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"Catra! Stop it, it's for your own good! Ow!"

At the end of a long day of training, Adora is tired, sore, and wants little more than to take a shower and throw herself onto her bed. Wrangling a furious Catra into the showers with her was not on the agenda tonight, until a bot that hadn't been fixed quite right (thanks, Kyle) sprung a leak and sprayed them both with motor oil.

Now, the issue with Catra is that she's willing to shower exactly twice weekly, and both opportunities have passed. But Adora is not going to let her walk around reeking of motor oil until Monday. She's got her arms full of Catra and she's not letting go, no matter how Catra squirms, scratches, bites. In the ten minutes since she's initiated this endeavor, Adora has barely made it two steps into the showers, but her dedication to the cause and can-do attitude have always been cited as two of her strongest points as a cadet.

As they struggle and yell, Lonnie steps around the two of them on her way to the sleeping quarters, and offers Adora a sympathetic nod: "Good luck."

Adora grits her teeth.

"Look! In the time you've spent throwing your tantrum, Lonnie's already finished showering! We could've been done here!"

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Catra is already dozing by the time Adora makes it to bed, the arguable comfort levels of her position be damned. It's the nudge of Adora's foot that wakes her, and Catra's fur all bristles as she shoots up, pupils wide.

A few blinks later, and she settles; shaking herself to reset her hair before flopping back down, this time at the end of Adora's bunk, yawning widely once more.

"You took too long," she complains. She really just wants Adora to get into the bunk already so she can curl around her and soak up the contact she's been missing all day. Adora hasn't been letting herself be touched, and Catra gets it but she misses her. "Hurry up."

"Well, I'm sorry some of us have to shower daily," Adora grumbles in response, dropping into a sitting position on the now-unoccupied patch of mattress. Normally she'd lie down without a thought, let Catra tangle herself up around her, but right now it'd feel-- weird. Like everything feels weird.

So she spends a moment just staring down at Catra as her frazzled brain tries to work out a solution, before finally announcing: "Okay, good night," throwing herself down on the mattress, pulling the blanket up to her neck, and rolling away to face the wall.

One eye squints open to watch Adora, because she doesn't often come to bed sounding so antsy. And she doesn't often miss the opportunity to place her hand on Catra's head, or stroke her fingers along Catra's ears, but here she is basically ignoring her completely.

The lights go off, and Catra moves fluidly. In one movement, her hands find Adora's shoulders, turning her to press her back into the cot; her knees rest on Adora's thighs, and Catra hovers above her with bright, narrowed eyes.

"What's with you?" She demands quietly, voice no less stern for its volume. A thought seizes her, and she leans in close to Adora's face, lifting one hand to press against her forehead. "Are you -- sick?" Because Catra needs advance notice if she needs to be covering for Adora while she's weakened if that's the case. "You have to tell me these things, Adora; you can't just spring them on me."

Edited 2020-06-15 22:04 (UTC)

"Wha--"

With a gasp, Adora's forced onto her back, and Catra's weight is pinning her down before she can wriggle away. So much for her great avoidance plan. In hindsight, no, it wasn't too likely that she'd get away with it.

"No, Catra, I'm not sick. Quit it." She can feel her face heating up beneath Catra's palm, and she swats at it, tilting her head away from that fussy hand and scrutinizing gaze. In a matter of seconds, her heart's doubled its pace-- is that just going to happen all the time now? How did something so familiar, so comforting as Catra's touch gain this effect on her?

What if Catra's right, and she is sick? What if she's on her way to heart failure and she hasn't realized because she's too busy obsessing over this-- this people touching each other thing?

That would be the dumbest way to die.

"... Or maybe I am coming down with something," she admits through her teeth, squinting her eyes at an unspecified point in the dark. "I don't know. Clearly there's something wrong with me."

Catra's look softens, just a little, at the confession. Adora is such an idiot.

And she does feel really warm under Catra's hand, which is a problem. Fevers are the hardest thing to hide, especially Adora's if she makes it to the point of spouting unintelligible garbage.

"Here, budge over." She slips off of Adora to her side, pushing at her shoulder and hip to roll her so Catra can wriggle down behind her and curl around her. They don't usually cuddle each-other to sleep, but there's no greater comfort when one of them is ill. "What're you feeling? If you're about to puke, warn me now and don't even think about moving your head."

