Chapter Text
>All she can think is run.
The freezing snow pierces into her bare feet, sticks and bark scraping cuts up her ankles as she stumbles through the forest. Howls and screams follow her every move, seemingly getting closer by the second. Every instinct in her body tells her to scream for help, to get someone, anyone, to save her.
But the only people nearby are–
Are–
A shriek from behind her jolts her heart into an even higher overdrive. She changes direction, the crunches of snow behind her getting louder and louder. Her white nightdress catches on a stray pine branch and without hesitation she rips the end clear. She can’t worry about clothes right now, not when her heartbeat is counting down to zero. The soaked white fabric clings to her legs as she sprints as best she can through the white dunes, chilling her to the bone.
Open terrain lays ahead, and a ray of hope shines through her chest. If she can get to the mountains, she’s free. Probably going to die from starvation still, but at least she won’t be… they won’t… Just run. Just run. The voices get quieter in the distance, maybe she’s outrun them for real this time. Maybe she’ll actually…
Crack!
A glint of gold flashes through the air as she falls.
At least it was over quickly.
A figure with a cloth mask over their face looms over the pit. Unmoving. Unfeeling.
Staring down at the dark-haired girl face down in a pit of bloody spikes.
—---------
“Flutterina, pass the ball!” Glimmer yells from across the field, frantically gesturing at the younger girl. “I’m open!”
Flutterina fumbles around on the field, narrowly dodging a member of the opposing team as she kicks the ball over to her. Glimmer dives for it, shooting a glare at the blonde as she narrowly traps it, her eyes darting around as she searches for someone to shoot it to as the Horde kids close in.
“Sparkles! Here!” Catra shouts, running up beside her. The wind ruffles her long curls, the blue and pink uniform stuck to her skin from sweat. The shorter girl catches her eye, sending a sharpshot kick her way.
The second the ball is in her range, something inside her clicks into place. Her vision narrows and she just runs. The other goal, guarded by a tall girl in red, is her only focus. Horde girls close in, but knowing the ruthlessness of her own team, it won’t be that way for long. Sure enough, a girl with golden skin and a brown ponytail intercepts them before they can catch up.
“Thanks, Mar!” She shouts, her eyes finally tearing away from the goal as the opposing team gets their defenses together. Starting to panic as the clock comes down to seconds, her vision finally catches on a tall, muscular, blonde. She locks eyes with her, and Adora nods as though she’s reading her mind. With one hard kick, she sends the ball flying over to her. Excitement starts to build in her chest as Adora takes off, evading the defense until…
The buzzer goes off and the field erupts. Adora jogs over to her and they grab each other's hands and scream until their throats are sore, jumping up and down as the rest of the team joins them. “We’re going to nationals, Catra!” She shrieks, pulling her into a tight hug. Glimmer crashes into them, dragging their goalie, Bree, with her.
“We did it, guys!” The short girl with brunette hair screams. “We won!!”
“Catra, isn’t it amazing?” Adora says with a wide grin, bright blue eyes turned right on her own heterochromatic ones. Blue on blue on hazel. It makes Catra sick to her very stomach as she grins back.
—--------
You walk in clouds of glitter
And the sun reflects your eyes
Catra taps idly on the steering wheel, sharp black nails clicking aimlessly as she stares at the big white house before her. Vines crawl up one side of the wall, ending at a small shelf of the roof outside a window with pale blue curtains.
And every time the wind blows
I can smell you in the sky
The window opens, a pale girl with short white hair climbing out in a red shirt and black shorts. She crawls across the roof to the wooden lattice holding up the weaving vines and uses it like a ladder. As she moves to run into the woods, she catches Catra’s eyes, sending her a look pregnant with meaning before she disappears into the trees.
Moments later, the front door opens and she steps out. Adora Taylor. Perfection incarnate. Blonde hair dangling over her shoulders, a red jacket angled just right on her body to make her look unbelievably stunning and yet effortlessly casual. God, how pretentious.
Your kisses are as wicked as an M-16
And you fuck like a volcano
And you're everything to me
“Hey, Cat,” Adora says with a grin, popping the car door open and sliding into the passenger seat beside her. Catra scoffs.
“I thought you said no distractions before nationals?”
The blonde shrugs, resting her head on the side of the car. “I decided that going to college as a virgin was a mistake. No offense.” With a smooth movement, she pops Catra’s tape out of the slot, changing the music to a more upbeat tune. Catra rolls her eyes, stepping on the accelerator and sending her old grey car rolling down the pretty street framed with flowering trees and outrageously expensive houses.
“Sorry, were you listening to that?” Adora teases, a look of pretend innocence on her face.
“Oh, no,” Catra says dryly, taking her eyes off the road for a moment to playfully glare at the blonde girl. “No, I’m not even sure how that tape got in there. Or how the play button got pushed.”
Adora laughs, her face transforming. Blue eyes fill with joy and light as the rays of sunset hit them. Her face is illuminated, and in the face of Catra’s submission, she looks truly golden.
A car honks up ahead, and she immediately snaps her focus back to the road in time to keep them from colliding with a white BMW.
“Jesus, Shipman!” Adora gasps, grabbing the handle above the car door. “Eyes on the road.”
“Yeah, yeah, ‘Dor. I got it,” She mutters, steering them onto the main road before forcing her face to relax into a gentle grin again. “So, what was this about the Sadecki girl?” She wiggles her eyebrows.
“Well…I didn’t want to keep her waiting any more. You know?” Adora tilted her head, her eyes growing faraway and thoughtful. She reaches down to open up her small white backpack and pulls out a small tube of lipstick. “I mean,” she says as she flips the visor mirror open, “We’ve been together so long, if we’re each other’s firsts we’ll be together forever. It’s poetic like that.”
“I mean, I guess…if you’re into that sort of thing,” Catra shrugs disdainfully, ignoring the slight pangs that go through her at those words. Forever. Screw that. “And Scorpia’s still a virgin? I mean…you guys have broken up a hundred times.”
“I mean, we’ve been on and off since freshman year. Never long enough to count,” Adora says with finality, plastering on a cheery smile before gasping, immediately onto the next thing. “Oh, wait, hold on–” she rummages in her bag again, pulling out pale blue and white paint samples and holding them up triumphantly. “I figured out the color combo for our dorm at Rutgers next year. Blue and white.”
