glimmer ✨ she-ra (netflix) (queensparkles) wrote in valloic, @ 2022-03-21 22:06:00 |
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Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, she-ra: catra, ₴ inactive: glimmer |
WHAT Catra and Glimmer grab drinks together a few days after the pizza party and make some apologies.
WHEN Wednesday, February 16, 2022; Evening - Backdated!
WHERE Al's Dive Bar
RATING Mentions of being kidnapped, almost destroying the world--taht sort of thing.
STATUS Complete!
Glimmer Sparkles a night out anyway, just the two of them.
For reasons.
Reasons that Catra wasn’t entirely sure she knew how to define, but reasons nonetheless. It was entirely possible that she came to the conclusion that the personified Creampuff of Brightmoon wasn’t the worst company to have while floating through space on a galactic dictator’s clone-infested ship. They’ve also, uh - hugged? That was something. Steps above the whole part they fought and then Catra gave up and essentially begged her for sweet death because everything sucked. How the times have changed.
“I’ll buy you one drink,” declared Catra, hands fisting into the pockets of her leather jacket as they made their way inside. It was Al’s Dive Bar, and it wasn't located in the best part of Vallo but Alex owned it. The drinks were unique - lots of options for aliens, apparently - and they had some finger foods they could order to pick at. “You’re on your own afterwards, Shimmer.”
There was so much about showing up in Vallo that was overwhelming. Glimmer supposed that wasn’t unique to her situation, all things considered, but knowing she wasn’t alone did very little to change the fact that it was. After all, it had just been a handful of days, barely weeks, ago that she’d seen her father again. Days since the final battle against Prime and not much longer since she and Catra had been stuck together on his ship. Both prisoners in their own rights. Showing up here where Adora and Catra had lived what felt to her like an entire life since then was…a lot.
So she was grateful for the chance to go out and hang with Catra on her own. It gave her a chance to catch up. To figure out where the hell she stood after everything that had happened back home, and everything that had apparently happened here.
Glimmer smirked, brushing her hair back. “You say that now, but you haven’t seen just how convincing I can be,” she replied. “Do they have food here, too?”
“Duhhh,” Catra huffed out, the small exhale of air ruffling her bangs. There was a decent crowd tonight - lots of diversity, a decent thrum of blended voices with music that didn’t overwhelm one-on-one conversations. Grabbing Glimmer by the wrist, she squeezed through a couple of tight spaces between bodies and approached the bar.
There were some seats available too, lucky them - with menus with appetizers and drink specials. Catra picked a barstool and slid over the list. “Cheese fries are where it’s at,” she chirped (literally, a cat chirp) and let her chin sit into her palm, elbow on the bartop. “Wings are good too. Greasy food and alcohol go together.”
Showing up in a different universe wasn’t where the overwhelm ended. The vast expanse of options here were overwhelming, too, though thankfully in a good way. It was fortunate that there was so much to try in Vallo–she hadn’t had a chance to miss the food from home, yet. But because she was still so new to the food and drink here, she just had to take Catra’s word for it as she hoisted herself up onto the barstool beside her and took the menu.
“Okay, okay, cheese fries and wings, it is?” she said, barely skimming over the menu. Maybe next time she’d start with something else. Assuming there was a next time. Considering how long Catra and Adora had been here, it seemed likely that there would be. “And please tell me I won’t feel like Frosta punched me in the face repeatedly with her ice fists again because the morning after the pizza party was SO BAD.”
“As someone who has been punched in the face by her at least once - yeah, I’m with you,” Catra snorted. Leave it to Adora to plan a pizza party that seems innocuous and have it end with half of the attendees accidentally getting stoned off their minds and a fucking cow on the spaceship. It was fun though. It was also weirdly nice to have people from back home involved, if she were honest?
But, like. That could sometimes be hard to admit openly to people she actively tried killing once (or several times). Things with Scorpia had been sorted out, and obviously she and Adora worked things out because, uh, married and all. Now their numbers were increasing, and there were more people she had to make amends with.
Sorry just didn’t always cut it.
The order of the wings and fries were placed. Next were the drinks, which they were still deciding. “Okay - we had straight liquor at the party so let’s stick with beer? Or mixed drinks. You got a preference? I’ll probably do beer,” she said. “Less chance of us getting into a bar fight and Adora would kill me if she had to pick me up from jail a second time.”
