Chapter Text
The walls—its cheap, gritty plaster with paint peeling off from press-on nail-scrapping—are slowly closing in, a smoke show of iridescent blobs behind her eyes, cotton balls in her head, a constant ringing in her ears—and she staggers forward, or backwards, she isn’t too certain of her own footing, and the world is slowly fading with every blink, and she must be dying—the unfortunate consequence of pulling all-too-many all-nighters in consecutive order, trading sleep and basic nutrition for staring at the FirePoint slides of her Intro to Modern Water-Based Healing: History of Ancient Waterbending 101 until her eyes developed a catharsis. Zuko is going to be so fucking, annoyingly, meanly smug—is all she can manage to gripe in her own pathetic head before she—at the very least, she hopes—slumps on the floor. Like a bag of cabbages.
A pathetic bag of cabbages. Fainting. Slumping. Collapsing. Her—Katara Sagvaq, the daughter of Hakoda and Kya, chieftains of the Southern Watern Tribe, who had learned to waterbend at age four and how to heal with water by age five, valedictorian of her class at that horrid, pretentious private school in Agna Qel’a, got accepted into one of the most prestigious, rigorous universities in Republic City—and she’s going to die like this, a poor, sad bag of cabbages on the floor, from not listening to Zuko’s annoying, fuckass nitpicking—
Fucking Tui and La—
This is so embarrassing.
She’s going to kill Zuko Sozin. Right after she dies from the utter lack of dignity, of course. She’s going to haunt him endlessly until he’s driven to insanity—thenshe’s going to kill him, very slowly, very thoroughly, she promises to herself, if she makes it alive by the end of the day—she swears—
—
Slowly, like the slow whispers of her mother’s lullabies lulling her to sleep, she comes to the world—or the world starts fluttering back to life around her. A groan itches at the middle of her throat, and everything’s suddenly too bright, too loud, an attack on her fragile, recovering senses, and she wants to cower back into her cave of—darkness, warmth—whatever she’s woken against, whatever she’s leaning on, a solid mass, a cushy, well-built wall, it feels like, or a particularly muscled pillow—
“Katara,” comes a hiss, and she knows that voice, has been listening to those deep, dulcet tones for over ten years of her life, that almost teenage-boy rasp she’s somehow come to ache for in the morning, and in between her lectures, and in every half-beat of a moment, almost, almost, just always a breath away, a word short— “Katara, hey, sweetheart, how are you feeling?”
She rubs her eyes, letting the light slowly trickle in, a small, instinctive smile tugging at the corners of her mouth when she peeks at Zuko—his wonderful face, the juts of his cheekbone and angular jaw, all sharp corners and sharper gazes, a small valley of furrow digging into the skin between his brows, and something in her almost protests, almost reaches out to smoothen the uneven planes, almost caresses the roughened skin of his scar just for the sake of it, “Like I just finished a free trial in the Spirit World. I don’t think I’m going through the subscription, Zu. Don’t think it’s worth it. Nuh-uh.”
“I’m sure,” Zuko says, and Katara can almost hear the smile in his tone—she can feel strong arms—those are Zuko’s arms, a stray thought informs her, and it bubbles through her, a small, pleased spark tingling through her back, because he’s holding her—wrap around her shoulders, a tightening—but not rough, never rough, not with him—grip searing on skin, “You fainted, Kat. I found you on the floor. You were just—fuck, kitty, are you okay? Agni, when did you last eat? Or sleep? You look fucking terrible. You look like—you look like Sokka the last time he went on a bender. But, like, fucking worse, Kat. Way worse. Are those eyebags or sacks?”
The world is still bleary around the edges, and Zuko is talking too much too fast. “Gee, thanks, Zu, you always did have such a way with words,” she manages to snip out, rolling her eyes halfheartedly, “I’m fine. I’m fine. Don’t get your panties in a twist. I’m fine. I promise to Tui and La—I’m fine. Just—just stood up too fast.”
Zuko’s frown deepens. “You do know that you repeating I’m fine doesn’t really make it any more convincing.”
Katara sighs, burrowing further into the warmth of Zuko’s arms. “Mm,” she hums, “M’kay. Whatever you say, jerkbender,” then, she giggles to herself, poking the hard, toned curve of his biceps. “You’re so hard, Zu. Haaaaard.”
Zuko’s face is as clear as stone, staying still where he is, letting her poke at him as she pleases, his hand softly brushing through her curls. “Is this the cactus juice or the sleep deprivation talking?”
