Candlelight
Zuko had never really thought of candlelight as romantic. To him it was just a way to help him train, to see. Until he saw her in candlelight. Then he knew candlelight would never be the same to him again.
The way candlelight fell across Katara's face was different from the way the bonfire and his firebending lit it. The candles were softer, gentler. They were dimmer too. They left more to the imagination. And Zuko found he remembered a lot more about the waterbender's face then he would have thought before then.
In fact, he could remember everything about her face from the way her blue eyes sparkled to the way her lips twitched into a smirk. The minutest details were somehow engraved in his memories.
Even odder was the way his stomach sort of clenched when he thought about Katara in candlelight. The way he could feel his temperature ratchet up a few degrees as if he was on fire. He couldn't stop staring at her, and the more he stared at her, the more his thoughts flicked to what it would be like to kiss those lips. But his thoughts didn't stop there. They seemed to snowball beyond his control taking him to a bedroom, to a couple in bed.
"Zuko!" Katara's voice interrupted his boudoir fantasy.
"What? I was not picturing you naked!" he snapped.
Which only caused Katara to blink at him, those sapphire eyes wide in shock.
"I wasn't asking about that. I was asking you to pass the salt," she said at last.
The rest of the Gaang stared at Zuko as he handed her the salt.
"What goes on in that mind of yours, Sparky?" Toph sighed.
"That's really gross at the dinner table," Aang stated.
"You pervert! How dare you fantasize about my little sister!" Sokka fumed.
"I wasn't!" Zuko denied.
"You just confessed to it, though."
"I….Hey look, Momo!"
The Fire Lord ran out of the dining room then.
Zuko was waiting when Katara came back to her room.
"Zuko," the waterbender said, obviously astonished.
Of course, they were in candlelight again. And she was breathtaking tonight, in an Earth Kingdom style kimono in a shade that matched her eyes perfectly.
"Hey. About dinner, I'm sorry, I was just…" he trailed off, absorbed in studying her gorgeous face.
"You were just what, Zuko?" she prompted. Her voice was soft, and he felt his heart leap at the sound.
"I was just doing exactly what I'm doing right now," he said, leaning toward her. He saw her eyelashes lower for a brief moment before he kissed her.
In that moment, for the first time in the young Fire Lord's life, he thought candlelight was romantic. The way it made her look soft and gentle. The way it gave him the guts to kiss her, feel those lips.
The End
A/N: Woot! I finally decided to post it as is. And I love a fantasizing Zuko. So much fun. Anywho. Yeah. This was inspired by the song "I Melt" by Rascal Flatts. So feel free to listen to it while reading this. But when I say inspired, what I mean is the song made the idea of Zuko admitting his feelings for Katara because of candlelight.
And I guess I sorta made Kataang never happen in this one. Everybody except for Zuko and Katara have purely platonic feelings for everyone else.