Figuring out what to do with the cabin was playing on Keith’s mind since yesterday’s afternoon discovery. He had poked around it for a few minutes, but then had abruptly left it and told the guys that he would figure it out later, that patrol was more important in that moment. But sleeping on it hadn’t helped one bit.
Hell, he had even gone along on Shiro’s early morning run without complaint, just to keep busy. Which is why he was volunteering to blow up some engineering genius kid and fighting Catra all before noon. Keith had never done well with having too much time on his hands and with the thoughts of his dad and their family cabin swirling around in his head, he needed something else to focus on before he did something truly stupid.
Wrapping his hands to protect his wrist and hands from the shock of the punches he was about to start throwing, he looked up to where Catra was stretching. “First to three takedowns wins?” He asked casually, like they weren’t about to start beating the crap out of each other in a minute.
For a while the whole yoga thing had become a substitute for handling stress on other shitty emotions - it was definitely some weird hippie thing, a recommendation she could see Perfuma dishing out to her and it helped with the whole ‘constantly angry’ vibe she had a habit of bleeding out. But sometimes, Catra needed more. Sometimes the breathing exercises and clearing a busy mind didn’t do it for her. Sometimes she needed aching muscles and bloody knuckles, so when Keith’s out-of-the-blue suggestion to essentially go to friendly blows came along? Cool. Why not? It had been a weird week and a half.
Obviously there was something probably up with Keith too. They were alike enough that she understood he didn’t need prodding questions right now, and that was fine. Catra wasn’t much of the nosy type. If he wanted to talk, he’d talk. If he wanted to punch, then she’d happily punch right back. It was a nice understanding.
“Fine with me,” came her nonchalant reply, doing one last streeeetch with that natural feline grace. They were at the mercy of nature right outside of Darla, the shroud of forest trees giving some reprieve from the summer sun. Catra was barefoot (her preference for general existence, anyway) and with a mesh-top and leggings a bit torn up from previous sparring. “Claws will be kept to myself - and we’ll avoid hitting faces.”
Or try avoiding it. Sometimes accidents happen, okay.
“What, Adora won’t kiss you if I break your nose?” Keith asked, grinning as he rolled to his side and sprung up to a standing position. He flexed his hands, testing the hand wraps, and nodded to himself in satisfaction when they gave just the amount that they needed to. He was in a fitted tee and compression tights, with shorts over them, his first ‘for fun’ purchases after getting to Vallo.
He dug his own bare feet into the ground, testing whether he really wanted to try this without his shoes and then shrugged. Hey, sometimes you get attacked without shoes on. A beach trip or picnic could easily go wrong, in Vallo. This would be good practice, even if the only bare feet fighting he was used to was on padded matts in gyms.
Stretching out his arms overhead, he rolled his back muscles one last time and then fell into his standard fighting pose. Two hands up, cautious, but ready to attack if she made him go for it. “Here, kitty kitty,” he teased, wiggling his fingers in a ‘come get it’ motion.
“First of all - Adora would make out with me even on my deathbed,” Catra tossed back easily, shamelessly. They were nauseating with their gratuitous display of affection - turns out that's what happens after effectively communicating those lovey-dovey feelings they’ve tried shoving down their entire lives. Sue them.
Her movements started with these poised sidesteps, circling Keith like she was some apex predator assessing prey. That tail of hers did a slow flick from side to side. “And second, kitty kitty?” Her eyes squinted at him, pupils thin slits against the mismatched colors. “What’cha gonna do next? Go pspspspsps, rub your fingers together?”
Because it didn’t work, Keith.
(Usually.)
Then she rocked back onto the heels of her feet and catapulted herself into the air, only to come back down with an extended fist to start off the first of many punches in this beautiful display of friendship.
Communication. That was something Keith was still trying to figure out with Shiro because he had a bad tendency to just shove things down deep until they became a problem, but at least he was more open with his boyfriend than he was with other people. But that was also a testament to how good Shiro was at getting Keith to open up.
Keith was just about to do exactly that pspspsps noise to try and get Catra off balance, but then she was launching herself into the air like no regular human could and he had to focus on blocking her punches, which came hard and fast.
The next hour or so passed quickly, with both of them getting in good hits and getting thrown around. They had quickly lost track of who was winning and their taunting turned to real arguments back to taunting and, by the end of it, they were both on the ground staring up at the sky and barely hitting each other.
“How’d you do that backhand twirl thing you did when you got me in ear?” Keith asked, breathing heavily still and kicking her gently with the side of his foot from where he was laying.
Had it been an hour? Catra could hardly tell. It was nice to kind of just - get lost in the whole dance of swinging arms and legs to expel the last reserves of stress from the whole Interitus fiasco that stole her goddamn girlfriend and alien pal until waves of fatigue started ebbing their way into her bones. There was bottled water around here somewhere. Getting it required effort though, and right now she was mustering the last bits of it to get Keith a lazy whack with the back of her hand.
“I think I just improvised that,” she admitted after a deep exhale. “I grew up with certain styles of combat being forced on me and I never really - I don’t know, it didn’t work for me?” Catra always learned things differently, or did things another way to get the desired results. It wasn’t always the Horde way of doing it and that had a habit of annoying trainers and commanding officers.
