Pairings: Aang x Zuko; Katara x Aang; Mai x Zuko etc.
Warnings: Yaoi. Don't like? Don't read.
Time: 108 ASC
Setting: Fire Nation Palace

KINDLE MY DESIRE

Part I
Incitement

"Toph, would you help me with this?" Zuko said to the earth bender who was leaning against the wall across from him.

A smile graced her lips as she felt him wobbling around on the chair as he tried to pin a banner to the incredibly high ceilings of the Fire Nation event room.

"Sorry, but this is a bachelor party and only guys get to prepare for it." She said with a smirk, not budging from her place.

"Yeah, but you're the only one around and this isn't going to stay up with just glue and thread." Zuko said with a frown.

"Keep trying, sparky." She said and turned away with a laugh.

While Zuko glowered at her from behind, Haru stepped up to him and pulled out two long columns of earth from the ceiling. As they extended down to Zuko, he gratefully attached the banner to it and the earth bender slammed the columns back into the ceiling, so that the banner looked like it was hanging in thin air.

"Tha-" Zuko began but was cut off as Sokka burst into the room, waving a sheaf of parchment in the air, along with a spare bed sheet that looked like it had been massacred.

"Ta Da! I finished the banner." Sokka said proudly as he spread the bed sheet on the floor and stepped back with a flourish.

As the tribesman stared at the bed sheet, he missed Zuko's horrified and Haru's amused expression. The banner, if you could call it that, was painted dark blue around the edges with several stains in the middle as well as a few marks that suggested that someone had run their fingers across the material. To one side were the scrawly words Aang's Bachelor Party! while next to it was painted a beige colored blotch that occupied the bulk of the sheet.

"What on earth is that?" Zuko asked, his eyes wide as he gestured at it.

"That is a woman, of course!" Sokka said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world and Haru, unable to hold it in any longer, burst out laughing.

"What!" Zuko practically yelled in his face and spluttered at Sokka, unable to speak as he stared at it in shock.

Meanwhile, Toph, attracted by the noise had drifted over to them and looked in confusion at the floor. "There's some sort of cloth there. Is that what you're laughing at?"

Teo followed as well and came to a halt beside the banner, his eyebrow furrowed in confusion as he considered the sheet. "Sokka, did you, by any chance, sit in the paint?" He asked innocently and Haru, if anything, laughed even harder, leaning onto Zuko for support.

"You're all idiots. It looks absolutely great!" Sokka said defiantly.

"Yeah, I agree!" Toph piped up and Haru, by now, had tears running down his face.

"Sokka, be reasonable. Aang isn't going to like this, he's a monk!" Zuko said exasperatedly.

"So? He's not that innocent, you know. How do you think he and Katara have lasted for so long?" Sokka asked.

When a silence followed, he exasperatedly burst out with a rather loud "SEX!"

Zuko just stared at Sokka, wearing him down with his intense gaze while Toph snickered behind her hand and Haru laughed boisterously. "Wow." The fire bender simply said as he shook his head.

"Sorry, Snoozles, but you didn't have to work so hard. Sparky already finished the banner." Toph said with a smirk as she gestured in its general direction. Sokka's gaze slid up to the ceiling and his mouth fell open as she stared at the banner. It was pure white with grey trimmings the exact shade of Aang's eyes and in the middle were elegantly painted words, followed by colorful spots all over the remaining background. The tribesman's face fell as he looked at it and Toph sympathetically patted him on the shoulder as she grinned.

However, after a few seconds of staring at it, his gaze snapped back to Zuko and he stared shrewdly at him. "Did you ask one of the workmen to make this for you?" He inquired.

"Of course not." Zuko replied defiantly.

"Then how come it looks so good? You couldn't have written all that without some form of stenciling." Sokka snidely pointed out.

"Well, I don't know about you but almost every child in the Fire Nation is taught calligraphy at school." Zuko said with a smirk.

Sokka reluctantly nodded and then frowning at Zuko, he turned away and bounded out of the room to go complain to Suki.

"Hey, Aang, can I have a word?" Zuko asked as he leaned against the door frame that led into the air bender's room.

Aang, who was lying on the bed with Momo sprawled across his chest, looked up. "Oh, hey, Zuko." He said lightly with a grin. "Yeah, sure." With that, he air bended himself off the bed and in front of Zuko.

The fire bender had only opened his mouth to speak when Katara appeared out of the bathroom, her wet hair clinging to the skin of her neck. Her lips curved into a knowing smile as she saw Zuko and he nodded in acknowledgement, grinning slightly.

He lightly placed his hand on Aang's shoulder and steered him out of the room while letting his gaze run over the air bender's attire once. It would do. After all, knowing Sokka's antics he would most definitely have hired a stripper and so he guessed, Aang's clothes wouldn't be lasting too long, whether the air bender liked it or not.

