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It was a Friday night, and Katara hadn’t left her house in five days.
Though house didn’t feel entirely justified, a research student’s salary didn’t quite allow for anything above a one-bedroom apartment. She was lucky she was able to skirt another university sharehouse, but as she sat on her second-hand couch wondering whether takeout for the third night in a row was in the cards for her, she had started to wonder whether that was the right decision after all.
From those student houses to immediately moving in with Jet mere months into their relationship, this was the first time that Katara had been fully and properly on her own. She had always thought wistfully about living alone when she was younger—when she and Suki were all but joined at the hip, and with Suki came Sokka, and once it was the three of them, Aang and Toph were quick to join. Now, everyone had their stuff. Partners, jobs, whatever crafty hobby they could justify to distract themselves from the aforementioned stuff, and life was quieter now for it. Now, Katara scarcely found herself seeking time to herself, yearning for another voice in her orbit.
It’s not that she was mourning Jet in particular. With the benefit of hindsight, Katara had come to realise that she spent a large proportion of her relationship unhappy, though she was ashamed to admit it. Despite this, in her desire to make the people around her happy, she still somehow let the relationship get to the point where he broke up with her.
All of this to say, it wasn’t the regular grief of a once-happy relationship, but resentment for the time she had lost pretending she was okay with anything less than what she really wanted. While she knew it was a good thing that she was no longer in a relationship that didn’t fulfil her, it came with the unfortunate side effect of loneliness, vibrant in its newness.
It’s okay to not do anything except be sad right now, you need to feel your feelings, Aang had told her. You shouldn’t feel obligated to do anything you don’t want to do, Suki said.
Which, sure, was all well and good. But Katara was fucking frustrated. Frustrated not just that she had effectively lost years to a person who barely cared for her, but that she thought so little of herself to think that that was enough—that despite when Jet never took her seriously, never showed showed any public affection, yet pounced on her behind closed doors, those few moments of recognition meant that everything was fine.
So it felt like like even more of a waste to keep herself locked in her apartment, still wearing the same costume that Katara of Katara and Jet would’ve worn, and not the Katara that she had known herself to be before all of that. Sure of herself, headstrong, though Sokka liked to tell her that that was a funny way of saying bossy. Not the kind of girl that is happy with falling asleep on her armchair while watching documentaries every other night.
Which is how she found herself at the Red Lotus, unchaperoned, but perfectly content to find a seat at the bar on her own. She nursed her drink, the tonic sitting heavy and sticky on her tongue, exchanging idle conversation with the bartender, recognising her face and waist-length platinum hair from a tutorial group in undergrad. After one, two, and three refills, the familiar fuzziness of alcohol loosened her, and when the bartender (Yue, she remembered) invited her to join her on her break in the smoking section, Katara was all but amenable.
She didn’t normally smoke, and after taking a single drag of Yue’s, she conceded to never doing it again, but it was nice to step out of the thick heat of the bar and into the night air. The fairy lights strung across the exposed wooden beams of the outdoor area was a sweet kind of whimsy that offered a charming contrast to the groups of boisterous twenty-somethings obscured by clouds of smoke, and as one particular plume of smoke dissipated, a pair of amber eyes, one couched in a imposing scar, found hers.
Though she felt like the overt roughness to his appearance should’ve put her on the defensive, he was delicate, and admittedly pretty in the face otherwise. Tall and svelte, but even through his black sweatshirt, she could see where the fabric clung to well-shaped arms.
She caught herself looking for a little too long, and felt her cheeks pink with embarrassment, but she couldn’t deny that it felt fun, as harmless as it was to let herself linger on the concept of an attractive man within spitting distance. That little thrill tightened, before slowly unfurling into something wanton when she noticed that he still hadn’t looked away.
Oh no, she thought.
She was used to being devoured, never one to experience much anticipation in the lead up to sex, much to her disappointment.
That was not how she’d describe this: he (”Zuko,” he said at the bar, when he had not-so subtly slipped over to her table when Yue’s break was over) moved slow, pushing her hair from the back of her neck to leave slow, chaste kisses to the top-most bump on her spine, the soft flesh between her neck and shoulder, as her overeager fingers fumbled to unlock her door. Once inside, he didn’t immediately grab and push her against the locked door, but reached over to take her bag from her shoulder and hung it up on a nearby hook, his gaze still locked on her face and filling her with a foreign, but heady warmth.
