Holy mother of Christ, the last chapter got a lot of response. Which, I guess I should have been expecting, since it was the first chapter with actual Zutara in it lmao. And it only took? Six Chapters? Nice.
Anyway, be warned, I make full use of the M rating in this chapter guys.
Zuko is intoxicated by her. Katara's lips on his, teeth teasing his lip as he memorizes the curves of her waist, he can't get enough of her. Her scent as she pins him and her hair cascades around his face like a curtain, encasing him in everything that is her, making his head spin. As he meets her eyes, the brilliant blue of her irises overtaken by her dilated pupils, he can't think of a single place he'd rather be. All his struggle to get to this point is worth it, now, and he clasps her jaw possessively before he reclaims her mouth. Their kisses could almost be called desperate, and perhaps they were. Perhaps he'd happily spend the rest of his life right here.
She moves against him then, breaking his train of thought and dragging a moan from him as his hands fly from her jaw to her hips. Her name leaves his lips like a prayer, desperate. She's straddling him, her entire body flush against his and making it increasingly harder to think with each subtle twist of her figure. He's not sure if he's ever wanted anything more in his life, hungry lips kissing at the hot skin of her neck and below, finding the edge of her neckline and following the line of fabric to the tie holding it closed.
He wakes with a start, jolting upright as he tries to shake the disorientation of his sudden consciousness. His entire body feels on edge, the ghost of Katara's hands on him making his clothes feel stifling and, in some areas, uncomfortably tight. Light has just barely started to creep through the high windows of his cell, indicating it was barely even dawn, and he lets out a frustrated groan as he falls back heavily onto his cot.
Zuko was accustomed to night terrors, horrid visions of his past and future that left him waking in a cold sweat, but these fantasies were something foreign to him. He knew normal teenagers often faced similar dilemmas, but he'd never considered himself normal. He had far more severe worries to occupy himself with, yet when he closed his eyes, he only saw her. He almost preferred the night terrors.
Rolling onto his side, he buries his face into the thin pillow and lets out another groan of annoyance. It would be another hour until he was allowed outside of his room, Aang's training not due to start until the sun was squarely above the horizon, but sleeping was a prospect Zuko didn't want to face. The idea of returning to those unobtainable fantasies was more terrifying than facing any kind of imagined horror. So he instead rolls out of bed—quite literally, landing on his hands and knees on the floor—and busies himself with random exercises. He transitions from push-ups to crunches to hot squats to fire fists to running in place when he runs out of unique exercises. He's left panting and sweating, but his mind isn't once distracted from his uninvited lust for the waterbender.
Sitting heavily on the edge of his bed, Zuko lets out a breath filled with steam and wisps of flames, frustration turning to rage. This shouldn't be happening. Why couldn't anything in his life ever go the way it was supposed to?
"Zuko?" He jolts upright, thankful to see Aang standing in the suddenly empty doorway instead of Katara. He didn't know if he could face her right now.
"Ready for your training today?" Zuko asks, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.
"Yeah, but it looks like you already started." He says, commenting on Zuko's disheveled appearance. The firebender shakes his head, standing and gathering his shirt from the floor, tugging it on before sliding his tunic over it.
"I was warming up." Zuko answers, quickly securing the sash around his waist. His fingers brush the knot in its center after he completes it, recalling how she had so eagerly undone it.
"Was I supposed to be doing that?" Aang inquires. Zuko waves him off as he walks past him.
"No. I just needed to." He can feel himself brooding, his hair falling into his eyes as he sulks down the hall towards their impromptu training ground, but he can't find it in himself to stop. He had every reason to brood when yet another venture in his life was going awry.
"Makes sense." Aang chimes in. The airbender is tired, yet still far more chipper than Zuko could ever muster in his current state, "So what're we doing today?" As they step out into the cleared area for their training, Zuko takes in a deep breath. He hadn't given any thought to Aang's training today, and he squeezes his eyes shut as he tries to come up with something for Aang to do. He was progressing well enough on the basic forms, and while slight mistakes were still being made, he couldn't ask for perfection in the time they had.
