Zuko dismounted his bike in the white-lined parking rectangle beside the chalky gray sidewalk of the nicer part of the city. He knew Katara, Suki and Azula had few things in common, but one of them was the Dancing Dragon Day Spa. Right now, he'd tried both Azula's and Katara's cell phones to get a hold of them, but had been unable to, and that meant they were both here. He wondered if they'd conspired together to head to the spa after school, or if they'd just run into one another and decided to use the two-for-one deal to their advantage.
Standing outside the spa, he gave a scowl that looked like he was hiding a lemon slice in his mouth. The front of the spa was composed of three terrace buildings he assumed had once been houses, the cheap kind you got if you were on the right kind of welfare, painted an earthy cream color, and the arch over the door, and the woodwork around the windows were accented in a dark forest green. In the window, red banners with either Chinese or Japanese characters on them - he guessed Japanese because they were a lot simpler than he thought Chinese ones were.
He recognized one of the vertically positioned, golden characters on the identical banners. 'Hi' - Fire. His uncle had that on a few of his stuff, so that when Zuko had asked what it meant, he'd been able to answer quite knowledgably. Zuko was sure his uncle spoke fluent Japanese - otherwise how would he have survived his years in Japan? Then, upon further inspection, he recognized the character just above 'Fire'. 'Mizu', he believed it was pronounced, though he'd never tried either word on his tongue for fear they would sound dumb without a whole sentence. He was sure that one meant 'water', and so that led him to believe the other two were 'Earth' and 'Air'.
Zuko walked up the steps on the front wall of the spa. He hadn't been inside before, but he figured it smelled like his uncle's house inside, and probably had a lot more than just banners accenting the place. He pushed open the green-painted door with ingrained Japanese lettering, and saw a lightwood decorated reception area open before him. Stepping in, he saw a pine desk with a girl about his age sitting behind it, ash blonde hair pushed behind her ears and thin black glasses sitting on her nose. She looked like she could help him get a hold of his sister, and his sort-of-almost-girlfriend.
"Excuse me," he began politely, approaching the desk. "I'm looking for my sister, and her friend. The name on the appointment will either be Scorsese or Marina …"
The blonde girl with the glasses looked up at him for a moment. "You'll have to wait out here for them, then," she pointed over the desk to some black leather sofas by the window with the red banners in it. She then looked back to her computer and continued with her accounting work.
Zuko was taken aback for a moment before he raised a hand and rubbed the back of his neck. "It's kind of important. I only need to talk to them for a second," he reasoned hopefully. He found himself wondering if the money in his pocket might do anything to help her make her decision as to whether she helped him find Azula and Katara.
The blonde girl rolled her eyes and raised a hand to be sure her short hair was still behind her ear. "Nobody gets in the massage room without an appointment - those are the rules, and if I break 'em, I get sacked, okay? I don't make the rules, I just follow them - I'm not trying to hassle you, and I'm sure it is important that you see them, but I can't help you with that," she explained rather curtly, taking long and exasperated blinks as she spoke.
Zuko breathed in long and heard and then exhaled his heavy breath. It looked like he would have to wait for them for a moment, but then the cogs of his mind got to work and a smirk found its way onto his face. "Alright, I'd like to get a massage, then. How much is it?" he stuffed his calloused hand into his pocket and grabbed the money clip in it. Besides, how bad could it be to get pampered for once?
The blonde girl looked back up and then smiled for a moment, before laughing at him. "First time here?" she chuckled.
Zuko frowned, confused.
"You don't just buy a massage here. We do packages. There's the three-hour package, and the four-hour package. The three-hour package includes a massage, foot-rub, acupuncture, mud bath, facial, manicure, pedicure and an hour in the steam room. The four-hour package has all that, plus the hot stone therapy, face massage, and has aromatherapy throughout most of the procedure," she explained, leaning back in her chair with a posture that said she needed a massage herself.
Zuko raised his only eyebrow. "Procedure sounds painful," he noted in displeasure. This whole thing was sounding painful, now. Acupuncture? Manicure? Mud bath? It sounded like he'd come out of here smelling like a bowl of flowers and feeling like a sack of bricks.