Catra nods indulgently, barely paying attention as she turns onto an empty road and speeds up. Tension coils in her jaw as Adora continues to talk dreamily about their perfect future together.
“It’ll be perfect. Modern yet soft and dreamy.”
The colors fit Adora perfectly. And whatever fits her, well…it must fit Catra too. She is Adora and Adora is her. One and the same. Even if it is just Adora’s idea of same.
Catra turns the music up and leans out the open car window.
The breeze roughly swirls through the car, sweeping away every thought and fear in Catra’s head. She settles into this mindless state, her eyes focused on the roadway and deliberately not on the ethereal girl next to her.
Adora breaks the silence with an abrupt incredulous scoff, nearly lunging out of her seat. “Cat. Can you believe that?!” She points at a gas station sign with the words “We Love Our Boys Soccer Team! Third Place State Champions!” lit up in block letters.
Catra laughs, grabbing Adora’s arm to pull her back down, slowing down the car. “Dor…”
“Try undefeated, bitches!!” She shouts at the sign, flipping it off. “Cat, honk at the thing!”
Catra obliges with a giggle, losing herself momentarily in the humor of the moment as the car horn rings out across the street. “We’re going to motherfucking Nationals!” She shouts out her own window, thrills of delight running through her as the words finally hit. She cheers out into the empty lot with Adora, and when she catches her eye, there’s nothing but bitterness reflected from her own.
—--------
“You’re heading out tomorrow, eh?” Serenia says, tossing her curly blonde hair over her shoulder to lean against the dirty alley wall with Mara. She acknowledges with a nod as she exhales cigarette smoke.
“Yeah,” she says, her voice raspy as she stares off into space. “Nationals. Big deal.”
“So…why are you here and not packing?” Serenia raises an eyebrow, turning her head to glance at her.
“Oh, Serenia…” Mara says with a teasing lilt, but her eyes harden to gray ice. “I’m always packed to get the hell out.”
“Seems fair, I guess,” The other girl says dryly, igniting her own cigarette with a bright pink lighter.
They jump as a wiry boy with dyed black hair jumps down from where he’d climbed over a dumpster.
“Fuck, Kev!” Serenia groans, dramatically clutching her chest “Trying to kill me!”
He laughs, passing Mara a heavy brown paper bag. “If it’s that easy, Ser…”
“How dare you,” she snaps back with a grin, immediately standing as upright as possible. “I’m not that easy. In that respect, at least.”
Mara laughs, inhaling the alcoholic fumes from the contents of the bag. “Where’d you get this one, Kevyn?”
“I’ll never tell,” he winks, waiting for her to drink before taking it back.
“God, that’s foul,” she coughs, feeling it burn down her throat, “But thanks anyway.”
“You’ll be thanking me even more at the party tonight. My cousin hooked us up,” Kevyn says triumphantly, brushing his long, flat, bangs out of his eyes.
“Ooh, what’s he got for us?” Serenia asks eagerly, adjusting her letterman jacket.
“We’ll see,” Kev shrugs.
A filthy car pulls up beside them on the road, rolling down overly tinted windows to reveal a small pack of teenage boys leering at the two girls.
“Hey, ladies!” A particularly cocky one shouts with a drunken laugh, “Show us your tits!”
Mara clenches her jaw and shoots Serenia a look. The blonde girl rolls her eyes at the boys, clearly about to yell at them to fuck off.
Thankfully, Kevyn steps in before anything can happen, pulling up his own shirt “Well, if you insist…” he says, winking at the people in the car. With muttered insults, they finally leave, puttering off down the street.
“Give me that,” Mara snaps quickly, taking the bag back from Kevyn and throwing it at the retreating vehicle. It shatters on their back windshield and the car immediately moves to turn back towards them.
“Shit, Mar, they’re gonna kick my ass, not yours!” The boy yelps, staring at the dark-haired girl with accusation.
A grin fueled by alcohol spreads across her face, her mind delightfully dazed. “They’ll have to catch us first,” she says breathlessly as she abandons her cigarette and runs down the alley.
—--------
Loud music plays in the locker room, the vast majority of the Rebels dancing and singing along as they prepare for the pep rally their school was hosting in honor of their victory. Adora would be out there with them, but she was officially on face paint duty. As she carefully paints a sword on Flutterina’s cheek, the freshman seems intent on complaining until Adora drops dead.
“It’s not fair. I was the only freshman asked to prom this year, and I have to skip it for nationals!” She pouts, scowling. Adora opens her mouth to give a careless response, but is quickly saved by Bree, who had just finished her own sword painting.
“Come on, you still have a lot of time. Don’t you wanna go to nationals and get on the news, and do all that fun stuff?” She asks with a grin, turning her soft brown eyes to the whining girl.
“Yeah, but I–” Flutterina starts, but is interrupted by a tall black girl with startlingly blue eyes popping around the corner, dyed cornflower braids hanging down her back.
“Adora, the principal wants to see you,” she says, blinking incredulously at the scene. The blonde nods, handing the tiny brush and face paint to Bree before heading out past her.
“Thanks, Hope,” Adora calls over her shoulder. Bree continues on Flutterina’s painting, trying again to talk her down.
“Look, you still have years of high school to go. Most of us are missing out on our senior year prom, after all,” she says lightly, tracing the brush over the girl’s pale skin one more time.
“Easy for you to say, no one asked you,” The teen spits, scowling at her. Bree pulls the brush back slowly, an almost pityingly disdainful look coming into her expression.
“Okay, you’re done.”
With those words, the freshman sweeps out of the room. Hope takes her place on the bench beside Bree, sighing incredulously under her breath.
“Jesus Christ,” she says, dragging out the words. “She’s a nightmare.”
“She’s a fourteen-year-old, she’ll grow up,” Bree says doubtfully.
“Maybe,” Hope says wryly, grabbing her eyeliner out of her locker and carefully applying it in the mirror.
“Is Mara here? She’s running late,” Bree asks, getting her soccer equipment bag and moving to walk out into the bigger area.
“Saw her walk in a minute ago,” Hope murmurs, completely focused on her makeup for a moment until she straightens up and follows Bree out the door.
