Chocolate Mangoes
By: TheMusicMistress
Summary: Katara and Zuko get seduced by a love potion…short, two chapter story of pure lust. Please, no kids!
OooO
It's just a little tea, he says. It will in no way affect your ability to command this ship, carry on a logical conversation, or walk in a relatively straight line, he says.
He should've just stayed suspicious from the start.
When Iroh proposed to Zuko, in that ever wily way of his, that they were having another music night aboard the ship, Zuko was quick to disinvolve himself from any part of it. Zuko knew fully well what entailed with music night: it would start with the men forcing odd shaped instruments into his hands, begging him to play his ever beautiful love sonnet, and end with him either melting said instruments, throwing a couple of men off board, or maybe even both if he was in an especially irate mood. And because Zuko was aware of his short temper (and also that the men just happened to be running out of musical instruments due to his tendency to reduce them to golden puddles) he wisely declined when Iroh asked him to join in.
"Oh, Zuko, you don't know what you're missing," Iroh said coaxingly as he dragged out what was left of the instruments. He picked up a ruan, a moon-shaped lute, and held it in his lap. "Ah, do you remember this ruan? When you were a boy—"
"I'm not coming," Zuko cut off before his uncle could fill his head with guilty reminiscences. It was bad enough that Iroh always insisted on bringing up past occurrences. It was even worse when he started to talk about Zuko's dead life in the palace.
Iroh carefully hefted a giant konghou, a Chinese harp, away from the pile. He tested it's strings. "Really, I insist that you do come. We have some fresh, riveting new material tonight—"
Zuko's eyebrow twitched for a moment, eyeing his uncle carefully.
"Uncle, if that is a code to say you bought a prostitute—"
Crow feet appeared around Iroh's crinkled eyes. He looked too smug for Zuko to handle, so with a dirty look Zuko turned away from him to stare at the wall. "You are too much, Zuko. I wouldn't dream of doing such a thing."
Zuko was pretty sure that his uncle did more than just dream about such things, but he kept his mouth shut.
"New material or not, there's nothing that could make me come up there." Did his voice sound a little funny? Maybe. After all, for the first time Zuko had actually jumped to a completely perverse conclusion. Iroh was having more of a negative effect on him than he thought…
Oh, screw his Uncle.
Iroh smiled. "Oh, I could think of a few things that would."
Zuko frowned in return. "And what would those be?"
"A captured Avatar? With his friends? Or perhaps the Avatar all tied up, hanging from his—"
"Not working, Uncle."
They had docked in a village a few nights before to get refueled and restocked. The Avatar was supposedly staying in the village too. It was ironic that they had yet to meet up, and even more ironic that even with this knowledge Zuko had made no move as of yet to capture Aang. Truth be told, he had been delaying such actions; he was damned tired and he felt thirty years older than he really was. It was nice, for once, to just have to think about whether to sleep in black or red pants instead of calculating how to capture a bald airbender. And he'd be damned if he let his uncle bait him with false Avatar claims now, of all times.
"Well, how about a special visitor, say, Jun—"
"I'd rather cut off my leg," Zuko deadpanned. Just thoughts of the black haired, purple-lipped woman made him want to tear his skin off. He swore, if he ever had to come within a few feet of her again…much less hear her prattle about how his waterbender "girlfriend" was just too pretty for him…ugh.
'I wonder what the water peasant is up to now…'
Zuko hoped that his cold tone would turn his uncle off of this subject all together, but unfortunately it just edged him on.
"Do you remember that story I told you about my escapades with that one beautiful water-bender…"
"Uncle." How Iroh managed to turn their conversation to that, he'd never know.
Iroh chuckled at his nephew's tense shoulders. Really, the poor boy got so flustered when it came to talking about such things and he didn't even seem to realize it.
"It was a night like this, I remember precisely—"
"I would rather not hear this—"
Iroh winked at him. "You need to embrace life more. You're so uptight and frustrated."
Zuko gave his uncle a sidelong glance. "What the hell does listening to your sex stories have to do with embracing life?"
If anything, listening to his stories was more like embracing death. Slow, painful, unusually torturous death.
His uncle was trying to turn the situation around and gave him an innocent look. "Who said anything about sex?"
"You did."
"No I didn't."
Zuko threw his hands up in the air. "Well you implied it!" He snarled, his palms heating up. For the love of Agni…
His uncle gave him a sly look. "You know, Zuko, when a man's mind is in the gutter, well, it usually means—"
"Uncle," he quipped sharply. "It means nothing."
