#I CONTINUE TO HAVE MY CATRA/ENTRAPTA TENDECIES FED!!!

[nny11writes]

Catrapta - Catra was dragging her giant pile of study books when she heard heavy boots racing around the corner.

You love me, you really love me! :D

Rated T because I couldn't stop myself from having Catra curse at least once and also because she is thirsty. It's really a good thing that Entrapta is pretty slick about the whole thing.

Catra was dragging her giant pile of study books when she heard heavy boots racing around the corner.

The world slowed to a crawl as Catra realized a few things far too late to stop them. She had taken too many books. Her greed and hubris had come for her once again, because Catra hadn’t wanted to walk back and forth more than once for her study session. Additionally, Catra was struggling beneath the weight of her literary sins down one of the smallest and most cramped aisle in the whole library. She was on a sub basement that didn’t allow for much wiggle room but she’d hoped to avoid people this way mostly because she didn’t like them. Finally, the boots were getting way too close, way too fast.

And then it happened.

Someone rammed into her from behind, causing her to yelp as her books flew out of her hands and up into the air, she scrambled to not fall flat on her face and teetered dangerously close to toppling before getting her feet back under her. Cat-like reflexes were really saving her ass right now, but it was the curtain of purple hair that shot out around her that caught her attention. The whole world condensed into a tunnel of hair holding all of her books, backlit by the dim light of the library. It was surreal looking to say the least, and a little like that one nightmare she always had after consuming too much cosmic horror. 

What in the world?

“Sorry about that! I know I’m not supposed to run in here but I didn’t think anyone came all the way down here. So, I assumed that as no one would be down here, running would be okay too.” The hair pulled back and Catra turned slowly to look at the woman behind her.

She was shorter than Catra by a few inches, although her chunky work boots kept it from being too much. She had a brilliant smile and magenta eyes, an oil stained shirt and overalls. Correction, a sleeveless shirt and overall shorts. And a boob window? NIcenicenicenicenice!

“...am I dreaming?” She asked, feeling a little floaty.

“I don’t think so, not unless you do a lot of sleep walking.” The woman nodded before lifting herself to hover just a bit taller than Catra herself. Apparently via hair power. Unfortunately, this put the boob window at eye height. She felt a little like that one cartoon wolf and sputtered on what was probably some drool as the woman conintued, “Or we could be sharing a dream-like state, I suppose. I don’t think that’s ever happened, but never say never!”

With her lesbianism test passed with flying colors, Catra craned her neck to look up at the woman again. “What if we’re both dead and in purgatory? We’ll never be able to leave the library if we wanted to.”

The woman didn’t seem to notice the way she was swaying back and forth, almost like she was shifting her weight back and forth as she hummed thoughtfully. “I think that’s just a regular day here. Do you know how many people get genuinely lost down here every year!? On average, 27, that’s basically one person every two weeks!”

“...huh, is that why there’s all those bells at the end of stacks?” Catra had always wondered about them. She’d once found some poor twink ringing one desperately in tears, and ended up begrudgingly sitting with the poor guy until his boyfriend picked him up from the library coffee shop. At the time she’d assumed he’d abused a system to get help and had a little respect for the maneuver.

“Yup! They added those back in the late nineties, about the same time they started locking the study rooms.”

Way to go Kyle. Catra thought sarcastically to herself, removing the guy’s only source of respect. I should’ve known better when you ordered a pumpkin spice latte then asked for it to be decaf.

“Cool. Can I have my books back?”

“Hmm?” The woman looked up having been flipping through said books while they were talking. “Oh, sure!” All of them neatly stacked up in the woman’s arms as she saluted. “Just point me where we’re going!”

Catra had never had someone offer to carry her books before. It was like some disgustingly sweet fifties romance meet-cute, and for all it made her grateful her fur hid the blushing it also made her gag a little. Can’t complain about the arms though, damn. When had she gotten this into muscles? Maybe it was whole they were attached to? “Sure, follow me.”

Because Catra might think it was a little stupid, but she was not stupid enough to turn down someone else doing the heavy lifting.

“So, this is a lot of material and it seems to range a pretty broad set of topics and fields. What do you want all this information for?” The woman asked.

“Look, no offense, but I didn’t even catch your name so I’m not gonna tell you what I’m doing.”

“That’s because I never told you my name?” The woman peaked around the mountain of books looking confused.

