Smoke in theDark

A/N: Look at all this godforsaken smut. Look at it. Don't look at it. Close the window, shut down your device and run away while you still can.


Iroh glares down at the pelts, grappling with the throbbing and shipwrecking emptiness inside his head.

So Kateeri goes on and mutters, "You are going to be Fire Lord one day. You cannot have a barren wife."

Without looking away from a certain whorl in the fur, he insists, "We'll find a way. We'll visit doctors-."

"I have. There is nothing anyone can do."

Now he looks at her, his desperate earnestness exuding with every word. "We will find a way," he articulates. "We'll adopt. We'll appoint someone. It's been done before,"

"Iroh,"

"We'll figure something out. We-,"

"Iroh, please. You're getting past marriageable age. You need to find someone more appropriate."

"Why would I if I already have you?"

"You have to think about your future."

"I don't want to unless you're in it."

"I'm not yours, Iroh. I warned you not to get too attached," she is running out of reasons.

"Well, it happened. I got attached. I love you. I care about you. I want to grow old with you. I want to wake up in the mornings and see you there next to me."

"You're being naïve," Kateeri murmurs.

"You're being dishonest! Why do you always lie to me?" He grapples her shoulders and grips them with leaking fury. "Why are you trying to hide the fact that this makes you just as heartbroken as me? Why can't you just admit you love me? Why-!"

He suddenly pushes her down and pins her wrists under his rough hands. He starts tearing at her clothes in a frenzy, undoing the ties of her garments.

Her mind hums and shatters with fear until she finally manages to whimper, "Iroh, stop!"

He doesn't. He is nearly ripping the clothes off her body.

Pain and dread instill within her and compel her to either sob or screech. So she does both, "Iroh, please!"

He stops.

It seems that even the Spirits stop.

She suddenly feels something on her cheek.

Looking up, she realizes that he is crying too, like in the romances of old. Iroh exhales in tremors then slowly collapses onto the bed besides her, muttering, "I'm so sorry," as he does.

She brings her knees to her then under her, kneeling on the bed besides him.

"Iroh," Kateeri mutters, reaching out to him.

"No." He pushes her hand away, shame in his eyes.

"I forgive you."

"That was repulsive. I should have never-,"

Kateeri can sense the extent of his horror in the air, hearing his soft and tacit tears. She sighs silently to herself. What an ardent and melodramatic man she decided to love.

So Kateeri sidles close as his head digs into his hands and into the sheets. She crouches, lays besides him, places her hand upon his clenched one and peers at him with gracious eyes.

"I forgive you," Kateeri repeats earnestly then leans in to burrow into his bedraggled hair. "We'll get over each other. We'll move on. And even though we won't end up together." He finally looks up at her and she places her hand on his face. "It'll never change the fact that you changed my life and that in this moment, I love you."

He can tell if she's lying.

But she isn't.

It's the first time she has ever said those three words to him. Her eyes are brimming with the fondness she often tries to hide.

She takes his other cheek, stroking the scraggly skin that might develop into a beard if he does not shave soon.

He surveys her distrait gaze and notes how tired her eyes are and the skin that darkens and sags beneath her typically bright and aggressive blue eyes.

Iroh is surprised when she leans in to kiss him but he cannot deny how much his lips relish the taste of hers.

"So do it," she whispers breathily.

"What?" He watches her, staggering, as the leftover layers of clothes start to slip off her shoulders.

"Fuck me," she exposes all of her to him with one final tug and her sarashi wraps fall at her knees.

He stares – at her breasts, her everything – then glowers at her. "What are you doing?"

"Fuck me, Iroh," she whispers as she crawls on his lap.

"No," he is firm, pushes away and drapes her coat around her again, avoiding looking at her.

"You were about to five seconds ago. What's changed?!" She flares with anger, hurt, mortification, frustration – but also, that fondness he has been able to detect so keenly.

His hands are still tugging at her coat so he clenches and pulls her to him. "I shouldn't have pushed you down and I'm never doing that again. And if this is going to be goodbye … I can't. Not to you. Not like this."

"It has to be goodbye…I don't deserve your affection. And you can't marry someone like me, Iroh. You need to find someone who will love you in a way you deserve."

"And what is that?" he half-laughs, still not releasing her from his tentative but firm embrace.

"With reciprocity, with sweet words, with children – I can't give any of `that to you."