She took his lead, reaching over to grab the zip on his worker jacket and slid it down, determined to not let her eagerness show in how quickly she undid it. A small smile curled at his lips as she did, shrugging the garment off of his shoulders and placing it alongside her bag.
When Zuko leaned in to kiss her, it was just as slow as the press of his lips to her neck; they were almost innocent in their chasteness, but it had been long enough since Katara had been kissed that they still eked a happy sigh from her. He took that as confirmation enough to run his hands along her sides, the motion causing the hem of her dress to ride up a little, revealing the supple curve of her hips.
The slight exposure did something to her, sent a little shudder down her spine that inadvertently made her her hips hitch forward, a soft grunt scraping out of his throat at the pressure. Needing something to hold on to, Katara ran her hands up his chest, palms smoothing up his neck before she tangled her fingers in the base of his hair.
He pressed his hands against the small of her back in response, keeping her nestled between his hips as the first hint of his tongue broke through the seam of her mouth. Her fingers flexed in his hair, lifting herself up a little higher on her toes to chase the push and pull of his lips.
“This okay?” He asked, voice rough as he nosed against her jaw, lips and tongue worrying at the tender spot behind her ear.
“Very okay,” she breathed, hands sliding down to his shoulders to bring him in closer as she tilted her head to give him more space.
Frantically, they rid themselves of their shoes, the rest of their outermost layers. He caught her off guard when he bent down to wrap his arms around her hips, hoisting her into his arms and sliding his tongue into her mouth hungrily. She directed him to her bedroom the best she could with her hands in his hair and his tongue mapping out the cavern of her mouth. Her lamps were still on from earlier in the evening, casting her (thankfully) tidy room in a warm glow. She half expected him to throw her on top of the covers, like she expected to be pinned up against the wall as soon as they had the benefit of privacy, but he surprised her again. He didn’t let her down, but lowered himself onto the edge of her mattress with her on his lap. It sent a tiny thrill through her, perched on his thighs with the rough scratch of raw denim against her bare thighs. It was slightly uncomfortable, but invigorating in it’s subtle scrape against her tender skin, so she pitched herself forward a little, rocking against his hips where she now felt, in full clarity, the hardness brewing beneath his zipper.
“So soft,” he effused as his hands moved from her hips to her ass, his fingertips teasing at the hem of her underwear, a promise of sorts.
It might’ve been the remnants of the gin in her system, or the fact that the blood in her body had migrated in it’s entirety to either her cheeks or her clit, thrumming against the jut of his cock through his clothes, that let the words fall freely from her tongue. “M’softer somewhere else.”
His grip tightened, bucking his hips up against hers and letting out a breath through his teeth. When her eyes slid open, the gold of his eyes looked deeper now—likely the dimness of the room, but the grip he had on her made it all feel so hungry. He bit gently on her lower lip, and said in a low, playful lilt: “That can’t be true.”
Her slip dress was thin, thin enough that the pebble of her nipples had announced themselves. From their position, Zuko was close to level with her chest, and dipped to gently bite where her areola was, before flattening his tongue against it. Katara made a strangled noise, now fully and unashamedly rubbing herself against his lap.
“Fuck,” Zuko swore, easing back to rest his weight on his elbows as he watched Katara’s hips grind against his. He shifted his weight onto one elbow and reached out with his other hand to lift her dress up higher, gathering the silky fabric in a fist and pulling it over her hip. She wasn’t expecting any of this tonight, demonstrated by her simple, white cotton panties, but it had the fortunate advantage of making her arousal impossible to ignore—the fabric closest to her mound darkened with moisture, and if that weren’t enough, every rock of her hips shift the gusset of her panties ever so slightly, and Zuko watched the occasional slip of her slick, outer lips, mouth agape. “Where?”
“W-What?” Katara asked, feeling a million miles away.
“Where are you softer?” He tugged at her dress with more impatience, though he made no move to take it off. Keeping himself on a tether, though the look in his eyes belied his restraint.
