Chapter Text
Adora really shouldn’t be out right now and she knows it.
She’s too drunk too alone and it’s too cold. Also, it’s too a Wednesday night. Everything being too much is how she ended up here though.
She takes out her phone and—
She looks at the snow falling through the air, illuminated by the sole streetlight on the road. The flakes go in and out of focus as her head spins. The cold, though, there is nothing fuzzy about that. It is sharp and it is crisp and it is biting and there is just something about a cold winter’s night that strikes you to your core and makes you want to confess every feeling you’ve ever had and—
She thinks that is a bad idea. So she takes out her phone to text Glimmer.
12:48 AM | Adora: hi I got todurbk canyos come ferns
12:48 AM | Adora: get me
Feeling accomplished at taking care of herself, she sits down with her back against the nearest building and lets her eyes rest for a moment so that the world might stop spinning for a while.
---
A snowy night can be one of solitude. The snow muffles out all other sounds leaving you alone with your thoughts. And that can just let them tumble over and over as you think and you want and you wish and you ache and you—
---
“Adora.”
“Hmm?”
“Adora, what are you doing?”
She opens her eyes, shaking her head a bit because everything is still just a bit dizzy—but that’s not—that definitely has to be—
“Catra.”
Catra frowns slightly for a moment (or at least Adora thinks she does? Her vision is still coming into focus). “Yeah.” When Adora doesn’t move, she holds out her hand. “C’mon. Let’s get you home. You shouldn’t be out here; you’ll get buried in the snow.”
For a moment, Adora stares dumbfounded at the hand in front of her before reaching out and grasping it. Catra pulls her to her feet and she stumbles forward a bit and tumbles slightly onto Catra and—
“Sorry,” she mumbles.
“...’sokay,” Catra replies after a pause. They both hang for a moment, caught between the falling snow. “C’mon let’s go, princess.”
---
A snowy night has a powerful nostalgia. The silence of the snow muffles everything around you and leaves you with nothing but your own thoughts. And so it is that you remember and you ache and you wish and you hope—
---
“I gottdrunktoday becauz I wanted t’talkt’you,” Adora slurs, most of the words blurring together.
Catra pauses. “You what?”
Adora stares at a point just beyond Catra’s shoulder, her eyes unfocused. She blinks lazily, then looks directly into Catra’s eyes. Her stare is so far off yet so immediate and wanting all at the same time and it's too much all at once. Catra looks away.
“Uh, Adora?” Catra prompts carefully when Adora has still not responded. Adora blinks a few times at the sound of her name.
“Hm?” she hums.
“You… never mind.”
They resume walking.
---
A snowy night can be one of loneliness. The snow muffles out all of the sound, leaving you alone with your thoughts. But that’s not how it is or maybe how it was or maybe how you want it to be but you’re alone alone alone and you ache—
---
“Catra.”
Adora is grasping Catra’s arm (when did she do that? It’s hard to recall).
“What, Adora?” It seems like Catra tried to put malice in her words but there’s none there. (If there were, she wouldn’t be here, right now, on this stupid Wenesday night in the snow.)
“Can we go to your place?”
Catra pauses. “Why.”
Adora pauses. “It’s closer.”
(It’s not.)
“It’s not.”
“Please.”
Catra pauses. “Okay.”
Adora smiles then, and it’s a lopsided sloppy messy sort of thing, the sort of thing that grips your heart and squeezes it and leaves you gasping. Catra holds her gaze for too long before she looks away and keeps walking.
---
A snowy night can be one of—
---
Catra takes out her keys to unlock the door to her apartment. “I can stay on the couch,” she says. “You can take my bed. Just don’t fucking puke on it.”
Adora leans on her, her chin on her shoulder. “I won’t,” she mumbles, her breath hot in Catra’s ear. She jerks forward, opening the door with a sudden shaky motion.
“I’m gonna get some water,” she says, her voice low as she walks over to the kitchen. There’s a nearly empty bottle of wine beside the sink.
“Here you go.” She hands Adora a glass of water as she sips her own.
“Thanks.”
They sip in silence for an indeterminate amount of time.
“Uh… thanks for helping me,” says Adora finally. “You didn’t have to do that.”
Catra shrugs. “Yeah, well…” She shrugs again and takes another sip. “Whatever, y’know.”
