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Despite Azula’s complaining, Mai’s family’s lake house is far from what most people would consider “roughing it”. While the packed dirt road is remote and the furniture is dated compared to their house in the city, the open living area has high ceilings and soaring windows that give a gorgeous view of the lake and there’s a hot tub on the deck that looks down on the small dock. Zuko has always preferred their trips here over revisiting his own family’s vacation home on Ember Island or any of the other glamorous vacations the girls picked. The isolation of the forest and the keenly alive smell of the air was much more relaxing to him than spa treatments and house parties.
When he unfolds himself from the car, butt numb and shoulders sore, the first thing he does is tip his face up to the fading warmth of the setting sun and take a deep breath, filling his lungs with the scent of pine needles and decaying leaves. His joints pop as he stretches, reaching up high and then bending down to touch his toes as he exhales. Behind him, he hears the screen door. Zuko opens his eyes to look between his legs and sees a trio of girls emerge from the house, the last one unfamiliar to him.
“What, are you going to moon us? Is this summer camp?” Mai asks, and he snaps upright so fast he gets a little light-headed, feeling his face flush as the new girl laughs at him.
“I was stretching!” he protests. Mai rolls her eyes, and Ty Lee bounces over from where she’s squeezing a reluctant Azula to give Zuko a hug.
“I’m so glad you guys are all here!” Ty Lee’s hugs always leave people a little winded, a combination of her energy and surprising strength.
“It’s gonna be great,” Zuko wheezes as she lets go of him. In a pink blur, she dashes back to the new girl and drags her closer by the hand. The girl laughs again, the sound musical as it echoes faintly in the silent woods.
“This is my roommate, Katara.” Zuko’s mouth goes dry as he finally gets an up-close look at her. She’s beautiful - an amused tilt to her lips, blue eyes sparkling, golden light catching in the soft edges of her dark hair. “Katara, this is Azula’s brother, Zuko.”
“Hi, I’m Zuko,” he says, and then is torn between wanting to die and wanting to smile when it makes Katara laugh again, so he ends up red-faced and grinning stupidly as she steps forward. Halfway to offering a handshake, his last brain cell sputters out the thought, of course she and Ty Lee get along; this girl’s a hugger, and dies in the instant Katara’s arms wrap around his shoulders.
Going away for the weekend with her very sweet roommate and said roommate’s terrifying besties is going well right up until Katara fucking hugs Azula’s brother the second she meets him. She’s a hugger by nature, but usually she tries to feel someone out a little before going in, since not everybody is cool with that. Unfortunately, that level of higher-order thinking had gotten dropped when she followed Mai and Ty Lee outside and found him stretching towards the sky, arm muscles straining. The dappled sunlight had made his face a sunset of its own.
Also he has a nice butt and she sort of wants to squeeze it, which is not at all diminished when he turns around and becomes a stammering idiot. Ty Lee introduces them, and his name - Zuko - sounds so nice. His blush is cute, and she wants to cup his cheeks to feel how hot they must be burning. She stumbles forward a little, catches herself before she can actually reach for his face, but then she’s committed to doing something with her body. Apparently her body’s default is hugging. At least, she tries to comfort herself, she hadn’t done something quite so awkward as offering him a high-five or - spirits forbid - a handshake like she’s her dad or something.
It’s a pretty small comfort when Zuko hesitates before weakly returning her embrace, hands just sort of hovering oddly over the middle of her back before he gives her a couple of tentative pats and steps away. She can feel her own cheeks turning pink, although Zuko’s face is almost entirely the same red as his scar by this point.
“It’s really nice to meet you, Zuko,” Katara tells him.
“Uh. You too.” He clears his throat, and quickly turns back to his car to take his and Azula’s suitcases out of the trunk, and Katara feels the sudden urge to retreat back into the house and hide. With the siblings bickering over who’s carrying Azula’s luggage inside and Mai too busy whispering snide commentary in her girlfriend’s ear, nobody notices Katara slipping away to experience her shame in peace. At least she thinks so until Ty Lee glances back just in time to catch Katara’s eye as she’s pulling open the screen door again. Her roommate gives her an impish smile that doesn’t make sense, and Katara tries her best to disregard the feeling that she’s the butt of a joke, telling herself that Ty Lee is too nice to invite her for some nefarious purpose. Besides, “invite the loser” parties are made-up nonsense from bad teen movies.
Even though Mai is technically the host, Katara is surprised that her roommate’s gloomy partner is the one to offer assistance when Katara volunteers to cook dinner for everybody. Azula declares herself bartender, after claiming that Zuko and Ty Lee both make drinks ”for putting infants to sleep.”
“Your dad’s a pice of fuckin’ work,” Mai says blandly, meeting Zuko’s grimace over the island where he’s rotating back and forth on one of the bar stools. Katara’s ears prick up where she’s tending the stovetop, but nobody elaborates, and her full attention is needed to make sure that the chicken is all getting evenly coated in sauce.
Eventually, Azula pushes a cocktail into her hand, and Katara is unsurprised to find that she can taste the rum in her nose when she sips it. Zuko catches her eye as he gets up to cut his own drink with some juice, and she tries to smile at him in a very not-weird way when he approaches her to offer the same modification to her beverage.
She ends up across from him at dinner, Azula and Ty Lee on either side of her, and she finds herself fascinated with the ease that settles over him. Whether it’s the comfort of old friends or Azula’s lethal drinks, he gradually sheds the awkwardness that had been so initially charming. The unfortunate effect of this is that apparently when he’s not being adorable, he’s just unfairly hot. She thinks he might catch her looking at him a couple of times, because he shoots her a couple of flustered smiles that she sees at the edge of her vision as she quickly turns to find something to say to Ty Lee. It’s a nice meal though, the two of them mostly skirting the edges of the conversation while the other three girls catch up on gossip about people they know from back home and give each other a hard time about what disasters they had been in high school. Katara thinks this must be how Suki had felt when Sokka first started bringing her to hang out with their friends. It’s a thought she shoves away desperately when she sees an almost proud smile on Zuko’s face when she finds herself going toe to toe with Azula for a while.
When they’ve polished off the ice cream that was dished out for dessert, Mai leans back in her seat and drops a hand onto Ty Lee’s leg. “Hey babe,” she says, pulling Ty Lee’s attention away from Katara mid-sentence.
“Yeah, honey?”
“Were you serious about making us all go hiking tomorrow?” Ty Lee giggles at the pained expression on her girlfriend’s face.
“Of course! We never bothered to check out the caves when we used to come here, but Katara found this really cool tour.” At the mention of her name, all three of the others turn to her with expressions ranging from betrayed to murderous.
“You did this?” Azula demands. Anxiety flares to life, making her stomach gurgle. Had she stomped on some kind of tradition?
“This is going to be a nightmare,” Mai predicts. Zuko doesn’t chime in, but he’s glancing at the others nervously.
