Chapter Text
Maybe it wasn’t the ideal situation, but Adora was okay with it.
Most people had trouble with their roommates – she knew people whose roommates were too messy, too inconsiderate, or just decided to sing karaoke at three in the morning in Mermista’s case. She claimed to, unfortunately, still love Sea Hawk anyway.
But see, Adora couldn’t complain about any of those things, actually, she couldn’t complain about anything at all, mostly because she hardly interacted with her roommate. She barely saw the girl, and the only true indication that someone besides her even lived in the apartment was the occupied room next to hers, which had its door almost always shut.
All she knew about her roommate was her name, which she wasn’t even sure she remembered correctly. Well, that and the fact she was cute. Very cute. Catra - God, she hopes that’s right - was a young woman around her age, with tanned skin, different colored eyes, one gold and the other blue, and a seemingly perpetual smirk on her face. Well, at least it was present every time Adora managed to sneak a glance at her when she’d leave during odd times of the day.
That was another thing Adora couldn’t figure out. She didn’t know if Catra went to college, worked or if she even did either of those things. She didn’t follow a schedule – she’d apparently come and go as she pleased, sometimes only returning in the middle of the night just to stay in her room for the rest of the day. Somehow, she still managed to pay rent on time.
But yeah, Adora couldn’t complain. As a broke college student who would never be able to afford an apartment so close to campus by herself, she should actually be thankful.
She had a roommate, and a really good one at that. Sure, they weren’t close, they didn’t hang out and stay up late talking like Adora thought they would, but Catra was alright. She wasn’t messy, she gave Adora her space, and she was pretty sure they had never received noise complaints because Catra woke up the whole building singing “My Heart Will Go On”. Again, Mermista said she still loved Sea Hawk.
So, perhaps it wasn’t the ideal situation, but it was a decent one.
And Adora was fine with it.
Totally fine.
“I’m not fine with it, Glimmer!”
Right now she was sitting at a coffee shop with her two best friends, Glimmer, who was drinking a smoothie, and Bow, who opted for a simple herbal tea. They had been listening to Adora ramble about her roommate for the past thirty minutes, all the while claiming the whole situation absolutely did not bother her. Not even a little bit. Growing tired of it, Glimmer had said “well, if you’re fine with it then just let it go”, which led to Adora’s outburst.
Some people in the shop were now staring at them, and Adora could feel her cheeks warm. She cleared her throat before continuing. “I mean, I just don’t get it. Does she doesn’t like me or something?”
Bow offered her a sympathetic smile. “I’m sure that’s not it. She was never mean to you.”
“Yeah, she probably just doesn’t care about y-“ Bow elbowed Glimmer, ignoring her “hey!” and talking before she could finish her sentence. “What Glimmer meant-“ at that, he received a glare “-is that this Catra girl seems to be neutral towards you right now. But that’s good! It means you can win her over and make her see you in a positive way.”
“How on Earth will I do that?”
Glimmer sighed. “Look Adora, just talk to her, that’s already a nice start. You won’t get anywhere by pretending the other doesn’t exist.”
Bow sipped his drink before nodding his head and adding “She’s right. Maybe she’s just shy or thinks you prefer being alone. Try finding something she likes and then talk to her about that.”
“I don’t know anything about her!” Adora let out with a groan, resisting the urge to lay her head face down on the table.
“It’s a great opportunity to find out, then!” Bow offered her a grin, always the optimistic one.
“Come on, Adora, it’s not like you never made friends before. You’ll be alright.” Glimmer tried her best to reassure her friend. “Plus, you’re one of the nicest people we know. Who wouldn’t like you?”
“You got this!” Bow beamed, giving her a thumbs up while leaning back on his chair.
Adora allowed herself to smile. Her friends were right, she had no reason to be stressing about this so much. She got this. She could totally talk to Catra. “You’re right. I can do it! Mission Befriend Catra starts now!” she said with determination. “Thanks, guys.”
“And so once again, the day was saved thanks to the Best Friend Squad!” Bow exclaimed before high-fiving the two of them, all laughing together. Adora felt her worries lessen a little, after all, it couldn’t be that hard to find something to talk about with Catra.