"I'm not gonna puke," Adora lets out in a petulant whine. For all the effort she put into keeping her distance today, Catra wedges herself behind her as easily as that, and Adora doesn't have it in her to pull away.

Catra's being so sweet, and caring, and Adora doesn't even know if she's sick or just crazy. Her body is as tense against Catra's as it was last night, but the proximity is as irresistible to her as it was last night, too; drawing her in with the hum of warmth formed between skin and fur.

"I just feel-- wrong," she confesses, everything she couldn't admit to Shadow Weaver tumbling from her lips in a guilt-fuelled babble. "I'm distracted, I can't focus, I'm tense all the time and I keep getting-- heart palpitations, and there's this twisty feeling in my stomach that won't go away. I've felt like this before but it's never been this bad or lasted this long, and I'm pretty sure it's your fault, but also, maybe I'm dying."

And she lets out a wheezing breath, before burying her face in the pillow.

Edited 2020-06-16 04:11 (UTC)

Catra listens, and all she really gets out of that is:

"--It's my fault you're dying?"

Isn't that just the stupidest thing she's ever heard. And she's heard a lot of stupid things, most of them also from Adora's mouth. It's not something that Catra's going to stand for, raising herself on one elbow behind Adora and leaning on her to reach around her head, yanking her pillow out from under her. (What? Adora said she wasn't going to puke, that means being rough is fine.)

"Look, I don't get what's gotten you sick, but don't go blaming it on me." Her tail smacks against Adora's leg in annoyance. "I've been feeling fine, so whatever you've got is your own problem. You've probably just stressed yourself out too much about--" the stuff they talked about last night "--everything. When'd it start?"

"... Last night," Adora says meekly, certain the answer will condemn her. But then, propelled by a sudden burst of indignation, she sits up to snatch the pillow from Catra's hands. "Which makes it your fault, obviously!"

Catra opens her mouth to snap back, releasing the pillow as she sits up to shove Adora--

"Can you two please keep it down over there? Some of us are trying to sleep." Lonnie's voice growls through the dorm, and Catra's mouth clamps shut with a glower.

"You're the one over-thinking things," she hisses, grabbing Adora's shoulders and yanking her back down, holding her in place with one hand while the other drags the blanket over them with pointed determination. "Is that why you've been so weird today? You've just spent this whole time freaking out?"

"Sorry!" Adora yelps, before she's pushed onto the mattress with an 'oof'.

"-- That, or I'm dying!" Now that she's begun to entertain the idea, she's not letting it go so easily. But also: this is definitely Catra's fault.

Her eyes narrow into an accusatory glare, and she retaliates in a series of harsh whispers: "You shouldn't have told me all that stuff. Now I can't stop thinking about it, all the time. Is it going to be like this every day, now? I don't know how you can live like that!"

Edited 2020-06-16 04:50 (UTC)

"Stop being so dramatic!" She demands in a hushed voice, one that's still loud enough to elicit an annoyed groan from Lonnie. Catra takes a moment to bare her teeth in that direction, a threat that nobody other than Adora can actually see, but drops back down to an irritated whisper and lets her tail lash her aggression out under the blanket. Let the constant movement and jostling of the cover annoy Adora, it'll serve her right.

"You're not dying, you idiot." Seriously, this is Catra's best friend? She should've picked someone smarter. For what feels like the millionth time since the topic got brought up the night before, Catra growls a sigh, dredging up the last ounces of her patience. Adora freaks out all the time, they can work through this. "Come on, talk me through it. What's going on in that dumb head of yours?"

"No!" Adora winces like the suggestion had been a slap to the face. "Why do I have to talk you through this?"

Were she in a different state of mind right now, she'd surely appreciate Catra trying to work through this with her in a calm and quiet manner. A very different state of mind. Alas.

"Don't you remember-- all of yesterday?" Adora burrows deeper into the blankets, voice dropping to a barely audible whisper. "How you were touching me, and yourself, and-and saying I should help you? Did you just expect me to forget all that?" And her voice rises again before she can help it-- "Because I haven't!"

Catra slaps a hand over Adora's mouth, and snaps out "--I'm shutting her up!" into the dorm before anyone can tell them off again.