And besides, who said his mind was in the gutter? He was as unsoiled and spotless as uh…as the side of his ship.
Which reminded him, they probably needed to get that cleaned…
Lately Zuko had been feeling stressed, agitated, and as if he was missing something, but he didn't think that anybody else had noticed. He went around his daily activities as usual—which at the moment consisted only of sleeping, barking out orders, and pissing—and he completely believed that his crew was none the wiser about their Prince's state. Because really, Zuko was a wreck on the inside. He felt like there was a nasty, gaping crater where his innards should be, and it was all he could do to occasionally belittle his crew members just to help relieve the pressure valve. He felt like he'd been doing a stellar job of covering up his soulless body, but now here his uncle was, insinuating that he was sex deprived!?
Hmph. As if.
Well, sorta.
"—a young boy is like tea—" His uncle was saying.
Everything is like tea to you, uncle.
Zuko nodded his head, listening to how a man needed to be seeped and cared for and then slowly heated to perfection. After that Iroh's descriptions turned for the worse as he started to speak of "drinking the boy", so Zuko decided to tune him out completely.
"So you see—"
"Just keep pulling out those instruments, Uncle," Zuko said. Then the stomped off while Iroh chuckled knowingly.
OooO
"Bleedin' hogmonkies!" Sokka screeched as he threw his hands into the air.
"That was your last try," the vender said with a toothless grin. "Just give up, boy. You're not getting that prize."
Sokka fumed. He quickly dug around in his pouch, trying to grasp onto more coins. To his dismay, his pouch just so happened to be as empty as his stomach.
"Oh, of all the things—" Sokka glanced over to the side, where Katara and Aang had been reduced to sitting on a couple of crates as they waited for him to vent out his feelings with the vender and his carnival games. His eyes particularly zoned in on his sister and her apathetic face. She looked close to falling asleep right there on her ass. And my, my, my, her money pouch looked rather fat and impressionable….
"Katara!" Sokka barked, breaking her out of her stupor. She blushed, quickly wiping away the drool that may or may not have been slipping past her lips out of exhaustion. "Give me your money!"
Katara's expression changed from sleepy befuddlement to anger. She glanced quickly at the sun and the people wandering around the streets. How long had they been there? If Sokka was asking her for money then that meant he must've burned a hole through his own pocket…she glared at him. How dare he spend their precious money on games!
"No," she said sharply. Sokka's mouth dropped in his own response of anger, but Katara was not moved. "No, Sokka! We've been here for probably hours! And we need this money to get food! And feed Appa!" She motioned to the end of the marketplace out toward the forest, where a large bison was laying on his stomach and twiddling his nose hairs and waiting for food. They were all becoming thin and starving, and here her brother was, trying to get some stupid romantic potion or whatever it was.
It attracts all the ladies. Yeah right. He couldn't even get Momo to kiss him.
"Katara," he said, as if getting this potion with unknown and possibly hazardous side effects was the most logical thing in the world. "I need this potion." He looked her up and down with a critical eye then, as if he was contemplating something. "You probably need it too."
Aang had just fallen asleep on her shoulder and was making snoring, snorting noises into her ear. "What's that supposed to mean?" she hissed indignantly, trying to keep her voice down for the young airbender. "I could get a million more guys than you!"
"I'd like to hope so," he snapped back. He glanced back at the vender—damn him—and watched as the man taunted him by counting his barrels of coins right in front of the water warrior. If there was one thing Sokka couldn't stand, it was being taunted. And Katara knew that too.
Sokka, his future love life balancing on this, quickly knelt in front of his sister. Time to pull out the puppy dog eyes.
"Please, Katara." His eyes were two deep blue oceans about to burst. "This potion gives the wearer an alluring scent that barely any human can resist. Don't you want to try it, for once?" And then the low blow. "Aren't you tired of attracting guys like Jet?"
"I'm not going to wear something that's going to make me smell like a porcu-skunk," Katara said evasively, but Sokka knew her better than that. He could see her waning. And he definitely saw her flinch at the name of Jet. He should've known that bringing up the old scoundrel would open up some sort of floodgate.
Katara's face was a look of indecision. Inside Sokka cheered.
Man, was his sister a sap.
