InsaneJournal

Catra had two arms again. Two hands, two thumbs, two sets of claws (those were made from the broken shards of the original Sword of Protection, the most comparable material that could match the sharpness of her natural ones). Those simple, mundane household tasks that had been an utter pain to do with just one set of all of those stopped being a struggle. In truth, they never had completely a struggle – Adora, stubborn and beautiful and just always there helped. She hovered in a way that was practiced and non-intrusive, never making it feel like this was her fault.

But she carried the guilt anyway, and it was a heavy weight she did her best to carry quietly. She had put Melog in a position where they had to be killed, though that wasn’t even taking into consideration all the damage they’ve done before that.

She had meant to reach out. She should have. Catra was being shitty, and – gods, the guys must be put off by her. Then she went toe-to-toe with Melog in a pointless, stupid attempt to get through to them so she could bring them home, and that had been one of the worst decisions she’s made in her life.

It was why part of her was metal now.

Several weeks passed by. Catra had been medicated for some of it, but she was out of that fog now – and she was better, even if the prosthetic took some adjusting to. Finn had taken a weird liking to it, fascinated by the gleam of her claws, and it made her think back of when they were four and tinier, telling them how they wanted magic sword claws when they got older.

The magic part didn’t qualify but the sword claws, yeah. That’s what those were.

It was also Finn who came into what was left of their in-home gym on Darla (the mats were given away to offer sleep accommodations, and a lot of what was metal had been donated to be broken down and reused for other purposes) while she practiced wielding a wooden staff with her arm, holding Keith’s hand.

“Mommy, stop what you’re doing, look.” They were beaming. “Uncle Keith came to visit! He didn’t bring Kipp, though. I told him he sucks for that.”

Catra let out a yelp and dropped the weapon. Shitfuckgodwhy.

Without access to the instant magical healing of the past, recovering from the injuries he had sustained in the attack by Melog had taken a few weeks. If it hadn't been for Lance pulling off some Altean healing and Kosmo buying them time, Keith would have been worse off than he had been or dead.

No, the only ones dead were Kosmo and Melog and that was why he was there today.

Adora had been the one to let him in, but Finn had been the one to bring him to who he was really there to see. He smiled down at Finn, eyes a little tired and a little sad, but there was no anger in them. "Sorry, Finn. Kipp’s still feeling a little down right now, but I'll ask him to come along next time. Do you think you could give me a few minutes with your mom though?"

He turned his head to look in Catra's direction. Keith waited until she was looking at him. "I wanted to talk to her about something." His smile was small, but genuine.

Catra couldn’t take her eyes off Keith. Finn had said – something, she wasn’t sure what (it very cheery sure before running off to find their other mom) and the next thing she knew, they were alone.

It had been awhile, but she caught a glimpse of what was peeking out from underneath the collar of his shirt. Easily. She knew what those marks were. She knew the claws, knew the teeth that put them there.

The same ones that took Kosmo from him.

Her mouth went dry, and it felt like she swallowed her tongue because words, how the fuck do you make them? Catra thought she must look stupid parting her lips, and then flattening them into a line, and then opening them up again for another try.

It was lackluster, but she managed to force out a hoarse, “Hey.”

Keith waited until he was sure he couldn't hear Finn's footfalls anymore, before he moved. He didn't know if it was the correct next step, but Catra was looking a little dumbfounded and he was feeling a little lost. So Keith did the only thing he knew was always the right answer in these situations. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tightly. She knew how uncomfortable he was with physical displays of affection, so for him to do this just reaffirmed the unspoken promise of 'I don't hate you.'

The press of a metal arm wasn't a new feeling for him, so much that he wouldn't normally notice the feeling. It was only because he was looking for it that he could feel it and be reminded of why he was here.

"Hey," he said simply, after he pulled back from the hug. Keith didn't go far though, holding onto her arms. "You've been avoiding me and I don't like that." Catra and Adora had lived separately from the Outpost for several reasons, but Catra had never actively avoided him like this. It wasn't unsurprising though, given what had happened.

Catra would like to argue she hadn’t been avoiding – that she could chalk it up to the chaos unraveling around them and, yeah, part of that was legitimate. They were suffering losses left and right. Friends taken, friends dead. The kids were scared, their whole world turned upside down.

But that was hardly an excuse when Keith was family. All of them were; him and Shiro and Kipp, Lance and Atreus and Yrsa. Kosmo was taken by Melog. Keith was almost taken by Melog, and she should have been there. She should have ignored that little voice in the back of her head, dripping with venom and telling her they must hate you.

Instead, she got stupid and decided to chase Melog down. Look where that got them.

The hug had been a shock to her system and it was stiffly reciprocated. In retrospect, she hated that. Catra should have hugged him back tightly. They had almost lost him and here she was, being standoffish and… avoidant, like he said.

