Give me your hands if we be friends

Summary: Kataang, OneShot, Prose. "Maybe one day she would wake up enveloped in the fabric of his clothes." Rated M.

A/N: Some of you (hopefully all of you) may have recognized the title as Puck's closing lines for Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream." It basically means, "Give us an applause if you liked us."

This is rather dirty and I apologize!

But not really. 'Cause you'll like it.

-scorpiaux


Dreams.

Maybe one day she would wake up enveloped in the fabric of his clothes:

pouting with the realization that his smell has poured all over her—into her hair, over the prickles of her skin, across her chest, between her legs. She will wake up wet with the exhilaration of having him that close, with some undefinable facial expression—kissing him—or making love to him again, to make the confusion settle like slabs of sea salt.

He will mumble words of love; she will pick them like cherries and hide them in the excesses of her body, and they will swim together through the clouds of milk that Katara has already swallowed in the past; each cloud is something Aang said. Something he promised.

She will ask him to laugh so that his laughter will rumble the sky, and she will be the only witness of it—the most powerful being in the world, above her, laughing.

The maniacal element of it all arouses her.

Realities.

They are too stiff around one another and also a little loose—sometimes she will laugh too loudly—he has groped her left breast by accident, reaching for Appa's reigns. Maybe it was an accident, maybe not. But she felt his hand and how warm it was through the fabric and then the maniacal element of it rose like smoke and ash from a combustion of manners.

She wanted him to touch her again but didn't want him to know that she wanted it.

And the erection in his pants—while it wasn't there now, but certainly would be there one day—she wanted that too. She wanted his facial expression when she ran her fingers across the lower half of his stomach. All of it.

Katara tells herself it is the heat of the summer. Sleeping outside in this heat with nothing but a tent between her and Aang—and the blaring sunlight of the day. Yes. It is the weather. Otherwise she wouldn't be thinking of him this way. She would not be contemplating the taste of their sex.

They are friends.

Wishes.

Once next to a well they both threw a coin in, and after she threw hers she reached for his hand—next to his side—and slid her hand in it, and leaned against him. The water vapor from around the well made the scent of her hair fill him. He smiled without meaning to.

The well was in the middle of an abandoned courtyard. There was no water in it, and no one around in the villages—as a proof of drought, and the insane heat that evaporated like explosions from the ground—rose in the soles of Katara's shoes and Aang's boots and sank in their hearts, shook their rib cages and made their desires tremble.

She didn't notice it at first and then it grew—the friendship-hand-gesture—he moved his fingers across her palm, and then when she turned to him he smashed his lips against her mouth and closed his eyes. There were sweat droplets, like cherries, along his brow, and when he leaned into her they fell into her face and on her cheeks. And though she had imagined this a thousand different ways, she couldn't accept the fact that it was happening, even though it was.

Katara told herself this was a dream, and that everything is permissible in dreams. It was because it was permissible. Yes—allowed.

Again she blamed the weather.

When her hands reached around his neck, he pulled his arms behind her, to her back, and held her there, and it was too warm to be standing that close or kissing this deeply. His tongue was warm from the anxious heat of the day and her tongue was cold from the nervousness he had been giving her—if only he knew how many times a day she imagined him between her legs. Aang. If he knew, he would laugh and the skies would quake.

He would say he had imagined the same thing too, between her legs, on top of her, to the side, wherever and whenever and whatever it was. But he is realistic and he knows this is reality, and he loves it. He has shoved her near the dry well, with her back to it—he works the fastenings of her kimono. It is a crude dash to see who will undress the other first—yes! It is too hot.

It is only a wish to be cooler. And they are just friends.

The sky is too dark to see the details of her breasts—his skin is on end and she spreads her open palm against his chest and knees his groin and pulls back gently and looks to the heavens. This is still a dream. With their legs entangled in this way, and with Katara's kimono open entirely from the front, and his pants down, and their minds drunk with the musings of the hour—

Sea salt. Katara paints a solid outline behind her eyelids as he figures out his own anatomy, and what exactly is supposed to happen now that they have gotten this far. There are no words; it is a riot of quiet that kisses them both. His hands are sweating—from the heat.

This is still a dream. His fingers are cold from the sweat and they clench each end of her backside and that is enough to bring her to him again—she kisses his face—moves her tongue against the flex of his neck—bites him—is amazed that still nothing has happened yet that she would regret nine months from now.

"Give me your hands," he says, but he is still holding her from the back and he murmurs this into her mouth and she doesn't understand at first. How can she hold his hands when he is holding her?

The dreams rush in—the exhilaration. The taste of their sex. Sea salt and confusion and dream clouds made of milk. She doesn't know what she's doing—somehow in the confusion she realizes that he wants her to take hold of the piece of male anatomy that has made itself noticeable. It pokes uneasily from his underpants and hits her thigh, surprisingly rough—when he moves it rubs against the kimono sash.

For some reason Katara finds the whole situation endless and doesn't do what she's told. Instead she removes the final pieces of her bindings and stands naked for him—back arched against the well, the kimono open like a robe, and her shoes. Nothing else. She removes his underpants and he groans restlessly and tries to figure out the mechanics of everything again. His fingers are still sweating when he traces up her thigh.

The moment of impact explodes like a sand storm and leaves Katara and Aang gasping in the aftermath.

There was a voice in the back of the healer's skull that continued to scream excuses: it was the weather—the sun that led to desire such as this—it was Aang's fault—it was her fault—all of it...it was too bad that it had been so good. Good God.

And they're still friends, the voice says.

Katara doesn't believe a word of it.