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“Hey, Catra.”
The voice was drawling, imitative of Catra at her most smug, but more importantly, it was familiar. Familiar from years of whispered secrets in the dark of the barracks, of playful quips on the training grounds, more recently of threats and ultimatums and challenges.
Catra shot bolt upright in bed. She had finally crawled into her bunk half an hour ago, after hearing the latest report back from the field. She could hardly remember the last time she had slept more than an hour or two, and it had seemed prudent to finally try and get at least half a night’s shuteye.
But that was before Adora appeared in her doorway.
The blonde was leaning one shoulder against the doorframe, blue eyes locked on Catra. A smile stole across her lips.
“Adora, what–”
Catra stopped, eyes narrowing. It looked just like Adora. It sounded just like Adora. Hell, she could even, just barely, catch the familiar scent of Adora’s skin on the air. But that lazy posture, the hint of smirk in that smile…
“Double Trouble.”
The shapeshifter laughed delightedly. “You caught me. Such a clever kitten.” Their form twisted and reshaped, returning to their natural state.
“What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be at Bright Moon.”
Double Trouble shrugged one elegant shoulder, sauntering into the room. “I got bored.”
“Bored? It’s not a vacation, it’s an assignment, and you–”
“Relax, kitten. It’s the middle of the night. They won’t miss darling Flutterina–” they spun, briefly changing into their disguised form, then spun again back into themselves, “For a few hours. I’m exhausted from spending all that time with such goody-goodies.”
Catra scoffed a little. The princesses were pretty insufferable. She doubted she could have spent as much time with them as Double Trouble had without her teeth rotting right out of her skull from all that concentrated sweetness.
“So I decided I deserved a little fun,” Double Trouble went on. Their casual, lazy strides had been circling the room, but now were carrying them closer to Catra. “And then I thought, who else do I know who hasn’t had any time for fun lately?”
Catra’s stomach twisted in a way that was...anxious, but not entirely unpleasant. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh, come on, kitten,” they said. “I think you know.” And suddenly they were Adora again, Adora placing one knee on Catra’s bed, Adora leaning both hands on the bed frame behind Catra’s head, framing her, closing her in, leaning down to murmur with Adora’s voice in her ear, “Catra, I’ve missed so much. I think of you every night, alone in my bed, and I can’t help myself, I just have to–”
Catra shoved them hard, sending them sprawling back across the bed. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“We can play it rougher, if you like.” The false Adora sprang back up, curling an arm around Catra’s waist and flinging her around to lie face down on the mattress. One hand encircled her wrist, pinning it down, while the other curved around her hip, pulling Catra close. “You’ll never get away with this, Catra. I always–” a grin twisted across the familiar face as Double Trouble ground down against her with Adora’s muscular thighs. “Come out on top.”
“Stop it,” Catra hissed, twisting and arching back to swipe a clawed hand at them. They dodged back out of the way and settled to sit at the foot of the bed.
“What, would you rather punish me for being a bad girl and leaving you? For breaking your heart? We can play it any way you like, kitten.”
Catra hissed furiously. “Stop it. It was never like that, we never–”
“Oh, kitten. Maybe it was never really like that, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t want it to be.”
“Shut up! Just shut up!”
“Catra. It doesn’t take a master actor and student of character to tell how you felt about her. But, you know, as a master actor and student of character, I can most assuredly confirm it.”
“Shut up.” But this time the command was softer. Catra pulled her knees up to her chest, curling around them. “Just stop.”
The two of them sat in silence at opposite ends of the bed for several long moments. Finally Double Trouble said, “Look, all I’m saying is, maybe you just need to get it out of your system. All this longing that’s been built up for so long. I mean, since way before Adora left, I’m sure. And you know I love to give a good performance.” They grinned. “You won’t even know it’s me.”
Catra closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the bed frame. She was tired. So absolutely bone tired. An ache had settled somewhere behind her eyes days, maybe weeks ago. Maybe months ago. Maybe the day she realized Adora had really left her.
Any time she had ever felt close to this level of exhaustion, of despair, of helplessness, it had been Adora beside her. Adora promising that they were in this together, Adora grabbing her hand to pull her back to her feet when she fell, Adora scratching that sweet spot near the base of her skull that drained all the tension out of her body. Adora.
“Out of my system,” she echoed slowly.
Double Trouble waited, silent.
Finally Catra said, “She’s not like you. She wouldn’t...talk the way you do.”
“I know.”
“If you ever tell anyone, if you even mention it to me ever again after this–”
“Our little secret, kitten.”
Catra swallowed, eyes still closed, and nodded once. She felt the bed shift under Double Trouble’s weight as they moved closer.
“She’s not like me,” Double Trouble repeated softly. “So, what would she do?”
Still not opening her eyes, Catra took three deep breaths, in and then out, slow. Steadying herself, just the way Adora taught her when she had broken down in tears after another chewing out from Shadow Weaver when they were both about nine. Breathe in calm, breathe out the pain. Let it go.
This pain was hooked in too hard behind her ribcage, but maybe it didn’t have to feel quite as sharp all the time.
“She...she would run her fingers through my hair,” she whispered. The moment she said it, it was real, so real she could nearly believe it. Double Trouble’s attention to detail was remarkable. Catra remembered the exact size and shape of Adora’s hands, the long elegant fingers, the curve of the palms, and now they were twining through Catra’s thick mane, short fingernails just barely scraping her scalp, those palms catching the weight of her head as she relaxed into the touch.
