What have we done to each other?
----
Catra
It’s around ten-thirty in the morning when Catra is woken up by the sound of faint yelling outside. She inwardly curses herself for being such a light sleeper.
She groggily gets up with a scowl permanently on her face as she’s forced to start her day earlier than expected.
Catra walks out of her room but stops when she sees Lonnie pacing around the living room anxiously, while Huntara stares at the coffee table with such an angry glare that she’s almost burning a hole through it.
In all the years that Catra has known these two, she’s never seen them look so… distraught. It makes her nervous, so she goes back into her room to avoid whatever is going on. If it’s important, they’ll tell her later.
----
Lonnie
The yelling has stopped, but that only works to make her more anxious. She’d recognize that voice from anywhere, and that voice is currently outside yelling at someone. Lonnie has an idea of who it is, but she desperately hopes it isn't who she thinks it is.
Once she had realized who was yelling outside, Lonnie told Huntara, who was obviously not too pleased to hear that Shadow Weaver had paid a visit to Bright Moon. Neither of them have looked out the window, not wanting her to see them.
Lonnie is still pacing when Huntara quickly stands up and stomps over to the door. It swings open as Huntara storms out before Lonnie can interject. She quickly runs out of the door to catch up with Huntara, making sure to be quiet as she goes down the rickety metal stairs.
Once she makes it down the stairs, she looks towards where someone is talking and gasps quietly. It is who she thinks it is.
Adora is sitting in the pure white snow with blood surrounding the snow around her. At a second glance, she can also see that her face and arms also have blood on them. Despite her head being lowered, Lonnie can faintly see her puffy red eyes and the glistening tears in them. The sight of her old best friend in this state breaks her heart.
Huntara sends her a scolding glare for making sound when they’re trying not to be heard, but luckily Shadow Weaver is a little too preoccupied at the moment to notice them.
Speaking of Shadow Weaver, she’s currently listing words like weak, pathetic, and worthless to describe Adora.
She’s about to keep talking, but Huntara interjects her before she can continue her tirade against Adora.
“HEY! Leave her alone!” Lonnie’s never heard her sound more furious in her life, and that’s saying a lot.
Shadow Weaver stops and whips her head around to look at who’s there. She seems just as angry as Huntara, if not more, but she’s pretending like she’s not. It’s not fooling anybody, though.
“Oh. Huntara, how wonderful to see you. I was not aware that you were staying here, too,” she drawls. It’s blatantly obvious she doesn’t care about Huntara or how she’s been. Shadow Weaver turns her head slowly to look at Lonnie, who’s been slightly hiding behind Huntara, hoping she wouldn’t notice her.
“Hello, Lonnie. There’s no need to hide from me, child. I’m completely harmless.”
Lonnie looks over at the crying, bleeding Adora on the floor with an incredulous look, then back at Shadow Weaver. Lonnie has always known that Shadow Weaver's never been completely harmless.
Shadow Weaver clicks her tongue in annoyance, “I was just teaching her a well-needed lesson. She deserves what she got.”
This seems to make something snap in Huntara, who starts yelling and moving towards Shadow Weaver. She’s not going to hurt her, but only because that would be the end of her business.
Lonnie tunes out the sound of arguing as she turns to see that Adora has pulled her knees to her chest and has basically cocooned herself with her own body. She notices that Adora is visibly shaking, and the sound of her trying to breath can be heard from across the alley. It dawns on her that Adora’s having a panic attack.
She slowly walks over to Adora, as to not alarm her. Despite how slow Lonnie’s walking, Adora still jumps and hides her head in her arms as protection. Lonnie kneels down in front of Adora, making sure not to touch her at all.
“Adora. It’s me, Lonnie. Shadow Weaver’s not here.”
After a few seconds of silence filled only by faint arguing, laboured breathing, and quiet sobs, Adora slowly looks up and around.
Lonnie feels her heart break again looking at the sheer fear on the blonde’s face. Her face has dried blood and tears on it as new tears come out to replace the old ones. Her normally vibrant blue eyes look much greyer and are widened as she looks around.