He exhales his tension out as a grumbling sigh and roughly burrows into her hair, surprising her. He cups her face and chastely kisses her waiting lips.

"You've given me a lot more." He pecks her forehead and helps her clasp her coat around her. Then they descend back into the bed and he holds her tightly to his chest. He cares not for the dull pain around his torso.

"You're a hopeless romantic."

"Perhaps, but only for you," he smirks.

"Ugh," she fakes vomiting.

"And she's back," he chuckles.

He catches a glimpse of her smile as she snuggles into his shoulder, her hands trailing in small circles about his chest.

They lie there in their affection, in the furs, in that momentary happiness.

They savor the warmth of the others' bodies, their skin, the emanating heat in the aching cold air.

Finally, Iroh dares to say, "You know, I'm going to marry you,"

"I would love to see you try," she glares wryly at him but deftly folds back into the crevice of his shoulder.

He chuckles again and rests his head upon hers.


Kateeri wakes realizing that she and her lover had both fallen asleep – their limbs and legs in a tangle beneath the furs. His arms still bolster her to him so she peers about with whatever room she has.

Daylight only slightly dared to disrupt their night but there are still hours before sun rises fully, Kateeri concludes.

Her eyes adapt to the nebulous dark and she gazes at Iroh without reservation. He breathes heavily in his sleep and most nights the noise annoys her. But tonight, all she can feel is absolute delight. She gazes at his countenance and his body like a sculptor upon her work – the smooth of his skin, the clefts of his nape and shoulders, the firmness of his torso.

"Shit," she whispers, acknowledging her decision to abandon self-control. She shuffles slightly, adjusting her body and form so that she can lift her arms to brush her thumb across his beautiful taut lips, feeling his sleepy breath upon her fingertip.

She kisses him.

He still slumbers away.

So adventurous does Kateeri become.

She pecks him once, slowly, then in quick, fervent and repeated succession, slightly biting his lower lip every so often, feeling her own heat condense about in her heavy breath. Meanwhile, her right hand sails gratuitously across and down his abdomen to his undergarments and her fingers molds around his member, kneading the fleshy suppleness of his manhood as it begins to tense in her grip through the fabric. Her left hand anchors onto his shoulder as she tries to clout her rising desire - to no avail. Eventually, she realizes that she is reflexly grinding her womanhood against his thigh. Then again. And again. Finally, she moans and mewls fitfully into the air in time to see Iroh awaken in drowsy arousal.

"Kateeri?" he manages to murmur through his confusion and then through an arduous groan as she deepens her molding against his member. "What-?!"

She grapples his face with her left hand and attacks him with fierce and fervent kisses and bites. She can feel his hesitation and his futile attempt to push her away to discern what was going on as he moans.

She responds by compelling his tongue with hers and her hips tread and her grasp kneads even harder.

Iroh finally breaks free of her lips, breathing hard and convulses against her as he ejaculates through the fabric into her hand.

"Wha-at are you doing?" he whimpers, his face contorted in fervid hot agony.

"Fucking with you," Kateeri mutters as she drinks in his facial discomfort and kisses his nape, then his chest. "Get on your back."

Without thinking, he complies and Kateeri crawls in between his legs. She lowers herself to remove his soiled garments with her sly hands – and with her teeth. Gazing up at him with lustful eyes, she descends down his thighs with his viscid clothes in between her lips.

Iroh bristles at the sight and turns abruptly away.

He clenches his teeth as he hides his embarrassment and arousal behind his large arms. He is surprised he doesn't get hard just from that alone. If he learned nothing else from his time with Kateeri, he had at least established that she likes to tease. And it riles him.

But tonight, instead her typical aloof provocation, Kateeri riles too. She does not remove the garments entirely and impatiently returns to his hips and gingerly captures his manhood within her tender fingertips.

"I want this. I want you. I want-," her voice is low, husky, wanting. She starts licking his member then sucking at it eagerly with heavy gasps.

"Kateeri-," he groans as she tastes him hungrily.

She continues for a time – licking off his cum with her tongue, exploring every svelte inch of his length with every inch of her supple and wet lips- until he hardens again as Iroh moans for who knows how long, sweating and writhing beneath her, crazed by her unusual open craving.

Arduously, Iroh looks up to see that she is touching herself and groaning into his member.

"Kateeri- stop," he sits up and gently treads his fingers into and through her hair.

She looks up, her eyes inebriated with desire. "But-."

"My turn," he simply orders and tenderly guides her to the edge of the bed as he inches off.