“It’s been a weird year,” was her reply, trying to will the corners of her mouth to make some kind of smile. Her eyes watered instead (but she was too stubborn to let anything fall), and the way her ears were pinned against her head was telling of shame. “Keith, I –”

Catra’s shoulders tensed as she closed her eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

Keith tightened his grip on her arms, hating how she looked so tense and uncomfortable. She didn’t need to say it because he got it. Knew that she would be feeling an unbelievable amount of guilt over the whole thing for many different reasons. Keith would too, in her place. They called themselves twins for a reason, with how similar they could be at times.

But that didn’t stop him from telling her, “Don’t you dare say sorry to me. You didn’t do this. Any of this. We got dealt a shitty hand, but it wasn’t because you did this to me or whatever dumbass thought you have in your head now about this. Put the blame where it belongs - on Interitus. The only thing you’re allowed to be sorry for is avoiding me after.”

And fuck, he told himself he wasn’t going to cry, but losing Kosmo and Melog had been a lot. So when he said, “You’re the only one that gets how it feels to lose someone like Kosmo,” his voice was unsteady, full of emotion. He paused and took a deep breath, steadying himself. “So don’t be sorry about what happened. Just fucking hug me because this sucks.”

Catra blinked her eyes open, lashes damp. Just – shit. A handful of years ago and some change, she might have cracked a joke about how this was an emotional visit and ugh, feelings, right? But humor didn’t have a place here. That was then, this was now, and Keith was right.

It sucked. Gods, it fucking sucked.

She said nothing at first and went for it, hugging Keith in a way that he deserved. Strong and firm and she didn’t have the time to think about her claws, or the way they pricked at his back in a way that wasn’t at all intentional. It wasn’t about to be a quick embrace, either – she was going to hold on, and he was going to have to suck it up.

“My head got fucked for awhile,” she choked out into his shoulder, not even trying to pass that off as an excuse. More of an explanation, but it was safe to say all their heads were fucked anyway. “And everything’s just – Melog loved you, and loved Kosmo, and it’s not fair they’re just gone.”

The way her words cracked at first would have implied she was well on her way to sobbing, but she held it back. Catra let rage seep into her words; let them be said with this rumble of a furious growl. She didn’t blame Leon for what he had to do. And maybe killing them was a kindness, because if Melog knew what they were responsible for?

They would never forgive themselves.

Over the years, they had gotten better at not using levity as a mechanism to hide their very real pain and feelings. Sometimes they still tried half-heartedly to keep the mood from taking a swan dive, but this was easily one of those moments where they had to be real with each other. Because it felt like every single nerve in his body was being raked over coal now that he was being honest about how he was feeling with her. He was glad she recognized that he was here for her though, but that he was also there for himself too.

They both needed this. They both needed to have this conversation and fix whatever broke when Melog lifted a claw against them.

“We loved him too,” he said, arms around her tight even as he mumbled into her hair. “Kosmo knew it wasn’t him anymore though, that he wasn’t making these choices. I could feel it in our connection that he knew and when he…” He squeezed his eyes shut as tears escaped them. Keith tried again. “When he jumped in to protect me, he knew that it was either Melog or us. But he couldn’t do what we needed to do and that was his choice. Because he loved Melog too. He died to give Lance a chance to get us out of there, but he made that choice and I’m not going to say it was the right or wrong one because I trust he did what he thought was right.”

Faced with the choice of killing a thralled friend or not, Keith wasn’t sure he would have done any differently than Kosmo. If it meant his loved ones could get away, he would have gone down in that fight too. “So we honor that choice and we remember the both of them for what they were. Because we loved them, Catra, and it sucks, but we gotta figure out how to keep going for everyone else.” And maybe it was a bit of cheating to use their families and friends like that, but he had to make sure that she wouldn’t do something dumb because of guilt again. These last weeks had felt like he had lost Catra too and it was a feeling he never wanted to revisit under any circumstance.

“Kosmo shouldn’t have had to make that choice,” Catra spat out, voice cracking around her words with that same rage. Sadness bled into it now – but not in some soft, melancholic way. It was heartache. Keith was right again. Arguing about any of it was a moot point, because they had to keep going.

And she was. She was pushing through it. She got out of bed. She put her damn big girl pants on with her new big girl arm and worked on providing for her family. They didn’t have a choice despite how badly she wanted to pick a fight with the situation itself; like it was this tangible, solid thing she could sink her claws into and tear to shreds.

Those same claws didn’t ease from his back. Catra smooshed her cheek into his shoulder, teary eyes glaring weakly into the walls of their makeshift gym. “I should have been there for you.” She swallowed, and it hurt. It was as if her throat was lined with barbed wire. “I was just–worried I’d make it worse. It’s fucking dumb, I know. God, I know. I should have been there. I’m going to be there.”

He was probably bleeding at this point from where he could barely feel her claws digging in, but the fun thing about his new scars was that his nerves were so fucked up that the pain was negligible. Keith was so focused on their feelings right now, that he couldn't even consciously feel the claws.