Could be genetics playing a part in it. Could be just who she was as a person. Speed and stealth and dirty tricks were always preferred over sheer brute strength when it came to her fighting techniques. “Still won, though. You had me down for three seconds, not five.”
Keith was easily one of the more slight Paladins of Voltron, but there was a hidden strength that his slender build didn’t show off. He figured it from his Galra side because he could easily throw people at Shiro’s build around, but he still focused primarily on speed and accuracy in his fighting. It’s how he survived growing up as an orphan, before he knew what he was capable of.
And fighting Catra really tested the limits of his skills in that regard. It’s probably why he liked fighting her. It was never really any deeper than snappy remarks and ass kicking.
“I can never predict where you’re going to hit next quick enough to sidestep it,” Keith admitted, lifting the end of his shirt to wipe the sweat out of his eyes. “When I do, it’s usually just luck.” He ripped some grass out of the ground and threw it in her direction. “I still won though. That last pin you had me in didn’t have both of my shoulders down.”
“I so did have your shoulders down,” she hissed and swatted at the flying grass before shoving a hand into his stupid face - what a butthole. Catra’s arm weakly dropped though, and she draped it over her own waist with a grumbly kind of mrrrrp sound.
Ugh, now she had grass blades in her fur. She’d pluck them out later.
After a few seconds, her head turned so she could properly look him over. An eyebrow was arched. “Feeling better?” she asked. In regards to - whatever spurred this. Catra didn’t buy the boba tea thing and she wasn’t out to intentionally pry into Keith’s business unless he felt like expelling some word vomit her way would help. “Or do we need to hydrate and go for another three rounds?”
Keith might not have grown up with siblings, but he had been in enough scuffles with Hunk, Lance, and Pidge over the last couple of years, that there was a very good chance if Catra kept her hand in his face, he would lick it just to get a reaction. Thankfully, she pulled away and they didn’t have to go for another round of tired sparring dissolved into squabbling.
“Didn’t,” he still said cheekily, feeling a lot better after talking things out with Shiro in texts, sparring with Catra, and having lunch with Lance to look forward to. Sure, none of the actual problems were solved, but with so many people willing to support him while he figured it out? Well, it was a warming thought.
But hell if he knew how to say any of that, so he settled for, “Yeah, I feel a lot better. Thanks for losing to me.” He paused, before admitting, “I’ve been freaking out a little bit because my childhood home showed up. Brought up a lot of memories and the fact that I still miss my dad.” Pause. “He died when I was a kid. It’s been years and I still haven’t…” Forgiven him, if Keith was being honest. But that was too much for a post spar talk with Catra. “Come to terms with it,” he said instead. It was the truth, just a little less than the whole truth.
Oh. Catra blinked at him owlishly. So he chose to fess up to her - cool. Not a bad thing. There was a part of her that was still, uh, learning how to be a friend. A good one, anyway. She’d been a shitty one before, lashing out when someone tried to get too close while she convinced herself she was some wretched, unlovable thing that deserved nothing so fuck people, right. That hadn’t ended well for her.
Him opening up was a good sign. Like he trusted her, or something. Maybe.
“I don’t think there’s a time limit on that kind of thing,” she replied after a minute. Her head turned to look up at the sky. Tree foliage mostly blocked it but she could see the blue, the sun's rays peeking through too. “Places where you’ve grown up, the people that raise you - it’s almost always doomed to be some complicated crap.”
Until Shiro, Keith had no one to call a friend. Until Voltron, he didn't know what a real family was like, with his family taken from him when he was so young. So he was learning to be more open too, with people that weren't Shiro or Lance. Adora and Catra had been some of his earliest friends when he had arrived and, yeah, it took a couple of months to get to this point, but…
It didn’t feel weird, telling her all of this. Probably because she could relate all too well to some of it.
“At least kicking your ass isn’t complicated,” he allowed, smiling a little as he stared up at the same canopy she was looking at above them. He rolled to his side and stood up, offering her a hand up. “Thanks for the spar, Catra. And for listening.”
Oh, Catra could fucking relate alright - there was an island Vallo dedicated to her childhood home of horrors that stunk a whole lot of ass when it first arrived. It held a mix of good memories and bad. Well, mostly bad ones. But it was also something that was difficult to completely hate when it was what brought her and Adora together (even if it did split them apart down the road), hence the complicated part.
“Whatever,” she huffed, taking his hand to stand. The eyeroll she gave was a weirdly affectionate one (ewwww), and she had this smirk on her to where you could see the tip of a fang stick out. “You know what? I’ll let you have this one because you’re in a mood and I’m nice like that. I’m not above surrendering to pity wins out of the goodness of my heart. You’re welcome.”
She patted his shoulder and everything while looking oh-so smug and proud of herself.
Keith’s smile was only half teasing, half genuine when he snorted out, “Thanks, Catra. I appreciate my win that I got fair and square.” He walked over to where his shoes were and started to pull them back on. “Lance and I are going to go get lunch after I grab a shower. You want to meet up with us?”
Keith goes shoes, Catra went and snatched up those water bottles they abandoned in the beginning of their match. They weren’t as cold but it’d still quench their thirst and, y’know provide that much needed hydration post-sparring. “Mm - sure,” she responded and tossed him a bottle. “Mostly because the two of you are entertainment and I like funny banter with my meals.”
Whatever distractions he still needed from this whole childhood home situation, he’d get it. Not because she liked him or anything.