"Where are we going?" Aang piped up.

"You'll see." He said with a vague smile. "Even though, you should have figured it out by now."

"Hm..." Aang said thoughtfully as his eyes sparkled with anticipation.

"Don't think too hard. You'll find out soon enough." He said with a smirk, just as they arrived at the door that led into the event room. Zuko gently nudged Aang to the front and the air bender tentatively reached up to push the double doors open with his tattooed hands.

At once, the quiet corridor burst into sound as Sokka, Haru and The Duke sprang forward, latching onto Aang's arms as the doors opened and dragging him into the room. Aang's eyes brightened and his mouth curved into a grin as he looked around the room which, while scarcely populated, was considerably noisy and extravagantly decorated.

"Your bachelor party, Aang! All the credit goes to me and Zuko." Sokka said jokingly with a wink, as he pushed a glass into Aang's hand.

Laughing, the air bender raised it to his lips and drained almost half of the contents in one go. However, as the liquid grazed his taste-buds, he blanched, coughing and spluttering as he tried to get the taste out of his mouth. "What the hell is this?" Aang managed to choke out as he looked at the substance in the glass.

"Alcohol." Zuko said with a grin.

"Not just that." Haru said as he and Sokka shared a knowing look. Teo and The Duke grinned widely as they stared avidly at Aang, waiting for the reaction.

"Oh no." Zuko said with a frown as Aang suddenly toppled backwards and fell to the ground with a thump.

Haru and Sokka laughed boisterously while Teo frowned down at the groom-to-be with a calculating look on his face. "See! I told you it would be too much for him. He's a monk, not an alcoholic."

"Yeah, guys, a bachelor party isn't really a bachelor party if the bachelor is out before it even begins." The Duke said with a reasonable shrug.

Zuko scowled deeply as he crouched beside Aang's unconscious figure and shook him a few times. "Nice one, you idiots. Now what do we do?" He snapped angrily.

"Unwind, hotman." Haru said with a grin as he clapped Zuko on the back.

"This is a BACHELOR PARTY! And the bachelor is currently lying on the FLOOR! That would be understandable if we were halfway through the night already but offering him a spiked drink the moment he enters is NOT particularly acceptable." Zuko said, his voice rising with each syllable as he bore down on Sokka and Haru.

The latter looked considerably worried but Sokka merely stepped forward and patted Zuko on the back. "Relax, Zuko." He said as he led him away from the rest. "He will be up before you know it and then we can get down to the real partying. And I mean the real kind. Not the Fire Nation type." He said with a wide grin.

Zuko merely glared at him and seeing his expression, Sokka sighed, solemnity dawning on his face. "Fine, I'm sorry we spiked Aang's drink but you know that he wouldn't have gotten down to any fun if he were sober."

"Yeah, well he is isn't going to get down to any fun now that's he unconscious." Zuko said snidely.

"Understood. It's just that we overestimated Aang's resistance to alcohol just a tad bit." Sokka said as he offered a glass to Zuko, a smile playing on the tribesman's lips. "But I'm sure you can handle it just fine, hotman."

Zuko considered him for a few seconds, a frown curving his lips downwards as he looked disapprovingly at Sokka. The latter smiled innocently at him and with a groan, the fire bender snatched the glass from him, tilted his head backwards and downed the whole drink in one go.

Ignoring the grimace on Zuko's face as he swallowed, Sokka slung his arm over his shoulder and turned to the group with a mischievous grin on his face.

"Now, let's get down to the fun part, shall we?"

The first thing that registered to Aang's mind was the impenetrable darkness pressing on him from all sides. It was frightening, even for him and as he shrank back he pulled the sheets up to his chin, not even thinking of fire bending. It was as he was slowly sliding even farther back that Aang registered an unmistakable source of heat from his left.

As he bumped into something a figure beside him, that he hadn't even noticed before, stirred. Katara! Thank God. He thought gratefully as a tired smile broke out on his face. However, his joy was short lived as the figure suddenly uttered a groan and stirred.

At once, Aang's breath caught in his throat and as he was scrambling away from the person, he realized that he was only wearing a pair of boxers and that the person beside him was most certainly not Katara.

His panic only grew as the figure sat up and latched onto his arm as he almost fell off the bed in his hurry. "God, where are you running off to?" The person murmured tiredly and he couldn't recognize the sleepy slur.

Aang's heart slammed against his chest as the person pulled him back onto the bed and steadied him so that he wouldn't fall off again. There was a moment of silence and then a flame burst into life, illuminating the area around them as well as the person.

What he saw next almost made his heart stop and his breath hitched in his throat. "Aang?" Zuko said hoarsely as he squinted at the air bender, one hand holding up the flame while the other massaged his temples.