This—is this what it was supposed to be like? All of that intensity and passion that felt like a front when Jet took her to bed? Part of it didn’t feel real, how raw and earnest his desire manifested. Katara wasn’t entirely sure that she was even there, momentarily certain that she must be a foot away, wrapped up in her bed alone dreaming this. It made her feel gooey from head to toe, but it exposed her inexperience; her flush deepened, spreading across her neck and chest, and she tried to keep a voice steady when she spoke, the tiniest wobble breaking free.
“You’re a big boy,” she tried to keep her voice steady, the tiniest wobble around the edges. “You can find it on your own.”
He flipped them over suddenly, her back hitting the sheets as he climbed on top of her. Her leg was still slightly hitched from the sudden change in position, and he slunk underneath her to press his chest along the underside of her thigh, her knee hooking over his shoulder.
“Fine,” Zuko rasped against her mouth, and Katara must’ve completely lost grasp of her inhibitions as she widened her legs, sucking Zuko’s lower lip into her mouth. His hands on her waist tightened, rutting against the wet gusset of her panties. “I can be thorough.”
“Spirits, I hope so,” she sighed, the space left by her spread thighs enough for her to reach down to fumble at his zipper.
“Uh-uh,” he tutted, batting her hands away before curling his fingers around her wrists, pressing them on either side of her head, sinking into her pillows. “Let me focus.”
He curled over her to wrap his lips around her nipple again, again through the fabric of her dress. His enthusiastic mouth left the fabric damp, cooling against the already sensitive peaks, and she felt a fresh pulse of slick accumulate between her thighs. She must’ve been stammering something, his name or pleas for more, because he hummed contemplatively against her, lips ghosting to neckline. Her skin pebbled in anticipation. “Here?” He asked, tugging on her dress a little to shift the hem down infinitesimally, not enough to expose.
“Mmph,” Katara gasped, keeping her wrists where he put them, though she so desperately wanted to grab him by the scruff and push him to where she wanted him most. “Maybe.”
His smile startled her a little—not sharp around the edges like his words might have been. It was almost soft, unhurried, not quite like the feeling he stoked deep in her belly. “Let me see.”
With one, firm tug, he pulled the neckline of her dress down far enough that the arms slid down her shoulders, exposing her breasts to the warm light of her bedroom. She heard him take a small breath before he nestled his nose and mouth in the fold beneath her breast, running the flat of his tongue along the supple underside of it. Hints of teeth and gentle sucking that left more of a suggestion of a mark than any physical evidence made her writhe, legs wrapping tight around Zuko’s hips and drawing him closer.
“O-Oh,” she warbled, unable to hold in a cry when he placed a blunt, open mouthed kiss to her bare nipple, gently sucking her nipple into his mouth right before he pulled back, the flesh of her breast bobbing with it a little. He slipped his hands between her back and the mattress, coaxing her to arch her back a little more.
“Pretty soft,” he murmured, moving to her other nipple as to not neglect it. His saliva left a trail, heightening the chill that his warm mouth left behind. She sounded miserable when she said his name, and she felt him smile against her chest. “Did I find it?”
“Warmer,” she sighed, hips moving against his, seeking contact.
He hummed, like he was weighing up where else she could possibly be referring to. After he was sufficiently content with the state he had left her tits in, he pulled himself up to his knees, hovering over her. Gently, he reached out to help her slip her arms out of her dress, the fabric now pooled around her waist, leaving her torso bare. His eyes took the sight in hungrily, before moving down to where the skirt of the dress left her hips exposed. She could only imagine the state of her underwear.
“Fuck,” he said brokenly, thumbing at her hipbones, his own hips rocking against her inner thighs. “Fuck, what the fuck.”
“Warmer,” she repeated, a little more needy.
“Here?” He asked conspiratorially, his thumb slipping under the sides of her underwear and pulling up, increasing the pressure of the gusset against her pussy.
She felt like she was on fire.
“Please,” she whispered, and she realised she still hadn’t moved her hands from where he’d left them. “More, I need more, please.”