"Do you want to get us in trouble?" She really just. Cannot believe anything about Adora right now. Cannot believe that there's a heated flush growing on her own face. But defensive lies have always spilled easily from Catra's tongue, and now is no different. "--I was being a jerk, obviously. You were annoying me and I wanted you to go away!"

Adora's eyes go wide, and the mask of frustration on her face slips to reveal a look of every vulnerable emotional she doesn't want to let show: her shame, her want, now joined by a fresh tinge of hurt.

Of course Catra was just messing with her. Because that stuff's just normal to Catra, right? She doesn't have to spend all day obsessing over it, after. She doesn't have to care.

Adora pries Catra's hand from her mouth, and her chest swells with her inhale like she's building up to say-- something impactful, something big, anything that's not the sad little whimper-voice that ends up leaving her mouth.

"That's not fair."

She feels stupid, and she feels even stupider for having said it, and her face crawls with itchy embarrassment-heat and she hates this, hates this, hates this.

"... Whatever. I don't care."

Scrunching her eyes shut, she turns her back to Catra, knees drawn up to her chest.

For the second time in as many nights, Catra's done something to hurt Adora. Only this time, she's not exactly sure what.

(Because last night had been all about the scratches on her thigh, right?)

Her heart clenches painfully when Adora's face crumples, when her words come out as a tiny, quiet whimper. Catra scrabbles to think of something to do, something to fix it, but Adora's already turned over and Catra's left staring, wordlessly, at the back of her head.

Her throat works, her lips part; as if she's about to say something. But she loses the nerve for whatever it is, and closes them again. (She's not going to apologize.)

"...Why does it matter?" She finally gets out, and she hates the note of uncertainty in her own voice. She buries it, reaching for firm confidence instead as she asserts: "That stuff doesn't mean anything to you anyway. You never even thought about it until now."

"Well, I'm thinking about it now," Adora snaps back instinctively, the throb between her temples and churn in her stomach sharpening her tone.

She hates this. She hates that it's making them fight. Catra doesn't get it at all, what this is doing to her, but she has to-- she's the one who knows about this stuff, she has to make sense of this for Adora. How else is she going to get through this?

Her voice grows much softer, halfway to pleading:

"... I can't stop thinking about it."

At least Adora's still talking to her, and Catra feels herself sag with relief. Hesitantly, she reaches out; the tips of her fingers brushing Adora's arm, ready for her to jerk away in rejection.

"Tell me," she says; but her voice is so quiet it feels like more of a question, more of a request. It's not often that Catra is the one asking Adora to meet her halfway, and as ever she's nervous about doing it. Doesn't know if her request will be received, is scared of what Adora's answer might even be. "Adora, what do you keep thinking about?"

The graze of Catra's fingertips is enough to make her skin break into goosebumps, and Adora can't stand it. She feels transparent, yet Catra still can't see it-- why can't she see it? Why does she have to make her say it?

"You," the single syllable drops from her lips like a rock. Adora cringes with it, terrified of what Catra will say, of the thought she'd laugh at her-- and so she immediately follows it up with: "You jerk."

Catra thinks she stops breathing for a long moment, the world narrowing in on her as her heart beats a heavy staccato in her chest.

"Me?" And just like that, as the word exits faintly from her lips, she can think again. Of course it's her, she's the one who brought it up. She shakes her head at herself, at the butterflies squirming in her stomach and the heated surge of her blood and the curling of her toes. Adora's just spent a bunch of time complaining about how she put these thoughts in her head, about her method of eviction last night. Of course that means she's been thinking about Catra.

She hasn't been rejected, so she places her hand on Adora's arm, trying to comfort in the same way Adora's always done for her.

"I won't do it again, okay?" It's not an apology. But it's as near to one as Catra ever gets, as she slides her hand down Adora's arm, trying to find her fingers to link together with hers. "I didn't realize how badly it'd mess with your head." She doesn't do apologetic well, doesn't handle the vulnerability of it. So she tries to sound lighter when she adds; "Next time I'll just kick you until you leave."

"No," Adora yanks her hand away, Catra's gentle compassion somehow worse than anything she'd feared. It makes her feel like she's going insane.

Adora rolls back to face her, cheek resettling against the pillow with a thump, and she's wound up so tight that she wants to scream but just barely, thankfully, manages to keep her voice in the range of a whisper.