“Like this?”
“Like that.” Just like that.
“What about this?” whispered Adora’s voice in her ear, so close she could feel the warmth of her breath stirring the short, soft fur there, before Adora’s lips were tracing a line of kisses down the column of Catra’s throat.
Catra nodded once, no longer trusting her voice, lips pressed together to hold back the hint of moan that rose in her throat when Adora’s teeth–Double Trouble’s teeth, she tried to remind herself–grazed her skin and then slowly bit down harder, giving her time to react, to say no if she wanted to.
She didn’t want to.
One of those oh-so-familiar hands left her scalp to ghost down across her collarbones and then lower, unbuttoning the top of her Horde jacket and pushing inside to cup her breast, thumb brushing over the hardening nipple. She gasped, but didn’t stop it, instead found herself twisting to press closer against the same body she had slept beside for so many nights, had wrestled and hugged and then fought, and just once, had danced with.
And Adora’s thigh was pressing between her legs, rocking against her with a slow sway of her hips, and Catra couldn’t help the way she hitched one leg up around Adora’s waist to meet those long, slow, grinding thrusts. Couldn’t help the way her breath was catching in her chest and then coming out in gasps that may or may not sometimes end in faint, mewling whimpers. The hand that was still in her hair tightened, tugging lightly, and her claws extended almost of their own volition as she curled an arm around and scratched clean through Adora’s jacket and the shirt underneath in one swipe.
The move startled a soft huff of laughter out of Adora–Double Trouble, some part of Catra’s mind insistently tried to remind her, but that fact felt far-off and fuzzy against the immediacy of Adora’s body pulling away just long enough to pull off the shredded garments and then falling back onto Catra, smiling at her with Adora’s lips, looking at her with Adora’s shining eyes.
Adora’s fingers traced the line of Catra’s jaw, thumb coming to brush over her lower lip, pressing the pad of it to the sharp point of one of Catra’s fangs. Like she was trying to memorize the shape of Catra with her touch, the way Catra had imprinted every detail of Adora onto her mind’s eye.
“What else would I do?” she asked. Again, that distant part of Catra’s brain registered something: the shift in wording, the question changing from what would she do to what would I do, but what mattered was the solid, warm weight of Adora’s body on top of hers, pressing down on her, moving against her like she wanted Catra as much as Catra wanted her.
The question is almost too overwhelming to answer. What hasn’t she wanted, fantasized about, dreamed of, in a situation like this with Adora? This is her only chance; Catra already knows that she’s showing too much weakness in front of Double Trouble now, she can never do it again. And it’s not like the real Adora will ever be with her like this.
Her mind flashes through the infinite possibilities, each one filthier and hotter than the last. But the sad, pathetic truth of it all is that if this is her only shot at almost having Adora the way she wants her, then she wants to see her and hold her as much as possible.
She wrapped one hand around the back of Adora’s neck, pulling her closer until Catra could bury her face against her and breathe in nothing but her scent, and with the other guided Adora’s hand lower, under the hem of her pants.
“What do you want, Catra? What do you need?”
“I need you inside me,” she whispers into Adora’s neck. As if Adora’s ever not inside Catra, imprinted on her every thought. Adora touches every memory Catra has, pollutes them with her presence. Her only friend. The standard against which she was constantly judged, and constantly fell short. The one person she could trust in an entire Horde. She has always defined herself by Adora, and she still does, just now in opposition.
She’ll never be free of her.
Her gasp becomes a cry as Adora’s fingers enter her, her head falling back against the bed. Above her, Adora’s face is flushed and eager, pupils blown wide, mirroring her own desire back at her for the first and only time. Catra was practically shaking from how completely, mindblowingly good it felt.
Too good.
“Choke me,” she hissed.
Surprise flickered quickly through those blue eyes. But this Adora doesn’t question the demand, which is a faint reminder that this isn’t real. Catra is beyond caring. It feels like mercy and justice all at once when the hand that isn’t fingering her closes around her throat.
“Tap my arm if it’s too much.”
Catra nods, even though she knows the gesture is a lie. It could never be too much. It can’t even be enough, although the dual sensation of Adora fucking her open with one hand and closing off her air with the other might come close. She’s barely aware of the way she’s clawing up her sheets and mattress, ruining one more piece of her life. She’s weightless, substanceless, fading into nothing but physical feeling between the simultaneous acts of desire and destruction.
Nothing has ever felt so good. Nothing has ever brought her so close to oblivion.
And then, through the distant sounds of her own moans, Adora’s voice is whispering, “You look so good like this, Catra, you’re so good for me, come on Catra, come for me,” and the second time she says it Catra does, in a shuddering wave of sensation that almost feels like it throws her out of her body for a moment.
“Fuck,” she says several long, panting moments later, when she can finally speak again. Her voice is hoarse, and her whole body is limp, like the tension she’s been carrying ever since Adora left has been wrung out of her, at least temporarily. At the same time, an empty gnawing ache that has nothing to do with hunger twists at her gut.
“Everything you dreamed of?”
Catra rolled over onto her side, drawing her knees up to her chest amidst the mangled wreckage of her bedding. “Remember that whole ‘never mentioning this again’ thing? It starts now.”
“Mentioning what?” It’s Double Trouble’s voice speaking to her again, lazy and forever tinged with irony. The mattress shifts as they stand up. “Sleep tight, kitten.”