Sad, she'd probably be used and tricked her whole life…
"You might even meet that 'powerful bender' that that batty old fortune teller told you about," he wheedled, remember how his sister wouldn't shut up about that for three days straight. And if there was one thing that Katara was, it was a hopeless romantic.
Instantly he saw something change in her eyes. She let out a deep sigh, recognizing her own defeat. She knew that her brother was playing her and that her money would be down the drain in a matter of minutes, but something kept her from refusing. Maybe it was Sokka's provocative words. Or maybe Katara really wanted to meet someone that mattered for once, even if it was a fake relationship brought on by a potion.
"I hate you," she said halfheartedly as she handed him a few coins.
"Sah-weet!" Sokka hollered as he latched onto the money. Aang was not ruffled from his slumber even by his outburst. "Don't worry sis, I'm going to get that potion for m—uh, you and me!" He winked at her.
Katara sighed.
"That's what I'm worried about," she muttered.
OooO
Zuko lay in his bed, slipping in and out of coherency. His body was tired, his brain was tired, the goddamn hairs in his topknot were tired. And yet he stayed awake, alert, bothered by all the aggravating thoughts in his mind.
If someone had given him some sleeping potion to knock the lights out of him, he would've gladly accepted it. If somebody had offered him a way to shut his uncle up and perhaps dump all of his precious tea into a flaming lava pit, he'd probably take that too. Thanks to his uncle's insinuations, Zuko was bordering on insomnia. Even a fully rested Zuko was a cranky one. A Zuko with little or no sleep was a hell to behold.
To make matters worse, Zuko knew for a fact that every ten minutes or so a crew member would walk up to his door, pause for nearly five minutes, and then go shambling away. He didn't know whether this was at the request of his uncle or if they were just doing this for their own damn amusement, but after the fifth time Zuko didn't give a flying bat shit. It took slightly longer for the sixth man to come around, but by that time Zuko was ready for him.
Zuko clenched his fist around his doorknob and flung it wide open. There stood one of his inferiors, his fist raised as if about to knock and his face a mirror of terror. Obviously they had drawn straws for this, with the first man to go being the luckiest. Everyone knew that after about the third time their Prince would get ticked off and look for some retribution.
"The hell do you want?" Zuko snarled at him, his whole body heating up. One of his hands was resting on the side of the metal wall, and the crewmate watched nervously as the metal beneath his hands slowly but surely began to melt. He couldn't help but be almost entranced by it….but he must've taken too long to answer, because suddenly Zuko's red-hot hand curled into a fist, effectively distorting the metal into a twisted heap.
"Why the fuck do you keep coming to my door?"
The crewmate shyly put his hands behind his back. "W-well, your highness, t-technically it wasn't me the past—"
"What?" Zuko intervened. "What, for the past five fucking times?"
Now the crewmate looked sheepish. Zuko hated that look. Absolutely despised it. And he didn't know whether it was because of his uncle's comments or because of all the stress that had been building up over days, but suddenly he wanted to fry this man's head like a broiled egg.
"Don't look at me like that," Zuko roared. "You fuckin—"
"Zuko!" Iroh was walking slowly down the hallway, his hands tucked in his sleeves. "My boy, do not be angry with Kaj. Or Lee. Or Muro—"
Zuko turned suddenly on his uncle. Good thing for Kaj, too, because there was already a rather large puddle of silver door metal at Prince Zuko's feet.
"Uncle! Why did you send them down here!?" Zuko felt like hurling a barrage of insults and cusses at his uncle, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He didn't want to sever his ties with probably the only person that cared about him; that, and he was pretty sure Iroh could kick his ass.
"Look at you, Prince Zuko," Iroh said instead. "You look so pale. You need to get out once and a while." He sighed. "I thought that maybe if I sent a few men to come and lure you out it would be all right." He glanced at Kaj. "But apparently none of them worked up the courage to actually knock on your door."
Zuko breathed deeply and steam bellowed out his nose. His golden eyes were ablaze with irritation. Iroh did not fret though, for he knew this was all a pretense. Not maybe people knew it, but Zuko was a big fat marshmallow. He just acted arrogantly because of what his father did to him. Really though, Zuko was just a regular guy…sort of.
"Come Zuko," Iroh said, placing a hand on Zuko's shoulder. It was stiff and hotter than normal, but Zuko didn't shrug him off.
"I'm only doing this so you'll leave me alone," Zuko warned.
