For a moment, Adora forgets where she is.
She forgets a few days prior they were in the midst of a never-ending war. She forgets, with the help of her friends, that she ended that never-ending war.
The only thing she’s consciously aware of is the small weight on her chest and the glowing blue eyes of a mystic alien cat looking curiously down at her, purring up a storm.
Melog, currently in normal house cat size, paws fondly at Adora’s mouth. They lick her cheek and curl up in the crook of her neck. Adora giggles, giving them a good scratch behind the ear.
Now her memories of the past few days have caught up with her. She turns on her side and-
Oh.
Life is good.
Her bed is probably not meant to hold two young adults and an alien cat, but it held up in the night just fine. Maybe at a later date, she’d ask Glimmer about a new bed, a bigger one.
For now, the size is perfectly suitable. If a small uncomfortable bed means she gets to sleep pressed up against her… well, Adora isn’t actually sure what they are now, but if it means they have to sleep pressed up against each other all night, she’s more than okay with it. Even if it means she’s really sweaty when she wakes up in the morning.
Catra is still sleeping. The thin sheets she’d snuggled up in the night before are strewn messily at her feet. Her face is nestled into a pillow, cheeks taking on a lovely pink hue due to the toasty atmosphere. Catra’s choppy hair is wild and matted on one side. It curls around her ears and forehead, almost calling Adora to reach out and brush it away.
So she does.
Immediately Catra begins to purr. At this point, Adora isn’t sure if the noise is subconscious, or if Catra is aware of it when it happens. It doesn’t matter really, because either way when Catra purrs, it means she’s comfortable.
She takes the noise as an okay to keep going. Adora starts out gentle, simply running her fingers up and down Catra’s scalp. When she reaches a spot behind Catra’s ear, the purring grows louder, and the feline leans into her palm. She starts scritching there.
Though her face is mostly covered by a pillow, Adora can make out a small smile on Catra’s lips.
“Morning sleepyhead,” Adora says, her own voice still thick from sleep.
Catra looks up from where she lay, her mismatched eyes pale in the dawning light. Her long dark eyelashes catch the morning glow. Adora takes a moment to stare.
“G’morning to you too, dork.” Catra grins, her own voice raspy and tired. “You woke me up.”
Adora pauses her scratching, “Sorry, I wasn’t trying to. Do you want me to stop?”
Catra sits up and pulls the sheets back over both of them, despite the heat, and nestles into Adora’s chest.
“It felt good.” Is all she says. Adora continues her scritching.
When the purring starts up again, Adora asks, “Did you sleep okay?”
“Better than okay,” Catra admits, “You’re hotter than a furnace though.”
Adora knows she means temperature-wise, but she can’t help the way her heart stutters at Catra directing the word ‘hot’ at her in a sentence.
Catra with her ear pressed against Adora’s chest chuckles, “Yeah, that too idiot.”
“Oh shut up you brat.” Adora laughs, hitting Catra playfully on the arm.
The feline fakes innocents, “I didn’t say anything.” She grins as she scans Adora up and down, one eyebrow cocked up.
Adora’s about to kiss that smug smirk right off her face when she hears the familiar pop of magic.
“Adora!” Glimmer exclaims, appearing in her room, “Have you seen Catra? She wasn’t in her room and-” Her face goes bright red, “OkAY never mind.”
She slams her hands over her eyes, “Please tell me you two aren’t naked.”
Catra’s eyes grow to the size of saucers. Adora chokes on nothing, shooting up ramrod straight.
“No! We aren’t- we didn’t- I haven’t even- Glimmer, you- I’m not- why- I don’t even know-”
“Nobody is naked!” Catra growls, throwing off the covers to make her point.
Glimmer sighs in relief, “Thank the stars.”
Adora, who is looking very much like a tomato right now, is still stuttering incoherently. Catra ignores her and asks, “Did you barge in here for a reason Sparkles, or is your soul purpose in life just to annoy me?”
The queen scowls, “I was actually trying to help you. You mentioned before you could use some help navigating the castle. I came to your room to help you to breakfast,” She glances at Adora, “but you weren’t in there.”
She looks between Catra and Adora and smirks, “Looks like you didn’t need to get upset last night, after all, hm Adora? I told you she’d visit you.”
Mortified, Adora manages, “Heh heh, yeah. We will uh, be down for breakfast soon.”
Glimmer rolls her eyes, “Yeah sure, knowing you two I’m sure by soon you mean over an hour.” suddenly she wrinkles her nose and sniffs the air, “And uhm, you may want to take a quick bath. Smells like Sea Hawks bandana in here.”
With that, the queen of Bright Moon teleports out of the room.
“You missed me last night?” Catra asks.
Adora still looks like she might pass out from embarrassment, “You obviously did too. Now shush.” She leaps out of bed, “I’m gonna run a quick bath, I’ll meet you in your room after and we can go to breakfast together?”
For some reason, Catra looks slightly nervous, “Uh, yeah okay.”
Adora leaves her to it and steps into her personal bathroom, closing the door behind her. The rooms in Bright Moon are all unnecessarily huge, but she’s actually thankful for this rooms uncramped size. Adora likes her space.
She turns on the water in the large golden bathtub and proceeds to pour half a bottle of soap into the water. Back in the Horde, showers were limited to five minutes, and there was definitely no bubbles aloud. Adora usually favors showers still, but she figures today she deserves a bubble bath. She’s working on being more selfish.