She pouts in thought. “Both?”
“Okay, Kat, here’s what we’re going to do,” Zuko starts to say—but his voice is soft, a gentle thing in the bleariness of her vision, in the subtle ringing in her ears, and Katara wishes for a sea, an ocean made with the waves of Zuko’s voice, the soft rasp, the deep tones, and islands of the calluses trailing over the pads of his fingers—and he tips a finger under her chin when her eyes start to droop, her face slowly leaning closer against his chest, “Kitty, you with me?”
She whines. Does the jerk not understand that all she wants to do is burrow herself into endless sleep?
Zuko’s voice is gentle, almost a condescension if he had been a different person—but he’s Zuko, and under his wall of rough and gruff and tough, Katara knows him, has always known him, from marrow to teeth to scar, and all his soft parts, all the tender places, Katara knows them, knows them all too well. “Hey. Asked you a question. No dozing off yet.”
She groans. “Yeah, yeah, asshole—”
“Alright, I’m going to take you with me, yeah?” Zuko says, and Katara carefully, slowly, barely registers the words, everything a velvet blur around her, her head up in the clouds somewhere, “I’m not letting you stay here alone in this embarrassing, dilapidating excuse of an apartment of yours. I’m bringing you with me—in my apartment where you’ll get more than the bare minimum hours of sleep and food intake. How’s that?”
“Zu, I don’t wanna move,” Katara says, a childish whine laced into her voice, “Head hurts. Body numb. ‘M gonna die—”
Zuko’s face softens, his thumb tracing the apple of her cheek. “You don’t have to, sweetheart,” he says, “I’ll carry you to my car. You can sleep all the way there. Is that fine with you? I’ll order some fire buns and togarashi ramen, yeah? We’ll watch a movie or two—then straight to bed with you, yeah? You want that, sweetheart?”
Katara pretends to mull it over—but her head is nothing but fluffs of cotton candy and persistent, week-long aches piling over one another and the thought of Zuko’s Fire Lord-size bed, dozens of plushies (collected from the times they had gone to festivals together in high school, and they had always been betting on who would win the biggest prizes—and until now, it’s still a frustrating tie between them) and his ten-thousand thread count sheets and his warm, big arms around her, is nothing but tempting, an offer from Tui and La themselves. “Want it, Zu,” she mumbles tiredly, “Want it very much.”
Zuko chuckles, standing up from his crouched position. “Come on up.”
Katara sighs. The prospect of having to move her practically paralyzed limbs is not too appealing.
“Thought you were gonna carry me,” she huffs out, crossing her arms, glaring blearily at him, “Why do I have to come up?”
Zuko shrugs, raising a brow. “You usually prefer piggybacks.”
Katara groans, slumping into the hard cushions. “Yeah, when I’m not on the brink of death, Zu!”
Zuko rolls his eyes in good nature—but, eventually, he bends down, softly placing his hands under her waist and the backs of her knees. “Brace for impact, kitty,” he whispers menacingly, lifting her with an effortless show of strength that sends tingles traveling from her skull to her shaky knees, barely a breath grunted out, barely a shake in his broad shoulders, “Boom. Up we go.”
“You’re so fuckin’ weird, Zu,” Katara mutters against his—solid chest. Very solid, Katara notes. Almost pillow-like—but a hardness to it—and she leans her head further against it, humming when she feels the steady thrum of his heartbeat against the shell of her ear, “Weirdest weirdo I know.”
“Can’t be the weirdest when you exist, kitty,” he says, and Katara barely registers the echoes of his heavy footsteps—or any of his movements, really, safe in her own bubble of cloudy thoughts and warm muscle as pillows—but she hears the sound of a door clicking, the lock shutting in place. The lights sway in her vision—a blur of fluorescent lights and afternoon glow in her apartment building’s hallway—and she wraps her arms around his neck tighter.
She pouts at his words, though. “But you’re weirder.”
“That’s debatable, Kat,” Zuko says—and suddenly, they’re in the elevator. Zuko walks quick.
“Nuh-uh,” she presses on.
“Yeah-uh.”