“Oh come on you guys!” Ty Lee says. “She didn’t know! And besides, you can’t just be scared of nature forever.
“It’s called a healthy respect,” Zuko says.
“It really isn’t a difficult trail,” Katara offers. “And the website says there’s guides to teach you about geology and local lore.”
“Nothing screams ‘vacation’ like ‘geology and local lore’,” Mai drones. Azula tosses her hair and rises from the table.
“Well, if we’re doing this, I’m going to bed. Travelling is so exhausting.”
“You napped in the car,” Zuko says, scowling. “And you didn’t drive.” She shrugs and pops the handle on her suitcase, slinging her oversized handbag over her shoulder. Zuko’s eyes go wide. “Wait. No-”
“Dibs on the master!” Azula takes off sprinting down the hall, suitcase wheels rattling, and Zuko leaps from his chair so fast that it topples to the floor in a crash that startles Katara. Mai just sighs as Ty Lee looks after the siblings, her expression concerned, but apparently not enough to make her stand up.
“They do this every year,” Ty Lee reassures Katara, despite her own obvious unease. From down the hall, there’s the sound of a door slamming, followed by pounding and a burst of yelling, before Zuko shuffles back into the living area.
“She does this every year,” Mai says. Zuko glares at her, returning to the table to right his chair and help clear the dishes.
Catching Katara’s eye, he winces a little. “Sorry about that.”
She offers him a smile. “It’s okay, I have a brother; I know how it is.”
“Well, I guess I’ve got the couch this year,” he sighs, taking a dish towel as Ty Lee starts filling the sink with hot water and bubbles. “Last room’s all yours,” he tells her, nodding down the other hallway. Katara immediately feels guilty, knowing that her presence is the reason Zuko won’t get a bedroom all weekend.
“Oh no, I can take the couch. It seems like that’s been your room for a while now anyway.”
“The couch pulls out, he won’t die,” Mai says.
Ty Lee fumbles a bowl, splashing herself and Zuko with sudsy water. “Oh!”
“You good?”
“Sorry. Just - Honey, doesn’t it get really cold out here with all the windows?” Katara turns around to focus on the wall of windows for the first time since they’d gotten inside, and finds herself drawn to walk closer to them.
The trees create a jagged, lacy frame to an expanse of stars and moonlight. The reflection of the night sky on the mirrored surface of the lake makes the night so bright, and almost gives the illusion that they are traveling through space. Stepping down into the living room and out of the yellow kitchen lamps, shimmering silver light washes over everything.
“I’ll take the couch,” Katara hears herself say. She turns when she hears Zuko start to protest again, but she cuts him off. “I’m from the South Pole, the cold won’t be a problem. And honestly I might not even sleep.” She turns back to the windows. “I want to stare at this forever.” She’s not sure if his voice or her hearing has gone strange when he says,
“Okay,” the word feeling charged with something.
Ty Lee insists on helping her unfold the sofa bed while Mai hunts down sheets and Zuko finishes the cleaning. It’s a little finicky after not being used for a while, but Ty Lee gives a yank at something in the depths of it and the frame gives way. When they make up the bed and Katara lies down on top of the blankets, she finds that it’s surprisingly comfortable, and with the gentle sounds of night surrounding her, it’s not long after the others have bid her good night that she finds herself drifting off to sleep.
Clank! Screech! Ker-chunk!
Katara’s wiggly dreaming turns into a graceless somersault into the back of the couch as the sofa bed attempts to devour her. She screams as she falls, curling into a ball in hopes of stopping herself from being crushed. The grinding metal comes to a stop inches from her face just as she hears a door fly open and a series of thumps from the hallway.
“Katara!” Zuko’s panicked voice calls for her, and somehow she manages to say,
“I’m okay!” Then his face appears, and the metal frame shrieks again as he starts to pull it back.
Katara scrambles out of the way as soon as there’s room, and presses a hand to her chest, as though she needs to feel her pounding heart to be sure she didn’t break her neck and die in a tragic sleeper sofa accident. The bed doesn’t unfold all the way, even with Zuko yanking the handle hard enough that she can see his forearms straining, muscles highlighted by the stark shadows of a waxing moon. When he starts trying to fold the bed back into a sofa, she collects herself enough to try helping him, but it won’t go more than halfway back to where it had crushed Katara.
“Well, that’s definitely broken,” he announces, sounding a little breathless and dumbfounded.
“I didn’t do anything to it,” she tells him, her face flushing. Thinking about broken beds and the ways they could get broken is not a wise choice with him in the room.
“This thing has been here forever, don’t worry. I don’t think anyone’s really touched it since before we were old enough to come up here by ourselves. Are you okay?” When he rests his hands on her shoulders, they are warm in the way that makes a person realize just how cold they’ve been until that moment. Katara shivers, and Zuko rubs his palms up and down her upper arms. She doesn’t think he even really notices that he’s doing it, so she tries not to notice too much about the shape and texture of his hands.
“I’m fine,” she promises.
“It’s too cold for you to sleep out here without a bed,” he says. “You should take the other bed.” Not this argument again. She has an insane thought to tell him, I will if you share it with me.
“Well it’s not like you can sleep out here in the cold,” she argues instead.
“I’ll be -”
“No way. You are not pulling this sexist crap.” She stomps her foot, actually getting annoyed with him now. “I grew up in the literal arctic.”
“That’s fair,” he concedes. “So…”
“So…?”
“What do we do now?”
She grins at him. “Well I guess one of us could go see if Azula’s feeling cuddly.” The look of absolute horror on his face makes her bust out laughing, but it fades as the inevitable conclusion starts to sink in. This is going to be a very long weekend.
As Katara follows him back to the third bedroom, each of them carrying couch cushions under their arms, Zuko can feel his palms sweating. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be a problem. Growing up with Azula and her friends as pretty much his only company, he’d gotten used to being treated almost like one of the girls whenever sleepovers resulted in everyone crashing on living room furniture or cramming onto a bedroom floor. Katara though, is a problem, because she makes him feel like a bumbling fool, and because they are going to be alone. The peaceful expression on her face as she had looked out at the night sky has him convinced that he is completely enamored with this girl. Zuko’s romantic track record has him convinced that this means humiliation is sure to follow.
She helps him arrange the couch cushions in a vaguely bed-shaped manner and toss her sheets and blankets from the couch over the top of them. When he immediately lies down in the pile, he can tell that she wants to protest again, and he tries to make it clear in his expression that the thought of having to let her sleep on the floor is physically painful to him.
“Fine,” she says, stepping carefully over him and climbing into the double bed, its sheets still twisted from when Zuko woke convinced that Katara was being eaten by a platypusbear. A moment later, her voice is softer as she says, “Thank you, Zuko.” He shivers, even though the small bedroom is plenty warm between the heater and two people existing in the space.
“Goodnight, Katara.” He drops off to sleep faster than usual despite the lumpy cushions under him, matching his breath to hers, slow and even until the darkness envelops him.