"I don't know." Zuko admits. He seemed to be saying those three words more frequently as of late. He'd never floundered so much when he'd hunted the Avatar, and at times he misses that blind certainty.
"Is everything okay?" Aang frowns, eying the Prince with concern, "Did something happen at the market?" Zuko barks out a laugh, throwing his head back in exasperation.
"I guess something did." Zuko mumbles, speaking to the cloudless sky.
"What happened? You and Katara seemed tense when you got back, but I figured that was just because…well, you know." Aang trails off, rubbing the back of his neck and shrugging. Katara's consistent distaste for Zuko had been unwavering in the eyes of everyone else in the group, he realized. She was a far better actress than he gave her credit for. He supposes could do the same.
"My father wants me dead." Zuko says, frowning. It was definitely concerning, but it wasn't his prime concern, "Katara and I were discovered by some soldiers, and they weren't trying to take me prisoner." Aang's brow furrows.
"What does that mean for us?"
"It means this is a lot more dangerous than I thought. If my father wants me dead, he's going to send his best resources to make that happen." Zuko worries his lip, glad to be thinking about something other than Katara for the time being, "Which could be dangerous for everyone."
"Whatever he throws at us, we can handle." Aang says confidently and Zuko shakes his head in disagreement.
"Azula is his best resource." A heavy silence settles over the pair, the wind howling through the canyon being the only sound between them.
"We've handled her before." Aang finally breaks the silence, looking up at Zuko with determination in his steely eyes.
"Have you?" Zuko asks, knowing the answer before Aang can say anything in response, "She already killed you once and, trust me, she hates failure. She'll make sure you stay dead this time." The sudden hand on his shoulder shocks Zuko. He looks down at the airbender, frowning at the small smile he receives.
"It's different this time, though."
"How?"
"We've got you on our side." Zuko feels the sun on his back. A sudden serenity settles over him, easing the tension in his muscles and mind.
He supposes they do.
Zuko doesn't dream about Katara that night.
Instead, he dreams of devastation. It's a familiar yet foreign scene once he realizes he isn't the subject of the torture. Aang, Sokka, Toph—Katara lying lifeless before him, the pool of carnage lapping at his ankles. The blood was still warm, soaking through the fabric of his boots. Some part of his conscious mind stirs, knowing he should be experiencing horror at the scene, but he smiles.
He laughs because there's blood everywhere. It tints the pale skin of his arms a deep crimson and drips from his bangs. It soaks through his clothes and chills him down to his bones. He's consumed by it. Encased in it. He wipes his face with the backs of his hands, but it's just blood on blood. There's not a single inch of him that isn't covered in the blood of people he'd started to mentally refer to as his friends.
He laughs because he can't see anything but red. The thick liquid runs into his eyes and he feels tears join it. The laughter turns hysterical, forcing him to struggle to draw in even the shallowest of breaths as he cackles. He feels a hand on his shoulder, firm and powerful, and whips his head around to look up at the shadowed figure.
"Father." Zuko hisses, tasting blood. Blood, blood everything is blood.
"Don't fight this." He bears no confusion as to what his father is referring to, falling to his knees in front of Ozai's terrifying, unrealistically daunting form. What he really meant was, "Don't fight me."
"This isn't me." He can see his own reflection in the blood on the floor as it rises. The liquid is lapping at his upper thighs, his own crazed reflection grinning back at him. "This isn't me." Ozai's chuckle seems to rattle the air, making Zuko flinch away.
"Of course it is." He stalks around Zuko like a predator circling wounded prey, his hand raking through his son's hair in the parody of a caring gesture, "It's in your blood." Zuko's blood joins the pool beneath him as deep gashes pattern his scalp, trailing behind Ozai's serrated fingers. He can't find it in himself to panic, silently staring up at Ozai. He can see the smile on Ozai's lips and nothing else, his hair whipping around his face like a living thing and the golden crown in his topknot sending vicious glare into his eyes.