Plus bubbles are really fun to play with.
When the tub is nearly overflowing, Adora shuts off the water and throws off her pajamas.
The water is the perfect temperature, and she sinks in with a satisfied sigh.
As soon as she closes her eyes, there’s a knock at the bathroom door.
“Yeah?” She calls.
“Adora?” Returns Catra’s voice. Was something the matter? Did she need help to figure out how to run a bath? Oh no, she didn’t accidentally shower in one of the waterfalls did she? Adora had made that mistake one too many times.
“Catra? Is something wrong?” Adora asks, sitting up.
The answer comes so quietly, Adora isn’t sure she’s supposed to hear it.
“I’m scared of the water.”
She frowns, scared of water? When had that fear developed? Adora can’t recall any time in the Fright Zone when Catra had hesitated to shower off.
“Do you uh, want to come in and- and talk about it?” She asks.
No answer returns, but the bathroom door hesitantly cracks open. Catra steps in, wearing nothing but a pastel blue robe. Her ears are flat against her head. Her cheeks are damp. Adora wonders if she’d been crying.
“When I was- was on P-Primes ship,” Catra stutters, fresh tears welling in her eyes.
Two very different urges course through Adora at that moment.
The first is the overwhelming need to reach out for Catra and hold her. To take away all the pain she’d suffered from all those years, to wash away the torture she’d endured on that evil ship. Adora wants to promise her that everything is okay now, that she won’t let anyone hurt Catra like that ever again.
The second is a wave of fierce anger. An anger Adora’s only felt twice before. Once on Primes ship when she was sure Catra had been lost forever, and another when she saw the pain on Catra’s face as she recalled her time with Horde Prime after they’d rescued her. Adora has never hated anyone before, maybe Shadow Weaver had come close, but she’s certain she hates Prime. She hates him. For everything he’d done to her home, to the universe, to Catra. She hates him.
But he’s gone now, she reminds herself. She should know. Adora killed him with her bare hands.
Catra is shaking slightly now. Not for the first time does Adora see how broken her best friend really is.
“H-he, he used water to- to,” Her hand flies to the back of her neck, where the scare of Primes chip still remains. “I’m sorry Adora, I-I can’t I’m sorry-”
“Hey, hey.” Adora assures her, “You don’t have to talk about it if you’re not ready, it’s okay.”
Catra’s chin wobbles as she nods. She steps closer to Adora to hold the hand she’d reached out for her.
She rubs her thumb across the back of Catra’s hand until her breathing steadies and a purr starts up from her core.
Adora swallows, “If you want, you could take a bath with me,” Catra’s eyes widen and the pink of her ears turns a shade darker, “you don’t have to if you don’t want to. If that’s weird, I mean. I’m not trying to be weird. Sometimes I find things easier to do if someones helping me with it. Shoot, was that a bad question to ask? You really don’t have to Catra I was only trying to-”
And then Catra giggles, light and happy and sounding just as nervous as Adora feels right now, “Since when did you become such a rambling mess, Adora? I swear you haven’t managed one coherent sentence since we got back to Bright Moon.”
She shifts uncomfortably in the water, “It’s not my fault! You- you make me nervous.”
Catra’s cool facade slips into a soft smile. She sighs, “That water better be warm princess, you know I hate the cold.”
Adora snorts. Yes, the water is warm. Then Catra slips out of her robe, and suddenly it’s boiling.
No, now is not the time to get flustered Adora.
Hesitantly, Catra steps into the large tub, water sloshes over the edge onto the floor. Her body is stiff with her fur standing on all ends.
“I’ve got you Catra, you’re safe,” Adora assures her, squeezing the hand she’s still holding in her own.
Exhaling Catra nods. She lowers herself into the water until only her head and shoulders are visible above the bubbles.
Adora’s heart melts, because the sight is just straight-up cute.
“Hi,” Adora says.
“Hey.”
She takes in the felines frozen form. “Do you want to come over here with me?”
Catra bobs her head slightly and scooches closer to Adora until she’s in her lap. She wraps her arms around her in a soothing embrace. In an attempt to ease her nerves, she runs her thumbs over the fur on Catra’s sides.
She is stiff for a while longer but eventually, she eases into the touch.
“Is this good?” Catra nods, “Do, um, do you want me to wash your hair?” Another nod.
And then she’s scrubbing away the dirt matted into her fur, and running her hands through the hair on Catra’s head, and Catra is purring loudly, and Adora is having a cuteness overload.
And then Catra covers Adora’s head in a pile of bubbles and they’re both laughing and splashing one another and life is so, so good and everything is as it should be.
Now they’re laying against each other once more. Catra still a little unsure about the water, but otherwise great.
“Thank you Adora, for, you know helping me with this. I know it was kind of stupid.” She says in a low voice.
She brings her forehead to rest on Catra’s, “It’s not stupid. You’ve been through a lot and- and I want to be here for you. I know I haven’t always been good at that.”
Catra cups her cheek, “Then we can get better… Together.”
Adora smiles, she likes that idea very much.
The two of them stay in the bath until the water is lukewarm and the bubbles are long gone.
They never end up making it to breakfast, and even if Glimmer cares, she doesn’t bring it up.