Despite having looked up, Adora is still struggling to breathe. Lonnie decides to try a new tactic. One she remembers working on Adora when they were in the Fright Zone together.
“Can I touch you?”
Adora seems to consider this for a second before slowly nodding.
“Okay, I need you to breathe, Adora. Like this, okay?”
Lonnie gently places her hands on either side of Adora’s arms and slides them up and down at a slow pace. She begins breathing slowly and loudly to the pace of her arms so that Adora can hear her and follow along.
Adora tries, and fails, a few times while trying to take in a deep breath. Her breath keeps hitching, showing that she’s trying to hold in her emotions. Lonnie notices. “It’s okay, Adora. Just let it all out.” She whispers so that only Adora can hear her. She continues whispering supportive and praising words and, eventually, Adora takes in one deep breath.
Lonnie smiles at the blonde, “That was great! Now keep going.” She continues her hand motions and her breathing.
They keep taking deep breaths together until Adora speaks. It’s a hoarse whisper, but it’s there. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she repeats.
Lonnie stops the hand motions and slides her hands down to hold Adora’s, “You have nothing to apologize for, you got that? None of this is your fault.”
Adora nods and moves to stand. Lonnie stands first and helps ease the shaking woman up. By the time they’re standing, Adora is leaning almost all her weight on the brunette beside her. Adora looks over to Lonnie guiltily, but Lonnie smiles back to show that she’s okay with Adora leaning on her.
Throughout all of this, Huntara and Shadow Weaver have been yelling back and forth with each other. The two younger women look over to them. Adora keeps flinching when Shadow Weaver yells particularly loud.
Shadow Weaver glances over to Lonnie and Adora, and they both feel dread crawl into them at the look.
“Do you see how weak she’s gotten since she left the Crimson Waste? She deserves exactly what I gave her.”
Huntara glances over to Adora and, upon seeing the dishevelled state of her, looks like she wants to slap the life out of Shadow Weaver. Thankfully, she refrains from doing so. She does still have a tattoo parlour to run, she can’t just be attacking random people.
“NO! Adora doesn’t deserve anything you put her through. What she deserves is to never see you again,” she takes a step towards the black-haired woman and points a finger at her, “If I ever see you step foot near Adora again, I’ll make sure you wish you were never born.”
Everyone around Huntara knows she’ll stay true to that statement, despite her usual professionalism.
Shadow Weaver sighs theatrically, as if this is some sick game to her, “Fine. I wouldn’t ever want to see that nuisance again, anyway.” She looks over to a whimpering Adora with a slight sneer in disgust, “Goodbye, Adora.” The sound of heels on concrete can be heard as Shadow Weaver turns left and walks away.
As soon as Shadow Weaver is out of earshot, Huntara quickly turns back to Adora with a concerned look on her face, “Sorry about that, kid.”
Adora is still shaking, despite Lonnie having an arm wrapped around her shoulders. It looks like that arm is the only thing keeping her up right now. “It’s okay. I’m okay. Thank you for your help, though.” She’s saying this while having blood and tears on her face and arms, so Huntara and Lonnie share an incredulous look.
Lonnie replies this time. “You sure? What are you going to do, now?”
Adora nods, but her eyes are still glistening with unshed tears. If Lonnie had to guess, Adora’s likely holding in all her emotions right now until she can be alone and let them out. She used to do the exact same thing after she would come back from having a conversation with Shadow Weaver. The thought makes her frown, but she doesn’t say anything. Yet.
“I’ll probably just go take a nap or something. I’m exhausted, and I don’t really want to do anything else.”
Huntara nods and looks up towards Adora’s apartment. All of the lights are off, but at this point in the day, at least one other person should be awake. Unless…
“Adora, is anyone home right now?”
The blonde immediately looks downward, refusing to make eye contact. She doesn’t have to say anything for them to know the answer to that question.
Huntara tries again, “Adora.” Her tone is warning, like an older sister looking out for their younger siblings.
Adora sighs in defeat, “No. Bow and Glimmer are visiting family for the next couple of days, and I stayed behind. But it’s fine. It’ll be… relaxing.” Neither of them believes that Adora is fine after something like this.