Iroh waggled his eyebrows at him. "That's what they all say…"
OooO
Katara sat sullenly at the dinner table, shoving her food this way and that on her plate. Sokka sat next to her, laughing obnoxiously and smelling like a tub of perfume. Sokka was flanked by two girls who were giggling airily at every word he said. Katara pointedly ignored them.
Aang sat on her other side, happily popping some cheesy-looking balls into his mouth. If there was, at any point, a time when he futilely tried to get her attention and maybe get her to smile at him…well, she didn't notice. She was too busy being pissed off at her brother to notice anything, really.
They had been lucky that the village folk were kind enough to accommodate the Avatar and his friends. If it wasn't for their graciousness, they would be out begging on the street; worse, stealing. And even though Sokka had apologized numerous times for taking all of her money before finally securing his prize, she was keen on staying upset. She couldn't get over the fact that he was willing to risk all their change for some dumb, worthless love potion.
Was she bitter? Of course not. And yet Katara couldn't help but notice how her mood took a turn for the worst when Sokka started to act all lovey-dovey with a woman. Even when Aang got his share of tween stalkers she couldn't help but feel envious and irate. Maybe it was that she was too overprotective of the men in her life to admit it. Or maybe she was just jealous because somehow she knew she'd only be, forever and always, a jerk magnet.
Katara glanced at the girl sitting beside her. She had hair like a horse and a demeanor that implied she cared more about the head between Sokka's legs rather than the one on his shoulders. When Katara leaned back to get a look at the other girl, she got an eyeful of balefully puckered lips and more cleavage than she was use to. Katara sighed, realizing that if Sokka had randomly picked up two tramps off the side of the road, she wouldn't have been able to tell the difference.
Sokka had left the potion bottle carelessly out in the open, and Katara couldn't help feel indignant for the way he treated it. The potion was the reason they were nearly broke, after all, and even if she hated it, he could at least treat his 'investment' with more respect.
As she stared at the bottle on the table, contemplating whether to put it in her pouch or chuck it out the window, Katara became aware of the potion. The potion seemed to have a way with playing with her mind, because the purple depths suddenly had her imagining men who desired her, men who wanted to give her the world, men who wanted to ravage her on the spot—
"That potion works well," Aang commented beside her. She snapped abruptly out of her reverie.
"Not you too, Aang," she groaned. She turned to him fully and put a finger in the air. "You listen. Those girls aren't real." Aang gave her a skeptical look. "Whaddaya mean?" he queried.
"They're trollops."
"Fish?"
"What? No!" Katara glanced around the room, as if there were a translator waiting to jump in. She sighed and finally leaned in closer to Aang, and whispered, "They're sluts."
Aang's mouth hung open for a second. Then he flushed a deep mahogany. He blubbered incomprehensibly.
"Katara, you—"
For some reason, on that night, his naivety irritated her beyond all reason. It was if, for the first time, she was realizing that Aang was just a twelve year old boy. Not just that, but also that she needed some female companions. She was a growing teen, after all, and she couldn't even mention her monthly cycle without both Sokka and Aang turning useless and bumbling. If she couldn't even say slut without getting an awkward stare…well obviously she needed to find more mature company.
On a whim, Katara suddenly grabbed the potion, deciding that she wasn't going to let their money go to waste. She was sloshing it around when Sokka's hand shot out to her wrist, painful and vice-like.
"Cut that out!"
"I'm not doing anything wrong."
'You're going to throw it out, aren't you?" The potion seemed to have escalated his emotions, and he was speaking in an intensely passionate voice. Of course, that also meant that he was much more volatile.
"No! You said it was for the both of us—"
'Well I changed my mind!"
A timid voice broke them up. "Hey, guys, you should stop fighting. You'll make a scene. Besides, Katara wasn't doing anything wrong…" Aang put his hands up in a placating manner, acting as the ever-present mediator between the two.
Sokka frowned at Katara, but listened to Aang's words. He let go of her wrist with a huff. "Fine, "he muttered, turning back to his female "friends". "Have it your way."
"I will," Katara said, impulsively feeling like she had to have the last word in. Sokka didn't respond by making it clear that he was immersed with the girls.
Well, that was fine with her. Her brother could be such a prick sometimes.
"Thanks Aang," she said blankly, her mind still resting on the potion and how she suddenly hated its purpley, sloshy guts.
"Anytime," Aang said sincerely, beaming at her. She gave him a brief smile, so fast that he almost missed it. Then she returned to flicking around her food, oblivious to the boy desperately trying to win her over.
