw, feeling her shiver beneath me. My eyes try to focus on the sets of ragged scars on her shoulder and her lower back, but I don’t let them. This isn’t about that. This is about getting revenge on her for making me sleep alone.
My claw reaches the end of her spine, and I hear her whine into her pillow. I shift so I’m straddling her, and reach out with both hands towards her perfect biceps.
Without warning, I begin to tickle her mercilessly. She shrieks and tries to flee, but I’m securely attached to her back now, so all she manages to do is bring me along for the ride while my fingers dance up and down her sides.
“Catra!”
She manages to find her feet, but I just wrap my legs around her hips and hang on, one arm still free to continue my assault. She keeps squealing with laughter as she hops around the room trying to shake off her demonically cackling backpack, to no avail.
“Say you’re sorry,” I growl in her ear. All she can do is giggle frantically.
“C-C-Catra,” she gasps. “I’m-” She begins. She’s a fool for thinking I’ll make this easy. With a careful swipe of my finger on her bare chest, her desperate apology turns into something less language-based but even more desperate. I smirk into her hair. She’s so easy.
My victory celebration is early, as it turns out. Before I can react, she backs up a few steps and falls towards the bed. Back first. I barely have time to throw myself out of the way of a toppling Adora before we both hit the bed. In the stunned half-second it takes me to collect myself, Adora is already on top of me, pinning my hands to the bed and gazing down at me, eyes blazing, lips parted. It might be the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. My memory isn’t working all that well at the moment.
“Catra,” she murmurs, leaning down to nip at the hollow of my throat. “I,” another nibble. “Am sorry. For making you. Sleep. Alone.” Each word is punctuated with more attention, and a needy sound that’s somewhere between a growl and a moan slips out of my throat.
“That’s- not the point,” I gasp. “And you- mmm- you know it.”
This is totally unfair. How am I supposed to demand that she take better care of herself when she’s taking such good care of me?
“I know,” she says, leaning back, her hair falling to cover her face. “It’s just… I feel useless sometimes.”
Sensing the change in mood, I pat the bed beside me. She collapses bonelessly to lie there. I roll over to face her.
“Why?” I ask, because she’s pretty much the furthest thing from useless I can imagine.
“All we’ve done since the war is put out brush fires,” she says. “Brush fires I caused. We wanted to bring magic back to the universe, to really make a difference. But it’s been almost a year, and we haven’t done any of that. I- I feel like I’m failing them.”
“Them?” I prompt, to give me more time to figure out just how in the world I’m supposed to respond to the rest of that.
She shrugs. “I don’t know. Everyone? We’re the only people who can bring magic back to the universe, and we haven’t even started.”
She means ‘I’, not ‘we’, but I don’t want to try and unpack that.
“Okay,” I say. None of the arguments I can think of at the moment are particularly convincing, not to Adora right now. I try something Perfuma says is important, even if it still feels weird. “Thank you for telling me how you feel.”
I can tell it comes out a little stilted, but Adora just gives a warm chuckle. “Thanks for listening.”
After a few moments of silence, I can’t help myself anymore. I wiggle over to press my body up against hers. Hey, she’s toasty, and it’s cold when you live in a room with a wide-open balcony and a waterfall. She strokes my fur, and the rumbling purr she gets in reply makes her smile so wide I can hear it.
“I love you,” she murmurs. My purr threatens to shake the whole room.
Eight minutes later, Bow knocks on the door. I peek over the covers and glare at the offending slab of wood. I’m hungry, but I’m also very comfortable right now. Adora’s arms are wrapped around me, her steady breathing on my neck telling me she’s fast asleep once more. We fit together like two of those pieces from the weird not-game Bow tried to introduce me to last month. A puzzle, or something. I stopped paying attention after he said there was no way to win. Anyway, Adora is a perfect big spoon, and I don’t want to move. There, I said it.
Bow knocks again. This time Adora wakes up and eyes the door with about as much skepticism as me.
Bow’s voice comes through the door. “You guys in there?” He sounds actually unsure, rather than worried he’s about to barge into something he doesn’t want to see. Not that that’s ever happened. Definitely not.
“One minute!” Adora calls. To me, she hisses “what time is it?”
“Dinnertime,” I say. My belly rumbles for emphasis. She giggles, and I ooze out of her arms and onto the floor. I start looking for my clothes, then remember I never took them off. Adora’s the naked one.
“You can come in, Bow,” I call to the door. I glance over at Adora just in time to see her freeze and shoot a truly panicked look at me. Her bra is nowhere in sight, much less her shirt.
“Nice try, Catra,” Bow says. “I’m gonna wait out here. Glimmer’s probably still wrangling the cooks anyway, and no one needs to see that.”
Well, he’s got that right. Glimmer has mellowed precisely none in the year since the war ended. Though I’m not sure why she’s wrangling the cooks at all today. Our dinners are usually just stolen pastries and stuff, nothing fancy.