Glimmer gave Catra a look that said she had no freaking idea what her preference was. Not when it came to the drinks Vallo served up, anyway. She shrugged. “I don’t know, uh, whatever you’re having?” She leaned forward and squinted at the wall behind the bar lined with rows of bottles in all shapes, sizes, and colors. “I have literally no idea what any of these are. Are they beer? I don’t know!”
“I’m just going to trust your decision here,” Glimmer said, covering her face. “Even though last time I trusted your advice, I ended up sleeping in a bathtub while cuddling a mop.”
Catra knocked her head back and let out the scratchiest little laugh. “You were big spooning the mop,” she grinned wickedly, the tip of a fang peeking out. Pictures had definitely been taken. If Bow crossed the Vallo threshold and joined their ranks he needed to see him so, really, she was being proactive and doing him a favor. “It’s okay. I should have figured your Goody Two Shoes gang didn’t play with booze much, so…”
Let’s see. Catra hummed, a black claw sliding down the selection offered from the laminated menu. “Hoegaardens,” she decided. “They’re sweet. Beer is like - not insanely alcoholic but if you drink enough it’ll give you a good buzz? We’ll do mixed drinks another time. Those are tasty and pack a punch.
The order was given to the bartender and seconds later they were delivered - cold, crisp bottles after a pop when the metal cap was removed. Catra grabbed one and knocked it against the other one gently. “Cheers, Sparkles.”
Glimmer wrinkled her nose. "Okay, but we still had fun, though! So much fun that didn't involve bathtubs or mops." Not that she was entirely against fun that involved bathtubs, but mops definitely needed to stay out of the equation going forward. One voice in her head told her that she could avoid a repeat situation if she just didn't drink. Another voice said she'd learn to tolerate drinking better if she just had more of whatever Catra slid her way and Glimmer wasn't entirely sure which voice was going to win out.
She held up her own bottle in turn and said, "Cheers, Horde Scum," with a little upturned twist of her mouth. She took a drink and hesitated, mulling over the taste, before taking another approving drink of it. It wasn't half bad.
"Who would have thought we'd ever be sitting in a bar together, you know?" Glimmer asked. "Swapping inside jokes and everything. This place is so weird, but I don't dislike it."
Glimmer had a good point. Them, sitting at a bar. Not coming to blows, or being surrounded by structures falling and blazing fires. Catra had an easier time to accept her reality at this point in time - a year had passed from when she remembered getting Glimmer off Prime’s ship. Things were different.
In a really, really good way.
“Soooo,” Catra drawled, squinting her eyes at Glimmer in some playful scrutiny. “Does that mean we’re friends now, or something?”
It was half a joke, half a very legitimate question. Catra was insecure, okay, it was one of her defining flaws hidden under years of rage and spite - she needed confirmation here.
There had been a time when Glimmer would have been unable to imagine a day when she wouldn’t hate Catra. It was unfair, maybe, that she’d channeled all of her anger over everything the Horde had done to her and her people, everything each of them had lost, into her hatred for the girl sitting beside her. But Glimmer had also learned a lot over the past few years that had nothing and everything to do with Catra and how she felt about her. She’d learned that she wasn’t perfect, either. She’d learned that even people fighting for what she believed in could make colossal, world-ending mistakes. She’d learned how easy it was to become so consumed by your own grief and insecurities that you couldn’t see your way out of it. She’d learned that maybe she and Catra weren’t as different as maybe she’d once believed.
So she gave the question proper consideration even if Catra had tried to cover it up with her usual glibness.
“I think,” Glimmer replied, glancing down at the bottle she held in her hand, “it kind of does mean that, yeah.” She shrugged as though it just was what it was and there was nothing to be done about it. And then, because it felt like it needed to be said, she added, “I know there are things you’ve done to me that deserve an apology, but there are also things I’ve done to everyone that deserve an apology, too. So, I don’t know, maybe we just acknowledge that we’re both probably more sorry about those things than we know how to say and just figure it out from there? I mean, you’re part of the best friend squad now, soooooo…”
“Debatable on that last part,” came Catra’s retort to the, uh, best friend squad thing. Which she was able to readily accept in the immediate aftermath of the Horde Prime Victory, but she had some complicated feelings about it - about that, about forgiveness. Earning it. Being worthy of it. It’s the same song and dance she’d done for the past year in regards to Adora, and they were in a good place (obviously, duh, married).