"Oh God. Oh God. Oh God." Aang said hurriedly as he scrambled off the bed and as far away from Zuko as possible. "I cheated on Katara. OH GOD!" He practically yelled. "I cheated on Katara. WITH A GUY!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Zuko said tiredly as he sat up, the sheets falling off his chest as he did. "Oh." He muttered and looked up, his eyes widening.

Aang looked ready to yell at him, reprimand him for replying with a measly oh but the air bender seemed to deflate in front of Zuko and sank to the floor, his grey eyes looking fearfully at the wall across from him. "Did you rape me or something?" He asked shakily.

Zuko, despite himself, almost laughed but arranged his expression into that of solemnity as he got out of the bed and pulled on a robe. "No. I don't remember anything." He said with a yawn.

"How can you be so nonchalant about this?" Aang said loudly.

"Because you're simply jumping to conclusions, Aang. I'm sure nothing happened. It was probably just the strippers." He said with a reassuring smile as he handed a scarlet robe to Aang, pushed aside the thick curtains, allowing sunlight to stream in, and crouched down beside him.

"There were strippers?" Aang shrieked. "That's even worse!"

"Oh. So you prefer me over a stripper?" Zuko said with a laugh but stopped as he saw Aang's expression.

"This isn't FUNNY, Zuko!" The air bender said as he pulled on the robe with shaking hands.

The fire bender slung his arm across Aang's shoulder and sat down beside him. "Calm down, Aang." He said with a reassuring smile. "I'll ask Sokka about last night and he can tell us what happened. Is that fine?"

Aang was just about to reply when the scent of fire-lilies suddenly overwhelmed him, the seductive scent rising off Zuko's skin and invading the air bender's nose like a drug. He hesitantly sniffed again and realized that it smelled incredibly familiar. "Aang?" Zuko murmured with raised eyebrows.

The scent coupled with Zuko's voice hit him like a slap in the face and at once, the memories of the night before flooded his mind.

FLASHBACK

Aang felt his head throbbing from the alcohol that Sokka had fed him earlier and he drunkenly leaned on Zuko as the fire bender led him into his room and shut the door behind him. "Just lie down here for a while, okay? I'll get some tea and a healer to look after you." He said, trying to seem responsible even though he was just as drunk as Aang.

He led the air bender to the bed and dropped him onto it before moving to the bedside table and rummaging inside the cabinet for some tea leaves. While he was busy doing that, Aang lost his balance and toppled over the side of the bed and onto the floor. Zuko looked up and hobbled over to the air bender, both laughing wheezily as the fire bender hauled Aang up and dropped him onto the bed.

His foot caught in the bed sheet that was grazing the floor and he fell with a loud thump onto Aang. The air bender gasped as Zuko's full weight slammed into his body and he managed to choke out a rather feeble 'Get off me'.

Zuko rolled off the air bender, chuckling deeply as he buried his face in the crook of Aang's neck. "Aren't you a prude, Aang?" He said, a mischievous smile playing on his lips as he lightly nipped the sensitive skin of Aang's neck.

And then, as Zuko's hands slipped down to the hem of his shirt and his teeth violently bit down on the air bender's neck, Aang gasped for another reason altogether.

FLASHBACK

Aang looked up and his eyes widened in horror as his gaze locked with Zuko's. "What? What is it?" The fire bender asked, somewhat worriedly.

Aang stood up unsteadily and pulling the robe off his body, began to pick up his discarded clothing from the floor. As the air bender began to pull on his shirt and trousers, Zuko stood up, a frown dawning on his face as he saw Aang's pained expression.

"Aang! What's wrong?" The fire bender asked.

He merely shook his head remorsefully and fastening the sash of his air bender attire, he began to pull on his boots. "Aang, what is it? Please, tell me." Zuko said, his unease growing as Aang shot him a hollow look and made his way to the door.

As Aang placed his hand on the doorknob, Zuko grabbed his arm and turned him around to face him. "What is wrong with y-?" He began angrily but was cut off as Aang air bended him across the room so forcefully that his back slammed against the wall.

"I trusted you, Zuko." Aang said shakily; sounding like he was on the verge of tears. He stood there for a few seconds, as if expecting a reply but then, his shoulders slumped and he slipped out of the room, slamming the door shut; leaving Zuko feeling more puzzled than ever and wondering just what he had done wrong.

Well, this is my first attempt at writing any major Avatar: TLA characters so I hope they didn't turn out too OOC. If they did, constructive criticism is totally welcome.

This story takes place eight years after the end of the show so:
Aang and Toph are 20; Zuko is 24; Katara, Ty Lee and Azula are 22; Sokka, Suki and Mai are 23; The Duke is 16; Teo is 21 and we'll suppose that Haru is 23.

-Jade258