"Yes." Zuko somehow speaks, the pool of blood pausing in its descent up his torso, "It is, but I'm more than blood." He's suddenly immaculate, the blood seemingly repelled by him and leaving his skin. The gallons of blood that had been encroaching upon him disappear.
"You are the sum of your heritage, Prince Zuko. Your blood is who you are." Ozai growls, but his voice lacks the reverberating omnipresence it had once had, "You can't escape it, and you can't pretend you have any choice in the matter." The bodies that had been littering the ground have disappeared, leaving gaping holes in the floor that lead to nothing but blackness.
"You're wrong. You've always been wrong." Zuko stands on unsteady feet, fists clenched and shoulders pushing back with renewed confidence. He can clearly see Ozai now, the shine of his hair gone and the planes of his pale face interrupted by the dark purple bags under his eyes. In the dark, Ozai had all the presence of a spirit, but he didn't live in the dark anymore. He could see, now, that his father was just a man, and any man could be felled.
"Perhaps, but let me be correct on one thing." Ozai says tiredly, each breath seeming to be a struggle. He walks by Zuko, steps not quite as smooth as he remembered them, "They will never accept you and she will never love you. They'll see what you really are, eventually, and then they will turn on you. They always turn on you, just give it time." By the end of his statement, he's practically whispering, talking to himself. Zuko swings his fist at Ozai but his form only ripples like disturbed water before disappearing into the encroaching darkness.
"She won't love you. She's already seen that you're just—" His voice is everywhere and nowhere and even as Zuko clamps his hands over his ears he can still hear and feel the syllables clearly, "Like—" Zuko hisses out his own rebuttal to try to cover his father's speech, but still that final word strikes him like a physical blow.
"Me." Zuko's hands shake as they press over his ears, breaths coming in quick pants. Yet still, Ozai doesn't stop, appearing over Zuko's shoulder one last time to grasp his son's shoulders and calmly say,
"Why would you ever condemn her to loving you?"
He's shrouded in complete darkness as the sound of the stone barricade to his room lowering jolts him awake. There's no moon tonight, making it impossible for him to see whose footsteps he was hearing. All he can be sure of is that he hears Toph's heavy receding footfalls, leaving him with the mystery visitor.
"I'm sorry for waking you up." Katara's voice brings with it an odd mix of fantasy and horror, the vision of her blood on his hands rattling him.
"What do you want?" His skin still feeling soaked in blood. Her blood. His shoulders clench up tensely and his hands fist the thin sheets as if it's the only thing holding him in place.
"You were right." He looks up at her, able to see her more clearly as his eyes adjust to the darkness. She's dressed for bed, stripped of everything but her bindings and her blue tunic that rests over her like a robe.
"I was?" He asks, blinking rapidly as he tries to force his eyes anywhere but her. He settles on a large stain on the far wall that's vaguely shaped like an ostrich horse.
"Yes. We should really discuss…us. Especially after what happened…" The kiss. That forces a bolt of arousal through him in a way that none of his fantasies could ever hope to. The desire to replicate the experience is strong enough to make Zuko feel a new wash of shame.
"What are we, then?" He asks, shifting uncomfortably as she sits next to him on the edge of his bed, bracing her elbows on her knees. He can feel her body heat against his arm.
"We're not enemies." Katara murmurs into her hands as she runs them over her face, "I can't lie to myself anymore by saying we are." New warmth settles in him at the admission, and a smile creeps onto his lips.
"You won't go so far as to call us friends, though, I'm guessing." The smile remains despite his words, and it's a struggle to keep his hands clasped in front of himself and off of her. His knuckles go white with the effort.
