A/N: OMGOMGOMG. I loved The Western Air Temple. It was…perfect. And the Zutara tension is just awesome. This is why I am a Zutara shipper—it's tense, it's complex, it's epic! It's dark and angsty and so amazingly intricate. But heck, I don't need to judge myself.
Beware of spoilers, some foul language, a tiny bit of blood, and some intense emotional situations. Man, I'm proud of this piece. You're gonna like it.
Disclaimer: Avatar isn't mine. Wah.
Open Wounds
A Zutara One-Shot
Katara is selfish in her hatred.
She thinks to herself that she hates Zuko on behalf of her family, on behalf of Sokka and Toph and Momo and Appa and…Aang. No one is willing to test Zuko's loyalty, to see through his assured deception, so she has to be the one to do it. She has to be the one to keep him in place, submissive to her watchful eyes. She's protecting the Avatar! She is perfectly justified to threaten Zuko—only she has the strength to do it, so it is her responsibility, her duty.
She hates Zuko for Aang. Because Aang by himself doesn't seem to hate Zuko, so Katara has to do it for him. Because Aang has seen a false light in Zuko's eyes and is falling prey to the false mercy, the fake desperation.
Oh, fuck. Katara knows that's all bullshit. She doesn't really understand why she's trying to justify her actions—to herself!—she knows why she hates Zuko. And, hell, does she really need a reason?
Well. There it is again: the justification for an action that no one else knows about and no one else is questioning her about. She's the only one questioning. She's the one questioning herself.
She knows that the flicker of good in that stupid soul is real; the thing Aang sees is real, because she's seen it as well, underneath the earth in the catacombs of Ba Sing Se.
No, no, no! Fuck it. Zuko is evil and she hates him. End of story.
She wants to scream, be hysterical. She never knew she was so good at manipulation and deception, like that traitor who hurt her so much.
She never knew that the person easiest to deceive is yourself.
How can you ever convince someone to forgive you? Do you tell her the whole story, from the very beginning, to try to pinpoint the moment when you turned bad? When you turned right? When you were hovering between two different sides, when you thought both sides were right? How can you ever, ever expect forgiveness when all you've received and all you've given your whole life is hostility and hatred?
How do things change so quickly? How does history repeat itself, but backwards? How do your ancestors start as friends and end as fragile enemies, and how do you start as fragile enemies and end as friends? How can you even believe this is all real? How can you ever appease your sworn enemy so easily, but be so hated by the one that you spilled your heart to?
How can you ever hope to mend such a deep wound when it was shallowly healed once, only to tear it open again so that bleeds forever and ever, and no matter what bandage you put on it, it never stops bleeding?
Zuko wishes he knew. But life is cruel and ironic, and he knows now that the thing you least expect to happen is often the reality that you're faced with.
"Hey Hothead," calls Toph, flicking a small pebble at Zuko's face. The good side of his face, of course; who would be so indignant as to throw a rock at burned scar tissue? That's touchy, man.
The pebble pulls Zuko out of his trance, his otherworldly enthrallment with the water boiling over the fire that he's making for tea. Pfft, he's brooding. What happened to the awkward teenager that Toph can mess around with?
"What?" Zuko asks wearily. Toph smirks. This is so much fun! She's had Zuko as her man-slave for the last few days as punishment for her burned feet. He's so funny and it's so easy to make him miserable.
"Get Sokka for me, 'cause you're boring." She wiggles her toes, grinning like crazy. Zuko and Sokka separate are both extremely adequate entertainment, but the two of them together is nothing short of utterly hilarious.
"I don't know where he is."
"Oh, come on! I gave you a grand tour of the Temple yesterday—"
"And I carried your flailing body the whole way," Zuko mutters under his breath.
"—So you know where everyone is. Besides, you should show Sokka your swords. He loves that kind of thing." Toph pauses for a minute. "Maybe you could even go shopping together once we go back to the Earth Nation sometime. Sokka's even got this fendy purse that matches my Earth Rumble Six championship belt." Toph laughs loudly, feeling the owner of said fendy purse approaching.
"A simple man's entitled to his simple pleasures every once in a while. And it's not a purse, it's a bag. You've seen it, Toph."
Toph snorts. "Yeah, Sokka, I've totally seen it, because I'm not blind or anything."
She can feel him fluster even though her feet aren't on the ground. She also senses the rapid vibration of Zuko's body—he's shaking with quiet mirth.