"You don't have to do this, Iroh," Kateeri mutters, slightly anxious of the forthcoming. Her legs dangle off the edge of the bed. "And you're still-."

"Kateeri," Iroh interrupts as he stands off the bed, towering over her. He gazes down upon her with fierce ardor and once again relishes that she always jolts into silence when he becomes Commander Iroh in private.

He smiles wryly, making her sensibilities flare into fearsome lust.

"Get on your back."

She obeys, realizing that only his smile and words instigated her to gasp laboriously as he removes whatever clothing that still veiled her from him. Then her gasping worsens when she feels his lips on her clit and his firm hands on her thighs.

Her whole body tightens in euphoria as he kisses her, tends to her and strokes her within her womanhood with his deft and thick tongue. Her breathing and puling hammers into the air along with the soft, wet sounds of his work.

"Iroh," she groans, "You-ah! I-! Please. Stop-!" Kateeri desperately clutches his hair while Iroh continues. Again, she begs him to cease. He responds by stroking deeper and grabbing and toying with the cheeks of her ass.

She gasps. "Agni-! AH." Her whole body arches, the balls of her feet dig into the pelts and the bed creaks beneath her as she moans her ascent into the covers.

Iroh approaches, his breath as staggered and heat-laden as hers, he positions himself at her hips, mustering everything within him to control and restrain his lust. Then he whispers to her, "Marry me."

"Hmm?!" she almost lurches up, propping up on her thin elbows.

"Marry me, Kateeri," he repeats, his grip returning to the flesh of her thighs.

"Iroh-," she pleads. "I- Ah!" He rubs himself against her clit. Purposefully.

Iroh again forces himself to a standstill and mutters, "I won't until you promise to marry me. I am not going to be the type of man who-."

She cuts him off by suddenly reaching up, forcefully pulling him down and conquering his lips. "Iroh, please-." He grinds against her again, she moans and frantically grapples onto his shoulders as her torso clenches beneath him.

"For Agni's sake, just put it in!" she insists.

He grunts in refusal, subduing the desire to kiss her and do as he would despite the fact that his member pulses with lascivious urgency. She slithers her hands down his chest and down to reach for his throbbing manhood. But he quickly captures her arms and grapples her wrists with a single grip.

"No," he says sternly. His other hand slithers down her thighs teasingly, deliberately mimicking her ways.

She arches into the pelts and groans, "You bastard."

Iroh just smirks, then nestles into her sensitive neck and shoulder, whispering seduction and worshipping her skin with ulterior nipping.

Kateeri whimpers in response, savoring the culminating pleasure as he begins to caress her waist, her back, her breasts.

Maybe he will just do it out of his own accord, Kateeri thinks as he grapples her and groans into her.

But he doesn't. He knows what she thinks. Instead, he just grinds against her again, taunting her lust with hindered satisfaction.

She nearly screams. "Fine! If Lord Zuko approves then-," she descends into an strained groan. "Please, Iroh! I-."

Iroh balks. In fact, he almost laughs. He finds and pecks her lips in a kiss – not devoid of passion but more full of sheer childlike joy than anything else. They both know that Zuko would readily agree to their union but Kateeri wanted some semblance of governance in the game that Iroh cheaply won. He knows he is being cruel and unfair but he could not resist to take advantage of this uncommon overwhelming moment of her uncontainable carnal appetite for him.

Finally, as he returns to her lips with eager kisses, his hands again on her thighs, her hands on his back, he enters her.

They both gasp silently into the fraught air as she takes him in slowly. Their breathing falters in hot, short spurts into the forgotten cold ether.

He pushes further in, her hands slide down his sumptuous skin to his ass and prods him even further.

"Am I…ugh," he exhales twice, "Am I hurting you?"

He tilts in slightly. She winces. He wonders if he should stop.

But, "No," she sighs through her clenched teeth, wallowing in the mix of pain and pleasure. "I've wanted you for so long-."

That's enough for him.

He thrusts into her suddenly – wholly, completely. He drowns in her and she flares against him. Then again and again. The room fills with the muted sonance of their moans, their gasps and their intertwining bodies.

"I love you," she mewls, feeling his scalding skin and sweat against her own.

"I love you," he whispers back.

Neither of them wonders about what might have been. Their only concern is their shared pleasures and affections, their dance of water and fire continuing for as long as they can while the sun claims the sky with the moon.