Lonnie interjects, “Adora… you shouldn’t be alone right now. Not after something like this. You can stay with us, you know. It’s totally fine.”
The blonde starts to get defensive, “No! It’s fine, I promise! Now let me go. Please!” She pushes herself out of Lonnie’s arms to walk with shaky, weak legs to the gate door in front of the staircase that leads to the front door. There’s a small lock on the gate, but it’s so easy to open that a child could do it.
Adora tries and fails to open the lock due to her shaking and sweaty hands. She tries again. And again. She can feel tears pour out of her eyes again as her face reddens with embarrassment.
It’s on her fourth failure to open the door that she yells out in frustration. It sounds more like a loud sob to Lonnie and Huntara, who are still watching sadly.
Her legs buckle underneath her and she grips onto the gate for support as sobs wracked her body. She can barely hold herself up.
Tears quickly come out of Lonnie’s eyes at the sight of her old best friend crumbling in front of their eyes. Adora was always the strong one when they were younger. Lonnie wants to help, but she’s frozen in place as she can’t take her eyes off of the girl crying in front of them.
She's reminded of all the time Adora consoled her after a bad day. Lonnie can't remember a time when she ever returned the favour to Adora.
Adora sinks to the floor, still holding onto the gate as if her life depended on it. Her sobs get louder as she gets frustrated with herself for not being able to do it. “No, no, no, NO,” she cries out loudly as she curls in on herself. Her hands come up to wrap around her forearms as she digs her blunt nails into the already scarred skin. Droplets of blood bloom on her forearms.
Huntara finally snaps out of whatever state she was in and quickly interjects before Adora can hurt herself further. Her hands tightly grip Adora’s wrists as she kneels down in front of her. The blonde only cries more as the opportunity to injure herself disappears.
"No! Please... I can't- You shouldn't se-see me like-like this. I'm being we-weak."
Huntara loosens her grip on her wrists slightly, "You're not weak, Adora. You're one of the strongest people I've ever seen."
She lets go of Adora’s hands and the smaller girl quickly wraps her arms around Huntara as she continues to sob. Huntara wraps her arms around a shaking Adora as she rests her head on top of the blonde one below hers. A single tear glides down her face.
"I-I don't know if I can d-do this," Adora says, voice muffled by Huntara's hoodie.
More tears come out of Huntara's eyes, "You can, Adora. I know you can. You just have to keep going, okay. Just a little further."
She’s dealt with aged-out orphans before. Most of them stayed in the Crimson Waste after they aged out, and Huntara did what she could for as many of them as she could find. It usually went something like this. She could only pray that Adora would end up better than the people she found practically dying on the streets of the Crimson Waste.
Huntara glances over to Lonnie. She’s still crying profusely as she watches the other two. Her posture is perfect, and her arms are perfectly straight at her sides. It's a habit that most kids from the Fright Zone have. Their first response to feeling emotions is to outwardly act like a soldier.
She takes one arm off of Adora to open it outwards for Lonnie. The brunette's eyes widen for a second before she slowly walks over and sits in the snow as she lets herself be hugged for the first time in way too long.
They stay like that for what feels like forever, Huntara consoling the two younger women by having her arms wrapped around them as they cry. Occasionally, she'll tell them the words of encouragement that she used to tell the other orphans in the Fright Zone when she would help them. It seems to be working pretty well.
Eventually, Adora and Lonnie slowly lift their heads from each of Huntara’s shoulders. Lonnie seems to be doing a lot better than Adora, who just has a blank look on her face that can only be described as ‘completely exhausted”. It looks like she’s cried all the life out of herself.
Lonnie stands by herself, but Adora doesn’t move from her spot in the freezing snow. She's not even wearing her jacket right now.
Huntara shifts to pick up Adora in a bridal carry. Adora immediately buries her face into Huntara’s shoulder again. Some of the blood was wiped away by her tears, so her face looks a little better now.
Before they leave, Lonnie goes and grabs Adora's jacket that was deposited on the ground. She places it gingerly on top of the blonde.
The three go up the stairs to their apartment door. Lonnie unlocks the door, and they walk in.
