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Fandom: She-Ra

Rating: G

Characters/relationships: Adora/Catra

Warnings: None tbh

Summary:
First nights at Bright Moon are never easy, are they?
Written before S5.

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It was nice to finally sleep. Peacefully. With no war on their doorstep. With no one missing. Without some great destiny looming over her head. Without guilt — well, scratch that, guilt never left, but at least there wasn’t so much of it for a change. Without any...friends left behind.

Speaking of friends and peaceful sleep.

Vigilant as ever, Adora sat up straight in her bed, listening in carefully and grabbing her dagger just in case. She could’ve sworn she heard a door slamming open in the midst of a quiet Bright Moon night — which usually didn’t happen unless someone (like her) was sneaking out. And there was no reason for anyone to sneak out now that the war was over, was there? Not to mention most of the people would do that through the window, not the door.

Adora was almost ready to accept that she probably dreamt the noise and that her nerves were just acting up — to no one’s surprise, all things considered, — when she heard some other sound, although quieter. Someone… Swearing? Or spitting? And… claws tapping on the floor?

Yeah, well, that certainly sounded like an angry cat trying not to wake the whole castle up. And kinda failing, seeing as Adora was climbing out of her bed now.

"Catra, if you’re trying to bail on us here, you could’ve at least use…" Adora opened the door to the hall and her insincere sarcastic remark died at her tongue, "...the window."

Well, one thing was for sure — Catra wasn’t sneaking out. Quite the opposite — it looked like she actually made an effort to try and sleep. An effort that didn’t end well and brought a lot of flashbacks for Adora — because there were feathers everywhere. Everywhere on the floor and everywhere on Catra herself, successfully tangling in her long fluffy hair. Judging by the pose she froze in — she was also desperately trying to shake the damn feathers off her hands where they got stuck on each of her claws.

Whatever Adora felt about Catra — and she felt a lot of things, since a lot of stuff that happened between them was by no means easy to forgive, — it was awfully hard to be mad at her at that moment.

Actually, the only thing she could actually feel was laughter, which threatened to burst out of her chest at any moment now.

"Hey, Catra." she just couldn’t resist, earning herself an angry scoff. "So let me guess: you killed the bed."

"No shit, detective." Catra nervously swung her tail, immediately raising another cloud of feathers from the floor and hissing at it with obvious irritation. "If that abomination is what people here call a bed I guess I’ll just sleep on the floor."

"I hear ya." Adora shrugged when Catra side-eyed her with a badly hidden question in her eyes. "I did the same the first night I stayed here."

Despite Catra’s best attempts at staying broody, her lips visibly twitched closer to something like a smirk.

"Well, that must’ve just been hilarious."

"Judging by you right now? Hell yeah." Another annoyed tail swing and a cloud of feathers in the air.

This was surprisingly easy — just getting on each other’s nerves about some mundane silly thing. Just like the old times. As if there never was any She-Ra, any portal, any Horde Prime.

But there were. And it lingered between them, making Adora subconsciously cross her arms in front of her chest and Catra look anywhere else but at her.

It must be awfully quiet for her here, just like it was for Adora in the beginning. And it’s not like anyone was going to offer a sleepover to a former enemy who barely agreed to try and spend the night.

Catra suddenly huffed and sat down at the floor, with her back pressed to a wall and her arms hugging her folded knees close to her chest.

"Whatcha looking at? Go back to sleep. Sorry for waking you up or whatever."

She was getting hostile. To hide a weakness showing, no doubt. She was always like this. Could fool anyone but Adora, honestly.

Adora bit her lip and wondered — she had been uneasy sleeping alone at first because she wasn’t used to, yes, but didn’t force captains get their own rooms? Shouldn’t have Catra been better at this? Maybe it’s the nightmares.

Maybe it’s the fact that when you’re alone in the room it gets immensely hard to convince yourself that you’re not alone and no one left you this time.

"I got a normal bed, you know. One that doesn’t try to swallow you when you lay down."

Catra raised an eyebrow:

"Uh, congratulations?"

Adora couldn’t fight the urge and kicked the closest bunch of feathers, sending some of them in Catra’s face.

"I’m trying to say that you don’t have to sleep alone, you smartass."

"Yeah, sure," Catra clearly fought and suppressed an urge to sneeze, "you’re oh so noble to let a person who tried to slit your throat open a few times sleep in one room with you now. Sparkles will juuust be overjoyed. No, thank you, I can sleep here."

Adora squinted.

"Here?"

"Mhm."

"In the hall? On the floor?"

"Which part of the word “here” do I need to expl-- hey!" Catra basically yelped when Adora grabbed her by the collar and tried to lift her up. Either from defiance or from the cat-like instinct, but Catra immediately curled up even more, making it impossible to lift her with one hand and nearly dropping Adora as well. "What the hell are you doing?!"

"Don’t make me drag you by your tail."

"Don’t you DARE touch my tail!"

"Well, get up then!" Catra just glared in response and Adora let out a heavy sign. It was never going to be easy, was it? "You never tried to slit my throat for real and I know it. And I don’t see you as an enemy, not really. AND I know what it’s like to try and sleep alone in this place when you’re basically straight out of the Horde, so could you PLEASE just stop being a stubborn little--"

Catra stood up, so roughly and unexpectedly that Adora almost fell over again, this time in another direction.

"This is just so you would finally shut it." Catra dryly clarified, making Adora roll her eyes as dramatically as she could.

"Yes, I know, this is not because you like me, I got the memo." Before Catra could snap back, Adora grabbed her hand and yanked the other girl towards the room, leaving her basically no choice but to catch her step and follow.

Not sparing either of them much time to think, Adora closed the door — the feathers will be a problem for tomorrow, a second time will hardly surprise anyone, — and sat on the bed, only to look up and see Catra standing in the middle of the room, unmoving.

Damn it.

"I assume you don’t sleep standing now, do you?" Catra narrowed her eyes, perfectly aware that her ears, pressed flat against her head, and her tail, nervously wrapped around one of her legs, were telling more than she would ever be willing to tell.

"So you want, what? Just go back to the way it was before?"

"It will never be the way it was before." Catra physically recoiled as if those words punched her in the face. Adora fought the urge to bite her tongue and resorted to tiredly pinching her nose bridge instead. "Not exactly it won’t. But we can get close to that, eventually. Look, right now all I really want is for both of us to finally go to sleep." She fell on her back, hitting the pillow with her head. "Which I’m totally ready to do. Like, right now."

There was a long pause. So long, in fact, that Adora found herself basically drifting off to sleep and sort of giving up.

Then she felt a familiar weight on her legs and pried one eye half-open, watching Catra silently climb onto the lower half of the bed and curling up without a single word spoken. Adora stayed quiet as well, absentmindedly watching Catra’s back and a cloud of messy hair. After a couple of minutes, she could see tension melting away from her shoulders and her ears slowly returning to a relaxed position. The feeling was just as familiar as it was strange to experience again after all this time mercilessly clawing away at each other. In both senses, it was comforting. Something that no sleepover could fully replace, even if Bow and Glimmer were certainly the best friends ever for trying.

It was nice to finally sleep. Peacefully. With no friends left behind.

Adora could bet that in the morning they were going to be violently woken up by Glimmer teleporting right in the room screaming about Catra running away.

But that was a problem for future Catra and Adora, really.