Meanwhile Katara was thinking about the potion. She had vehemently denied using it, but the temptation of just trying it was hard to ignore. What was the worst that could happen? Sokka didn't smell bad, just fruity. So far, he hadn't shown signs of an adverse rash or (relative) insanity either. The only thing that had changed was that suddenly he was bagging the most beautiful (or the easiest, Katara wasn't sure how to classify those girls) females in town like it was nothing.
She quickly flicked her eyes up, scanning the crowd for a boy. There was one a few feet away from her, quietly eating a salad and smiling genially at his parents. Nice enough, right? Katara tried to imagine herself with him like how Sokka was with the girls (minus the sluttiness). He'd smile at her with a gorgeous grin, ask her every few minutes if she was enjoying the food, and maybe even kiss her at the end of the night.
The image was enough to nearly make Katara relent and make up with Sokka. She was stubborn though, and she didn't want to directly apologize to get what she wanted. She didn't want to just grab the potion again either and risk another argument. She thought about it for a few seconds, but came up with nothing.
I'm a hopeless coward. She sighed and returned to her food. She had her fork halfway to her mouth when she heard her brother say rather loudly, "The only guys you could ever attract are dicks anyways, so there's no point in trying to use it."
She sputtered and her food flew out of her mouth. Hey! Never mind that it was probably true—he had absolutely no right saying that out loud! And they had already called a "truce"!
Aang had his hands up in a placating manner and he was saying something but Katara wasn't listening.
Next to Sokka the female was giggling as if he'd just uttered some insanely hilarious joke.
She was angry at her brother but she knew that if she began to argue with him it would be a never-ending feud. He was partially intoxicated and she didn't want Aang to witness her mutilating her brother. So she did the only thing that she could.
She made a sudden grab for his potion, with the intention of chucking it over the closest cliff. Even a little hazy, Sokka quickly caught onto the glint in her eye and resisted. The siblings soon found themselves in a wrestling match for the bottle, with Sokka's hand clawing at her shoulder and Katara's foot nearly into his mouth. Aang was yelling in the background. For some reason Katara believed that Sokka's girls were cheering.
Their struggles had made the potion swig violently in its jar, and Katara began to notice.
"Sokka—" she tried to cry, but his elbow was about to hit her face and she had to shift out of the way to avoid it. He didn't hear or acknowledge her.
Her eyes widened as Sokka gave a sharp jolt toward her and suddenly the bottle tipped toward her face. Everything seemed to slow down as the potion slid out of the bottle.
The feeling of the cold liquid all over her clothes and face was immediate. She gave a cry as a pungent, fruity smell filled her nostrils. All of a sudden the bottle was empty and the potion was all over her.
"SOKKA!" She screeched.
Sokka looked just as upset. He looked at her with an accusatory stare. "You wasted it!" he cried.
"Me!?" she snapped back. "You!" She shoved her finger into his face. "This is all your fault!"
The smell was quickly getting into her brain and it was becoming harder and harder for her to think straight. The potion was slowly cornering her reason and locking it up in a small, dark cage. And unfortunately, it seemed that logic wasn't going to be coming back for a while…
Aang was tugging on her sleeve, talking to her, but he seemed far away. She waved him off.
She needed air. She needed to breathe. She felt like she was frickin' suffocating.
She got up without another word and picked her way across the bodies sprawled on pillows on the floor or milling around the food tables. The air outside was warm but not muggy. They were close to the equator and even though she wasn't normally use to the heat, for once she was grateful for it this night.
Thankfully Sokka didn't follow her. She didn't know how much she would have emasculated him if he had.
Laughter and chatter and warmth were behind her in the hall and in front of her sprawled a huge dark forest. Somewhere among the leaning trunks she saw the glitter of water. A river.
It was so much more tempting to lose herself in a strange environment than go back into the house and face the accusations of her brother and the laughter of those infuriating hoochies. And at least if there was a river she'd have a chance to shed her clothes and attempt to get some of the smell off of her.
So off she went, wandering into the forest…
OooO
Some way or another Zuko ended up drinking some of his uncle's tea.
Zuko barely ever drank tea—it was a girly drink, after all—so when he first sipped it and was hit with a strong, bitter taste, he didn't think much of it. It wasn't until the outline of his uncle's body started to grow hazy that he began to slowly realize that maybe his uncle had slipped a little rum in. On accident, of course.