----
Catra
She didn’t actually go back to sleep after she saw Huntara and Lonnie. She was too nervous to see what had happened. Instead of sleeping, Catra sat on the largest couch in their living room as the sound of yelling could be heard outside.
Despite the sound of yelling having stopped a while ago, neither of Catra’s roommates had come back.
Just as she’s about to go peek out the window, the front door opens. Catra panics and looks away to feign nonchalance.
The door closes, and nobody says a word. Catra slowly turns her head over to them. Her eyes widen at what she sees.
Lonnie has tear tracks on her face and looks like a complete wreck. Huntara’s eyes are puffy and red, as if she’s been crying, and she’s holding a shaking person in her arms. Catra can’t tell who it is since their face is hidden in Huntata’s shoulder.
She’s immediately intrigued at what happened, but she doesn’t want her roommates to know that. She's never seen Huntara cry, or show any emotions besides happy and angry, ever.
Huntara slowly walks to stand in front of the sitting brunette, “Move, Catra.”
Catra grumbles something and stands up beside Lonnie, who’s watching the blonde with a worried look.
Huntara places the blonde down onto the couch and takes the jacket previously laying on her body off. Her body is facing outwards, so Catra can now see who it is. Her eyes widen twice as much as before when she realizes who it is.
It’s Adora.
Her curiosity is immediately replaced by anger.
Adora, the same girl who punched Catra in the face, was carried into her apartment and is now sleeping on her couch. She could not believe the nerve of this girl.
Catra scoffs, and Lonnie sends a death glare towards her.
The warning doesn’t deter Catra, though. But it should’ve.
“What, did the princess get a paper cut, or something?”
Lonnie turns fully towards Catra with a look of pure rage in her puffy, red eyes. Catra already knows she’s messed up.
“Are you fucking kidding me, Catra?” It’s a raspy whisper, but Catra hears it.
“What? It couldn’t have been that bad. I mean, Adora does seem like the kind of person to cry at any minor inconvenience.”
That seems to snap something in Lonnie as she yells angrily at the other brunette. “Adora isn’t just some spoiled brat, you idiot!” Catra takes a step back nervously. She didn’t expect her to react like this, but she doesn’t want Lonnie to see that she’s affecting her. She puts her mask of nonchalance back on.
“Oh? And how would you know?” Her smug attitude only works to anger Lonnie more.
“Because we GREW UP together!”
Catra pauses. Lonnie’s from the Fright Zone, so that would mean…
“...Adora’s from the Fright Zone?” Her voice has lost all the confidence it had seconds ago. She takes another step back, her words finally setting in.
Adora’s from the Fright Zone. She’s an orphan. She’s not a super popular, super-rich spoiled brat. And I’ve been treating her like one since she got here.
Guilt seeps into Catra as everything she said to Adora replays in her head.
“Go back to where you came from.”
“It couldn’t have been that bad. You’re probably more welcome there than here.”
“What? I ruined your little dress so now you’re angry at me?”
Lonnie must notice the regret on Catra’s face but continues on despite it. “YES, she’s from the Fright Zone! And you would know that if you actually TALKED to her instead of just assuming you already know her so well. Because YOU DON’T! YOU DON'T KNOW HER AT ALL!”
Catra glances over to Adora, who’s still curled up in a ball on the couch. With more time to actually look, Catra can see a bit of blood on her face and arms, and scars along her inner forearms. She completely misread Adora.
Before she can look for long, Huntara comes back wordlessly and places a blanket on top of the blonde, covering up any hints of her past.
Catra fidgets with her fingers as she turns back to Lonnie, “I-I didn’t know…”
“Of COURSE you didn’t know! Because you never stopped to THINK about your decisions! You just went along and did whatever you wanted. THAT'S JUST WHAT YOU DO!”
Her vision clouds over slightly with tears, and she runs to her room before anyone can see. With a loud slam of her door, Catra collapses into her bed as the emotions she was trying to conceal in front of Lonnie come out.
She can faintly hear talking outside, but she doesn’t care. Catra keeps on crying in her dark room.
She really fucked up, didn’t she?