"And Zuko's seen it too, right? I mean, he's not blind either, with that big huge scar over that half-blind eye—"
She feels Zuko become still, quiet. She wants to take it back as soon as she's said it. She didn't mean it; it just slipped out her mouth without her realizing. It was a joke. Oh, crapmuffins, how obtuse can she get?
The room is perfectly quiet as Zuko reaches up—don't do it don't do it don't do it, Toph begs silently—and smoothes his hand over the scar, that terrible, huge scar that Toph can't see but can feel perfectly because it's such a large abnormality, so different from Aang's smooth shaven head or Katara's perfect skin (did she feel Katara's feet from the other side of the room?) or Sokka's coarse but firm hands (she can't help but blush at the thought).
"Yes Toph," murmurs a flat, dissonant voice that she's never heard before, that is empty of its true self, "Zuko has a big huge scar over half his face, and he knows that it deserves to be there."
Toph stiffens at Katara's cruelty. She feels Zuko hunching his shoulders, slowly backing away, and thinks that he must be crumpling inside.
"I'm sorry, Toph," he says slowly, evenly, politely, "but I have to leave you to Sokka." He turns around and walks out of the room, away from Toph, away from the joy that they'd all shared for but a sparse moment. Toph curls her toes, touching them to the burned undersides of her feet, and can only imagine that a thousands times of the pain in her burned feet could not amount to half of what Zuko has suffered.
She follows him as he retreats to the safety of his room. She finds him kneeling by a small side table, staring blankly at the picture of his beloved uncle. It is not enough; she wants to make him feel real pain, make him feel the way she did after exposing herself and breaking herself because of him. She wants him to suffer more than she has; she wants to hate him, to hate everything he is (Hypocrite, whispers her inner self, you know that a part of him is just like Aang and you'd have to hate Aang to hate him.).
She wants an excuse to pounce on him, to stick her hand inside his chest and rip his heart out the way he ripped hers. Except she wants to do it for real. Of course, it's all for protecting the Avatar—it's all for saving him from his most deceptive enemy.
He turns to her (how does he always sense her presence?), head bowed and kneeling before her, almost in an appeal, a surrender. She storms up to him, towering over him (Is he shaking in fright? The thought sends gleeful shivers down her spine).
She kneels in front of him, placing her hand on his shoulder, and puts her mouth to his ear:
"I'll tear your heart out if I ever see you alone with Toph again."
He raises an eyebrow, confused, but keeps quiet. He's almost convinced that she's about as much of a homicidal maniac as Azula.
"You were going to burn her with that boiling water, and she was defenseless and alone—you bastard."
He shakes his head—no no no you don't understand—and she digs her fingernails into his shoulder. He can feel them pinching his skin beneath his shirt. It's times like these he wishes he still had his armor, to protect himself from the most crazy creatures on the face of the planet: girls.
"Did you think that if you subdued her quietly, then you could use her as a hostage and trade for Aang? I'll give you another scar to match your first."
He wants it to stop—he has to speak. "No, no, no," he mumbles, sincerely afraid. "I don't want to hurt her, or anyone in this group. Why would I do that to a friend?"
Her hand squeezes his shoulder (she's drawn blood—he sees it seeping through his shirt). He quietly raises his head, dares to look at her—
And he sees she is crying, bitter tears dribbling down her face and biting her lip and her eyes closed.
"Uh—" he starts, but then she smacks him across the face, disregarding the blood that's on her fingers (that's his blood, isn't it?).
"Why won't you be hurt?" she hisses, she screams.
"I've been hurt before, enough," he mumbles.
She throws her hands down on the floor in distress, trailing light blood marks on the cold stone (it's really his blood).
"Why can't you just be evil? Why can you be good after betraying us?" Her words are weak, broken up by sobs, a pathetic attempt at ferocity, a plea for normalcy.
"It won't happen ever again. I promise."
She looks feebly at him.
"I swear."
He stands up, turns away, and slams the door after him so she has time to think. He needs to bandage his wound so it will stop bleeding. It is finally time for that deep wound to heal, and who better to heal it than the gifted Healer herself?
A/N: Reviews are appreciated! Oh, and a bit of self-pimpage: I've been putting my HTML learnings to use and I made one of those fabulous fansite thingies 'cause I am proud of my Zutarian shipperness. Check out my new Zutara shrine, aflw-zutara (at freewebs), and help build it up! Link is under "homepage" in my bio. :D