“Good, because Adora would have her head if she wasn’t at the rally,” The other girl chuckles, brushing her medium-length curls out of her face as they walk towards the rest of the team.
“Alright, Rebels, time to go!” Adora shouts as she returns from her meeting, cutting the music and clapping her hands to call them all over.
Outside in the gym, the principal has already started talking, the sound audible through the loud speakers.
“Let’s hear it for our boys soccer team!” A polite smattering of applause carries around the gym, but no one seems too excited.
“And now, for our state champions…The Brightmoon Rebels!”
The gym roars as they run out.
—-------
“God, I hate those things,” Glimmer groans as she plunks her heavy bag down next to Catra the minute they get outside. “They’re just jerk-off material for the disgusting baseball guys.”
Catra snickers, nodding in agreement. “Adora seems to love it. Not the playboy shit though,” she quickly corrects, “I think it’s the hype.”
“Well, she is single, so…maybe she likes the attention too,” The girl giggles. Catra laughs dutifully along with her, forcing a grin as though she didn’t know exactly why Adora was still “single”. It’s fair, she supposes, dating a girl in secret. People are judgemental to say the least.
She nods as though she didn’t know that Adora fiercely claims to not be queer in front of anyone else to the point where she’s practically homophobic, followed by climbing into bed with Scorpia hours later.
“So unfair,” Flutterina mutters under her breath particularly loudly as she power-walks by them, glaring as though Glimmer and Catra had somehow deliberately lined up the dates to fuck up her life. Glimmer’s good mood dissipates instantly, and she scowls right back.
“God, will she ever shut up?” she complains, standing up and pacing, her voice getting higher by the second, “First she almost blows the game for us, then she goes and does this? She’s gonna cost us nationals!”
“Damn, Sparkles,” Catra says wryly, watching Glimmer’s short and fluffy light brown hair bounce in the breeze. “Angry much?”
“She nearly tripped me because she fumbled the ball!” She exclaims, drawing the attention of Mara and Hope from the path.
“I mean, she is a bit of a problem,” Catra admits, waving to acknowledge the other girls.
“Are we talking about Flutterina?” Hope asks, tilting her head with a calculating glint in her eyes. Mara stays silent, impartial for now.
“She is a problem. We all know it,” Glimmer declares, looking for agreement.
“She’s not a good team player,” Hope says slowly, “But what do you intend to do about that?”
“Easy,” The shorter girl grins triumphantly, “She can’t screw it up if she doesn’t get the ball.”
“Don’t forget, Glim,” Mara finally says, “She’s still part of the team. We can’t just freeze her out now, right before nationals.”
“Might be easier than dealing with her, though…” Catra murmurs thoughtfully.
“Yeah, no. Absolutely not. She’s a stuck-up little bitch, but I’m not an absolute asshole,” Mara defends, glaring pointedly at the shorter girl.
“And you aren’t here half the time,” Glimmer shoots back, “You reek of alcohol. Get your shit together.”
Mara stills, a coldness seeping into her usually warm gray eyes. “Alright, fuck you. I’m out.” She turns on her heel and walks away as fast as she can.
With her gone, Hope seems slightly lost, deep in thought.“She kinda sucks, but…It doesn’t feel right,” she says quietly, turning to run and catch up to Mara.
Catra turns her sharp gaze on Glimmer. “Adora’s not going to like it,” she says cautiously, holding her stare.
“Then I guess we can’t tell her.” She responds coolly.
As if on cue, Coach Hordak Scott blows his whistle to call the girls over to the soccer field. With one final weighted look, the two girls jog across the schoolyard to the rest of the team.
“What were you and Glim talking about?” Adora asks as she sidles up to Catra with a carefree grin. She always seems to do that around her, lighting up as though Catra is her sun. God, it’s so fake. She’s so fake, whether the “she” in question is her…or Catra herself.
“Oh, you know,” Catra murmurs. She leans down, dropping her bag on the side of the field, “Team stuff, Hope’s super Christian twin sister, which guys on the football team are the least disgusting…” She counts the topics off on her fingers, her black nail polish gleaming in the light.
Adora snorts, satisfied by the answer. “Keep your voice down, the sister in question is right there!” she mutters wryly, gesturing over to where Destiny was currently stretching on the first row of the bleachers. As opposed to her twin, Destiny’s eyes were a soft brown and her hair was curling beautifully down her spine. She was also a few inches shorter, closer to 5’7 than her sister’s 6’1, which Hope liked to brag about endlessly.
“Alright, girls,” Hordak began in his low, nearly clipped, tone. “You may have won states, but nationals is going to be a lot tougher. You girls are the best of the best, but you’re going to compete with teams that are just as good. Just as tough. Just as united.”
“So it’s more important than ever that we stay a team,” Mara comments pointedly, staring down Glimmer. The shorter girl rolls her eyes, brushing her off.
“Exactly right, Scattorcio,” Their other coach, Hordak’s older brother, Horace, replies, nodding to her.
“Okay, so we’re going to conduct a scrimmage between you and the JV team. Good practice for them, to go up against you girls, and you guys need to go up against a team that really wants to prove themselves,” Hordak continues. “JV, get a penny from Entrapta.”
A small girl with box-dyed purple pigtails waves to the group, tossing bright red mesh at each JV girl. Most of the girls seem eager to play, but when Catra spots Glimmer’s expression, it’s pure calculation. For someone as “act first, think later” as her, it’s outright disturbing.
When the whistle blows, the competition seems pretty easy. Catra loses herself in watching the ball pass from person to person, taking her place in the center of the field. When it comes to her from Glimmer, the other girl shooting her a meaningful look, she passes it to Flutterina. She sprints across the field with it, only for it to get stolen by a platinum-haired JV girl. Catra groans under her breath, forcing her body into a run to intercept the other team’s effort.
By the time Coach Horace calls a break, Glimmer looks about ready to kill someone. She storms across the field, grabbing a red penny out of a bag on her way to the coaches.
“I wanna switch sides,” she declares, waiting for Horace’s nod of approval to pull it on. Catra jogs over to her.
“Uh, Sparkles?” she says under her breath in a sarcastic tone, “What are you doing?”