“So sweet,” he said, and the praise zipped through her body like a bolt of lightning. His hands disappeared from her skin suddenly, and she resisted the urge to whimper at the loss. She’s glad she didn’t, because far be it from her to deter him from unzipping his jeans and pushing them down far enough to free his erection from the denim. Still clad in his underwear, but it was enough to made her thighs tingle at the shape, the size of him.
They seemed to share the same thought, because as her legs tightened around his hips, he canted them towards her, rubbing the bulge of his cock against the wet patch of her underwear. She burrowed herself deeper back into the bed, her hands scrambling up to the bars of her headboard as she rutted against him. It was getting to the point where the friction against her clit was bordering on painful, but it was easy to wade through it when he kept making those breathy little gasps, enamored at the way the shape of his cock pressed through her slit, hugging at the girth of him.
“Enough,” Katara gasped, moving her arms to push herself up, pulling at the open waist of Zuko’s jeans. Yanking at them was more of a performance than anything, his knees still sinking into her mattress and impossible to take off without his help. He seemed to agree, though, standing up from the bed and ridding himself of his pants, his shirt, his underwear as Katara slid back towards the headboard, hair fanning out around her as she allowed herself a moment of greediness. She was right about him, his body delicately muscular, not in a way that expressed that he spent a great deal of time on his body, but there were hints of strength woven throughout his limbs. His arms were, in fact, shapely and well-built, the plane of his stomach firm, the pink, shiny head of his cock leaving a smear of precome across the faint lines of his abs.
Katara’s mouth went dry.
He barely noticed the way she took him in, too distracted by her.
“Take that off right now,” he breathed, and she was quick to divest herself of her dress, not really doing much in the way of covering anything, anyway. She moved to shimmy out of her panties, but he stopped her, crawling onto the bed and crowding against her with enough force to push her a little more forcefully against the headboard. When he ran his tongue over her soaked underwear, a broken moan tore from her throat, louder than she had been yet.
“Fuck, you’re so hot,” he breathed, slipping his index finger underneath the gusset, pulling it away just barely from where she radiated wet heat, the back of his finger the first brush of contact against where she so desperately needed something more. “So wet, baby. All this just from rubbing against my cock?”
She was going to pass out. She was going to lose consciousness and pass the fuck out on her bed in a puddle of her own come. She’d go missing for days and this is how her loved ones were going to find her: marks sucked into her tits, speckled with the impressions of his canines.
“Fuck me,” she whispered, her hands finding their place in his hair and tugging at the root, and he groaned a little in assent.
“I’m still looking,” he reminded her, nose ghosting around the crevice between her thigh and her pussy, so close to where she needed.
“You’re going to kill me,” she whispered, the tip of his tongue seeking out the bundle of nerves that were almost rubbed raw by now.
“I’ll take care of you,” he murmured against her, pressing a kiss to her mound before hooking his finger around the strip of her panties and pulling it to the side, before dipping his tongue into where she was wettest.
She’d deny making the noise she made later, veering on pornographic as he lapped at the accumulative slick that had been pouring out of her for what felt like the entire evening. Her back arched so severely that she worried she’d snap herself in half, and Zuko had to wrap his arms under and over her thighs to hold her steady as he worked at her, running his tongue along the seam of her like it sustained him. For her, though, it felt like he was systematically pulling her apart, all of her senses zeroed in on the slide of his tongue through her folds, toying at her opening, before leaving soft, sucking kisses against her clit.
She had no control over her body, her hips rocking lustfully against his face, and Zuko moans, moans so deeply and throatily that she feels it reverberate all the way through her, up to her brain and scrambling whatever was even left there.
“You weren’t lying,” he said against her pussy, lips shining in the lamplight. “So soft, like velvet.”
Katara whined, feeling a drip of something—her own slick, his saliva, mixed indiscriminately as they were—slide down the curve of her ass. He chased it with his tongue, lapping it up before swirling his tongue over her clit, sucking gently.
“Spirits, that’s good,” she said, almost to no one in particular, speaking it out into the world like confirmation that it was even happening. He hummed, lifting a finger to trace at her opening, and her legs spasmed. “O-oh, please—”
“Good girl,” he whispered, low enough that she wondered if she was supposed to hear it or not, but she did, felt it swirl and coat her insides. Pleased with her manners, he slowly sunk two fingers into her pussy as he alternated between leaving open mouthed kisses on her cunt and flicking his tongue over the sensitive bud.