Adora finally gets decent, which is something of a disappointment but I’ll survive. If I lasted three years in the Horde without her at all, I can make it through another evening with her dumb shirt and jacket.
“Okay,” she tells Bow. “We’re coming.”
“Great!” He doesn’t open the door. I swear, you’d think we spend most of our time traumatizing them or something with how they act. I mean, I try, but not that hard. “I’ll let Glimmer know.”
I push open the door, holding it open for Adora with a deep bow. She snorts and pokes me in the belly as she passes. I make a gurgling noise and swoon, one hand pressed to my forehead, the other to my stomach.
“Oh, you’ve slain me at last, princess!” I slide down the door dramatically.
“Catra, get up,” Adora says, sounding exasperated. She’s smiling anyway. “As if you’d ever let me win anything.”
“Hey, I let you win plenty,” I say, my voice dropping dangerously. I spring back to my feet and rub up against her.
Bow clears his throat. “So, uh, we have something to talk about over dinner.”
“We do,” I say, flicking a glance at Adora. She’s staring at the floor.
“You guys aren’t gonna let this go, are you?” Adora asks.
“Nope,” I reply. Bow looks a little less comfortable, but shakes his head as well.
“You have to take care of yourself, Adora.”
She makes a noncommittal noise, so I raise threatening fingers towards her side. She laughs despite herself. “Okay, fine. We can talk about it, if you think it’s important.”
Ohh, we’re getting passive aggressive Adora tonight. I see how it is.
“No, your personal wellbeing has never mattered to any of us,” I agree airily. “Not to Bow, not to Glimmer, and definitely not to me.”
She glares at me, but I match her, and she eventually gives in. “Okay, I get it.”
“Good,” I say with a smirk. The early victory secured, I’m happy to wait on the rest.
We head down the corridor. Bow and Glimmer’s room isn’t far, but to my discomfort we keep walking.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“The kitchens,” Bow says. “Glimmer said something about not wanting you two to absolutely annihilate her room.”
“Hey, Adora is the messy eater here,” I say. “Don’t blame me for that.”
“Yeah, and you’re the one that throws food, so I think we’re even,” she fires back.
“That was one time,” I say, aiming for offended but landing somewhere between guilty and laughing. Adora smirks at me. Bow just sighs.
I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to Bright Moon.
Let me rephrase that. I don’t know if eating Bright Moon’s rich, delicious food will ever feel normal. Even when we just steal some stuff to bring back to one of our rooms it’s miles better than anything I got in the Horde, even the contraband. But freshly-made meals like this? Heaven. The only thing that would make it better is if I could snuggle into Adora’s lap while I eat, but then I’d get so many crumbs in my fur I’d have to take a shower before bed, and there’s nothing worse than trying to sleep with wet fur. Or even damp fur.
Between the food and my low-grade irritation at Adora for being difficult, I don’t pay much attention to the dinner conversation. Usually I try harder, or don’t have to try much at all, because I actually do like Bow and Glimmer. A lot. Bow is calm, patient, and thoughtful. He’s helped me through almost as many flashes as Adora by now, and though I’ll never tell her this, he’s better at it. Sometimes Adora’s anxiety can be contagious, and she’s at her most anxious when I’m hurting.
Glimmer is… a handful. I can relate. If it weren’t for me, she would definitely be the one with the reputation as the terror of Bright Moon. But she throws herself at her duties with a disturbing amount of enthusiasm, and out of everyone, she’s the one who understands what I did the most. The mistakes I made. Sometimes I still find that hard to believe, given what those mistakes cost her. I feel the familiar pang, reminding me that I’m sitting across the table from the woman whose mother I got killed. Unintentionally, sure, but it was my hand on the lever. I was half-mad with rage and grief, half-dead from Shadow Weaver’s princess-powered murder attempt. But it was my hand on the lever.
“So,” Glimmer begins in a tone that means I should start paying attention, food or otherwise. “I hear Catra caught you skipping sleep again, Adora.”
“I don’t get why you’re all freaking out about this so much,” Adora mutters. “It’s not like anyone’s in danger.”
“Exactly,” I reply. “No one's in danger. So you shouldn’t grind yourself into nothing every day and avoid normal existence like the plague.”
“I like working,” she says.
I prepare a witty response, but a glance from Bow stops me.
“And that’s a good thing. But balancing work and the rest of your life is key to a happy, healthy state of being.”
“Now you sound like Perfuma,” Adora scoffs. I can’t help but snicker at that, because he totally does. He gives me a patient look, which is the Bow equivalent of a glare.
“Perfuma is very wise sometimes,” he says. “I think you would benefit from spending more time with her.”
Oh, smooth. I’ve been trying to get Adora to talk to Perfuma for weeks, but it usually just starts a fight. Not a fight fight, but an argument where neither of us are going to back down and we know it. But calm, reasonable Bow is a much harder person to argue with than angry Catra.