“If we can’t freeze her out, she’s gonna have to learn how to play under pressure,” She responds coolly.
The whistle blows again.
“Alright, varsity, Glimmer wants to see you girls hustle and quite frankly so do I,” Hordak says, waving them back onto the field.
During the game, Catra tries to pay attention, she really does, but the ball never makes it to her. It stays firmly between Glimmer and Flutterina, the older girl seeming intent on making this the hardest game of her life. Sparkles never got more than a foot away, constantly retaking the black and white ball. Visible frustration flashes on the blonde’s face, and finally, she seems in it. On the next opening, she snatches the ball away and just runs. A triumphant grin flashes across Glimmer’s face as she enters pursuit.
Anticipation flashes through Catra’s body as she starts to move in that direction, telling herself that she won’t intervene unless she absolutely has to. She can’t make herself look stupid for a freshman, after all. Across the field, Adora catches her eye, shooting her a puzzled look. Catra ignores her, remaining intent on Flutterina.
An uneasy feeling curls in her gut. Glimmer was getting closer and closer and still wasn’t slowing down. Ten feet away, five feet…
Right as Catra opens her mouth to yell out to her, they collide.
Glimmer stumbles over her, but maintains her footing.
Flutterina crumples to the floor screaming.
Everything happens really fast after that. The whistle blows as everyone sprints over to where she’s writhing on the field, clutching her leg. Her bloody, clearly broken, leg. Fuck, Catra thinks, bile rising in her throat at the sight. The mangled skin and flesh wasn’t the worst part, even. No, it was the spikes of white sticking up from the center. Bone pokes through her leg, meeting the open air.
Adora crashes into her, gagging. Catra grabs her pale hand and squeezes tight as though it will make her forget everything, to allow her to unsee this horror movie spectacle.
Entrapta kneels beside her, a spare penny in her hands. She maneuvers it around the girl’s leg, her whole body shaking as she tries to pull it tight, muttering instructions to herself.
“Okay, we’ve got to get a tourniquet, stop the bleeding…”
Flutterina screams as it tightens, and the coaches immediately yell at the purple-haired girl to back away. With a last worried look at the mangled leg, she scrambles back.
“I’ll call the paramedics,” Horace mutters to his brother before sprinting across the field towards the school building.
Hordak blows the whistle extra sharply, regaining the team’s attention. “Alright,” he says hoarsely, never taking his eyes off of the freshman. “Everyone sit down, nobody move. Horace is going for help right now.”
Glimmer kneels in the grass beside Catra, staring numbly from Flutterina’s leg to her face to the sky. Her face is almost deathly pale and her pale blue veins are visible under her eyes. The back of Catra’s neck prickles and she turns her head to see Mara glaring daggers at the two of them. When Glimmer notices, an ember of guilt forming in her eyes, the dark-haired girl mouths “I hope you’re happy,” accompanied by a disdainful scowl.
It felt like years before the ambulance arrived. Even longer before the paramedics in dark blue managed to load the broken girl onto a stretcher and carry her away in the wailing vehicle. Catra stares at the blood-spattered grass and the soft imprint where Flutterina had been, her head spinning. Only when Adora knelt beside her and pulled her up did she finally look away.
There’s no music in the locker room now. A somber cloud seems to have settled over the place, everyone either sitting on the benches staring at the floor or leaning against the wall with their eyes glazed over in thought.
Adora is in the second party, shifting uncomfortably as if the silence physically pained her. Finally, she claps her hands together loudly, striding to the center of the room. “Look,” she begins, “I know we’re all upset about what happened to Flutterina, but we can’t break down now. Maybe…maybe it’s not as bad as it looks,” she says before wincing as though it had magically occurred to her that perhaps that wasn’t the right thing to say.
It definitely occurred to Mara too, because she immediately snaps her head up to stare incredulously at the blonde girl. Her hands still on the little rainbow she was stitching into her black backpack as she speaks up, a dull edge to her voice. “You could see her fucking bones, ‘Dor,”
“Pretty sure that means it was bad,” The blonde JV girl agrees. What was her name again? Perfuma? Catra wonders, but the passing thought slips from her mind as Adora tenses up, her bright blue eyes darting around as she seeks out the right words.
“It was an accident, none of us can blame ourselves,” She, attempting to sound perfectly composed despite the small tremor in her beautiful hands. Glimmer freezes, biting down hard on her over-painted lips.
“Fabulous accident, isn’t it, Glimmer?” Mara asks scornfully, shoving her cleats into her locker and slamming it shut before storming out of the room.
The brunette puts her head in her hands with a distressed groan.
“Glim?” Adora asks, caution seeping into her tone. “What did she mean by that?”
“It really was a mistake,” Glimmer pleads, refusing to look up. “I just…we just…”
We? Shit, shit, shit, Catra panics, curling her hands into fists in her lap.
“So you did do something on purpose?” Adora asks, her voice getting higher as betrayal flashes in her gaze.
Glim’s face twitches, opening her mouth for a response before Bree kneels in front of her and rests a hand on her shoulder.
“Adora, it doesn’t matter,” Bree says quietly, turning her doe brown gaze on their captain. “Glimmer, did you mean to hurt her?”
“No,” she responds shakily, looking up from her hands with desperation. “I don’t want to hurt anyone!”
“I know,” Bree replies softly. “You’d never hurt anyone on purpose,” the girl lifts her head, challenging the room with her words. “You may be stubborn, and you may have had hard feelings towards her, but you know when enough is enough.”
Glimmer nods tenuously, pulling Bree into a tight hug.
“Alright, then” Adora murmurs. “It really was just an accident.”
A few of the other girls, namely Hope and a couple JV kids called Mermista and Huntara, still look vaguely suspicious, but thankfully keep their thoughts to themselves as Adora waves the team out of the room.
“Go home, and I’ll see you guys at the party tonight,” She says hurriedly, ruffling her golden hair as though she’s trying to shake the distraught atmosphere out of her skull. Once the last girl is out of the room, Catra pushes herself up to standing, walking over to the blonde girl as she slides down the side of the lockers to sit beside her own backpack
“God, Cat, I can’t say anything right today,” She groans, hitting her head on the metal doors.