There was a very long awkward pause before Catra realized she was supposed to say something. She snickered a little bit, “Okay, that was me prompting you to give me your name.”

“...it was? It’s not a very effective means to get the information you wanted. Why didn’t you just ask?” As if she was on a gyroscope, the woman kicked her legs back and forth but the books still seemed secured. She seemed genuinely interested in an answer though and it only made her blush worse.

“W-well, why didn’t you just say your name?” Catra countered because she really wasn’t sure how to answer that question without getting into a whole lot of bad habits she was trying to break with limited success thing. Also because how was she supposed to explain, "You're hot and I'm shooting my shot here, please don't move the basket, I'm sensitive." So much for being smooth, cool, and approachable.

The woman tilted her head and frowned, “Because you didn’t actually ask me for my name. You’re not very good at talking to people, are you?” Catra sputtered. She was a little affronted by the completely true accusation, but she didn’t get a chance to say anything before the woman barreled on apparently not bothered by or not noticing her pathetic previous attempt at being suave. “That’s okay, I’ve been told that I’m not very good at it either! We could practice together if you’d like, I’ve been collecting a LOT of data on conversing with other human beings!!”

Catra laughed, the anger going away instantly because, yeah, she was starting to see that. But the woman suddenly got quiet, pulling the books back up to cover her face. The temperature in the library seemed to drop ten degrees as she carefully asked, “Hey, you okay up there?”

“Yes.” Her voice was almost wooden.

“...okay,” Catra mumbled unsure why she felt guilty all of the sudden. She hadn’t even done anything? Ugh, being nicer was a fucking chore some days. What should she do now though? “Hey, uhm, we can totally study together if you’d like. For the whole, you know, talking to people thing.”

Ah yes, smooth, suave, and charming to the last. No wonder she was single.

“You…want to study human interactions. With me?” The woman’s eyes peaked around the side of the books gingerly as if she was looking for a trap.

Catra tried to not melt with relief that she had rescued this encounter from I was an asshole to a stranger again for no reason hell. She smiled and shrugged, “Sure, but I’d like to know your name first. So, uh, can you please tell me your name? I'm Catra.”

“Greetings Catra, my name’s Entrapta.” Entrapta once again shuffled things around to smile brightly at her, voice getting louder again as she got excited. “You really want to study with me? No one’s EVER wanted to study human behavior with me!! Oh, this is so exciting, what should we practice first!? Talking? Listening? Casual touches???”

Catra finally unlocked her study room, ushering Entrapta inside the dimly lit and cramped space even as her brain tripped unhelpfully over casual touches. She squeaked, “I don’t know! Tell me about your data first?”

Big yikes, but Entrapta didn't care instead launching into a nonstop stream of words that Catra only caught half off as Entrapta bounced around the tiny room, forcing them to brush arms and hands pretty frequently. Cool, starting with casual touching, I'm digging it, very nice, no complaints, nice, neat, cool-

By the time they left the library two hours after closing, making their escape through an unlocked window on the third story, Catra had forgotten all about her pile of books and her stupid essay. She was far too interested in spying on people in the student union building to care. Catra was, in fact, a little too interested in Entrapta to mind when her tater tots got stolen one by one by non-stealthy strands of hair. This was only exacerbated when the two became too tired to continue and fell asleep on the pylon they’d set up camp on with Catra curling into a little ball on Entrapta’s hair. Entrapta assured her neither of them would fall as long as they stayed close together.

Muzzily, she wondered to herself, “Wow, is this what love feels like?”

"Quick log," Entrapta whispered, which was still way too loud for Catra's sensitive hearing when her mouth was inches away considering they were practically spooning up here. "Operation cute cat going super well!"

"'m not cute," Catra grumbled, already half asleep and too tired to really consider what she was hearing.

"Incorrect, you are very cute. And have great hearing! Is it because of the feline-" Entrapta cut herself off and went back to whispering, "Sorry! I forgot we are trying to sleep!"

"Mergh," Catra mumbled, snuggling closer into Entrapta's back.

Entrapta almost squeaked, "Okay, quick log over!"

The next morning Catra woke up to Entrapta taking not at all stealthy photos of her, a huge grin, and incomprehensibly a large coffee. It was the large grin and cheery, "Good morning!" that really made it the best wake up call she'd ever had.