The girl looked up at him and then grabbed a pen on the desk, beginning to write on her notepad. "I'll book you in for the three-hour package. Your sister and her friend are waiting in the massage room - only got here about twenty minutes ago. I've put you in for the three-for-two package, so that's … one hundred and twenty five bucks."
Zuko nodded and pulled out his money clip, plucking out two hundreds and putting them on the desk for her. She picked them up and grabbed some notes from a tidy pile by her keyboard, giving him back his change. Zuko took the notes and put them into his money clip, before looking to his left to see where the door leading to the massage room was. He saw a room up ahead, but there was also a flight of pine stairs leading upstairs.
"If you ask me, you look like you could use a spa day," the blonde girl commented disinterestedly. "The massage parlor is upstairs. Can't miss it. Gold plated sign on the door," she gestured to the stairs with her pen. "You can take off your clothes in the changing room up there. Got a sign on it too. We have a strict policy of no funny business with naked people around - nobody wants to get sued for sexual harassment, got it?" she then picked up an intercom phone, probably to call upstairs and tell them to expect one more customer.
Zuko had to consciously avoid blushing when she said this. "Yeah," he gave a nervous chuckle, before smiling awkwardly and walking toward the stairs, his hands in his pockets. 'Naked?' Ugh. He knew he was going to regret this. As he walked up the steep flight of wooden stairs, he mused on the implications of him being naked in a room with Katara also naked, and couldn't help but smirk a little to himself, but despite this lovely little musing, Azula would be there, and as the receptionist had said; no funny business.
When he got to the top of the stairs, he saw on his right a door with 'changing room' on it on a gold plaque. He looked around for a door with a 'girls' sign or a 'boys' sign, but saw none, and was quite dismayed to discover that men and women were expected to share a changing room - even in his crappy old public school they had separate changing rooms. He walked into the changing room and was quite happy it was empty, his mind wondering why the girl at the front desk had pointed out so blatantly that they didn't want any lawsuits around them.
He figured it was because it had happened before.
He saw Katara's and Azula's schoolbags sat on the bench with their clothes sticking out of them, jackets hung on the coat hangers above, and with some curiosity, Zuko saw that Katara's was partially open. He drew nearer, fighting off the blush on his face, and carefully glanced down into the bag from his standing position to see a lacy, satin, red and black bra covered, in part, by the sneakers Katara had been wearing today.
Zuko immediately turned around and gave a brief laugh at his own excitement. It was just a bra, after all. It shouldn't … do whatever it had just done … He shook it off and grabbed the bottom of his tight, dark blue thermal shirt and pulled it off over his head, tossing it to the spot just beside Azula's bag. He quickly disrobed and folded his clothes, putting them in a neat pile by Azula's bag. When he was stood there in nothing but his underwear, he then wondered if they wanted him all naked. Then he thought back to the bra and figured they probably did. After taking his undies off and stuffing them down the pants leg of his jeans, Zuko stood naked, looking around for the towel he'd always imagined people wore at spas. He saw a column of soft white towels folded by the door he'd just come through. There were some small, plastic sliding clips there that he supposed you were supposed to use to clip your towel around you.
After grabbing a towel and clipping it around his waist, Zuko nervously peeked out the door. The whole world seemed out to get you when you were butt-naked in a strange place. Carefully, he stepped out and shut the door behind himself, checking again to be sure his towel was secured around his waist, and tiptoeing toward the room marked 'massage parlor'. When he finally reached the door, he gently pushed it open and walked in, his feet finding themselves on panel flooring instead of carpet.
There was a gasp and he turned around, pressing his back to the door in panic, terrified that he may have stepped into the wrong room, hands going out to grab the frame of the now-shut door behind him.
Katara and Azula both stared at him in surprise, lying on their stomachs on massage tables, both clutching their towels to their bare chests, despite the clip being there to hold it up - instinct, Zuko would've guessed if he wasn't coming off a small heart attack. Azula was the first to speak in a low, hushed tone. "What are you doing here?"
Zuko breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed, letting go of the doorframe behind him. "Oh, jeez … you'd have scared the pants off me if I were wearing pants …" he breathed. "I tried your cells but I guess you turned 'em off," he explained, walking towards them. There were five massage tables in the room, and Katara and Azula were on the end, so that when he took one, Katara would be in the middle of him and Azula.