“You handled that as well as you were expected to,” Catra murmurs, dropping down beside her. “It's not your fault these girls are crazy.”
“Look, I know what they were saying about her,” Adora says in a rush, the words coming out as though she’d been holding them in for years. “And they’re not wrong. Flutterina does have her…issues.”
“But?” Catra asks, delicately raising an eyebrow. The beautiful blonde wrings her hands in her lap, leaning into Catra as though she was the very glue holding her together. There’s a tenseness in her throat, a muscle stretched taut that only appears when there are things left unsaid.
“But I’m supposed to have control,” Adora says quietly, “I’m supposed to be a good leader, and I didn’t even notice that was happening.”
“They didn’t want you to. Glimmer can be very sneaky when she wants to be,” Catra murmurs, putting some mental distance between herself and the topic so that her own guilt doesn’t show on her face or tighten her voice.
“Yeah, I know she can,” Adora chuckles despite herself, reaching for Catra’s hand. “Remember freshman year?”
“Jesus, ‘Dor, don’t remind me,” She groans, letting the other girl fidget with the numerous faded silver rings on her hand. It seems to calm Adora down, and soon all the tension disappears from her face.
“Better?” Catra asks after a minute. At the blonde’s gentle nod of agreement, she shakes Adora’s hand off of hers and stands up with a soft groan. As they walk towards the door, she spins her car keys around her fingers. “My place or yours?”
“Yours,” Adora says decidedly. “Your room is better.”
“And you have a mansion, but okay…” Catra says fondly, rolling her eyes.
“And you have parents that actually let you decorate your space, but okay…” she trails off, giving Catra a sweetly pleading look out of the corner of her eye.
She sighs. “Do I ever say no?”
Adora’s beam lights up the whole room.
—----------
Rrrriinnngggg
Rrrriinnngggg
Rrrriinnngggg
“Entrapta, it’s for you!” Her mother yells up the stairs, the sound muffled by the white door to her bedroom.
The purple-haired girl looks up from her project, a dismantled television she’d recovered from a junk sale. She’d gotten it for extremely cheap, and planned to make her money’s worth. She could build it better than before. Sadly, at present, it looked more like a tangled mess of wires and panels than the masterpiece it would be. Her whole room was in mostly the same state as well, something Entrapta would describe to anyone who asked as “organized chaos”. Unfortunately, no one had asked yet, but they would soon. Soon. She’d be the greatest scientist in the world and friends would fall right into her lap. She pushes off her goggles and leaves her sanctuary.
She skips down the stairs, hand grazing down the cream-colored banister. Her pigtails as well as the safety goggles around her neck bounce as she moves. In the kitchen, a short woman with black hair impatiently holds out the phone.
“Some boy from your school,” she says, passing it to her daughter before taking her usual spot on the beige couch.
A flicker of interest sparks in her mind, hope sparking in her heart. Years have gone by, years of being overlooked. Years of being called strange or worse when they thought she wasn’t listening. Entrapta the freak. Equipment manager of the Brightmoon Rebels because Coach Hordak felt bad for her.
Never once had she gotten a call, let alone from a boy.
“Hello?” She asks, her voice coming out squeakier than she meant it to.
“Um..hey, ‘Trap…” A low voice says, indistinguishable from the vast amount of male voices in the school.
“Hi, who are you?” she asks simply, weaving the cord around her gloved fingers.
Laughter in the background. Maybe he was at a party.
“I think you’re really cute, wanna go out sometime?”
She pauses. The endless flow of her mind stops. Questions come to the forefront instantly, but she pushes them down. A boy likes her! After years! She didn’t even have to do anything!
“Yes! I would!” She says with a wide grin that could be heard through the phone. More laughter follows, except this time the first boy joins in.
“Yeah...never mind, freak,” He says jovially, cruelty seeping into his tone as he slams the phone down and hangs up.
Oh. So this is how it is.
She slowly puts it down, seeds of doubt growing into sequoias in her brain. Of course it was a joke. Of course she didn’t even notice.
A buzzing starts in her skull as she walks outside, disregarding her mother’s questioning. The concrete feels warm under her bare feet, the sun shining down in a way that seemed wildly inconducive to her current mood. She folds down onto the ground beside the pool, crossing her legs in the same way that always got her praised in preschool.
She’s not sure how long she was out there for, lost deep in thought, until a blur of gray disrupts her process. A large rat streaks across the concrete, running aimlessly away from the sound of a car backfiring on the street. She tracks it with her dark eyes, and it doesn’t even occur to her to intervene. With a screech and a splash, it falls into the water.
She doesn’t move.
Its life is in her hands, and she doesn’t move.
She can decide what happens now.
—------------
“No, not that one.”
Catra finishes her little twirl in her white dress, sighing with exasperation. “Really, ‘Dor? This is the fifth one!”
Adora scrunches up her nose. “It’s not very you.”
“And how do you know what is “me”?” Catra shoots back, clumsily unbuttoning the back of it. “I’m perfectly fine with any of these.”
The blonde shrugs. Her own dress had been decided the day before, a beautiful red sleeveless gown cinched at her waist with a gold belt. It falls elegantly over her body, illuminated in color from the dying fairy lights in Catra’s dark attic room. “Fine, but you could do better. Try the maroon dress. The one with the boobs.”
Catra sighs, glancing over at where it hangs in her open closet. A pang of resentment strikes through her chest. It can never just be her own choice, can it? “Seriously?”
“It’s made for you, Cat!”
She responds with a noncommittal noise as she examines the rest of her wardrobe. “And why do you wanna see my tits so bad anyway, ‘Dor?” she snarks.
Adora splutters, caught genuinely off guard. Maybe it was the lights, but Catra could’ve sworn she blushed.
“I’m joking, Jesus Christ,” she mutters.
The blonde nods quickly, fidgeting with the frayed edge of Catra’s blanket. “You don’t have to wear it, you know,” she murmurs. “I’m not forcing you.”
She scoffs. “Yeah. I know,” she says coolly, ruffling through various other outfits. Finally, she selects a white shirt and a coral-colored jacket that matched Adora’s usual attire almost perfectly. The only difference was that Catra had cut it shorter to suit her own style more while still maintaining the Adora’s look. A variation of her, rather than Adora herself.
