"I'm pregnant."
Kya's humor often left a lot to be desired in Lin's opinion.
It certainly wasn't what Lin was expecting to hear, but then she also hadn't been expecting to see Kya standing outside her door tonight.
"Damn," Lin preened. "I knew I was good, but-"
"Shut up and make me some tea."
The waterbender pushed past her, tossing her bag carelessly down in the middle of the floor before flopping onto Lin's sofa.
Lin's green eyes went wide.
"Wait. You're serious?"
Lin made fresh tea on autopilot.
"Right," Kya began. "Standard list of questions."
Before Lin could respond, Kya started to rant.
"'Did you plan this?' No. 'Who's the father?' Not sure. Though I could narrow it to two or three."
Lin's eyebrow rose of its own accord.
"And my favorite, 'What if it's an airbender?!" she mocked, faux grin quickly collapsing into a frown. "Not likely."
"What do you-"
"Plan to do now?" Kya shrugged and finally took the cup of tea from Lin, sinking back on the sofa.
Lin sat beside her, drawing her knees up to her chest, staring at her friend.
"Two or three?" she finally teased.
Kya smiled over the lip of the cup. "I spent the summer at a sand-bender commune."
As if that were the most natural of explanations, Lin thought to herself. Only Kya.
"Mom wasn't thrilled with that part."
"Toph would probably be proud."
But whatever the waterbending master might have said, Lin knew she must be secretly thrilled with the news of a new grandchild—no matter its origins. The time surrounding Jinora's birth wasn't something Lin particularly liked to dwell on but she had never seen Aunt Katara happier than when she was showing off her new granddaughter.
Kya stepped out of the bath to find the bedroom disappointingly empty.
She found Lin back in the living room, uniform shed and no doubt meticulously put away for the night, tugging the end of a quilt down the length of the couch.
"What're you doing?" she asked from the doorway.
Lin glanced over her shoulder then smoothed out the last lump in the quilt. "Fixing up the couch."
That, Kya could obviously see. But more importantly, as Lin had leaned over the couch, she had also seen the way Lin's pants had clung to her well-toned ass, which was, in Kya's opinion, the best thing Lin had inherited from Aunt Toph. She hadn't planned on either of them sleeping on the couch tonight.
"Why?"
"So you can have the bed," Lin explained, nodding towards the bedroom. Surely Kya didn't think she was going to make her sleep on the couch.
"We usually share."
And while that was generally true—and Kya did look tempting, standing there in nothing but a towel, dripping all over her floor—Lin couldn't help but say: "You're pregnant."
Kya's lips parted.
She considered her response carefully.
"And that . . . repulses you?"
"No, of course not," Lin stammered.
Kya smirked.
She dropped the towel and rested one hand on her hip in challenge.
"Why don't you come make sure?"
"You don't look pregnant."
"Give it a few weeks."
"That one's new."
"Training accident—and it's the only one."
"But you know how I like to play Spot Lin's New Scars."
"Pervert."
"Prude."
"Get in my bed."
"Mmmm—"
A calloused hand squeezed her breast, thumb nail blinding scratching along the areola and raising gooseflesh across her chest. Lin's teeth closed around the tip of the other, dragging across her nipple until it slipped from her mouth then pulled it greedily back again.
"Ahh!" Kya's hand tangled in Lin's hair. "Go easy on those, Chief."
Now that they were under her hands, her mouth, Lin could feel the difference, a subtle change in their weight.
She tore her mouth away from a dusky nipple just long enough to share her observation, "They're swollen."
"They're sore."
"A shame."
And just like that the lips were gone, the hands too.
"Hey," Kya whined. The slick trails Lin's mouth had left were quickly cooling in the air. "Didn't say you had to stop."
Lin shook her head and moved lower.
Her hands spread Kya's thighs wider; she grinned as Kya instinctively tilted her hips upwards to give her better access.
Lin dipped her head and lathed her tongue across Kya's wet folds, would have sworn she could taste the heat radiating from them.
"Not the only thing swollen," Lin mumbled against Kya's inner thigh. "Want me to take it easy down here too?"
"Don't you dare."