"You still didn't answer the question," Katara noted dryly, eyeing him suspiciously. "Why are you here?"
Zuko held his hands up innocently, sitting down on the massage table next to Katara's. "Hey, I said I'd be like, five minutes, but the girl at the desk said nobody gets in without a package. So I'm getting acupuncture and a freaking manicure … to talk to you guys," he pointed out quite abruptly.
"What about?" Azula asked, lowering herself back to the massage table under her.
Zuko inhaled, perhaps to begin on a long and rambling explanation as to how he knew Aidan, but Katara cut him off.
"Ah!" she yelped, her voice scolding. "There's no way in hell you're going to ruin my spa date with depressing talk of your homicidal ex-best-friend. We're going to have our massages, and then our facials, then our mud baths, then our manicures, pedicures and foot massages, and then our hour in the steam room, and a good few hours of subsequent relaxation before you come and ruin it!" she lectured, causing him to shrink a size. "Now lie down and shut up!"
Zuko shut his already-open mouth and allowed a smirk onto his face. He had wanted to talk to Katara about Aidan, but he supposed he could go for some relaxation before thinking about anything else today. Also, Katara was cute when she was angry. "Yes, ma'am," he smiled at her, before adjusting himself into lying position on his stomach and finding it rather comfortable.
Katara huffed and admired her own little lecture, before lying down and waiting for the masseuses to arrive. She wondered why they always took so long coming out, and then she figured it was probably less to do with them having stuff to do and more to do with them wanting their customers to already be relaxed in the setting before rubbing oils on them and shit like that. She nearly drooled at the idea of the massage; she hadn't been for once since long before the kidnap. It would be nice to relax.
She could tell Zuko was only getting more and more tense with the situation, not the reverse. She wanted to tell him to calm down, but then she heard a door clicking on the far side of the room; not the door Zuko had just come through, another, toward the end of the room. Katara had only ever seen two of the five masseurs that worked here at any one time, but three of them walked out, each carrying a tan-colored bag on their hip with handy sectioning for each of the little bottles in them. She knew there were three women and two men who worked here, at least in the massage role, but only one of the women and two of the men came this time. She wondered if it could be considered weird for her not to know the names of any of these people who put her in the most relaxed state she could imagine.
There was no talking involved in the sessions, except between customers. Sometimes Azula would tell her masseur to move a little lower, or more to the left, and he or she would comply, and then Azula would make a little noise of bliss when a knot in the muscles was worked away. Azula didn't usually hold much tension in her muscles, for the most part, but today was different, Katara knew by what Azula had told her in the car on the way here; Azula had had Zhao, Ozai's driver, drive them. Apparently, an old ex-member of the sorority she, Mai and Ty Lee ran had taken some other girls - freshmen and sophomores for the most part - down to the Southern forest for the first pledge of her new sorority.
The southern forest where that girl had been killed last summer.
As soon as Mai, whose back balcony had a view of the only road leading to the southern forest, had called Azula and told her what she'd seen, the two had gone straight up there to have words with Stephanie, the ex-member of their sorority. It had resulted in Stephanie trying to hit Azula, and Azula dodging and grabbing a muddy branch to stay balanced, but in the end, Stephanie had stormed off and Mai had driven the pledglings home.
The masseurs each took a customer and took off their tan-colored bags of oils and shortened the straps, before hanging the bags on the corners of the massage tables. Katara didn't actually see this, because she'd put her head down, but she felt masculine, but pampered, hands on her shoulders and she couldn't help but smile expectantly. She was sure she heard Azula make that blissful sound she did when she was having her own way.
Zuko, on the other hand, was a different story.
As soon as he felt a woman's hand on his bare back, he moved to sit up, but she pushed him down wordlessly. She made a 'tsk' noise as she ran her hands over his back, testing the tension, as if it was his fault that his muscles were so tense, and his brows went down. Then, the woman pressed her thumbs into some tender spots between his spine and shoulder blades, he couldn't help but let his eyes fall half-lidded and allowed a tiny breath to escape. As the woman worked her thumbs into the knots in his back, Aidan fell further and further to the back of his mind, and all he could concentrate on was the blissful sensations his muscles were giving off.