"You're so stupid! Don't you get it? I... I..." She scrubs a hand over her smoldering face, struggling to untie her tongue from the million knots it's suddenly curled itself into.

God, she doesn't know if she can say it. Can barely summon the voice from her throat. The most that comes out is a thin, raspy breath:

"... I want you to touch me."

She said it.

Her eyes are shut tight. She's not opening them to see Catra's reaction.

She reels back instantly when Adora jerks her hand away, separating herself from Adora's side. It's the sharp burn of rejection she'd thought she was safe from, stinging all the way deep in her core. She doesn't have any time to build a wall; doesn't have any time for a defensive retort to find its way to her mouth. Just stares, eyes widened with the shock, as Adora rolls back over and continues to talk. To her.

It's hard to listen over the pounding in her ears, but she tries anyway.

And Adora

is such

an idiot.

This is what this is all about? This is why she's been avoiding Catra's touch all day, this is why she wasn't reciprocating any of the cranky attempts at banter and teasing? This is why she's been freaking out all night, this is why she's shut down Catra's attempt to comfort her?

"You're an idiot," she croaks, blinking rapidly, pulling herself to recover from what is not the rejection she'd thought it was. Her voice, at least, is as firm as her grip when she reaches to grab Adora's wrist, to tug her hand away from her face. "Adora, you're such a total idiot. Why didn't you just tell me that to begin with?"

"Don't call me an idiot!" she hisses. "Do you know how hard that was for me to say!"

But she lets Catra pull her hand away, even cracks open one eye to peer down at her. It takes Adora a moment, amidst her embarrassment and exasperation, to realize that... really didn't sound like a rejection. At all.

But she can't let herself believe that so easily.

"Wh-what does that mean?"

Catra made her spell it out, she doesn't get a pass.

"It means you haven't got two braincells to rub together, idiot." When in doubt, when on the back foot: double down. Catra's life motto. But her heart's not in it this time; instead, it's lodged somewhere up in her throat. She has been waiting, so long, for Adora to catch up to this - and after last night, she'd written her off completely. Adora was disinterested, Adora hadn't even noticed her, Adora wouldn't have even considered her.

"--Where?" She breathes, suddenly demanding. She barely remembers to keep her voice down, and it grows huskier with the effort. Her blood's rushing again, in heated pulses through her body. She wants to move, but she's paralyzed by the fear of having misunderstood, still. "Where? Tell me, Adora. Where do you want me to touch you?"

Because she's willing. She is so willing and if Adora still can't see that - if she can't recognize the tremble in Catra's fingers as restraint, if she doesn't see the gleam of desire in her eyes, if she can't identify the way Catra's entire body leans into hers - then Catra may just give up and die here.

"I said, don't call me a--"

But then Catra leans in so close, her voice low and urgent, pupils blown wide in the dark. And the words die on Adora's tongue.

She feels like a cornered animal, a deer caught in headlights. Her heart is slamming itself so hard against her ribcage that she fears it'll crack.

She can't believe Catra's making her ask for it.

"Everywhere. Anywhere. Look, I don't know about this stuff, okay? Just... the same way you touch yourself."

It's like raking coals over her tongue, having to give voice to the notion that up until the night before had been unthinkable. The tension in her body is built up so high, a kettle seconds from boiling, and it's so much, so much that her whole body is shaking with it.

Her hand closes over Catra's wrist, planting her palm over the base of her stomach, where all that crackling, swarming tension takes root. She can't ask for anything more than this. She doesn't know how.

"Catra-- please?"

Edited 2020-06-16 09:05 (UTC)

Catra's fingers twitch against the hard lines of Adora's hard stomach, disbelieving still. She's frozen in the moment, every muscle tense and aching.

And then Adora asks her, and finally, Catra can move.

"Okay," she whispers; hoarse. Her hand moves blindly, across Adora's heated skin, until she finds the dip between her stomach and hipbone, the same place Adora's thumb had stroked her the night before, and her trembling fingers repeat the movement, cautiously keeping her claws from scratching. She is -- she is touching Adora, in the way that clearly bypasses friendly intent. Adora wants her to touch her like this. "Are--are you sure?"

If she says no now, Catra really doesn't know what she'll do.