"Well, guess that's another thing we're going to have to take up with Interitus. Got a whole goddamn list that I'm shoving up his ass." And until his own death, that was exactly what he would continue trying to do while keeping his family safe. But until then…

Keith pulled back to look at her, his face kind of a snotty mess but not giving a shit in light of the fact that she was looking the same as him. He was glaring at her. "Good. Cause I'm not asking for more or for less. But if you ever pull this shit again, I'm going to find you and we're going to have a real fight about it." His look softened somewhat. "You're my sister, Catra. I want to be there for you too, but I can't if you don't let me."

Catra’s face was damp. A bit snotty too, yeah. She and Keith were just rocking these similarities a bit too closely but that was fine; they bonded over being cut from the same cloth. Two hotheads that hated feelings despite always feeling so much, all at once. Today was definitely that. It was an overload, but neither of them were fighting against it. There was catharsis in venting it out to one another.

Her face might have leaked a little extra when he said you’re my sister, like she needed to hear him say it again to cement the title and reassure that position in his life. Her only blood family was Finn, but the family she had made over the years was one her heart had chosen. That was equally important.

“I know, I know,” she repeated herself, feeling like a scolded child despite being on the verge of being in her thirties. Catra deserved the lecturing – she’d been dumb, and Adora had done her best to convince her of that but she kind of just got stuck in the irrationality and guilt of it all. Finally, she withdrew her hands to wipe her face and realized her claws had been out and oh. “Shit, sorry, did I get you?”

Most of the time it was Adora at the receiving end of the unintentional claws, and she used to be able to tap into self-healing to patch up any scratches. Now, she couldn’t, and Catra knew she had to watch it when she got emotional. It was a learning process.

Up until Tex had arrived in Vallo, Keith had no blood family to speak of. So he got it, this whole found family stuff. It had started with Voltron, but Vallo had easily grown his family further and Catra was a very important part of it. He couldn’t count the number of times she had gotten him to get his ass out of his head and face his problems. So he was glad she saw their relationship the way he did.

It’s why when Catra brought attention to her claws and what she had probably done, Keith lied. “Nah, you’re good.” She didn’t need more unnecessary guilt on top of everything else and he felt comfortable making that choice to spare her more pain. They were going to reach their limit of honest feelings pretty quick now and there was only so much they could both take on before needing space again.

So he instead used his shirt to wipe his face while throwing an arm around her shoulders, to distract her from actually looking at his back. “Are you going to show me what you can do with that new arm of yours? I saw you practicing when Finn brought me in.” He knew why she had a new arm, but didn’t want to push her to talk about it until she was ready. It was easy enough to focus on the superficial part of it instead.

“Don’t put that pressure on me, I literally just got it,” Catra huffed with a watery smile, using the back of her flesh hand to wipe cheeks dry. “It’s – different.”

Yeah, different. To have some semblance of a limb there and to be able to control it but also not… feel it? The weight of it was a little heavier than she was accustomed to. Better than having literally nothing there – which had her feeling weird and not properly balanced the way she should be. Catra always had impeccable balance.

She brought that metal hand one, and flexed her fingers to show him her claws; steel from Adora’s original sword that almost looked like it glowed blue. “Gonna learn how to land some hard punches with this, though. I don’t have the bones to break if I use this one.”

“You don’t want to overdo it until you build up the muscles to compensate for the new weight,” Keith warned, not personally having a prosthetic like Catra’s, but being married to a man that did. “Easiest way to throw out your back, thinking you’re the Terminator now. I’ll send Shiro your way soon, if you want tips?”

He walked over to where they kept their practice weapons, selecting his own staff. “Up for a little spar? I’ll go easy on you,” he teased, throwing her a wink because he knew how riled up she would get at that. More seriously, he added, “Or we can talk some more. Tell me what you’ve been up to or feeling?”

Shit, that’s right. Shiro would be the perfect teacher. Catra gave a nod to that suggestion, kicking herself mentally as to why she hadn’t thought about it before – but then remembered she was being an idiot, and in her grief she had half-convinced herself that the guys hated her. Yeah, she thought. That’s why.

“With a jab like that,” she snorted, bending over to pick up the staff she’d dropped from her surprise, “can’t say no to a little spar. Let’s do both. It’ll be easier to get more of the feelings out when we throw some friendly violence into the mix.”

Then, before readying herself into a stance, Catra squared her shoulders and softly added, “I really missed you. Missed–this.” Them. The banter. The company. His damn face. “But know I’m not gonna go easy on you because I love you, brother.”

Getting gooey again because it was hard not to when Catra willingly showed affection - she really was a cat in all the ways - Keith grinned at her. “Love you too, brat. But I’m taking that as permission to kick your ass, sorry not sorry to Adora.” He didn’t wait for her comeback, before throwing himself at her to get this spar started.

It would take awhile to heal - emotionally and physically - from this, but now that they were back on the right terms again, at least they could rely on each other through it. That was what mattered.