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Catra woke up slowly. It was nice, something she hadn’t had in a while. She could just lie there and let herself arise from sleep. Then, there was a sound. It rang loudly in her ears even if it was coming from another room; the bathroom specifically. She felt herself get pulled in by it. She felt herself go deep into her memories, not repressed enough. She could almost hear that exact same sound coming from the back of her neck.
She had to physically shake herself to get out of her stupor, and, when she did, she stood up so fast that she almost fell from the bed. Then, she rushed to the room. And there was Adora, finishing up. With her blond hair scattered around her. In the floor.
“What have you done?” Catra had demanded. Her voice hadn’t turned any softer in the time she had spent with them, and that was definitely the proof. Her tone was harsh and demanding, just because she couldn’t believe what was happening before her eyes.
Adora looked at her and had the right to smile. “Do you like it?”
The cut was choppy, there were some strands longer than others and it was, overall, shorter than Catra’s. If she was being honest, it didn’t look that great, at least not with the mess that it was in that moment. And of course Adora had to do that when they were in the middle of space, inside an spaceship that held just a few more of their friends, neither of which were hairdressers.
She looked down. “You made a mess,” she stated dryly.
Adora’s blue eyes looked away and she shrugged. Catra had known her for a long time, but even if she hadn’t, it would have been obvious that she was feeling self-conscious. It wasn’t a look that Catra saw a lot in Adora, always seeming so sure of herself. Since they had started… whatever this was, Adora had shown herself bare to Catra. In a metaphorical sense. She had shown herself more vulnerable. Catra, even if she didn’t want to admit it, had done the same. They were now closest than they had ever been.
She sighed. If she looked past the unevenness and the choppiness of the hair, it didn’t look bad. She was still prettier with long her, at least in her opinion, but it wasn’t ugly. Being honest, Catra couldn’t imagine a situation where Adora would be ugly. Even mid-battle she’d been the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen. “You look good,” she finally mustered. It was new, saying those things to each other, and Catra wasn’t shy, no with physical contact or the new development of their relationship, but the emotional part had proven itself to be the most difficult part for her. “You look…” she cleared her throat, “it’s a mess. But we can try to fix it. I’m sure it’ll look fine then.”
“You are such a charmer,” Adora answered sarcastically, at which Catra rolled her eyes and mimicked her with a shrill voice.
She took the scissors and started trimming the strands in Adora’s forehead. The other girl stayed still, just looking at her. It was making Catra nervous, but she focused on her task. “Talk,” she ended up saying. The silence of the bathroom wasn’t doing any goods to her. In such a small space, the sounds of the hair being cut were even louder, more now that it was her who was doing it, and she felt like she couldn’t stand it. “Tell me why. Say something. Whatever.”
And it must have been the frantic tone, because Adora started talking. “I saw that you don’t seem to be that comfortable with the hair and I thought that…” she hesitated. “Well, it seems dumb, but I thought that if you weren’t the only one looking like that, you would be more comfortable.”
“It’s not that bad,” Catra felt the need to defend herself.
“It isn’t. It looks good on you, and I’m sure your head weighs a lot less,” Adora’s small smile banished after that. “But it was done without your consent and, as I’ve been learning lately, that’s important. Nobody has any right to your body, and that includes your self-image, as in your hair and other things like that.”
Catra actually had to stop cutting Adora’s hair at that. It had felt wrong when she’d woken up from the chip-reality and realized her hair had been chopped off, but she hadn’t given it too much thought, not wanting to deal with the thought of scissors so near her neck, cutting, and cutting, and cutting. The only thing that stops her from going back to the state she was when she had woken up is Adora’s hand in her forearm.
“It’s okay.” It had been said in a whisper, and only then did Catra realize that she was crying. A sob made its way past her mouth, and a few more followed it. “It’s okay.”
Catra tried to push Adora away, but her girlfriend only hugged her tightly. “I’m fine,” she ended up grumbling. She was fine, no matter how much her head hurt, no matter how wet her checks still were. She was fine.
Adora looked at her, assessingly. Whatever she saw made her grab Catra’s forearm tighter and pull her along as she walked back into the room. She made a noise as she was pushed to the bed. The full weight of Adora came after that. The blond girl was still hugging her, and she had her head in Catra’s chest.
They stayed like that for a while. Catra was no longer crying, the feel of Adora’s wright had grounded her enough to calm her.
“Do you think She-Ra is going to have short hair now?” she asked, needing the silence to get lighter.
Adora hummed. She looked up and Catra realized how sleepy her eyes seemed. She couldn’t help but smile. Adora was cute when she was half asleep, she had always been. Now that she could, Catra pulled her in for a kiss and, when they pulled away, rested her forehead against the other’s.
“I know a few people that would be mad at that,” she continued, her conversation totally apart the position they were in.
“We’ll have to see,” Adora mumbled.
“I can’t even begin to imagine how uncool She-Ra would look without her amazing, epic hair.”
Adora mustered a soft laugh. “She-Ra is always cool.”
“Sure, honey.”
She now got to call Adora honey, like she had yearned for so many years. Her chest warmed up and she let her hand burrow in Adora’s hair, now that it was short, that was infinitely easier. She wondered how she would style her hair now that she couldn’t pull it into a ponytail and hoped that the poof wouldn’t make a come-back. With those thoughts in her head, she also drifted off to sleep.
The next morning, Bow revealed he actually knows how to cut hair, and helps Adora make it presentable. It looks cute and Catra seems unable to keep her hands away from it.