Right?
Wrong.
It had been four days since her coffee shop pep talk and she still hadn’t made any progress on her so called mission. In fact, she had only seen Catra once during this time, the girl greeting her with the usual “hey, Adora” she’d use any time she got home and ran into the blonde, before disappearing to her room.
After that, whenever Catra was home, Adora was in class. And whenever Adora was home, Catra was out at God knows where.
Right now, it was close to midnight and Catra still hadn’t arrived. Adora was almost falling asleep on the couch, a documentary about seahorses running on the TV, when she heard the sound of keys jingling by the front door, which made her suddenly wide awake.
Catra walked in, scratching the back of her neck and yawning while locking the door. She was just walking past the living room when she noticed Adora was there.
“Hey, Adora” she said lazily, immediately moving to go to her bedroom, but Adora’s “wait!” stopped her. She turned around and looked at the girl, raising an eyebrow when she didn’t say anything.
Shit. Shit. Shit. What do I say? Come on, just say something. Anything.
“Did you know some seahorses mate for life?”
Okay, anything but that.
Catra tilted her head to the side in confusion. “Uh, no? I... didn’t know that.” She yawned again. “So... I’ll just- I’m going to bed.”
“G-Good night.” Adora managed to say, breaking her mortified silence. Could someone actually die from embarrassment? Because she was pretty sure she was dying right now.
“Night.” And then Catra was gone again.
Seahorses? Seriously?
She couldn’t believe she had just said that. Not only they didn’t know each other, but now Catra also probably thought she was crazy.
She wanted to scream in frustration, but on the off chance that Catra wasn’t already questioning her mental health, that certainly would make her do so.
She needed to come up with a plan to show Catra she wanted to be her friend, and she needed to do it fast. And this time, she couldn’t screw it up.
Three days after the seahorse incident, she had her plan.
She talked to Glimmer and Bow again and, after laughing for ten minutes straight at her – during which at one point the soda Glimmer was drinking actually started coming out of her nose – they told her that if she couldn’t talk to Catra, maybe it'd be a good idea to show her that she wanted to be friends instead.
And that was what she was doing right now.
For the past couple of days, although Catra had been coming home earlier, she also always seemed to be exhausted. So, Adora decided to help.
Twenty minutes before leaving for her morning class, she made coffee and left a note on the fridge with “i noticed you’ve been tired. made you some coffee, hope it helps :)” written on it.
When she got home in the afternoon, there was no sign of Catra, but the coffee pot was completely empty. And underneath her note, scribbled in messy handwriting, were the words “thanks, dork”.
Okay, so perhaps they still didn’t talk. But now they had a routine.
Every time before leaving, Adora would make sure the coffee pot was full and leave a note on the fridge – they were mostly simple things like “have a nice day!” or stuff about the apartment, like “we’re out of milk” – and every time she came home, the coffee would be gone and she’d have a reply, which was almost always sarcastic and made her laugh.
To her milk note, Catra replied with “no shit”. When Adora opened the fridge door, she still found a new gallon of milk nonetheless.
One day, Adora came home to something new. On the fridge, instead of the usual reply, she found out Catra had bought magnets, and they were currently spelling “i got magnets fuckers”. From then on, instead of notes, Catra would just spell something with the magnets. Mainly swear words.
One night, Adora had just gotten home and went to the kitchen, expecting to see “boobs” spelled on the fridge – last night’s word was “ass” – but, instead, the magnets were spelling “help”. Or, at least, she thinks that’s what Catra wanted to write. The actual word she wrote was “halp”.
“Catra?” She called out in the apartment. She heard a noise coming from the bathroom, which prompted her to move down the hall towards it.
When she pushed open the bathroom door and turned on the light switch, the first thing she saw was Catra sitting down on the floor, holding onto the toilet as if her life depended on it. The girl turned around slightly to face her, managing only a slurred “heyyy, Adora” before throwing up.
Adora sighed.
This was going to be a long night.