"What happened between us isn't really a friend thing, Zuko. I don't…I don't really know what that was." He couldn't say he knew either, the entire turn of events a bit clouded in his mind, but he knew that they couldn't go back. Whatever their relationship was, there was no returning to the point from which they'd started. Zuko wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.
"Maybe we shouldn't label it at all." He says, the statement sounding inherently wrong. It was against Zuko's nature to leave something so undefined, but perhaps he did need to become a little more flexible. Maybe she could teach him. She looks over at him, something dancing in her eyes that makes his throat go dry.
"So we're just something, then."
"Something." Zuko repeats, nodding and nervously pushing his hair out of his eyes. She's so close, close enough that he could easily claim her waist and pull her completely against him, but his blood runs cold as his father's voice reminds him.
Why would you ever condemn her to loving you?
He suddenly stands from the bed with a gasp, hugging himself tightly as he crosses the room. No matter the distance he put between himself and his father, he still controlled him, and Zuko wants to fight him but he can't when he knew Ozai was right. He couldn't get close to Katara when all he could ever do was hurt her, and she the same to him. They would end up killing each other one way or another if he let this go on.
"You should leave." Zuko says abruptly, hearing her stand from his bed with a heavy sigh.
"You're not doing this again, Zuko." She doesn't make the mistake of moving closer to him like she had the first time he'd pushed her away, but she stands her ground firmly.
"Doing what?" He turns his head, but keeps his back facing her. It's safer this way.
"Shutting me out." Katara says softly, her tone nearly drawing him to face her. Nearly.
"It's what's best." Zuko suddenly feels exhausted, realizing his nightmare had made his sleep less than restful, "We're—this something isn't good for either of us. And it will only get worse if I don't make you leave."
"I thought you would have figured out by now that you can't makeme do anything." He can hear the almost taunting smile in her voice, but it doesn't do anything to satiate his annoyance. How can she not understand?
"I'm going to hurt you again." He growls out, finally spinning to face her and gesturing to his faded bruises, the only remaining remnants of her bloodbending, "It's all we can do to each other." Her features mirror his own in their shared anger, her fists clenching at her sides.
"That's not true."
"Think, Katara!" He snaps, "You know what we are, and what we've done. You know this can never work—whatever it is."
"I won't bloodbend against you again. I already told you that." She spits back at him, her hands shaking with her own indignant rage at his implications. A bitter smile stretches his lips as he suddenly closes the distance between them and his hands grip her shoulders tightly.
"And what about me? Do you trust me not to hurt you?" He's made a tremendous mistake by closing that distance just to make a point. Her wide eyes stare up at him with fury and determination as well as that unfamiliar glint he's starting to recognize as lust.
"Do you?" He whispers, the distance between them too small to properly raise his voice. Her eyelids flutter as his breath brushes her face, drawing her in like they were magnetized.
"Yes." Katara responds in the same hushed tone, the word vibrating against his lips as she kisses him. The kiss is tentative, as if it's their first, and Zuko's hands stay rigidly on her shoulders as his mouth moves against hers. They pull away by only a fraction of an inch, breaths mingling between them.
"You shouldn't." Zuko answers against her lips as he returns for a second kiss that suddenly explodes into something wild and passionate. Her teeth scrape his lip and her hands find his hair, winding in it and yanking with a force that makes stars appear in his vision for a moment. So he retaliates, using his grip on her shoulders to aggressively push her back onto his bed and ravage her neck with desperate, shallow kisses.
"Zuko…" She gasps out; practically mimicking his dreams and making his pants tighten uncomfortably, "I don't believe that." Her fingers explore the expanse of his bare back, feeling both the old and recent scars patterning his skin. He shivers as she reaches a particularly recent one that still throbs at times when he bends to quickly. He lets out a groan against her neck at the touch, pulling back and tugging her tunic off of her shoulders.
"You have every reason to." Zuko growls into the skin of her collarbone, feeling along her arms as he slides the fabric down and off of her. She shakes her head, causing it to fan out around her on his pillow in a halo of rich, brown locks. It's an image he doesn't want to forget.