Only for him to be jerked from sleep once again, this time by a swift kick in the ribs.
“Fuck,” he grunts, curling inward, arms instinctively coming up to ward off another blow, but none follow.
Just a surprisingly feminine voice saying, “Shit!” followed by sounds of a person stumbling and then bed springs squeaking. “Sorry.” Zuko sits up, dazed, but calms when he recognizes Katara sitting on the edge of the bed looking at him in concern. When he doesn’t respond right away, she comes to him, gingerly pulling his arms away from his abdomen and prodding at his ribs with careful fingers. “Are you okay? Does this hurt?”
He shakes his head. “No, I’m fine. Sorry. I wasn’t really...awake.”
“Yeah, I know. I kind of punted you awake.” Her smile is rueful and small. He doesn’t like the expression on her, as much as he does like her hands thoroughly checking him for damage. “I sort of tripped over you coming back from the bathroom.”
“It’s okay. It happens.”
She sighs, and he can tell she’s bracing herself to say something, though he can’t for the life of him imagine what could be so important. He thinks he must be imagining it when she says, “You should just come share the bed.”
“Um.”
“I mean, I’ve almost died, you almost bled internally, and we’ve barely fucking slept,” she starts rambling. “We’ve got an early morning tomorrow so...we should just sleep.” Zuko’s heart is racing.
“Are you sure you’re okay with - I mean I don’t mind -”
“I honestly don’t think the four fucking feet of floor space in here is going to make a difference in whether you do anything creepy or not and I’ve apparently already decided I’m okay being alone with you so…” He’s going to die. Zuko is going to die, but he can’t really counter her argument without either sounding like he’s confessing that he would do something creepy or actually confessing that he’s attracted to her.
He clears his throat and prays his voice won’t crack when he says, “Yeah, that’s fair.” Her smile is a little nervous despite her confident words, so Zuko stands and gets into the bed first, scooting over to the side that’s blocked in by the wall. He hopes she sees the gesture for what it means - reassurance that she’s not trapped, she can get away from him any time she wants to. The warmth her smile takes on tells him she caught his meaning and appreciates it. The old wooden frame of the bed creaks quietly as she eases in on the other side, and pulls the covers over both of them. Zuko finds himself grateful for the presence of the wall so that he can keep some space between them without falling out of bed. Technically, two people should fit in this bed, but Zuko is tall and Katara’s hair gets everywhere, so it is impossible for them not to be aware of the other. Katara hadn’t been exaggerating either of their exhaustion though, and they quickly fall back into a peaceful slumber.
Zuko wakes surrounded by warmth, golden sunlight on the backs of his eyelids and seeping through the covers into his bones. He blinks his eyes open to find Katara’s sleeping face turned towards him. Their legs are tangled, her cool toes pressed to his skin, seeking warmth. He can see her fingers just poking over the edge of the blankets where one of her hands is resting in the space between them. In some impossible dream world where Katara is happy to be touched by him, he would cup that hand in his own and kiss the whorl of each fingertip. In this world, Zuko gives himself a few moments to study the soft lines of her face. Then he closes his eyes, matches his breathing to hers again, and for the first time he can remember, goes back to sleep.
The next time he wakes up, it is to the rush of cold air that slips in when Katara gets out of bed.
“Sorry,” she says, voice low as though she thinks he might still sleep. “I tried not to wake you.”
“It’s fine,” he tells her, and pushes himself up to follow her. “We have that hike. Should probably get up and get ready.” Katara leaves him alone to get dressed, and as he’s pulling on a pair of joggers, his phone starts vibrating wildly on the single nightstand.
Zuko shoves his phone in his pocket, electing not to respond further, and pinches the bridge of his nose. By the time he’s finished dressing and given himself a few extra minutes to lie on the bed wallowing in self-pity, Katara is also dressed and seated at the kitchen island with her hands wrapped tightly around a very large mug of coffee.
“Hey,” she greets him, and nudges another mug towards him, which he accepts gratefully and quickly dumps some cream into.
“Sleep okay?” he asks her, and ignores Ty Lee’s intent gaze (as well as Mai’s eye roll and Azula’s gagging motion).
“Much better.” He feels his cheeks warm at the thought that she might’ve actually enjoyed sharing the bed with him, and Katara looks a little flushed herself when she quickly adds, “You know, with the couch not trying to crush me and all.”
Mai hisses something that sounds suspiciously like Agni’s beard, and then says, “I’m gonna go pack the car.” Ty Lee blows her a kiss, continuing to mix up bags of trail mix. Katara asks Zuko how he slept, and in the space where he pauses to find an appropriate response, Azula rises from the table and declares,
“I’m going to help Mai.”
The shocked silence that follows is broken by Ty Lee prompting “Zuko?”
“Hm?” he turns from where he was staring after his sister to face her.
“Katara asked if you slept okay.” With his mind half elsewhere, the measured response he had been crafting is entirely abandoned.
“Oh. Yeah, I slept great.” Immediately, he wants to punch himself in the face because Katara is blushing for real now, Ty Lee’s smile taking on a knowing edge. “I should, uh, get my backpack,” he says, excusing himself to go hide in the bedroom again until he hears the door open again.
Of course, being the last person outside means that he has to sit on the hump in the backseat of Mai’s car, Katara and Azula on either side of him. His sister’s inconsiderate elbow jabs would drive him crazy under any other circumstances, but with Katara’s leg pressed against his from hip to ankle, so much bare skin hanging out of her shorts, he finds himself grateful for the discomfort. His hands are folded in his lap carefully after a bump in the road had knocked his hand against Katara’s thigh. Even though it had only been for a second before he snatched his hand away, he knows that the fleeting sensation will haunt him. As they pull up to the trailhead where the Cave of Two Lovers tour starts, Zuko’s leg is bouncing, palms sweating no matter how many times he wipes them on his pants.
In the parking lot, they check to make sure their backpacks have water and trail mix, and then snag maps from the visitor’s center.
“Our guide should be meeting us here any minute,” Katara tells the group, checking the time on her phone.
“Heeey everybody,” an unfamiliar voice drawls. The group turns as one, staring in silence for a moment as they take in the long-haired, guitar-toting guy wearing an “Omashu Royal Park” nametag. “The name’s Chong. That rad soul over there is my wife Lily,” he says, pointing with dual finger guns to a woman who is also wearing a nametag but gawking at the map as though she had never seen it before. “Together, we run the tours here at the Cave of Two Lovers. At least until the leaves are gone. Then we hit the road and,” he sweeps his hand in a dramatic arc, as he says, “follow the sunshine.”
“Your auras are very sunny,” Ty Lee agrees, which gets her a set of finger guns of her own.
“Right on, cotton candy.” Nobody but Ty Lee seems to understand what he means by this, but she appears delighted nonetheless, if the way she grabs at Mai’s arm is any indication.