The taller girl flinches at the harsh tone, but quickly recovers a smile as she recognizes the jacket. “Wait, hold on.” She jumps off of the bed, her disgustingly infectious cheer coming back in an instant as she runs over to her backpack. “I have the perfect thing!”
“Show me when I get back,” Catra says, halfway out the door. “I’m gonna go change.”
Adora nods, rummaging through the beat-up bag.
When Catra comes back, Adora’s sitting back on her bed, holding the golden wing clip from her belt. The other girl brightens up when she enters, gesturing for her to come closer.
“Do you approve of my outfit this time, ‘Dor?” She says with a sarcastic lilt as she obeys.
“You look amazing, Cat,” Adora says sincerely, stopping her in her tracks. “No, seriously,” she laughs, noticing her suspicion, “It suits you.”
“Thanks,” Catra mutters, feeling her face get hot. She sits down beside her, careful not to crumple the blonde’s dress as she falls back on the mattress.
“Here, let me pin this on your jacket. Accessorizing, and all that,” Adora says, gently grasping the edge of Catra’s outfit. She lets the blonde attach the golden wing, letting herself get lost in the moment. For those few seconds, everything is alright. They’re the way they want to be.
But it’s not true, and it never will be, Catra is instantly reminded at Adora’s next words.
“There. Now you can get any guy you want.” Her tone comes off sweet and encouraging, but it makes something in Catra’s gut clench. “I hear Kyle Walsh likes you…” she teases, nudging her with a knowing look.
“Ew, Kyle?” She replies flippantly, scrunching up her face at the very thought. “I once saw him get outsmarted by a gas pump.”
Adora giggles. “Well, who do you want?”
The real answer is…complicated, to say the least. Deep down, Catra knows if she were to tell Adora she’s gay that it would eventually be okay with the blonde girl, but now? When she can’t even truly accept that about herself despite kissing - and apparently fucking - Scorpia Sadecki at every opportunity?
“Uh, Jeff on the baseball team,” She says, throwing out a random name. Glimmer said she thought he was hot once, so it’s plausible.
Adora shoots her a smug grin. “Oooooh, Cat’s got a crush!”
“I do not!” She protests, her gut tightening even more. “That’s such a kid thing.”
“People have crushes as adults, Catra,” Adora says wryly. “I know I do.”
“Don’t you have a girlf– partner?” She raises an eyebrow.
“Oh,” Adora stammers awkwardly, “I mean that I have a crush on my partner. Yeah. Not cheating. It’s a shitty move.”
“Uh-huh,” Catra says slowly, watching her flounder over her own words. Her heart sinks at that confirmation, but she instantly chastises the treacherous organ for it. There’s no reason to ruin herself with that.
Not worth touching that topic. Ever.
“You ready?” Adora asks, getting up and going to the door as though trying to escape the situation altogether.
Catra follows, taking her hand on the way out.
—--------
The fire is so mesmerizing. It dances beautifully across the wood in the shallow groove, reaching longingly up to the sky. Flickers of faces and places appear as Mara continues to stare into the depths. Half-real, half-imagined worlds unfold before her. Or maybe it’s just the drugs. It’s probably the drugs.
“Damn, girl, go easy on that stuff” Serenia teases, nudging her shoulder. “Someone’s gonna get onto us. Also, don’t you go to the fucking olympics tomorrow?”
“Yeah. Don’t really give a shit right now,” She says faintly in response, “They know how fucked I am.”
“Not your fault,” Serenia responds, a distant edge in her tone as her brown eyes darted around the woods. She grabs Mara’s arm and turns her closer. “They’re mean.”
“It is my fault, actually,” She murmurs, struggling to focus her attention on the girl in front of her. Serenia was shorter than her, but then again, most people were. Blonde curls bounced down her shoulders and back, framing her delicate features. Mara’s own leather jacket was slung over her shoulders, draping over her short forest green dress. The collar was popped up to hide a dark bruise on her neck.
“No, it’s not,” The other girl protests, her gaze fixing just to the left of Mara’s eyes. “He deserved it– you know, if you actually did kill–”
Mara grabs her wrist and sharply jerks her arm. Serenia flinches. “Don’t talk to me about that. Ever,” She says hoarsely, letting go. White marks where her fingers had clenched around her wrist stand out against Serenia’s skin. The other girl rubs her arm, looking affronted.
“Jesus, Mar,” The blonde mutters. The LSD starts to fully kick in, her features distorting strangely under the flickering firelight. A delicious fog settles over her brain and she looks over and past the other girl at the tree line.
A short girl with purple pigtails stands there, staring straight into her soul. “‘Trap?” Mara murmurs, wandering past Serenia, but in an instant, Entrapta is gone. If she was ever there to begin with.
“Mara, hey,” a new voice chimes in above the chaos of the other highschoolers. She turns around and comes face to face with Adora. The tall blonde’s face is stained with concern, and are her eyes spinning? She doesn’t know. “You alright?”
Right as she opens her mouth to speak, shouting erupts on the other side of the field. Both girls run over to find Glimmer being held back by Bree and Mermista, Catra spitting angry things at her with a crumpled red cup in her hands.
“Stop fucking lying, Glim! It might work on them, but it doesn’t work on me,” The small girl hisses, her face flushed red with alcohol.
“The hell are you so angry about?!” Glimmer screams back, struggling against the two girls’ holds. “I didn’t do it, but even if I did, you were in on the whole freeze her out strategy anyway!”
Catra makes as if to lunge for her, but Adora deftly grabs her arms and pulls her back.
“What does she mean, Mar?” Destiny asks, putting her hand on her shoulder. Her hazel eyes flicker with mild concern. Fuck, she looks so much like her sister when she’s worried.
Mara sighs, shooting a contemptuous look at the squabbling girls. “She’s talking about Glimmer’s little plan to get rid of her.”
“Since when do you care?” The girl in question spits, “Don’t you have a bong to hit or a cunt to eat?”
“Don’t talk to her like that,” Hope says coldly, getting in between the two.
“What?” Destiny asks wide-eyed, her hand stiffening on Mara’s arm.
“Shut the fuck up, Dee,” Hope snaps, turning the full force of her glare on her sister.