Suddenly he didn't remember much of what he had said to his uncle prior to the drink. He recalled some small talk about the Avatar and more of Iroh's babbling about Jun, but aside from that there was a fuzzy hole in his memory.
Zuko put his hand on the low table in front of him, needing to feel something solid and real. He felt like he was losing his mind and it was making him utterly open—and if there was one thing that Prince Zuko hated, it was being put in a state of vulnerability.
Iroh was patting him on the back and Zuko shouldered him away. Zuko just wanted to get back to bed. Zuko unfolded his legs and shot up. He stood up too quickly, too suddenly though, and his eyes watered. Holy hell, the whole world was turning upside down.
"Yo majezty, yu shud reallie shit down," the men told him, even more hammered than he was. He groaned, wanting to smack them, to smash their fucking skulls in at the moment, but he was too busy trying to keep his wits about him.
He managed to stay upright after Iroh stood to hold him by the elbow. Zuko nodded to him after a minute or so, telling him vaguely that he was going to take a walk. Sleep was weighing heavily on his mind, but he feared barfing all over his sheets if he didn't clear his head and stretch out his muscles first.
"All right," Iroh said uncertainly. Zuko wavered a bit. Maybe he had given him a little too much rum. He was only attempting to get his uptight nephew to have fun and enjoy the night, but apparently Zuko had an extremely low tolerance for alcohol. Only a small cup and Zuko was practically reeling.
The prince walked off the ship without falling on his ass, his uncle's warning of not to wander too far echoing in the background. Not many people filled the streets, which was probably good since Zuko was feeling a little too antagonistic at the moment. Instead he opted for the forest, a dark deserted haven where he could wander for a while and maybe even dunk his brain in some water. It was much needed—the rum made him feel absolutely fried.
Also, there was an intoxicating scent floating from the forest that had nothing to do with the alcohol. It more than piqued Zuko's curiosity…
'The hell am I thinking'. The only thing that ruled Zuko was his mind, much less his nose. He glanced up at the sky. Curiosity be damned…if he wandered too far, in his state, he might never make it back to the ship in one piece.
So he set the alluring scent aside, but still…he needed to find some water. He was parched.
OooO
Katara's eyes darted around nervously. Someone was clomping loudly through the forest, and it sounded as if they were coming closer. Katara wasn't seriously alarmed (no one dangerous could ever walk that drunkenly, she thought), but still, with her current state, she was rather uncomfortable with any sort of confrontation.
Unless it was her brother coming out to look for her, of course. Then her "state" be damned, she'd give him one good whipping.
'You'd like that, wouldn't you?' The potion had developed it's own voice through her subconscious. She groaned and ignored it.
She had her arm slung across her bare chest, the rest of her body submerged in the water. She was completely submerged in her element and it was nighttime, so she doubted she'd be caught at a disadvantage, but still…she was naked. And as the wanderer started to make more noise and crash around even more riotously, Katara became more and more convinced that it was not her brother, but a complete stranger.
She silently formed a water whip in her right hand.
OooO
'Oh fuck,' was Zuko's only intelligible thought as he missed the glaring boulder sitting in his path and tripped over it. This started a chain reaction of him tripping and twisting between gnarled tree roots and uneven levels of ground. It ended with a sharp twist of his ankle, and suddenly he found himself face down in the dirt.
"Damnit," he grunted, spitting. To hell with the disgusting town and it's ugly, useless citizens. Once he got the next chance he would rally his fire troops and burn the treacherous forest to the ground. Then he'd take the boulder that originally created his domino effect and hurl it at Avatar's skull.
He sighed, realizing all of his talk was useless if he was drunkenly lying in a forest with no direction of left and right, up and down. His head was spinning and slowly all of his thoughts faded away.
The smell of fruit, sweet and forbidden, still permeated the forest. It seemed the more he fell and tripped around the more powerful it became for him. It was undoubtedly having an effect on his psyche as he entertained dropping everything and pursuing the one thing that smelled mouthwateringly delicious.
It was probably more prudent to stay seated and ride out his nausea, but his throat was growing more painful by the second. And with the added irritation of dirt on his tongue, he really, really wanted water.
That, and he wanted that scent.
Slowly Zuko stood up, leaning heavily on a tree trunk. Then, slowly, he began to pick his way through the forest.
He made little noise.