Azula nudges her aggressively tinted and aggressively designer sunglasses down her nose to examine Chong. “You have got to be kidding me,” she says, revulsion crystal clear in her tone. Katara winces. Mai sighs. Zuko tries not to look as apprehensive as he feels.
“True story,” Chong tells her, nodding obliviously. “And if you follow me, I’ll tell you another one.” Ty Lee excitedly drags Mai after their guide, Katara following dutifully. Zuko glances back and forth between Azula, who is standing with her arms crossed, looking decidedly out of place in her sleek black exercise gear, and Katara, gamely forging ahead. His sister is giving him the look that means she expects some sibling unity, and he’s almost inclined to fake a headache. Except then Katara looks back and meets his eye, pausing, and he slowly finds himself drawn forward, unable to leave her hanging. With a huff, Azula takes off, passing both of them in a dark blur, unfolding her map as she dodges around where Chong is tuning his guitar at the mouth of the cave.
“Will she be okay?” Katara asks as they watch Azula melt into the darkness of the cave, only the ominous shadow cast by her cell phone flashlight showing where she has gone. “I read that there are wolfbats in this cave system.”
“Poor wolfbats,” Zuko says, smiling at the snort of laughter that escapes her.
When they meet up with the others, Chong has just started plucking out a tune. Ty Lee sways with the beat of the song, her shoulder bumping Mai’s where their hands are intertwined. Zuko finds himself having to force his eyes away to keep from being overwhelmed by the temptation of Katara’s hand only a few inches away. She’s bopping along to the music, and looks like a total dork with her headlamp and scuffed hiking boots. He wants to kiss her like he wants to keep breathing. Then Chong leads them into the cave as the lyrics start:
“Two lovers, forbidden from one another - a war divides their people, and mountain divides them apart.”
Katara grabs Zuko’s hand to pull him along in her excitement, and he is immediately grateful for the darkness as his face catches fire. As they follow Chong’s musical narration, Katara lets go of him to pull out her guide book, and turns her head to shine her lamp over the walls of the cave. She occasionally turns to him and points out geological features, passing him the book to let him read about stalagmite formation and the different minerals that sparkle in the walls. Their fingers brush as they hand it off. He feels like a kid in a field trip group with his crush.
He doesn’t notice when they lose the group, too caught up in Katara to realize when her quiet voice singing the “secret tunnel” refrain is no longer following along with Chong and Ty Lee. All he remembers is her meandering, the eager glint in her eyes as she flips through pages, carefully comparing photographs to the sight in front of them. It isn’t until she checks the map and goes to ask Chong about the Lovers’ Tomb that she realizes they’re alone and stops Zuko.
“What happened to the others?” she asks.
“Uh. I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention,” he admits. It’s hard to make out her face with the headlamp shining from her forehead, but he wishes he could see how she’s interpreting that statement. Luckily she doesn’t linger on the topic, instead shining the light back down onto the map, which he leans over her shoulder to see. He takes one edge of the map from her when she offers it to him, stretching the paper in front of them.
“I think we must be pretty close to the Lovers’ Tomb,” she says, her finger tracing the blue trail line, “because I remember this huge cavern.” She taps the site labeled on the map, where all of the trailheads branched out from the beginning path. “If we move fast, we might be able to catch up with them there. When they stop, they’ll probably notice we’re gone and wait,” she reasons. It sounds like a reasonable enough conclusion to him, so he takes the map and trail guide and obligingly zips them back into Katara’s pack.
From there, the conversation drops off, and Zuko finds himself struggling to keep up with her. It’s obvious that the wear on her shoes is well-earned as she trudges ahead, seemingly without feeling the incline of the path as they wind their way towards the center of the mountain. The burning in his lungs leaves him wondering if it’s possible that they might run out of air underground, but Katara seems fine, if a little sweaty. Her heavy breathing and occasional soft grunts sound so loud in the quiet, combining with the sight of her toned legs to become a lethal combination for Zuko’s psyche. He knows that he’s making noise too, but can’t imagine that it sounds remotely sexy given that he feels a little bit like he might keel over.
The Lovers’ Tomb leaves him breathless for an entirely different reason. As they stumble into the massive cavern, Zuko finds himself awestruck by the massive stone carving taking up most of the far wall. It shows the profiles of two people kissing, presumably the lovers that the caves are named for. The path they’re on curves down the cavern wall to where the tomb itself lies - two stone boxes, elaborately carved with the likenesses of the lovers and symbols of love and mourning.
“Wow,” Katara breathes, equally frozen beside him. The tomb is silent, the air so still it seems impossible that tour groups walk through it every day, that their friends wandered through here minutes ago. “We should go look around,” she says, and he sticks close to her, a little unnerved at the same time that he’s fascinated. This time, he takes her hand. Her fingers immediately lace through his and squeeze.
At the bottom, they find one of the walls painted with the story of the two lovers. Katara steps close to the wall and reads the characters carved beneath the images, detailing the story of an ancient war and the tragic romance that led to its end. As she reads, the sorrow in her voice leaves goosebumps on Zuko’s arms, something in the legend nagging at him like someone walking on his grave. “Love is brightest in the dark,” she finishes. Zuko feels a live wire running through him from where their palms press together all the way to his stomach. For another long moment, they just stand there, taking it in. Then she takes a breath and tells him, “We should probably finish the trail. We’ll need to catch the tour shuttle back to the parking lot.” Zuko nods, and reluctantly lets go of her hand to fish out the map again.
Unfolding it, he finds the Lovers’ Tomb, and sees the trailheads branching off again. Three lines lead out of the cavern, but when he glances up, there are only two openings on the far wall. The trail they’re following is, naturally, the middle line.
“Um, Katara,” he says, suddenly nervous.
“What?” She leans in to look at the map with him, then up at the wall, and back to the map. “Oh shit.”
“Which one is it?”
“I don’t know. Are there any blazes?” They walk closer to the tunnels, but there are no markers painted where they can see them, and shining Katara’s headlamp into the mouth of them doesn’t indicate which splits off into the trail that leads to the shuttle.
“What do we do?” he asks, feeling anxiety well up. The cavern starts to feel a little smaller. “Should we just...wait for another group to come?” They pause and try to listen for a moment, but they can’t hear any voices or footsteps in either direction.
“I think we’re just gonna have to figure it out.” Katara bites her lip uncertainly, glancing around them. Suddenly, her face hardens with resolve, and she starts frantically flipping through her guide book. Zuko isn’t sure how fun facts are going to help them in this situation, and goes back to studying the map, sure that there has to be some indication which way they should go.
The slap of the guidebook shutting shocks him back to the present. He looks to Katara, her expression triumphant as she steps into his personal space.
