Disclaimer: I don't own anything recognizable.
A/N: Lol this sucks. Just pretend that this is an AU where everyone is an unhappy person. That's what I did. And please review, thanks. (:
Like Pretty Girls Need Cowboys
Sometimes he traces whole oceans of fire over her skin.
It's always right after they make love, he drags his fingers over her skin, tracing the soft curves of waves all over the back, the inside of her thigh, on her shoulder. His touch burns her skin, and more than once she has looked down expecting to find smoke, only to see his pale skin contrasting with her darker hue.
She lets him do this for a long time, sometimes, but most of the time she gets up, ties her blue robes around herself (she always realizes how out of place the blue is, in the middle of the red of his chambers and his home) and smiles at him. The oceans linger, always, but she learns to ignore them and to thread her fingers in between ones stained with blue instead.
.x.
She feels his eyes trained on her, but when she glances over at him he's always talking to another pretty girl. He's single-again-which means that the women of "fine, Fire Nation blood," are just waiting for a chance with him. It makes Katara's blood boil, but she smiles and pretends that she doesn't mind. That she doesn't care that those women, girls some of them, only want Zuko because of the hairpiece on his head.
They don't know what it is like to hate him, they've never seen Zuko at his worse, like she has. They've never been with him, trapped underground and without hope. They've never been betrayed by him, only for him to turn right back around and make himself forgivable.
She turns her head and pretends not to care. So it's kind of funny when a blind person notices what Aang chooses to ignore, or is completely oblivious to. If he knows her half as well as he claims that he does, then he would realize that something was wrong.
"Katara?" Toph asks, something like concern coloring her tone. If Toph was anyone else, that concern might be real, but Toph has spent so much time lately pretending not to care-the parties bore her, politics bore her, she hates everything to do with being a Bei Fong, and yet that's the one thing that she can't get away from-Katara might know that she actually cares. "Are you okay? Your heart is racing very fast."
Silently Katara marvels at how honed in Toph's skills are. Even in the middle of all these people Toph can still focus on her friends. "Of course," Katara replies brightly, too much cheer in her tone. The fact that she's trying not to grit her teeth kind of ruins the affect that she was aiming for, but it's good enough. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"Who knows? Half the people here are lying to themselves anyway," Toph says before gliding away. No matter how hard she tries, there are some things that not even Toph can forget when it comes to things like this.
.x.
"Stay," Zuko pleads with her. He always tells her this after, but she never does. She can't.
Her skin is humming, full of the oceans that he's put there, but she doesn't even notice. "I can't. You know I can't."
Zuko makes a half roar and half groaning sound, lighting one of his pillows on fire in frustration. "Why not? Aang's leaving tomorrow anyway. Just… don't go with him. Stay here. Call it a political movie, call it hot chips, call it whatever you want. Just… stay."
He looks so broken and sad that Katara reaches out to touch his face. "I can't. I just can't be the girl that breaks the Avatar's heart."
"Oh, so you can be the girl that breaks the Fire Lord's heart, then?" Zuko asks her, and if his voice wasn't drowning in rage Katara might have smiled.
"Yes. I can," Katara tells him shortly, and for a moment the two stare at each other, as if daring the other to give in. There's that spark of… something between them that's always been there and, Katara fears, always will be.
They never wanted it to be there, that spark. But sometimes the smallest spark can turn into a fire, and that's just something that you can't control. They both know this, learned it the hard way.
"Just leave then," Zuko yells then. He's trying to cover up his hurt with anger, and Katara knows that better than anyone.
"I will," she retorts, and slams the door behind her. She doesn't care who wakes up and sees her, not now.
.x.
The next morning at sunrise, which was when Aang wanted to depart, Zuko says the right things, hugs Aang right before he hugs Katara. The hug is all business, no affection there. Katara pretends that it doesn't hurt, that she doesn't care that Zuko is still angry with her, even though it will be months before he sees her again.
"I'm kind of glad to be going," Aang tells Katara as he smiles at her. She smiles back automatically. Aang's optimism and happiness are always contagious. It's one of the things that Katara likes about him. "Aren't you?"
"Definitely," Katara says, looking anywhere but at the people that they're leaving behind.
And when Appa rises off the ground Toph's voice echoes in her mind. Half the people here are lying to themselves.
Katara knows that it's true.