She was so close already—from humping him like a sexually pent up teenager to his low encouragements and open marvelling of her. Her fingers gripped at his hair so tight that she worried it was too much, dropping her hands to fist at her sheets instead as he keened, the dam breaking as she lost control of her hips, grinding against his face as the orgasm all but consumed her.
He fucked her through it, chasing the movement of her hips as she clumsily chased the feeling but simultaneously pulled away from it when it became too, too much. His fingers moved to a slow, blunt rock, his mouth darting around her sensitive clit and sucking kisses against her inner thighs.
He shifted his weight, then, pulling himself up from where he knelt, and sinking his pointer and index finger into his mouth. Her skin felt like fireworks, bright, cold sparks across her warm skin at the sight of him towering over her, face slick, eyes dark. He saw the way her skin ignited with goosebumps, looking pleased to the point of smug as he held himself up over her to leave comparatively sweet kisses against her skin.
“So good, Katara,” he rasped, and she almost fucking sobbed when she felt him push his cock through her folds—not breaching, but luxuriating in the feeling of her soft, wet heat around him. He let out a shaky breath, a curse, pressing his forehead against her ribs as he watched the head of his cock appear, disappear from between them. “Spirits—can I fuck you?”
Yes, she wanted to say, what are you waiting for, but he had well and truly done something irreparable to her brain, unlocked whatever deep-seated desire that Jet had buried long ago, because the words came easily. “How badly do you want it?”
“So fucking bad,” he volleyed it back easily, undeterred by her attempt at coyness, and she grinned despite herself. He pulled himself up to press his own smile against hers, pressing a dirty kiss against her lips that left her with a taste of herself. “About to lose my fucking mind.”
“The drawer,” she whispered, reaching towards the side of her bed. He caught her meaning, pulling himself up enough to rummage through her bedside table and retrieving a small silver blister packet, ripping it open with his teeth before rolling the condom down his length, and Katara felt that warm anticipation consume her all over again.
“Show me,” she whispered as he descended on her again, kissing up her neck. She wrapped her calf around one of his and urging him closer, and slowly, he pressed the head of his cock against her entrance, shallow little thrusts in rather than pushing in in one fell swoop. Her hands fluttered to his biceps, holding onto him like her life depended on it as she finally had the feeling of something breach at her walls, filling her up.
“Oh La,” she whimpered, nails digging into his skin. He let a breath out through his nose, head hung between his shoulders. She couldn’t tell if he was watching as he entered her, or if he was trying to concentrate on not obliterating her at the first opportunity, but the thought left her head when she felt their hips bump together, fully seated inside of her.
She couldn’t help but clench around him, her whole body responding to the feeling of him on her, in her, the earthy, smokey smell of him that was slowly weaving itself into her linens. It struck him, a sharp sound coming from his chest as he pulled back to thrust into her forcefully, jostling her further up the bed. Quickly, he lifted a hand to curl around the top of her head, stopping it from hitting the headboard, and if she had her wits about her at all, she would’ve melted at the gesture.
“So perfect,” he slurred, leaving wet kisses across her jaw, her cheeks, her temple as he rocked deep inside of her. Katara felt like she hadn’t even had the chance to let the first orgasm leave her system, and that same feeling easily fed off of what was already there, brewing into another orgasm in little time. “Prettiest pussy I’ve ever seen.”
“Zuko,” she keened, the thick slide of him and this new crassness that made her stupid filling her with a kind of pleasure she’s never known. She must’ve been tight, bearing down on him more than she necessarily meant to, because his movements became frantic quickly, pulling back from leaving marks on her neck and grabbing her by the back of the knee, hoisting it up to lay flat against her chest as his thrusts accelerated, now unambiguously watching as his cock pumped in and out of her, eyes ablaze.