“Love is brightest in the dark,” she repeats from the legend, eyes sparkling. Zuko’s heart starts racing. Her hand rises between them, and he thinks to himself this is it. He leans in, lets his eyes fall closed in anticipation of her hand on his scarred cheek. Her fingers skim his face, but don’t pause. With a soft click, the glow of her headlamp vanishes from behind his eyelids. Oh. Zuko opens his eyes, confused as to why she would shut off their light, only to find himself more confused when he can still see her face. She does touch him then, her thumb brushing against his bottom lip as she cups his jaw and tilts his face up to the ceiling. Glowing green crystals cover the ceiling before veering off into the tunnel on the left. Looking back down to Katara, Zuko feels awed.
“How did you know it would do that?”
She shrugs, trying for modesty, but he can tell that she’s pleased with herself anyway. “Geology major.”
“I didn’t know that was a real major people still had.” Katara laughs at his stunned face and shoves him away, though it’s joking. Still, he regrets making her move away from him.
“My research is focused on groundwater,” she explains, leading him to follow the crystals. “I want to work on building wells in rural areas.”
“Really?” It seems like such a niche thing, but it fits her somehow - helping people in places that they’ve been forgotten. She nods matter of factly.
“Water access is the future of social justice.”
By the time they reach the end of the trail their friends are gone, but Zuko has gotten a full explanation of the work Katara spent her summer doing with one of her professors out by the Si Wong Desert. The shuttle, driven by a cheerful man named Moku, deposits them back at the parking lot a few minutes later, where they find the others clustered around Mai’s car. Azula appears to be asleep in the passenger seat, and Ty Lee and Mai are sharing a bag of trail mix, which seems to consist mostly of Mai fishing out all the chocolate bits and Ty Lee tossing back the rest by the handful.
“We thought you fucked off and died or something,” Mai says, not sounding particularly concerned about it.
“Yeah, one minute we were following Chong, and the next thing we knew you guys were just gone!” Ty Lee exclaims, a spray of peanuts and pumpkin seeds escaping her waving hand. Zuko has long thought that Ty Lee emoted for herself and Mai combined, but even this seems a little much to him.
“It’s not like we were going to get lost forever,” Katara soothes, leaving Zuko’s side to squeeze her roommate’s shoulders. Ty Lee gives her an almost frustrated look, but it quickly vanishes.
“Babe, that curse stuff is just for the tourists,” Mai tells her.
“What curse?” Zuko asks. With a roll of her eyes, Mai explains,
“Some dumb superstition the guide was rambling about while she,” a sharp chin gestures at Katara, “was rambling about dumb rocks.”
“Rocks aren’t dumb,” Zuko and Katara protest in unison. Mai and Ty Lee share a look.
“Barf,” Mai concludes, and wanders away to get in the drivers’ seat.
“What curse?” Katara turns the question to Ty Lee.
“Only those who trust in love can figure out the secret of the caves,” she says dreamily. Then her expression turns stony, “and those who don’t will be lost forever.” A sly grin spreads across her lips as she says, “Good thing you two are a couple of romantics, huh?”
After grilling up an enormous late lunch when they get back from the hike, everyone spends the rest of the day lazing around picking at leftovers and scrolling through their phones. The other girls all disappear for naps, but given their sleeping arrangements, neither Katara nor Zuko broach the topic. Instead, Katara curls up in an armchair with a book, and Zuko retreats to the deck to do the same. Through the open sliding door, she can hear that his phone keeps vibrating against the arm of his chair, and hears his irritated sighs before he once again sets aside his book to tap away at the screen. She wants to ask him what’s bothering him. After spending the whole morning talking in the caves, she’s unsettled by the sudden distance between them, Ty Lee’s comment the elephant in every room they share.
Later, as she showers off the sweat and fatigue of the day, Katara wonders if she will have to talk Zuko out of going back to the floor. The sofa bed is really fucked, so even though Ty Lee’s insinuation seems to linger in the air all evening, Katara and Zuko share the small bedroom yet again. Apparently their mutual refusal to discuss the awkwardness extends to refusing to express that their feelings about sharing the bed have changed, though. When she enters the bedroom, dressed in her pajamas and wringing out her hair with a towel, Zuko is already in the bed. After she flicks off the bedside lamp, she lies down facing him, and in the moonlight, she notices the way his breath stalls for a second before taking in her continued silence and steadying again.
He’s afraid that she’s going to confront him, she realizes. That fear should maybe make her want to push, now that she knows there’s something that he’s hiding, but she also finds herself unwilling to put him through a conversation that obviously pains him.
“My hair’s wet,” she explains. “Didn’t think you’d want the middle of the bed getting all damp.”
“It’s fine,” he says. Katara closes her eyes. She’d read somewhere that it makes animals trust you. Zuko seems skittish like that - like something soft and used to being hunted because of it. The mattress tilts beneath them and blankets rustle as he turns his back to her. She can’t tell if it is meant to be her own trust returned or if it is just the most he can run away from her.
Zuko seems to fall asleep first that night. After he rolls over, he doesn’t move again, just breathes evenly, the shadow of his back swelling and sinking like an ocean wave. Restless, Katara watches, hoping that if she tells herself that the motion of his body and the sound of his breaths is the sea, it will put her to sleep, but she can’t quite manage it. The cool night air and her wet hair makes Katara shiver, and when clutching the blankets closer doesn’t help, she wriggles closer to Zuko. She doesn’t touch him, but his warmth radiates. Just as she drops off to sleep, he seems to shift, until her fingers just barely touch his back.
It’s early when she wakes. Weak dawn light filters through the curtains, but it shouldn’t have been enough to disturb her usually sound sleep. It takes an embarrassingly long time for her to notice the rest of her surroundings, particularly the way she has apparently sprawled herself over Zuko in the night. Without her conscious mind to impose normal human boundaries, the chill must have driven her into full cuddle mode. Her head rests above his heart, which is beating rapidly despite the fact that he’s sleeping, his chest heaving unevenly under her sprawling arm. He’s having a nightmare, she realizes. Probably about being crushed to death by a giant squid, she thinks regretfully, and slides her arm back towards her chest, preparing to carefully extract herself and give him his space. She stops abruptly, her hand still resting over his stomach, as something pokes her thigh where one of her legs has also glommed onto him, and Oh spirits, this can not be happening. A little hysterically, she revises her earlier deduction. Definitely not a nightmare then.
Katara knows that this is just a thing that happens to guys; that it doesn’t mean anything in terms of if Zuko is attracted to her or not, but her pulse skyrockets anyway. It’s not fearful though. She may not know Zuko very well, but she fancies herself a pretty good judge of character, so she’s almost positive that if she really wanted to, she could wake him and he would probably apologize profusely and go right back to the floor; maybe even exile himself to the cold livingroom after all. That’s not what she wants though. The same wild part of her from the first night tries to tell her she should wake him up and offer to help him out instead. It feels like a line she’s not quite brave enough to cross yet though, so instead she tries to remove herself again.