“Real impressive, sparkles” Mara scorns, brushing Destiny’s hand off and the girl recoils as though Mara’s touch was fire. She gently taps Hope’s shoulder and gestures for her to move over so she could speak. “Just because I actually have the balls to admit I like girls doesn’t make me a slut. And for the record, Glim? You’re deep in denial yourself.”
Glimmer starts to scream at her again, but Adora manages to yell over her.
“Shut up!” She shouts, snapping everyone’s attention to her. “Rebels, get in line now!”
Mermista and Bree cautiously release the furious girl as the whole team listens.
“Alright,” She says loudly, surveying the team. “We’re about to go to nationals, but based on what I’m seeing right now, we might as well not bother getting on the damn plane. We’re gonna talk about this.”
“What is there to talk about?” Glimmer spits, “Catra’s drunk and bringing up shit we already settled.”
“Glimmer,” Bree cautions quietly, resting a gentle hand on her back. The action seems to release all the pressure built up inside the small girl, and she sighs quietly.
“Okay. Adora, continue.”
“We’re gonna go down the line and say one nice thing or something you admire about each girl. Like, uh…” Adora trails off, glancing between them all before settling on Mara. “Mar,” She says, approaching her with a soft smile, “You’re very loyal. I admire the way you refuse to let go of the people you care about.”
She smiles back, for once letting herself just take the compliment– in the name of peacekeeping, of course.
“And Bree…” Adora continues, walking down the line to her, “I love how compassionate you are. You see right through people and bring out the best in them.”
“Aww…” she says, nearly tearing up. “Love you too, ‘Dor.”
“Then say it! All of you!” Adora gestures for them to break up their rigid positioning, turning over to Catra to start talking.
“Hey,” Mara says softly, reaching out to brush her fingers down Hope’s arm. “Thanks for what you did back there.”
“Of course,” she replies stiffly, her strangely beautiful blue eyes focusing anywhere but on her face.
“As for Adora’s whole team-building thing…you never talk shit unless someone really deserves it,” She says, smiling with satisfaction. Her eyes trail upward, and without even realizing it, she says “And I love your pilgrim hat.”
Was there one? She’s not really sure, because it keeps flickering in and out just like the fire. Oh, probably not, because Hope immediately tilts her head with confusion, taken aback.
“Um. Okay. You…well,” The tall girl sighs, “You see things in people. Even if they don’t see it in themselves. You bring it out.”
The words seem loaded with hidden meaning, and for a moment, Mara’s taken back to a long-ago dream. A pretty room, soft blue sheets, a stolen kiss in the middle of the night…but none of it felt truly real. She’d long decided that it was just that: A dream. Something that could never, and would never, happen.
But sometimes it feels like it could.
—----------
It would’ve been one thing if Adora had danced with any other guy. Even if she’d risked a dance with Scorpia. But this? It was to spite her, plain and simple. The image of the beautiful blonde in her red dress dancing around the flames with Jeff was burned into Catra’s mind. Of course she dances with the guy Catra supposedly likes. Of course she does. Because she’s Adora Taylor, and she can have whatever she wants.
But then there was the talk. The way Adora said she was her everything. She replays the moment in her mind, over and over, just like a broken record.
“Catra Shipman. You might be fiery, and bitchy, and stuck in your way, oh, and you definitely can’t hold your liquor, but…”
She could still feel the way Adora had taken her hands and gently rubbed over the ridges with her thumb. The way she looked so deep into Catra’s mismatched eyes.
“But you’re my best friend. My everything. The only one who’s been there through it all.”
Catra had managed some sort of sweet nothing in reply, but was deeply shaken. Even now, in the backseat of Scorpia’s car, the words still rotated through her skull.
“My everything.”
“Hey, Scorp, I need to be dropped off first,” Adora said lightly, staring out the passenger seat window.
Scorpia furrows her brow. “Isn’t Cat’s place on the way?” She asks, and a vindictive sort of feeling rises in Catra. She’s right, it is on the way. But of course, it’s always about Adora.
“Yeah, but my parents are really strict about my curfew,” The blonde replies like it’s the easiest thing in the world.
“I have a curfew too, you know,” Catra mutters, tapping her long, chipped, black nails on the side of the car. Adora gives another light excuse before Scorpia pulls off of the main road towards her girlfriend’s street.
Once they pull up beside Adora’s mansion, the blonde girl slips out of the car, walking back towards her home.
She turns around for a moment, but it’s not Scorpia she looks to. It’s Catra who she looks at with such adoration, delicate strands of her blonde hair that had fallen out of her ponytail framing her beautiful face.
Her heart clenches, a mixture of hate and love building in her chest. The more she let herself feel for Adora, the more the good grew, the more that seed of bitterness sprouted. Adora is her everything too. But all Catra seems to do is become her. Become her because that’s the closest she can have to having her in the way she wants to. Hell, she doesn’t even know what the extent of her feelings are. They don’t have a name. They’re far too deep for friendship, far too all-consuming for love.
It makes her want to scream.
The car starts moving again, getting onto the dark road that leads towards Catra’s own home. Before she even thinks about it, she’s speaking again. “Pull over.”
“You alright, wildcat?” Scorpia asks, her dark eyes clouding with concern.
“Just pull over,” She murmurs, abruptly silencing her own worries.
They pull onto a dark side road, slightly into the trees. Catra flings the back door open, climbing into the passenger seat. For a moment, they sit in silence, Catra staring out the window and Scorpia staring at Catra. Finally, she turns to the white-haired girl. She leans in closer. Forces all thoughts of Adora from her brain. And she kisses her.
When they kiss, it’s soft. Easy. Practiced. She lets herself be lost in the feeling of Scorpia’s lips on hers, the feeling of the center console pressing against her thighs and abdomen. The other girl pulls back after a moment, breathing heavily, her hand lingering in Catra’s hair.
“I thought we’d said we wouldn’t do this again,” She says breathlessly, worry flashing in her eyes.
“And we won’t,” Catra shrugs, an emotionless expression settling over her features. “Again.”
They don’t stop after that. Not until Catra can’t even think of Adora's name.
Or so she tells herself.
When she gets home that night, she takes a breath before going in the door. Nothing happened. She’s calm and collected. She’s okay.