“I—” she gasped, hands scrambling for purchase on something, her fingertips only just able to wrap around the curve of his thighs. “Zuko, I-I’m gonna co—”
“Yeah,” he breathed, the grip on her knee so tight she hoped she’d feel it later. “Again, come on my cock again—”
Her vision whited out, a watery cry tore through her as the orgasm bulldozed through her. He let out a broken moan as she seized around him, yanking her further down the bed so that when he jackhammered into her, he didn’t knock her out in the process. Even as she whimpered as the heights of her own pleasure started to dissipate, she groaned at the slick heat of him chasing his own orgasm, and it came, finally came when her loose tongue told him how pretty he looked, how good he fucked her.
“O-oh god,” he gasped, a hitch in his voice, before breaking as he canted into her heavily, slowly pumping as he rode out his own orgasm, head falling back, exposing the long line of his bobbing throat.
Her skin glistened with sweat and she felt the tingles all the way down to her toes, finally letting her body melt into the damp sheets. He fell onto her heaving chest, trailing lazy half-kisses across her tits, her collarbones, before he slumped heavily against her chest, head buried in the space above her shoulder.
It was quiet for a while, just the sounds of them both catching their breath as they crawled their way back to reality. Katara caught herself coming to her senses a little more, which wasn’t to say she had regretted anything—far from it. Rather, it exposed her to herself, a glimpse into that ephemeral thing that she wasn’t even sure existed when she thought about what she might’ve been missing in those years of affection-less companionship. It felt, strangely, like waking up.
“Please tell me we can do that again,” Zuko breathed into her skin, nosing through her hair, around the shell of her ear. She laughed, and the scratchiness of it caught her off guard. She lifted a hand to run through his hair, and he gave an approving mewl at the pressure.
“Not right now,” she said, though she stomped down that girlish feeling at the use of we. Not that, she thought. Not that too soon. “I don’t think I could take it.”
“Not what I meant,” he said, the ghost of his teeth running along the length of her throat. “But you’re making me want to prove you wrong.”
She snorted, pushing at his shoulders a bit. “Get your dick out of me.”
He harrumphed, resisting at first, but peeling himself from her. She gasped a little when he slowly pulled himself out, and he gave her clit a small rub with the pad of his thumb once he fell free.
She squeaked, hips bucking at the sensitivity, before swatting at him as he pulled himself from the bed, looking entirely too pleased with himself.
“Bathroom?” He asked, carefully pulling the condom from his soft cock and tying a knot at the top.
She waved her hand indiscriminately. “Out the door, first room on the left.”
He disappeared without another word, and gave Katara a second to get her bearings. Sluggishly, she rummaged through her bedside table and found the small travel pack of wet wipes shoved towards the back, cleaning the worst of herself up before she could bring herself to get in the shower. She considered getting dressed, but the thought of standing up was not in the cards for her right now, so by the time Zuko returned, she was where he left her, sprawled out on the bed, looking thoroughly fucked.
“That was fun,” he said, grabbing his things and slowly dressing with a strength that Katara envied.
“That’s one way to put it,” she agreed, stretching out her limbs on the bed and making a pleased noise at a few gentle pops.
“You’re ridiculous,” he said, ogling at the shapely curves of her thighs into her waist, the weight of her breasts against the jut of her ribcage. His shirt hung limply in his hand, completely forgotten. “Can’t just leave you there.”
“It’s late,” she teased, sinking further into her mattress, feeling warm all over with the weight of his gaze.
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, it’s late.”
It took him a second to move again, almost shaking his head like a cartoon character to refresh his thoughts, and she snorted a little. He slipped his shirt on over his head and grabbed his sweater, wringing it in his hands a little as he backed away to the door, eyes still devouring her laid out across the bedding.
“Feels weird to say thanks, but, like—” he cut off, a pleased smile curling at his lips. “Yeah, thanks.”
She returned the smile in kind. “Goodnight, Zuko.”
He nodded, reaching for the door. “Night, Katara.”
Before she let herself get too upset that he didn’t ask for her number, didn’t kiss her goodbye, didn’t set a tentative day to meet up again, she went out to her kitchen to get herself a glass of water and saw it. The mini whiteboard on her fridge that usually sported her shopping list, reminders, the days where the bin collection came, now had a phone number taking up all of the empty space, with an angular Z signed at the bottom.