Careful as her movements are, there’s still inevitable friction as her thigh presses down for leverage and slides between his legs a little more. Zuko, still fast asleep, gasps, then shudders, moaning startlingly loud in the early morning quiet. Did he just - Katara’s brain screeches to a halt, not even capable of letting herself complete the thought. Her already racing heart does double time now, drowning out all sound except the remembered echo of his noises. Beneath her, his body is relaxing, and she can feel his cock softening and she can’t ignore the glaring truth: she just accidentally made Zuko come in his pants.
To make matters worse, he starts to wake up then. Because of course he couldn’t stay asleep for thirty more seconds so she could roll herself over and feign sleep so as to at least grant him the dignity of privacy and spare herself the mortifying ordeal of acknowledging her own culpability in his embarrassment. She jerks away anyway when a rumbly, satisfied sound reverberates through his chest, reflexively needing to not experience that in full surround-sound. Her sudden movement startles him, and his eyes fly open, looking around the room, disoriented until they catch on her and freeze, wide in panic. It shows on his face the moment he catalogues her position and his own state, putting two and two together in a flash of utter horror. His mouth drops open, and rather than the enticing blushes of the past couple days, his complexion goes ashen.
“I-” he starts to say, but chokes on the words. Katara opens her own mouth to apologize, but he starts shoving the blankets off of himself. She tries very hard to stare at the ceiling and not notice the wet spot on the front of his sweats, lying so still that maybe the entire world will stop realizing she exists. Zuko awkwardly scoots himself over the footboard of the bed to avoid having to touch her or speak to her.
When the bedroom door slams shut behind him, she pulls the covers over her head to continue wallowing, but the air underneath smells a little like sex. The blankets get kicked violently to the end of the bed. She’s sweating and kind of can’t breathe, and Katara thinks she might actually be dying of embarrassment. Since she can already hear the shower running, Katara hurls herself out of bed and without thinking, shoves her feet into her flip flops and rushes out of the house and down to the dock. With her pajama shorts and tank top, the morning air in the mountains is bracingly cold, but still not enough. Katara kicks off her shoes and dives into the lake.
The water is fucking cold as balls but the shock of it is actually nice. Her body slices through the water, down, down, down, until she feels plants brush her fingertips and pulls up, skimming along until her lungs burn. She presses her toes into the squishy sand at the bottom, and pushes off, blowing bubbles from her nose, imagining they are her problems, and the lake is taking them from her, letting her grow lighter until she surfaces from the murky water into the sunshine. Sucking in another deep breath, she turns over and starts kicking, swimming hard and fast for the raft moored out in the center of the small lake.
The morning mist has burned off, and Katara is sunning herself on the raft when she hears the sharp snap of the lake house’s side door closing. Propping herself up on her elbows, she sees Zuko, a distant dark outline, stalk across the dirt driveway and off towards the walking trails that ring the lake. With the coast clear, Katara decides to return to the house and find herself some breakfast, swimming back to shore at a more sedate pace.
In the kitchen, she finds Ty Lee already flipping pancakes. They’re her favorite comfort food, and her suspicions that her roommate knows something’s up are confirmed when a cup of coffee is slid her way. Ty Lee doesn’t drink caffeine, but she’s brewed this strong and dark just like Gran-Gran taught Katara to make it, the perfect amount of cream and sugar already stirred in.
“You know,” Ty Lee starts, leaving her back to Katara in some illusion of casualness or privacy. “I’ve known Zuko since elementary school.”
“I didn’t want to embarrass him,” Katara blurts out, her knuckles white where she grips the handle of the mug. Ty Lee turns around quickly at that, ponytail nearly landing in the pancake batter.
“What?”
“What?” Katara echoes, pulled up short by her friend’s confusion.
“Oh, I uh...I thought you guys fought?” Ty Lee asks, cocking her head. “Zuko stormed out of here in a hurry, so I didn’t really find out what happened, but he can be a little short-tempered sometimes so…” Katara’s face burns and she makes a miserable noise into her coffee cup. Ty Lee grins - almost leers - at Katara. “Did something, you know, happen between you two?” The barely restrained excitement in her roommate’s voice makes her wary.
“Why would you assume that?” Ty Lee scoops the pancakes out of the pan and onto a plate that she slides in front of Katara, alongside a bottle of maple syrup. It feels like bribery. It also smells like butter though, so she takes the bait and shovels a bite into her mouth.
“It just seemed like you two were sort of hitting it off.” The fork hits the plate with a clatter and Katara squawks indignantly through her mouth of pancakes and syrup. There is only one other time she has ever heard Ty Lee use the phrase “hit it off” - when she had tried to wheedle Katara into a blind date with some mysterious old friend of hers who she swore was Katara’s soulmate. She points an accusing finger at Ty Lee as she chews, regretting taking such a big bite, because she needs to be yelling at her roommate now. The pancakes finally get swallowed down with a swig of coffee, and Katara’s palm makes the silverware shake when it slaps the island.
“You set me up!” Ty Lee doesn’t even have the decency to look guilty, just gives her a shrug and a smile, like what else was I supposed to do. Suddenly, she understands every odd look, and how they had managed to lose a very small and slow-moving tour, and - “The bed!”
“What about the bed?” Ty Lee asks innocently, pouring more batter into the pan when a bedroom door opens somewhere in the house.
“When you helped me open it! You sabotaged it!”
“Sabotage is such an ugly word, Katara,” she soothes, setting another place beside her as Mai shuffles into the kitchen in a black bathrobe, looking like she’s come to reap their souls rather than a shortstack.
“But it’s what you did!”
Mai silently pours herself a mug of coffee and takes a seat beside Katara.
“Okay, maybe I did a little light sabotage,” Ty Lee admits.
“Did somebody say ‘light sabotage?” Azula asks, sweeping into the room. Her red satin pajama set and tiger-print sleep mask holding her bangs back look like they belong on a wealthy divorcee instead of a college student.
“Guilty,” Ty Lee confesses, flipping pancakes onto Mai’s plate. Mai lowers her mug so that Ty Lee can steal a ‘thank you’ kiss.
“Without me? For shame.” Azula hops onto the counter beside the coffee maker. “What did you sabotage?”
“My bed!” Katara shouts, before realizing that perhaps Zuko’s sister is not the person to discuss Ty Lee’s plans with.
“You’re actually trying to set her up with Zuko?” Azula asks Ty Lee. Ty Lee nods, and Azula rolls her eyes. “Well of course, dum-dum messed it up. What did he do?” she asks Katara. Katara wants the ground to open up and swallow her rather than share this story with an audience, but Azula’s unnerving gaze suggests that she’ll find out the truth one way or another. She takes a deep breath, and makes her confession.
Zuko has walked the trail around the small lake three times and long since eaten the last of the trail mix from yesterday’s hike before he decides to go back to the lake house and face the music. When he’d first set off, he’d toyed with the idea of calling his uncle back and telling him that the cute girl he’d met the day before had been witness to the most humiliating moment of his life, and what should he do. That had been discarded as soon as he realized that option would involve actually explaining what the embarrassing moment was. No advice could possibly be worth enduring part two of the most horrifying conversation of his life to date. He does think it’s likely that the birds and the bees talk will end up taking second place in comparison to whatever awaits him when he inevitably has to face Katara again.