Glimmer pipes up. “Bow’s right, Adora. Perfuma is really helpful, even if you don’t think she will be.”
“Wait, you’ve done the whole feelings talking thing with her?” Adora asks, surprised.
“I have,” Glimmer nods. “I got in a fight with my dad a few months ago, and she helped me work through some of the insecurities I had about him taking over my duties, and how that wasn’t a reflection of me as a ruler.”
I blink, because even after all this time with the princesses, hearing someone just spill like that is… my instincts say bad, but my mind says strange. We’ll go with strange, I think.
Adora looks at Glimmer for a second, then at Bow and me in turn. “You guys are really serious about this, aren’t you?”
Glimmer nods, Bow smiles, and I half-growl “yes.” I manage to stifle the ‘like I’ve been saying for weeks now’ before it slips out.
“Okay,” she says. “I’ll try it with Perfuma again. I can fix this.”
I resist the urge to pinch the bridge of my nose. Of course she would turn it into a task rather than a… thing. I’m not sure what to call it. I still talk with Perfuma every few weeks, and always leave the meeting feeling lighter. It’s not a task, or something I have to fix, but it’s not exactly fun. Then again, if it needs to be a whole task with an end result for Adora to go, whatever.
“You don’t have to fix anything,” Bow says gently. “You’re not broken. You deserve to be happy is all, and we all think this will help you with that.”
I sometimes wonder what might’ve happened if I’d gotten the chance to know Bow before… everything. After Adora left the Horde, I spent three years running on anger, grief, and a desperate need to prove to everyone that she should regret leaving me behind. That I was worth something, no matter how much she thought I wasn’t. My only friends were a tech-obsessed princess who spent more time with robots than people and Scorpia, who spent all of her time trying to be friends with me and none of her time stopping me from making bad decisions. It wasn’t her job, and definitely wasn’t her fault. But watching Bow talk an obstinate Adora through this sharpens the contrast between my life in the Horde and my life here.
Of course, Adora has to actually listen. She seems about as inclined to do that as I probably would have been, once.
“The way you’re talking about it makes it sound like I am,” she says, her whole posture mulish. I roll my eyes. Glimmer looks ready to say something ill-advised, like most of what comes out of her mouth, but I silence her with a look. I consider pulling Adora out into the privacy of the hallway, but figure it’s not worth bothering with. At this point, the four of us have pretty much no secrets from each other, and I might need backup if this goes poorly.
“Adora,” I say. It comes out a little sharper than I intend, and she snaps over to look at me. I lay a hand on her shoulder. “You aren’t broken. Asking for help isn’t a weakness. And riding yourself into the dirt because you’re afraid of people not needing you anymore is dumb. Trust me. I’m an expert on the first and third, and you’re the one who showed me the second.”
“But-” She starts defensively.
“No buts,” I interject. “You don’t get to selflessly help me put myself back together and then think we’re all going to let you deal with this on your own.”
A spike of worry flashes across her face, rare these days. Most of the time we can talk about my relative state of brokenness after Horde Prime without either of us freaking out. Oh. Hm, yeah maybe this wasn’t my best strategy.
“I don’t mean-” I awkwardly start, because comparing my own issues to hers isn’t exactly a great point in favor of convincing her she’s not broken. Before I can mangle my apology, Adora is wrapped tightly around me, warm, soft lips meeting my own. I overcome my surprise and ease into the kiss and the embrace alike, even if it tastes a bit like dinner. I love her.
“Thanks,” she whispers as we shift apart.
“Anytime,” I murmur, trying to hide my surprise that my tactic worked after all. I don’t know what minor epiphany it sparked, but I’m not going to complain.
“You guys too,” Adora says to Bow and Glimmer. “I uh, I think I just got in my own head a bit about this.”
“No, really?” I tease.
She laughs, that awkward, self-conscious chuckle I pretend to think is dumb but actually love. Dinner wraps up fairly quickly after that, which is good because I can feel the caffeine finally failing me. Bow notices, and waves us off.
“We’ll take care of the cleanup. You two look like you need sleep.”
Adora starts to protest, but a half-awake glare from me stops her. “Right. Uh, thanks.”
Bow smiles, and I drag her back to our room. The bed beckons, but I take care of the essentials first. I change while Adora takes the bathroom, and we swap once she’s done with the comfort of months of routine. Routine she broke last night. Not that I’m still annoyed about that or anything.
I flop into bed, bouncing Adora up an inch off the mattress. She glares at me from under her mussed hair. She softens as I ooze into her embrace, snuggling up against her shamelessly. Is it weird how much I missed this, even after only one night?
“You better be here tomorrow morning,” I mumble, my eyes falling closed.
Her warmth surrounds me as she whispers into my ear. “I promise.”