"I would have killed that man, if you hadn't stopped me." His hands slow as they caress her sides, eyes wandering up to meet hers, "I'm dangerous." He isn't sure what he expects Katara to do, but when she grabs his jaw and kisses the breath out of him he finds that it wasn't that.
"So am I." She finally retorts breathlessly, and his heart speeds as she feels to the waist of his pants. It's little more than a tease, though, with her fingers splaying out against his stomach and her thumbs hooking beneath his waistband ever so slightly. She simply feels along the taut skin there, experiencing every twitch and shift of his abdominal muscles as he moves against her.
"Point…point taken." He gasps out, feeling the end of the bindings around her chest and toying with its frayed edges. It's a step Zuko isn't entirely prepared to take, unraveling only one section of the binding at a time. With each layer, he looks into her eyes, searching for any panic hidden in their depths. But she encourages him, lifting her torso up off the bed to help him along and blushing as the last remaining section of binding unravels itself and falls around her waist.
He doesn't recall ever getting this far in his dreams, not being imaginative enough to really fill in the gaps covered by her clothing, but he doubts his mind could have—or ever could, in the future—recreated the sight before him. Yet as eager as he is to feel her, he doesn't do so until Katara's hands take his own and pull him forward, her lips meeting his in a kiss that could almost be called chaste.
His hands settle on her chest, feeling her slowly, as if moving with any more urgency would shatter this reality and she'd disappear from beneath him. Her soft moan against his lips destroys his control, though, and his touches become more urgent as his hips press downwards into hers, desperately seeking some kind of friction. It's a movement he makes without thinking, but she instinctually responds and rises up to meet him.
It all devolves from there, each action merging together in his arousal addled mind, but he suddenly finds the rest of her bindings have gathered with her tunic on the floor and his pants are being rapidly removed to join them. Their kisses are sloppier now, more tongue and teeth than lips, and they're each murmuring incoherent words to each other. Praise, denial, encouragement, admonishment, they all blend together into an indecipherable mess. But three words make it out of Zuko's mouth and manage to make a decent amount of sense.
"Are you sure?" He asks into the mound of her breast, mocha skin still glistening where his mouth had ravaged it. She nods, but he lets out an annoyed grunt.
"No, you need to tell me." He looks up at her face, clasping her cheek in his palm, "Tell me you want this." He won't be able to believe he hadn't used her if she doesn't say this to him. She smiles, the expression melting any defenses he had left against her, before taking his hand from her cheek and clasping it in her own.
"I want this." She says into his hand as his fingers curl around hers. She won't say it, but he thinks he can read it in the complicated look she gives him. I want you.
She repeats those words as he enters her, her voice practically drowned out by his stifled moan. She's immeasurably perfect around him, and he works off of instinct alone as his higher mental functions fail him. Katara seems to be in much the same state, the two of them desperately pleasing each other without thought of past wounds or scorn. And even after they've both climaxed and lie satiated and exhausted, forced together by the narrowness of the bed, Zuko isn't entirely sure he can recall the events that transpired after those words properly. It was all hot passion and pleasure and her. Always her. He had been drowning in her, and he didn't care in the slightest for just a few moments after he settles back on the bed, chest heaving and damp hair sticking to his forehead. He can only look down at her in a daze, pushing her tousled hair out of her face as he tries to see her.
She doesn't look at him, keeping her eyes firmly trained on something in the distance. He can practically see the wheels turning behind her eyes as she thinks, and as the pure gratification of their encounter fades, he starts to think as well. Things had managed to only get more complicated, the stickiness of her sweat slicked skin against his suddenly feeling uncomfortable. He can tell she feels the same when she sits up and turns away from him, shoulders hunched inward to hide herself from him.
They sure were something.
A/N: I refuse to let them be happy.
Also, do I love to write Ozai? You better believe I love to write Ozai. ~ Jiggle