Katara has lost many battles to Zuko—but she is not losing this one. “Nuh-uh,” she says emphatically, raising her head from his chest to shoot a glare at his jerkbender face—but, instead, she’s caught off guard, a whirlpool of warmth and butterflies and lightning strikes all at once, when she catches Zuko’s eyes, steeled and softened on her, gazing at her as if she was the only thing in the world, the last ray of sunlight, the last phase of the moon glinting through window panes, the last and only breath. She’s struck frozen, then, rabbit heartbeat caught in the middle of her throat, and her palms start to glisten with sweat. Her head is still muddled and achy—but she makes out shards of starlight in his golden eyes, warm as the sun and cherry blossoms and heart-shaped chocolates, and she might be delirious, considering her train of thought, but she’s never seen anything softer, really, and she wonders if this is what poets make oceans out of, if this is what all the lovers in the world die again and again for, if this is what stars chase through lifetimes.
Huh.
(Delirious. Definitely delirious and sleep deprived. An unconscious effect of starvation, Katara presumes. Goddamn those waterbending books. Goddamn Professor Hama.)
Her cheeks start to fluff with bursts of heat, and she’s the first one to look away. “What’re you looking at me like that for, dummy?”
“Nothing,” Zuko says, and Katara praises the spirits when she hears the sound of the elevator doors opening, “Nothing at all, Kat. Just concerned. We gotta get some food and sleep in you soon. You hungry or sleepy?”
“Both?”
Zuko hums. “Yeah, well, that’s what happens when you stop performing basic human functions to study. Agni, what were you thinking, Kat?” his brows furrow in frustration, his steps quickening, and that telltale, age-old ache flares up in her chest—to smooth it over, to take away his worries and let the blackbirds eat them away, to share the weight of his heart, whatever heavy secrets he keeps inside, “You could’ve called Sokka. You could’ve asked Suki for some food—she’s just a street away from you. Spirits, you could’ve texted me to order your some food, or help you with your flashcards, or anything. You can’t—you can’t let yourself go to ace an exam, Kat. It’s—”
He takes a breath, a pause, and it might have been the longest silence between their conversations.
She breaks it first. “I didn’t mean to make you worry, Zuko,” she says, a surge of guilt rushing through her chest, a weight like lead, “I didn’t mean it. It just—happened.”
Zuko only hums, lips pressed in a tight line, as he one-handedly opens the car door, gently guiding her inside, his hands tucked underneath skin until she’s settled comfortably. He leans over to reach for a cloud pillow in the backseat, placing it between the car’s leather cushion and her lower back—and like the ends of magnets, like South and North, like ocean and shore, his eyes meet hers, cerulean and amber.
“Kat,” he says, a gentle thing, “I’m not asking you to apologize. I’m not trying to make you feel guilty—I just want you to—” he stops, searching for the right words, “You’re important, yeah? Before any exams, or qualifications, or certifications. Those are important, too—but what’s the point of any of those if you’re going to collapse in the middle of nowhere? What’s the point of anything if you’re not going to be there to see it through? What’s the point of the whole fucking world if you’re not here?”
Katara leans against the seat, head lolling, hand reaching to trace the sharp line of his jaw, the sturdy bone. “I guess you’re right, Zu,” she says, a tired smile grazing her lips, “You might be overblowing it, though. I’m sure the world will still turn whether I’m alive or not.”
She means it as a joke, a lighthearted line to lighten the air tight around his shoulders, but his face only hardens, frown deepening. “Don’t ever say that, Kat,” he says—and before her hand falls away, falls down to her lap, a trick of gravity, he presses an almost-kiss on her wrist, the delicate crisscross of her veins, bleeding lines of purples and blues, “Don’t ever say that. Not to me.”
He pulls away, then, closing the door. She huffs in a breath—fuck, has her headache gone worse, now? It’s a heavier weight—the only thing that had been alleviating its press was Zuko, she’s sure—and she taps her fingers on her lap impatiently, watching Zuko open the car door, sliding in the driver seat, quickly pulling on his seatbelt sideways. The car starts with a groan, the air thickening with the heater, and Katara reaches for the turtleduck plushie on the dashboard, letting its comfortable weight settle against her chest, held between her arms.
Zuko steals a glance, eyes fond. “Go nap, Kat,” he says, “I’ll wake you up when you arrive.”
“Mm, I don’t wanna,” she says, twisting her body sidewards to face him, “I like watching you drive.”
Zuko pulls the gearstick. “Do you, now.”
Katara smiles lazily, poking his cheek. “Yup.”