Adora laughs, but it comes out more like a sob. “I’m a bit of a mess.”
Catra doesn’t meet her eyes. “Yeah.”
Adora laughs again. “Fuck. I’m sorry.” She hiccups and wipes at her face. “This was stupid, I don’t know what I was thinking, I’m sorry I’ll just—”
“Hey.” Catra is in front of her, placing her hands on her shoulders. “Stop it. I told you it’s alright.”
Adora hiccups again and the sobs break through and start coming in earnest. Without thinking, she buries her face in Catra’s shoulder. Catra stiffens for a moment, then relaxes, placing her arms around her.
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop that.”
“I’m a mess.”
“Yeah, well... join the club.”
“Do you hate me?”
“No.”
“I’m really drunk.”
“Yeah you are.”
“I’m sorry I’m such a mess.”
“It’s alright.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You should get some sleep.”
Adora sniffs. “Yeah.” She breaks away enough from Catra’s embrace to wipe at her bleary eyes. “You’re right.”
An eternity or really just a few inches stand between them. She looks into Catra’s eyes and feels thousands of things unsaid churning in her stomach, fighting to break free. It’s almost as if there is a physical tension between them, waiting for the fracture and for entropy to take its course, bringing them—
Adora kisses her.
It’s hungry and it’s sloppy and it’s desperate and it’s electric and just as it starts it’s over. She holds her breath as she opens her eyes and stares at Catra’s surprised face. A hiccup shakes her from the moment and she immediately averts her gaze.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbles, her eyes trained on the floor.
“...don’t be,” Catra responds after a beat and Adora looks up at her again and she feels Catra’s hand just-so-slightly grazing up and down her back and she feels again just how close they both are to falling and falling and falling and she aches and—
Catra steps back. The loss of contact is sobering. “I’m fucking tired. Drink some more water so I can go to sleep.”
A pit sinks in Adora’s stomach but she nods and refills her glass with tap water, drinking it in silence. Catra runs her fingers through her own hair before putting her glass down and walking over to the couch, grabbing a blanket off the floor and rearranging the cushions.
“My room’s over there,” she grunts, gesturing at an open doorway before flopping onto the couch. “Don’t puke on my bed.”
Adora smiles faintly. “I won’t.” She gulps down a last swing of water and crosses the room, stopping to linger by the open doorway.
“Catra.”
Catra rolls over to look at her. “Adora.”
“Could you…” She shifts back and forth. “Would you… uh…”
Catra blinks sleepily up at her. “What is it, Adora?”
Adora sighs, pulling her arms close to her chest, her eyes far away. “I don’t want to be alone,” she mumbles.
For a moment, she isn’t even sure if Catra heard her, but then she tosses off her blanket and gets to her feet. “Yeah. Okay.” She brushes past Adora and hops into her bed, gesturing to a spot beside her. “C’mon.”
Adora smiles and crawls into bed beside Catra, tucking her head in the warm crook of Catra’s neck. “Sorry,” she mumbles.
Catra grunts. “It’s okay.” A beat. “I didn’t really wanna be alone either,” she says so softly Adora isn’t sure if she was meant to hear it.
And even as Adora warms inside she aches and she buries her head further, her face brushing against Catra’s hair. It smells so familiar and yet so far away. If Catra notices the hot tears falling from Adora’s eyes onto Catra’s bare skin, she makes no acknowledgement of it (other than maybe just gripping Adora a little bit tighter).
Finally, Adora closes her eyes and drifts into sleep or freefall or maybe everything all at once.
---
Adora wakes up a few hours later, maybe remembering something is amiss but not quite remembering why but then Catra’s arms are around her and she aches and then she knows she shouldn’t be here and she knows she fucked up and she knows.
She closes her eyes so she doesn’t have to know right now. The security of the arms around her waist carries her quickly back to sleep.
---
In the morning Adora wakes up with an aching in her head and an aching in her heart.
She says she doesn’t remember what happened last night. She was drunk and she was sorry for bothering her. It’s a lie. They both know it. She leaves, her feet making new tracks in the fresh coat of snow.
For a moment, she pauses and thinks about turning back. She thinks this is a bad idea, so she takes out her phone to text Glimmer.
Her phone is dead.
She sighs and pulls her scarf tighter. Best to get home, then.