Azula smiled into the backs of her hands as the tension in her back was soothed, and the strong hands of the man working it away began to rub the oil of her choice - honey and chamomile - into her skin. The towel clipped around her had been unclipped and re-clipped just around her hips, and the same with Katara, to give the masseurs better access to the lower back area, but she was lying on her stomach, so her chest was hidden anyway. Most of her tension was in her lower back, actually - something to do with cheerleading, she suspected.
Katara could almost feel the tangles of her own thoughts coming loose as her muscles were worked free with the spicy patchouli oils of her choice, and she was able to ignore everything but the released endorphins in her body. She did, at one point, manage to lift her head to take a glance at Zuko, whose chin was buried in the soft, upholstered top of the massage table, and whose eyes were shut in bliss, and mouth was twitching toward a rapturous smile, and this made her smile too; he could do with some relaxation time.
Azula, Ty Lee and Mai met up at the mall after Azula's pampering session at the Dancing Dragon Day Spa, to make negotiations with Stephanie Jones, her twin lackeys, Coral and Pearl Avery and Stephanie's boyfriend, Mac, who acted as 'enforcement' in the dealings they made. They arranged to meet by the fountain in the middle of the glass-roofed plaza, opposite the food court.
Stephanie was a girl of about Azula's height, with burgundy-dyed hair in a pixie-cut and way too much foundation on, who waltzed into the mall in denim shorts - they were technically shorts, but they looked to Azula like denim underwear, - fishnet tights, pink stilettos and a matching hot pink, low-cut spaghetti-strap tank top. Coral and Pearl were two blondes with platinum-blonde hair cut and layered above their shoulders, with dark brown eyes and California tans, aided by spray-on tans, short, nothing-to-the-imagination miniskirts and matching midriff tops with their names on them.
'They would have to have their names on, so they don't forget,' Mai had always said.
Mac, Stephanie's boyfriend, was a tall football player held back two years for his failure at mathematics. He dyed his hair the same color as Stephanie whenever she changed it - so they matched - and gelled it upward into little stupid peaks that Zuko had once gotten into a fight with the guy for calling 'proof that he's a dickhead'. Mac wore his jersey everywhere, as well as the predictable knee-length shorts that most men wore during the summer.
"Hello, Azula," Stephanie hissed, stalking up toward the three girls but training her vampire-themed contact lenses on Azula alone.
"You're late," the Scorsese girl stated nonchalantly. "Your manners are as bad as your perception."
Stephanie put her hands on her hips. "My what-now?" she raised an eyebrow, befuddled.
Rolling her eyes, Mai spoke up. "It doesn't matter. You have to stop with the pledges, before it gets too hard to."
Mac balled a fist and raised it threateningly. "You stuck-up snobs can't tell us what to do!" he growled viciously, careful not to attract unwanted attention. He was sick of people with more money always getting to cut in line, getting to the top of the popularity ladder just on principle; he had clawed his way to popularity, as had Stephanie and Coral and Pearl, and he wasn't about to let rich kids walk all over him.
"Yeah, no way!" Coral swiped her hand out in front of her in agreement.
Ty Lee held her hands out reasonably. "We're not trying to tell you what to do, we just don't want anyone to get hurt! Didn't you read the story in the news last summer?" she exclaimed, throwing her hands up in exasperation; she may have been a little dim, but these guys took the prize for it.
Stephanie crossed her arms and pointed in Ty Lee's direction. "Stay out of it, you little slut - we don't need advice from someone whose knees have never met!"
Mai stepped forward and ground her teeth, tilting her head down so her fringe nearly covered her eyes and holding a fist in front of her. "You talk that way about my friend again and I'll rip out your silicone tits and shove them up your boyfriends ass so far he won't be able to fuck your crusty hole until he's been to the emergency room," she smirked viciously, unclenching her fist and showing them sharp, black-painted nails with tiny skull decals on them.
Azula watched Stephanie through narrowed eyes. "Insults aren't getting us anywhere. I don't care if you want to have a sorority, do what you want; but I won't allow you to go into the Southern Forest for your pledges; especially if your pledges are going to include splitting up," she lifted a hand and inspected her manicure.