They mirror stupid grins, the quiet hum of a nostalgic melody playing in the stereo, and Katara breathes in the scent of—home, somewhat; a rightness settling in her bones; smoke and cinnamon and cedar, the cologne Zuko had hoarded in their high school years, breathing it in like air, something that had carved its shape and marrow into her lungs, something she’s come to know as Zuko and home and never really wondered whether or not the two had been different. Warmth is dancing on her skin, and she’s content where she is, she realizes—sitting in Zuko’s car, his beat-up black jeep that had taken them everywhere and anywhere, then, when they had been young and careless and stupid, so eager and hungry for any kind of burn. They’ve mellowed out, now—all of them—through university and the slow, precarious tightrope of growing pains. She’s still a workaholic, she supposes, still drowning herself in papers and readings and forsaking her own promises of taking care of herself to her father and to Gran-gran—but hardly hopeless with hope, a state of paralysis, almost. Her head is no longer floating in the clouds, dreaming of constellations, of escape, of anywhere but here—she’s come to grow love for this old city, the streets she’s always known, the people she’s always stood by. She’s come around, and she’s come down, and she’s taken beatings—again and again and again.
She had been so eager, then. She’s always thought she could dream herself out of and into anything.
“You’re working that head of yours too hard again, kitty kat,” Zuko says, “What’s got you so lost in thought?”
Her teeth toys with her lower lips. “It’s nothing,” she says, playing with the plushie in her arms, “It’s just—I don’t know—it’s—that’s the thing, you know? I don’t know. I’m barely passing my subjects as is, and I work so hard but somehow that’s still not enough, and even when it is, my body shuts down and fucking collapses like that—and it’s just—I don’t know if this is what I imagined for myself at all.”
Zuko frowns, looking at her. “Katara,” he starts, worry fracturing through his tone, “You collapsed because you were overworking yourself. You were neglecting yourself, Kat. You weren’t eating, and you barely slept at all, and spirits only know how much you’ve chugged down those shitty energy drinks you’re obsessed with—your body just responded to that. Took what it could get—” he breathes in for a pause, lifting one hand off the wheel to slide through hers, intertwining fingertips through knuckle, his larger, callused hands cradling hers, “—and it’s normal, and the takeaway here is you start actually taking care of yourself, sweetheart. But it doesn’t—it doesn’t negate all your achievements and hard work at all. Your life isn’t upending just because you have needs and your body’s the first to realize it.”
“Yeah, but—”
Zuko grips her hand tighter, a comforting, grounding weight. “No buts, kitty,” he says, “Get some sleep, eat a nice meal, and let’s see how you feel afterwards, yeah?”
Katara sighs, and it seems like the whole world sags with it. “Yeah, maybe, you’re right.”
Zuko’s lips quirk into a grin. “Look at you finally admitting the facts of life.”
Katara glares at him, nearly throwing the sweet turtleduck at that smug, handsome—he has always been so tragically, so objectively handsome, and it’s torture, a hypnosis, almost a dreamlike state, to look at him for too long, something from a long-forgotten, half-lived memory, a past life, that familiarity—face. “Only fact of life here is how unbelievably—cocky you are!”
Zuko scoffs. “You love my cockiness.”
“Said no one ever in the history of the world.”
Zuko raises his brow suggestively, and Katara can already feel the itch of a groan climbing up her throat. “Matter of fact, a lot of people have verbally confirmed loving my cock—”
“Do not even think about finishing that sentence—”
He smirks. The jerkbender has the gall to smirk.
“—iness,” he finishes, self-satisfied, “What did you think I was going to say, Kat? Geez. Get your dirty, dirty mind out of the gutter.”
She huffs, grumbling. “Shut up, you asshole,” she says, “It’s bad to overexaggerate your—” she clears her throat, makes the deliberate act of sneaking a teasing glance down—his lower parts, “—skills or assets. In some cultures, that’s considered lying. In ours, it’s unfortunately just the male fragile ego at work.”
Zuko snorts out a laugh, his thumb slowly caressing the thin skin of her palms. “Okay, fine, you win this round.”
She smiles, rubs his thumb with her own. “When do I ever not?”
—
(four years ago. republic city. yue bay district.)
“Katara, you need to stop,” Sokka says, shoulders straightened, forcing every ounce of borrowed authority into his comically hardened tone—Katara knows Sokka, has known and breathed around him for sixteen years, and for all his bossiness, he isn’t the authoritarian type, and he’s always lacked the structure for it, anyway; he’s the type to lean into half-assed attempts of pranks and jokes, a beautiful depiction of a one-man act a circus could run itself on, “Seriously. You’re making us deeply uncomfortable.”