OooO
All was silent in Katara's little alcove. Whoever had been tramping around in the forest had either left, fallen asleep, or died. In any case, they were not around to see Katara in her state of undress and she was free to continue her bathing.
And she definitely needed a bath. Aside from just being plain filthy from riding on Appa for so long (yes, even bird poop reached her from up there), so had the love potion to rub off of her skin.
The love potion seemed like a hopeless case, though. It wasn't just on her skin; it was in her skin. It had, for she didn't know how long, wound itself into her whole being.
But did it really work? Katara had a hard time believing that. The vendor had boasted that just a tiny drop will get the opposite sex enamored with him/her. So from the dosage that Katara got, and if the vendor was right, she should've been fighting off advances from even her brother. But no such thing happened. Not even Aang had looked a little doe-eyed when she had sprung on Sokka. And definitely no other guy had jumped in to restrain her.
Her theory was practically conclusive now:
Permanent Jerk Magnet.
Maybe if Jet had been there…
'You could do much better than him,' the potion crooned to her. She laughed sarcastically.
She floated around in the water for a moment, and her thoughts became lax. It seemed that the potion took opportunities like that, because suddenly she felt a little restless. Even more noticeable, her modesty had gone for a water break and standing naked suddenly didn't have as much of an effect on her as it should've. It was almost as if…as if she would be caught by the whole fire nation, even, it wouldn't bother her. Somehow, the potion made her feel so incredibly desirable that no one would dare to do anything other to her than—
Her hand had grown lax on her water whip, almost dissolving it completely. So when a figure materialized just beyond the line of bushes in front of her, she was well in for a scare.
The potion released it's grip promptly and she was back on earth, her only thought to extricate the pervert from the midst. How dare they—and with a naked female around, too!
Her whip solidified between her delicate fingers and she lashed it out, elongating it so it reached far enough to get a hold of the figure. She had a secure grip on the person's—and she assumed now it was a man—ankle, and with a flick of her wrist she tossed him forward.
OooO
Zuko honestly thought he was the victim that night. First, his uncle had the gall to intoxicate him with his stupid, piss tea. Then he incurred the wrath of the Boulder and Forest gods and took a large tumble through their even stupider, pissier environment. Then, to top it all off, as he was innocently looking for water, a Waterbender—with an oh-too- familiar looking water whip—latched onto his ankle and dunked him right in.
The impact with the water—a complete belly flop—was so sudden and complete that Zuko's already fuzzy mind went into overload. A bright light flashed in his vision and slowly it became an obsidian black.
He couldn't pull himself out of the water.
"Fuck…"
The last thing he smelled was the fruit.
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For one millisecond she believed that she had just served sound justice to who she believed was a peeping Tom.
Then, in the next second, when she realized that the man lying face down in the water wasn't moving, it dawned on her that if she didn't do something she could possibly be a murderer.
"Hey!" she called out, cautious at first that he was faking it. His body was immobile though, and it was slowly sinking. How long did it take for brain damage to set in?
Forgetting about her lack of clothes, she propelled herself through the water, splashing hurriedly up to his prone body. She got a good hold on his middle and managed to flip him over so that he was on his back and not filling his lungs with water. She thought she deserved a pat on the back for such an act, but one look at his face caused her to scream and let go of the hold she had on the front of his shirt.
It was Zuko. Price Zuko. Mr. I'm-Going-To-Kill-The-World's-Hero-And-Cackle-While-I-Do-It.
His body slid below the surface of the water and for a moment she considered letting him sink to the bottom. It would be easy, like dropping a rock into the ocean. That's all he was really worth to her, wasn't he? Just a rock.
Katara was not a killer though, no matter how passive his death might have been on her part. As much as she hated Zuko, hated him for making her life a living hell, hated him for feeling nervous whenever she saw the spark of fire, she just couldn't bring herself to just let him sink down as if he was nothing.
After all, he was human.
A human that wasn't a too-bad looking teenager either.
Her hand shot out and wrapped itself around his collar, buoying him back up to the surface. His chest and head rose out of the surface, but his arms and legs hung downward like ropes.
She sighed. So much for leaving him for dead.
"Hey," she called for the second time that night to him. She used her other hand to nudge his shoulder, not feeling like she had the liberty to touch his face. When he, again, didn't answer, a small panic reflex was awoken within her. After getting over an initial fear, Katara leaned down and put her ear closely to his mouth.