His second solution occurs to him upon arriving back at the house and catching sight of Katara through the wall of windows, back in her armchair from the day before. Maybe, he thinks, he should just go. Mai and Ty Lee wouldn’t leave Azula stranded, and he’s pissed his sister off plenty of times to know her wrath would be annoying but survivable. Katara would probably enjoy her last night a lot more if she knew that she didn’t have to be near him again. She looks peaceful with her book, so beautiful where the afternoon sun leaves her all aglow. It would be better if he left, but Zuko is too selfish to give up on knowing her. He’s not quite ready to face her though, so he follows the sound of laughter to the hot tub on the lower deck.
“What the fuck, Zuzu, you wasted the entire day!” Azula says when she sees him. All three girls are holding very large and very bright cocktails, their faces smeared with some kind of mud mask, looking the picture of relaxation.
“You look disgusting,” Mai adds. He hasn’t even considered how much of a disaster he probably looks after traipsing around the woods all day, and when he gives himself an experimental sniff, he recoils.
“Go shower,” his sister demands, holding a hand over her nose and pointing at the house as if he were a misbehaving dog.
“And put your bathing suit on!” Ty Lee encourages. “You have to come have a drink with us.”
“Katara said no, and we can’t have two wet blankets.” Azula says this with her evil smile that always makes Zuko feel like she knows all of his deepest, darkest secrets. He doesn’t really feel like doing anything except wallowing in shame, but if Katara has already declined the invitation, it means that if he doesn’t hang out with his sister, he’ll be stuck alone in the house with the last person he feels prepared to talk to at the moment.
“Fine,” he sighs. “I’ll be back.”
He sneaks in the side door, shutting it carefully behind him so that it doesn’t slam in the frame. Dashing to the guest room, he grabs his swimsuit and ducks into the bathroom. As the shower starts up, he winces at the noise, knowing that if Katara is pissed at him and wants to confront him, she could very well ambush him right outside the door. The thought has him rehearsing apologies over and over in his head, in hopes that he could survive the interaction without incident.
Katara, I’m so sorry if I violated - come on, idiot, not really much of an “if” there.
Katara, I’m so sorry for...disrespecting your boundaries. In my sleep? Ugh, that sounds disingenuous. And vague.
Katara, I’m so sorry for my inappropriate behavior, and I totally understand if you don’t want to talk to me - But I want to talk to her! I want her to forgive me, not write me off as some weirdo she met once! Frustrated, he turns off the shower spray and presses his forehead briefly to the cold tile.
Katara, I’m really sorry I very accidentally humped your leg like a dog and jizzed myself. I promise that adolescent display is not an accurate representation of my stamina should you ever be down for that. Oh and can I get your number before we leave tomorrow?
Zuko lifts his head and lets it bonk against the wall just hard enough to hurt and mutters, “Fuck me.” Then, because he is not enough of a moron to go let himself word vomit any of his terrible attempts to Katara just yet, he puts on his swimsuit and sneaks quietly down to the deck where he is greeted by Azula pressing a certainly toxic drink into his hand and Ty Lee asking if he wants a mask too. He declines the mask, but takes a sip of the drink, which does not actually taste like alcohol at all, and only makes him more dubious of its contents. She rolls her eyes at him.
“Relax Zuzu, these masks are drawing out our toxins, we aren’t going to drink poison while we do it. You’re the second biggest virgin in this hot tub right now.” Despite the fact that it’s a juvenile dig, Zuko is already upset enough that he takes the stupid bait.
“I’m not -” he starts to say through gritted teeth, but Azula cuts him off.
“Physically? Perhaps,” she allows with a shrug, and doesn’t elaborate. The thick shell of the mask compounds her already unnerving poker face such that Zuko can’t for the life of him guess what her game is right now. “Come on ladies, I think it’s time to peel.” As if a single entity, all three girls rise from the hot tub, steam curling off their bodies in the cold night air. Ty Lee squeals and clings to Mai, but neither of the others appear to notice at all. Instead, Azula says, “Hello Katara, so good of you to join us.”
Zuko goes cold. Azula always lies, his mind mocks him. He wants to kick himself for not being even a little suspicious, but what did she have to gain by forcing him to be alone with Katara? It’s not as though she knew what -
All thoughts of apologies fly out of his head as his anger returns with a new target as Katara appears on the other side of the hot tub, staring down at him with a hesitant expression. The receding trio of flip-flops is of no consequence to him as he narrows his eyes. “You told my sister what happened?” Katara’s eyes go wide and she hurriedly drops down onto the bench opposite him.
“I didn’t really want to,” she protests. “But she and Mai walked into me and Ty Lee talking -”
“You told all of them?”
“Only because they thought you’d been a jerk to me! I didn’t want them to think that when I was the idiot -”
Zuko’s brow furrows in confusion. “Wait, you think that was your fault? I was my…” he trails off, gesturing helplessly at his crotch.
“You were asleep. I shouldn’t have tried to move.”
“And what? Just stayed there and let me make you uncomfortable? Which...I mean I guess that happened anyway, but still.” Zuko sighs, and finally reaches the inevitable conclusion: “I don’t think it was really anyone’s fault except the spirits that love to fuck with my life.” She laughs at that, and the tension in his chest loosens. Her foot bumps his ankle in the water, her legs drifting on the frothing water. With loose hair and the white of her swimsuit glowing in moonlight, surrounded by steam, Katara looks like a spirit herself.
“You’ve got spirits, and apparently I’ve got Ty Lee.” He shoots her a curious expression. “I told her I didn’t want to go on a blind date with some random dude she knew from high school, so instead she apparently decided to drag me into the woods and break my bed so I would spend all weekend sleeping next to said dude.” Zuko’s mouth drops open in shock, and he can feel the heat from the steam in his cheeks, spilling down his pale chest.
“Oh.” He feels a brush of contact on his shin.
“She never mentioned anything to you about it?”
“Uh, seeing as you rejected me completely out of hand, no. I think she elected to spare me that particular kick to the self-esteem.” Another touch, on his thigh now, as Katara sinks down a little in the water, and Zuko freezes. Oh.
“As annoying as it is, I have to hand it to Ty Lee. Her meddling was pretty effective.” Her foot creeps further up his thigh. His traitorous dick is paying way too much attention to her movements. He can’t breathe. In a moment of panic, he clamps his hand down on her ankle. He’s hard, and he prays desperately that the spirits don’t hate him quite enough to give him two awkward boners in front of Katara in the same day.