“Me!?” she shrieks, her hands flying in an incensed rage, “I’m the one you’re blaming for—for making you guys uncomfortable!? This is—” she laughs, sardonic, shaking her head, glaring daggers at Sokka as she inches away, pacing around the room, “—this is just unbelievable. This is so fucking rich. So, Mr. Angsty Bully Jerkbender Prince—”
Sokka sighs, rolling his eyes at her theatrics. “Katara, he never bullied—”
She scoffs. “Nice one! Now, you’re rewriting history to defend him—”
Sokka’s eyes bulge out, exasperation painting his features. “What history, Katara? Spirits, it was middle fucking school—”
“And? That was just a few years ago—”
He sighs, all fight crumpling out of his body, defeat in his slumped posture. “Look,” Sokka starts, running a hand through his hair, frustration wound tight into his words, “I get it. Zuko was a jerk. Major asshole—back then. But, now, he’s like—cool with everyone. Suki fucks with him. Toph loves all the free shit that comes along with a walking credit card—which is weird, considering she’s literally a Beifong—and even, shit, even Aang’s taken to him, Kat,” he explains slowly, as if speaking to a particularly stubborn, hard-headed child, “I get it. I do. He was your friend first—”
She frowns, turning away to hide away the embarrassing, horrifying glitter of tears dampening her eyes. “You don’t get it,” she says, a loud echo in the room, “I let him in, Sokka. I—I trusted him—and he just threw that—” me is the unspoken word that drags its weight in silence, “—away, so that he could be buddy-buddies with Azula and Mai again.”
Sokka is quiet. “Well, that is his sister, y’know. I’d choose, like, you over Ty Lee any day.”
She shakes her head. “I told him about mom, Sokka.”
Silence suffocates the air from the room, choking the light traipsing from the half-opened windows, a still heaviness evening out, and all Katara wants to do is curl into herself.
“Katara—”
The door opens, cutting off Sokka’s words.
They both freeze, and her mood only sours into something unsalvageable when she catches sight of that—that jerkbender’s face. She hates it. She hates it with the entirety of her soul set alight.
“Uhm,” the jerk says, voice awkward and rough in its rasp, and he has the audacity to stand there, all lanky and odd-limbed, and wave at them, as if that’s something they do, as if they’re friends, “Hey.”
That’s it.
Katara storms towards him, an angry scowl twisting her features. “You,” she seethes, “I don’t what the fuck you’re playing at—befriending and cornering and manipulating my friends like this, but I’m not buying it. I know you, and you’re a snake, and I have no idea why you’re even bothering to put up this goody two-shoes act again—and, and you may have fooled the others, but you’re not fooling me again. Ever. I hate you.”
The jerk’s face wrenches into something unreadable, something warring in those stupid eyes of his. “Katara—”
She roughly points at his chest. “Don’t say my name,” she says, each word forced out with vitriol, incense, a build-up of slow, aching anger—and underneath it all, hurt, “And stay the fuck away from me.”
She walks past him, leaving him dumbfounded and still and frozen, and she wants to scream, and she wants the ground to swallow her whole, because none of them understand. None of them understand—not Suki’s mediating words, or Toph’s teasing jabs, or Aang’s everyone has a point. None of them understand how much it hurt, how much the pain clung to her for days, then, an akula circling trails of blood, fireflies to the sparks of light, its echoes buried deep into her memory, a torturous replay of how stupid and foolish and gullible she had been, trusting him, slicing her heart open and giving the softest, darkest parts to him, those traitorous, mean, deceptively kind palms, just for him to spread rumors and trade her off like a fucking ball—
She startles when she feels wetness on her cheeks, quickly blinking away the blur of tears.
I hate him I hate him I hate him I hate—
—
Zuko stares at Katara—she’s leaning against the window, clutching tightly onto the turtleduck plushie, mouth slightly open, her hand still a warm weight in his, fingers interlocked and woven tight, sewn in. She’s achingly beautiful like this, almost too soft for the careless hurling of the wind or the world or the waves—and she seems fragile, under the moonlight flickering in from the windows, almost delicate, even when Zuko knows the opposite, knows the sea of rage and passion and anger and heart in those storm blue eyes. His heart had dropped, then, somewhere unknowable, somewhere inconsolable, when he had knocked on her door for minutes on end, pulling out the emergency key to her apartment as the last resort, finding her curled on the ground, too still, too quiet—and he’d never seen her look so small and breakable, not since they were sun-bruised, sea-kissed children with scraped knees and little hands.