A small breath fanned across her cheek. No mouth-to-mouth needed, that was for sure…
'Pity'.
Katara pulled him closer, partially out of maternal instincts. She had his back up against her chest, ready to haul him to shore, when she realized that he was pressed against her bare chest, and that if he awoke he would be very aware of that fact.
So with a yelp, she plopped him back down into the water (if not by accident). His lifeless body folded before her, and she had to mentally slap herself before grabbing him again and pulling him back into a half-standing, half crouching position.
She couldn't help but think, what would she have done if the potion had taken control of her again? Would she have leaned into him? She wasn't ready to find that out yet.
As she pulled his body closer to the shore, she began to notice subtle things that she never would've realized before. Like, Zuko's waist was a lot trimmer and harder than she would've originally thought. And that his ponytail smelled like jasmine tea, whether he was aware of that or not. The most mollifying of all though was how Katara noticed that every brush of his clothes against her bare skin caused an electrifying jolt to travel from the point of contact to right between her legs.
A considerable blush was tinting her cheeks now. She suddenly felt awfully perverted and it was all she could do from keeping her mind from straying in the danger zone. This was her enemy after all, and no matter how good his body felt against hers…
A small groan in front of her stilled her movements and she had half a mind to just leave him and run.
"Mmmguhs," he seemed to say. Then he coughed up a handful of water and settled into silence. Katara stilled, careful not to make any movement. Was he delusional? It was possible…she did leave him floating in the water for longer than normal…
He said the unintelligible word again, but by then Katara had already dismissed it. Maybe "mmmguhs" was a person. How would she know? The last thing she needed was getting too involved with the half drowned Prince and getting to know what he was thinking.
But he persisted. "Mangoes," he repeated, slowly, and with conviction. As if something had just dawned on it again, he repeated it.
Katara nearly convinced herself that if she didn't move or talk or breathe, he wouldn't realize she was there and continue to rant about fruits.
I'll just leave him on the shore, she thought. Just lay him next to the lake, get dressed, and leave.
As she was thinking she failed to see that Zuko had regained control of his limbs and was currently inching his right hand to the juncture between her legs.
"EEP!" she squealed when he finally reached his destination. Was he—did he really—oh heavens! He was!
Inside she was more than angry at him. Had he been faking his unconsciousness? Was this how the cruel prince got his rocks off, fingering unsuspecting girls in lakes? Oh, she couldn't even begin to describe how angry she felt…
She swiftly grabbed his hand and pressed it to his own chest, trying to teach him that his hand did not belong there. No sooner had she done that though that his other hand found itself in the same spot, which was feeling surprisingly warm at the moment.
"Zuko!" she hissed. "Keep your hands to—"
Suddenly he pulled away from her, still managing to keep his hand firmly clamped over her private, despite her attempts to wretch it away.
"I don't know why," he began, standing uncomfortably close to her naked form. It was becoming increasingly difficult to cover her breasts and at the same time keep his hands away from her feminine place. "But I want to put my hands all over you."
Maybe because he had just figured out that the smell was coming from her. She was completely drenched in it. And now that he was so close all he wanted to do was to taste the smell.
Katara flushed. Did he…really just say that? Zuko Since when was he such a…Casanova? Of course, Katara didn't know much about him to begin with, but he had never shown any romantic—or sexual—interest in her before.
"I'm sorry," she stuttered, wondering why she was apologizing. He, after all, was the one touching her sex and invading her personal space. "This is really inappro—"
"Why do you smell so good?" he growled, as if trying to figure it out himself. "I can't…what're you doing to me, girl?"
Smell? 'Oh no. Please, I thought I had washed it all off!'
The potion crowed at her. 'You can't get rid of me, sweetie! Not until you fulfill your fantasy…'
Fantasy? What fantasy? Surely it wouldn't be to sleep with Zuko!
But still…the potion worked after all…and now Zuko had one thing on his mind for her.
Katara didn't want to be raped in the forest by her enemy. She didn't—
"Ahh," she said, when Zuko became bolder and started rubbing her…well, the place. "I—" Suddenly the potion overcame her. "Do it some more."
Urgh. She had no control over herself when the potion kicked in. It was affecting both of them.
"You smell like mangoes," he told her. "And I want you."
Katara flushed. How did she get into this situation? All because of a fight with her brother?
She just didn't know what to do…
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Author's Note: Next chapter is all of the dirty good stuff…