She’s okay.
Her room feels colder without Adora in it. Darker, as though the light was sucked out with her stupidly blonde hair. Packing for nationals feels so dull without her exceedingly cheerful voice. With every bit of clothing she needs finally on her bed, Catra drags her old suitcase out of her closet. She throws it down on the floor with frustration as a shower of papers fall from an old box that had apparently relied on the suitcase to stay in position.
At the top of the pile, as though deliberately incriminating her, sat a letter with the Brown University insignia.
“Dear Catra Shipman,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted with early decision into Brown University. We’re looking forward to seeing you in the fall.”
She lied. She knows she lied. There won’t be a blue and white room at Rutgers where she’ll spend the next four years. She won’t live with Adora so long they’ll fuse into one being. God, it stings. It stings every time she thinks about it, but it’s also so freeing. These feelings, these desires, will be gone. She’ll find new friends. She’ll build a life without her.
She won’t even think about Adora.
—-------
Whatever she was expecting, a private plane wasn’t it. Adora boards first, taking her white and gold backpack covered in all sorts of pretty pins with her. Clenching her jaw with nerves, and ducking to get through the door, she follows her into an expensive looking main cabin.
“I can’t believe your father paid for this, Hope!” Bree exclaims, turning back to look at the tall girl as they come in. Hope’s face twitches as though trying to suppress a laugh.
“It’s pretty much his only form of parenting. I guess I’ll take it,” she says wryly.
“Well, thank you, Mr. Matthews!” Bree and Mara chorus, laughing as they brush past the blue-haired girl.
“Catra, up here!” Adora calls with a grin, waving as she lifts her bag into the overhead compartment above a seat near the front of the plane. She acknowledges the blonde with a terse smile, joining her at the seats she’d chosen. “Gimme your bag,” Adora says, gallantly holding out her hands.
“Alright, if you insist,” Catra shrugs, dumping her falling apart backpack into the blonde’s arms. Adora lets out a little oof noise, struggling to hold it up.
“Damn, Catra, what’s in here?!” She exclaims, grunting as she puts the backpack up with her own. “My arms are gonna be sore!”
Catra laughs raspily, pushing Adora over into the window seat. “Important stuff, don’t mind me.” She waves her hand airily as she takes her seat beside her, ignoring the way her chest tightened as she buckled herself in.
“Frosta, Kadroh, up here,” Coach Horace instructs, leading his own children over to a row on the opposite side of the plane from Catra and Adora. Kadroh goes to their school, and is a distinctly familiar face, practically Coach Horace’s clone. He has the same angular features, same dark skin, and practically the same height. The only real difference between the two is that Kadroh’s hair is not perfectly groomed like the coach’s. The daughter, Frosta, however, looks very different, with pale skin and straight black hair down to her shoulders. Probably adopted, if Catra had to guess. Anything to keep her attention off of the fact that she’s about to be thrown into the air in a metal tube going 400 miles per hour.
“Cat,” Adora says gently, nudging her. She turns her attention back on the blonde girl. Adora rummages around in her jacket pocket and pulls out a small bag of pills. “Stole these from my mom. Valium. She’s got so many she won’t even miss them.”
“Trying to drug me, ‘Dor?” She asks wryly. Her joking tone doesn’t quite land, her throat a bit too tight to make it sound natural.
“No! I mean, yes, but,” Adora gestures exasperatedly, “You’re scared of planes, right? When my family brought you to Hilton Head with us, you cried the whole way. This’ll help.”
Catra relaxes, fondness fighting with anxiety in her mind. “Yeah. Thanks,” She murmurs, taking the pills from Adora and swallowing a couple.
“Oh! I almost forgot!” the blonde says with excitement, reaching up to unhook a beautiful golden chain from around her neck, a pretty heart symbol dangling off of it. “For you. So nothing really bad can happen for as long as you have it.” She gently brushes Catra’s long, dark, curls off of her neck, placing the necklace around it with a delicacy that makes Catra shiver.
“Promise?” She murmurs, looking into Adora’s stunning blue eyes. The medicine is already making the world a bit hazier, and she feels like if she were to close her eyes, she’d drift away.
“I promise,” Adora says softly, pulling her to lean on her shoulder. Over the intercom, the pilot announces that they’re about to depart.
Catra doesn’t catch most of the next words he says, a vague “Our flight path…further north..storm…” being all she hears as sleep lures her in.
“I promise,” Adora repeats one last time, and in Catra’s half-asleep mind, she looks like an angel in the frail sunlight from the window.
—------------
The sky is screaming.
Everyone is screaming.
The plane itself is screaming.
She blinks awake to Adora wearing an oxygen mask, panic flashing in her blue eyes as she struggles to put one on Catra’s face, her hands shaking. As though she’s in a dream, she just stares for a moment as Adora pulls her close, whispering desperate prayers to a god she doesn’t even believe in.
Glimmer tumbles past her on the plane floor, having gotten out of her seat to try and crawl over to Bree, screaming. Destiny is praying between choked sobs, curling into her sister beside her who seems utterly numb. Hope’s eyes dart around, her mouth moving as though she was counting. Disbelief more than anything is written into her face.
As the medicine rapidly starts to wear off, her heart speeds up like an accelerating motorcycle, an agonizing tug in her lower belly as gravity does its work. She snaps her attention back to the plane itself, leaning over Adora to open the window.
All she can see are trees. They blur by with terrifying speed, way too close for this part of the trip. They’re going too fast. The forest is right there. It’s right there. The metal of the plane screams again and the exit door pops open.
One voice rises above the cacophony now.
“Dad!” Kadroh screams, and Catra’s blood turns to ice as she realizes Coach Horace is no longer in the plane. He’s dead, she realizes, a feeling like thousands of needles stabbing her very brain matter going through her entire body. He’s dead, and we’re all about to be.
The trees are so close she can make out individual trunks.
Individual branches
Individual leaves.
They’re all already dead.
Every heartbeat feels agonizing, like every single cell in her body knows they’re her last.
“Catra,” Adora sobs, clinging to her with a newfound desperation.
“Before we die I just wanna tell you that I–”
The sound of the plane hitting the ground washes away her next words.
Words that would never again be said.
------