Zuko doesn’t know what he would have done—how he could’ve come back to himself—if she never opened her eyes, then. It was hardly a moment—but he’d counted every minute, every second; breath held hostage by the stillness in the wind, heart both in catapults and a trembling deadlock. The thought of losing her—of even coming close to it—has never occurred to him before, and it’s shaken him to the bone, a certain frost creeping up his spine at every run of the memory: Katara on the floor, hardly responding to his panicked cries of her name, the weightless feel of her body in his arms, and the stifling wave of guilt flooding his chest. Zuko knows how stressed Katara has been from university—from coursework, and her thesis on the uses of bloodbending techniques in modern medicine, and how her advisor has been all up on her ass about it—they call every goddamn night, practically, with Katara cursing and muttering into the phone, and Zuko’s heard every word, shared each derisive joke and bout of laughter, but he’d never checked up on her, not really. He’d never ask her if she had been okay—truly, actually, thoroughly okay.
He should’ve known. He should’ve asked, and he should have done something, anything—damn of a friend that he is—
He paces himself, staring at the dark circles under her eyes, the pallor of her skin—her bones protrude sharper, and something in his chest tugs and hurls and aches.
This isn’t about him.
“Hey,” he mutters softly, a soft betrayal of the bubble-wrap of silence, his thumb on her cheekbone, “Kat, wake up. Kar.”
She shifts in her sleep, groaning. “No.”
The corner of his lips helplessly pull into a smile—the kind only she brings out of him. “Kitty Kat.”
A hand deftly pushes at him. “Don’t call me that—”
His grin only turns rugged. “Then, wake up. Come on, we’re here. Don’t you wanna sleep in my bed? Soft, big, comfy? We’ll watch that stupid show you like—”
Her eyes fly open, and Zuko is momentarily mesmerized by the sea of blues he’s pulled into. “Ember Love Island isn’t stupid, Zuko!” she exclaims, incensed and beautiful and so, so her, “It’s a realistic—”
He snickers under his breath. “Since when are reality shows realistic—”
Katara pays him no mind, of course. “—depiction of love and lust intermixing in a glamorized laboratory. It’s a modern note on love, and you’re misunderstanding it on purpose, Zuko! You always have been! It perfectly showcases how people are always confounding love—the kind built on long-term commitment and engagement, on patience and steadiness and the mutual choice to do this thing, over and over, with this person, again and again—for instant gratification—”
His chest might burst from fondness, he diagnoses—the untreatable, inescapable kind. “Wouldn’t you prefer reciting your thesis in my bed where it’s warm, and where you’re getting fed, and where you’re actually resting?”
She slumps in her seat, letting out a defeated sigh. “Fine,” she grumbles out, capturing the petulance of a particularly stubborn child, “But my head still hurts, and you’re still obligated to carry me, so.”
His smiles only widens, cheeks starting to ache with it. “When do I not?”
He unbuckles his seatbelt, quickly climbs out of the car, and walks over to the passenger’s side. He opens the door, crouching down to reach Katara’s line of view, and he almost laughs at the frown pulling at her lips.
“Princess or piggy?”
She raises a brow at him, that frown swiftly curving into a teasing smirk. “Are you asking which one am I, jerkbender?”
This trap, he knows. This trap, he’s not falling for—not again after the Great Ice-Skating Rink Incident of 2010 A.G.
He rolls his eyes, gently cradling her head against his chest as he wraps his arms around her shoulders and underneath the tuck of her knees, an odd rush of warmth racing through his skin when her hands wrap around his neck—it leaves him wrong-footed, unsteady on uneven footing, the feeling that burrows itself deep into his chest at the weight of her, the warmth of her body against his. He feels her small breaths pan out against his neck, nose fitting against the crook of his neck, warmth spreading all over him, lighting the tips of his fingers with the flickering embers of the gentlest fire. He shuts the car door with his leg, and starts walking towards his apartment.
He loves this—is the damning part of it. Loves an excuse to hold her close and safe in his arms, loves to keep her still and warm and settled, loves to take care of her. Katara has always been a stubborn girl, made of righteous fury and a goodness so whole, so pure that it still staggers through him, the thought of it—and in her own ambition, her own need to impress and lift the people she cared for, her own instinct to put everyone else before her, she loses herself, loses sense of time and need and breath. Zuko has stood by it—has watched her from the sidelines and placed his hands ready for her weight, her questions, her zuko, u up? im craving some dumplings n burgers in the dead of night—but watching her run herself to the ground, work herself ragged and bare and empty, and letting her are different things altogether.