When she pulls back, he lets her go, despite how badly he wants to pull her close. He can’t stop staring at her curling hair, tracing the path of condensation down her neck, the curve of her breasts, disappearing into the water at her sternum. In search of some kind of relief, he reaches for his drink and takes a long swallow of the cold, sweet liquid. He can feel Katara’s eyes on him as he does, and purposefully looks away from her as he reaches to set the glass down. There is a soft splash, a swirling of currents, and when he turns back, he is startled by the nearness of Katara’s face as she settles on the bench beside him. His arm is still reaching out, and he carefully drops it to the edge of the tub, not sure if it would be a good or bad thing for her to think he was putting it around her instead.
“Sorry,” she says, smiling in amusement. “I thought maybe I should sit on the same side. So I stop kicking you.” She settles close against his side, and he knows his face must look dumb and so painfully obvious about how aroused he is at the feel of her arm pressed to the side of his chest and her bare thigh against his. He knows what that skin feels like under his hand, he recalls abruptly. Despite the fruity beverage he just drank, his mouth is already dry again. “Is this okay?” Her voice doesn’t drop the sultry tone she’s taken on, but he can hear the thread of concern underlying the question. There are no words, he thinks, for how okay having her anywhere near him is. The pull of her isn’t mere gravity - it is so much stronger than ordinary falling - and when he echoes her question back at her, it is with his mouth hovering just above hers.
Katara answers him by closing the distance, her lips soft and welcoming. Zuko doesn’t think a kiss has ever undone him quite like hers. He wants to kiss her deeper, hold her closer, but despite how keyed up his body is, he doesn’t want to go faster. She shifts, and nearly slips off the bench, but his hands grab her waist and pull her back. A soft sigh slips from her mouth and into his, and he moans. Arms wrap around his neck, and Katara hoists herself up successfully this time, settling with one of her legs pressed between his in a mirror of that morning. Her thigh presses against his cock, and her name falls from his lips.
“Katara,” his hands squeeze her hips to hold her still and he buries his face in the crook of her neck, smelling her shampoo and the night air. “You can’t do this to me again,” he complains. She laughs at him, but takes pity and nudges back, settling instead so that she is straddling his thigh, and grinds down. He hears her sharp intake of breath, feels her fingers tighten on his shoulders.
“Why don’t we even up the score then?”
The rhythm her hips fall into is just as slow as their kisses had been, and Zuko finds his hands and lips wandering as she works herself up. He sucks a mark on her neck, maps the curve of her spine, squeezes her ass to make her grind faster.
“Zuko,” she sighs, and he kisses her mouth to feel the shape of his name on her lips. “I need more,” she tells him, her hands slipping down his chest, dipping beneath the water, teasing fingers skimming just above the waistband of his swim trunks before rising back up to cup his cheeks. When he gazes into her eyes, they are otherworldly in their beauty, the crescent moon and twinkling stars reflected back to him in the black of her pupils. It makes perfect sense now, the awed look she got when watching the night sky that first day; he feels it swelling in his chest.
With strength he didn’t really know he possesses, Zuko grips her thighs and hauls her up, dropping her onto the edge of the deck surrounding the tub. Kneeling on the bench between her legs, he takes in the sight of her. Through the wet fabric of her swimsuit top, he can see the shadow of dark nipples hardening in the cool air. The moonlight illuminates every drop of water that clings to her, giving her the appearance of her skin being freckled with stars. Zuko needs to see more of her, all of her, and as he leans back in to kiss her, he slides his hands up her back to fumble for the tie. The knot is tight from water swelling the fabric, and he finds himself embarrassingly trying to look at it over her shoulder without taking his lips away from her neck. Covering her laughter (poorly), Katara twists and holds her hair aside, obligingly giving him a better view of the ties, which he manages to successfully undo. She promptly pulls the halter over the top of her head.
When she turns back to him, her chest is bare, and he can’t help the stunned look on his face. She sighs at the warmth of his hands on her breasts as he cups them, feeling their soft weight in his palms, her body shifting, pressing forward. The slap of her swim bottoms being flung onto the deck startles him out of his trance, and he looks up to meet her hungry gaze. Fingers tangle in his hair as he brushes his thumbs over peaked nipples, and he finds himself promptly tugged back to her lips as he traces slow circles, fingers spreading out over her ribs. Her cooled skin heats rapidly as they kiss, and he finds that he doesn’t notice the chill either despite being half out of the water with her. He only shivers when she pulls him away by his hair and bites at his ear, reminding him, “You still owe me.”
He doesn’t waste time pondering the drastic reversal of luck that has led him to Katara, much less to having her naked before him on a shining night. There is, after all, a score to settle.
When his tongue slips out to glide along the curve of her breast, her skin tastes a little sour from the chlorine, and he does not care. He is starving for her. His teeth catch her nipple, and his tongue soothes over the delicate skin. Fingers tighten in his damp hair. She inhales sharply, stomach jumping beneath his lips as he makes his way down, down, down, until they encounter sweet, slick skin.
“Zuko,” she moans, and it electrifies him. He drapes her legs over his shoulders, the warm water welcoming him back.
“I’ve got you,” he promises, surprised by his own confidence. He knows, though, that he isn’t about to let up until she’s satisfied, determined to redeem himself to her. Katara nods, holding his eyes with such sincere trust, her hands cupping his face briefly before they slide back into his hair.
Then, she is lying back onto the deck, and pulling him in. He goes easily, follows the motion of her hips and tugs at his hair until her breaths are heavy and quick, moans falling from her lips. The taste of her is intoxicating, making him dizzy with desire (and a little bit from lack of oxygen). He doesn’t think he’s ever felt this way about a person before, so determined to have all of them, right away.
“Oh fuck,” she gasps, and Zuko grabs onto her, holding her close until her back arches and she comes with a cry that’s loud enough to echo slightly in the stillness of the woods. As she settles back against the deck, he withdraws, propping his chin on her thigh to take in the sight of her, still shimmering with water and sweat. She exhales a gusty sigh into the night.
“Are you okay?” he asks, voice low to keep from disturbing the moment.
“Mmhm,” she hums, petting absently at his hair. He kisses her hip bone, one hand rubbing up and down her thigh. After another long stretch of him watching her breathe, she says, “I feel like I’m part of that.” She gestures at the stars still glittering above them, and it feels like a punch to the gut. Zuko has never felt like he was good for much of anything. The thought that he can make her sound this peaceful settles something anxious and rambling within him. His vision blurs, throat tightening, and he has to close his eyes and take a deep breath to calm down. She still isn’t watching him, but her thumbs brush tenderly over his ears, and he settles into stillness with her.
When she starts shivering from the night air, Zuko rises from the water and leans over into her line of sight. The dreamy smile on her lips widens as she focuses on him, and he offers her a hand up. She wraps her naked body in a beach towel. Zuko collects the soggy pieces of her swimsuit and wraps a towel around himself to hide his erection from anyone else who might see them come inside. Katara catches him and laughs. Pushing up on her tiptoes, she drags him into another kiss that leaves him breathless all over again. As she pulls away, softly stroking the back of his neck but smiling like sin, she tells him, “Let’s go to bed.”