Making amends with everyone else was something for Future Catra, here or on Etheria. The clock finally struck. Here was a good chunk of everyone else, and now she was Future Catra.
Her claw picked at the beer’s label, the bottle sweating with a little bit of condensation. “I’m good with acknowledging our momentous fuck ups, but - I’d like to say it anyway?” she winced. “That I’m sorry. For the role I played in the last three years. For your… mom.”
The elephant in the room; the consequence Catra didn’t really intend despite wanting to watch the world around her burn. Her ears did that pathetic thing where they dipped low, pressing into her head and she did this awkward fidget in her stool and - oh, was that their appetizers? It was, slid before them and piping hot with freshness. That was nice.
Glimmer took another sip and sat in the feeling that being forced to think about what had happened to her mom and why made her feel. She’d had time to process everything that had happened leading up to that particular loss, but she hadn’t exactly made the best use of it. It was still raw, still terrible. She wasn’t sure there was enough time in the universe, no matter how many new ones she visited, to make her heart feel less hollow without her mother.
“Thank you,” she replied, voice quiet, because she didn’t know what else to say. She’d been so angry after losing her mom, even if she’d known that her mother’s sacrifice had been her choice. She’d been angry at Adora for not stopping her, angry at Catra and the Horde for making the choice a necessary one. Angry at herself for being so incapable to being even a fraction of the Queen Angella had been. But even though she’d wasted so much of the time she’d had to process her grief, she had at least come to terms with one thing. The thing she angriest at was the fact that they had all been pawns in a game so much larger than Etheria, and that all of it could have been prevented if any one of them had been willing to listen to the other.
In some ways, she thought, she was no different than the girl sitting beside her. She knew she probably would have made the same decisions Catra had, mostly because she had made pretty much the same decision. And while it would take more time for her to be able to move on from the loss of her mother, she also knew that she and Catra both had almost destroyed their world completely and if she couldn’t forgive Catra, she’d never be able to forgive herself.
“I’m sorry, too,” she said, finally looking back over at Catra. “I’m sorry for my role in all of it, too. And I’m sorry that my personal fuck up landed us on Horde Prime’s ship and for what you suffered up there because of it.”
Catra bit the inside of her cheek. Arguably, she should be the last one to ever be on the receiving end of any apology. And if asked, the indoctrination Prime put her through was karma striking divine justice for every mistake, every deliberate decision she’d ever made because if she was the bad one anyway, why not do it? Not like she had anything to lose.
It had been weird when Adora apologized to her too, in the beginning; because of Shadow Weaver, because she felt like she hadn’t fought for Catra enough through the years, because she dismissed everything their commanding officer put her through (all while being oblivious to how she was being manipulated, too). There was no shortage of guilt and regrets here.
So if Glimmer thought she needed to apologize - even if Catra wanted to protest it, it’s unnecessary you Sparkly Creampuff - then she would accept. “Thanks,” she replied, meeting her eyes with an almost humorous sense of awkwardness. Her response had of course been genuine but now that she wasn’t a bundle of raging spite, that insecurity she had once forced down was more prominent.
She was also super aware of it and self-conscious, hence the clearing of her throat to try and glean back some confidence and, y’know, dignity. “You were a good hostage buddy though,” Catra declared and picked up a fry between two claws. Less grease on her fingers that way. “Here’s to never having a forced dinner with a psychopath and all of his favorite dishes from his conquered planets ever again.”
It was in moments like this that Glimmer could really see the change in Catra. Sure, Catra also wasn’t trying to destroy her and everything she loved every time they saw each other and that was an obvious change, too, but this went deeper than that. Glimmer found herself hoping that maybe one day the awkwardness would be gone and they could just be two friends having drinks together and probably about to get into trouble as they were prone to do.
She raised her bottle at Catra’s toast and snorted a laugh because it was easier than looking too seriously at everything they’d just been through from Glimmer’s perspective. “I’ll drink to that,” she said and then did just that. “Worst dinner party ever, am I right?”
And after a moment, she added, “I think your pancakes are objectively better than anything he had on that table, to be honest.”
Hah. Catra actually snorted like a little pig mid-chuckle, bringing the back of her hand to her mouth as if that’d help keep any embarrassing noises from coming out. It’s a good thing she hadn’t started eating the fries. “Thanks - they’re genocide free. I feel like it makes a difference.”
Was it in poor taste to crack a joke like that? Probably. But that was her coping mechanism lately with things - dark humor. It helped.