“You’re so warm, Zu,” she mumbles against his neck, lips pressed plush against his heated skin—and something in his heart jumps, “So warm. It’s the one good thing about being a firebender. You’re like—you’re like a human furnace. If you started a cuddle-for-rent industry, I’m pretty sure you’d make good business of that.”
He rolls his eyes in fondness—he never seems to do anything but that, nowadays. “Would I?”
“Yup,” she hums.
Zuko nods as the frontman greets him, ignoring the telltale, sparkling glint in the old man’s eyes as he catches Katara’s figure wrapped safely in his arms, stepping inside as the doors open. “Well, seeing that I’m already managing a company as is, I don’t think I have time for that, but let me think about it,” he says offhandedly, walking to the elevators, nearly struggles to retrieve the key card from the back of his pockets, one-handedly hovers it over the elevator’s scanner, shifting on his feet to keep Katara steady in his arms, “I mean, that would keep me awfully busy, Kat. I’d have to cuddle how many people on a daily basis.”
Katara pouts. “Huh,” she says in thought, “Would you even have any cuddles left for me?”
He shrugs, smiling, stepping inside the elevator. “Probably not.”
Her pout only deepens, brows furrowing—and it’s clear she takes this as seriously as any major life decision. “Then, just stick with me, Zuko,” she says drowsily, “Your cuddles are reserved for me. Me. Mine.”
The elevators open to his floor, and Zuko steps inside. “You know, there used to be a time you’d rather bite my arm off than stand two feet next to me.”
Katara scoffs. “You were a complete asshole back then, just so you know.”
A years-old, burrowed pang of regret crawls to his throat, and he tries to swallow down the lump with a grimace. “Yeah, I know.”
Katara shifts her gaze, lifting her head from his neck to look at him, and something in those cerulean eyes—the sea he’s been drowning in for most of his life, he thinks—capture him into helplessness, a prison of his own choosing, his own making. “Well, you’re not that boy anymore,” she says softly, fingertips dancing along his jaw, cradling the outer edges of his roughened scar, “Haven’t been for the longest time.”
Something in him settles and burns all at once.
He shakes his head, trying to clear his mind out of the gutter, and kicks his bedroom door open—constellations of city lights dance with the pale graze of moonlight through the windows, a soft warmth from the room’s heaters enveloping them both, and he relishes in Katara’s sigh of contentment when he gently sets her down his bed, placing the comforter over her figure. “Do you want to change clothes?”
Katara shakes her head. “No,” she says, “Stay with me?”
They’ve always done this—the bedsharing and the inevitable cuddling and the blanket-hogging—and Zuko has never spared a thought for it, not really. It’s embedded in them, almost—a natural routine their bodies have grown used to without thought, without complaint, ever since the night they had fought, the worst of them all, the kind with barbed words and screaming and reopened wounds, and a thunderstorm had trapped them where they were, the small apartment above his uncle’s old teashop. The night had been a mess of snotty tears and dusty floors and shared blankets—somehow, he and Katara slept in the same bed, then, and when lightning echoed too loudly, rattling through their bones, the splatter of rain against fragile windows, they’d talked. Bubble-wrapped themselves in endless conversations—their favorite animals, and their most despised pet peeves, and why Zuko still flinched away from sudden movement, and where Katara kept her oldest aches.
It’s stitched into his bones, the memory of that night. Corded into every muscle. Swimming in his bloodstream—a constant ocean of Katara Katara Katara.
“Yeah, sure,” he says, pulling off his shirt—his body runs too hot under the covers, and Katara is more than used to the sight of his naked torso, settling beside her, “Want me to order some food?”
Katara wraps her arms around his waist, legs slinging over his hips, her head on his chest. “Yes, please,” she mutters, “Komodo chicken burger and an iced jasmine tea?”
Zuko pulls out his phone. “No caffeine for you. You need to sleep, princess,” he says, swiping through notifications—work emails, the RU medical journal he follows because Katara’s hoping to have her thesis published there, group chat pings from their friends, “You down for a mango milkshake?”
She hums in content when Zuko wraps an arm around her shoulders, practically pulling her weight on him. “Yeah, sure,” she says, yawning, “Mind if I close my eyes for a moment?”
He rubs circles on her back. “I’ll wake you up when the food’s here,” he says, pressing a kiss on the top of her head, “Sleep, sweetheart.”
He quickly loads the food delivery app—a komodo chicken burger and a mango milkshake for Katara; fire flake dumplings and an iced hibiscus blend for him—and raises an amused brow when he sees the flood of notifications from his chat.
GAANG GANG GANG
socka
zuko where’s kat did u kidnap her again
sent 9:11 p.m.
suki dara
Yeah we went by her apartment a while ago, no one was there?
Also she’s not answering her phone too
sent 9:12 p.m.
tuffest
BET THEY’RE LITERALLY CUDDLING RN
IF ZUKO OR KATARA DON’T ANSWER IN 5 MINS THEY R LITERALLY CUDDLING
sent 9:15 p.m.
socka
at this point when are they not
sent 9:15 p.m.
APPA’S NO.1
Yeah!
One time I stopped by Zuko’s to play on his ps5 but he didn’t let me because he was cuddling with Katara and they were having a marathon
sent 9:16 p.m.
suki dara
One time I went over to Katara’s because she said she wanted to rant
Turns out Zuko beat me there and they were all cozy in the couch
sent 9:19 p.m.
tuffest
HOW ARE THEY WORSER THAN COUPLES
sent 9:21 p.m.
socka: yeah dude they got us beat lowkey
socka: anyway @Flameo hotman @master katara reply to let us know u guys aren’t dead yet
sent 9:22 p.m.
You
Hey, guys, my bad for the late reply, just opened my phone.
Yeah, actually, Katara’s over at mine. Found her passed out in her apartment just a while ago.
sent 11:23 p.m.
socka
shit really????
we’ll visit tomorrow
spirits kat
sent 11:24 p.m.
suki dara
How is she??
sent 11:25 p.m.
You
She’s fine. Resting now as we speak.
She’s stressed over her thesis. Professor Hama’s really nailing it in.
sent 11:30 p.m.
APPA’S NO.1
Yeah, I had her as an ethics prof once
Sheesh
Never again
sent 11:31 p.m.
socka
yeah man that old lady gives me the fucking creeps
i still remember her fuckass puppet show in the middle of the night sometimes
sent 11:32 p.m.
tuffest
THAT WAS THE WEIRDEST FUCKING SHIT EVER
sent 11:33 p.m.
You
Talk to you guys later.
Food’s here. Kat’s up. Night.
sent 11:43 p.m.
Zuko gently nudges Katara’s shoulders, brushing a loose curl over her ears. “Kitty,” he says, “Food’s here.”
Katara only nestles further into the mountain of pillows, holding the turtleduck plushie close to her chest. “I’d rather die,” she says, muffled through the pillows.
He chuckles, pinching the tip of her nose. “You said you’d eat.”
“Well, I also said I’d drop out and become the eternal ruler of the universe instead but look how that’s turning out.”
“Katara.”
“Zuko.”
He’s not unfamiliar with this dance. “The latest Ember Love Island episode just dropped.”
Her eyes fly open, immediately turning over, the widest grin plastered on her face—and Zuko’s heart answers for him, dancing in its own echoes, steady in its own conviction.
Home, home, home, it sighs, over and over.
—
OPERATION ZUTARA
tuffest
I’M SO FUCKING SICK OF THEM
sent 11:43 p.m.
socka
BRUH TELL ME ABOUT IT
that jerk didn’t even bother denying ANYTHING
sent 11:44 p.m.
APPA’S NO.1
I think it’s so sweet that Zuko’s always there for her though
No matter what
No matter when
sent 11:45 p.m.
tuffest
WELL DOES HE HAVE TO BE SO GROSS AND ANNOYING ABOUT IT
sent 11:46 p.m.
APPA’S NO.1
Toph that’s mean
sent 11:47 p.m.
tuffest
WELL IF THE TRUTH HURTS
sent 11:49 p.m.
suki dara
the worst part is they’re so unaware of it
they genuinely believe what they’re doing still counts as platonic
sent 11:50 p.m.
socka
ah
the ever dreaded p word
sent 11:51 p.m.
tuffest
PENIS?
sent 11:51 p.m.
socka
ha fucking har toph
sent 11:52 p.m.
suki dara
we need to up our game
sent 11:53 p.m.
tuffest
TOMORROW. JASMINE DRAGON. NINE FUCKING SHARP
WE ARE GOING TO PUT AN END TO THIS.
TUI FUCKING LA.
sent 11:55 p.m.
suki dara
tui fucking la indeed
sent 11:56 p.m.