"You screw up my pledges again," Stephanie began, lifting a hand and running it over her pixie cut, "and I'll screw you up so bad even Daddy's money won't be able to help you, because you'll be Six. Feet. Under," she lifted her hand, stuck up her middle finger and turned away from them, stalking on those pink stilettos.
As Coral and Mac turned to follow Stephanie, Pearl put her hands on her hips. "That means you'll be dead!"
Mai lifted a hand to her face and pinched the bridge of her nose as Pearl trotted after her friends. When the trio was sure Stephanie and hers were gone, Mai looked to Azula, who was leaning against the fountain with her arms crossed and her brows down, looking rather irritated, and quite worried. "What now?" Mai spoke up.
Azula shut her eyes and sighed reluctantly. "I don't know."
"So," Katara began with a full mouth, "How does it feel to be pampered?" she slid the napkin out from under her hotdog, walking along the boardwalk of the beach as she did so, with the sun going down on her right, and wiped up the ketchup slipping down her thumb. She balled up the napkin and tossed it to the bin, before taking her baseball and mitt from under her elbow, having wedged them between her arm and torso so she could eat, and smacked the ball into her palm.
Zuko, holding a baseball bat over his shoulder, kept his eyes trained on the sunset and gave a laugh. "I'm wearing nail polish. And I smell like a pineapple raped me," he shook his head and loosened his grip on the bat on his shoulder. "Other than that, I feel pretty relaxed," he tore his eyes away from the sun to smile at Katara.
"Good," Katara nodded, after swallowing the last bit of her hotdog. "So, what was it that you wanted to talk to me and Azula about earlier?"
Zuko's smile weakened momentarily. "I want to do some surveillance tonight. On Aidan," he told her quite plainly, his ex-best-friend's name coming out like he was spitting nails.
Katara's head bobbed thoughtfully. "Sounds like a good idea; he must be staying with a relative right now, so that should be a good place to start. Should I get Toph to run his name through her system, or are we not telling the others about him?"
"I know where he's staying; with his brother, in the city," Zuko conceded carefully, and solemnly, "I don't think it's a good idea to tell the others just yet. If he gets too close, then we tell them, but if not, it's better if …" he paused and looked out to the water again.
Katara reached out and put her hand on his arm. "If you don't have to tell them about Noah," she finished for him, squeezing his arm gently.
The name hit him like one of the waves crashing on the shore. Zuko breathed a heavy, sigh, and then shook his head slowly, golden eyes reflecting the sunlight in shimmering sparkles that gleamed like fine jewelry in a well-lit jeweler's store. "I should've seen it," he murmured under his breath.
Katara squeezed his arm a little harder this time, her manicured fingernails digging into him slightly as she gave him a gentle nudge. "You couldn't have, Zuko. If you blame yourself … you'll end up like …"
'Like?' her mind asked her, 'Like you? Hunting revenge for your mother's murder, to undo what you should've prevented?'
Zuko spoke again and she never finished what she'd begun to say. "I don't blame myself for it. I just … if I couldn't see it, how would I have stopped it?"
Katara frowned in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"If he did it again, and I couldn't even see it, how would I be able to stop it?" he gave a tiny grunt that indicated to Katara that he was having an internal battle with his mind and logic. "I saw Noah every day, and I didn't even catch a hint that something was up. He could be doing it to anyone, even one of the gang … and we wouldn't even know."
Katara grimaced. "We'll just have to assume that whoever he's talking to, he's manipulating. We'll know if he makes any friends," she reasoned calmly, before nudging her friend reassuringly. "And then the Blue Spirit and Painted Lady can keep an eye out for them."
Toph smacked her glass down on the counter and shook her head. "Come on, Suki," she panted, having guzzled down the last of her lemonade, her tongue burnt by the hot pizza they'd ordered - thirty minutes or less? Toph scoffed at the idea; the pizza had gotten there in ten minutes, still flaming from the oven, more or less. "Spill the beans - what derailed the paradise-train?"
Suki shrugged and picked a piece of pepperoni off the pizza, popping it into her mouth and then using her tongue to peel the cheese away from the underside of it. "I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about, Duchess Bei Fong," she glanced to the television to see the wrestlers - she'd forgotten their highfalutin names already - tearing one another to shreds. One body-slammed the other into the corner of the ring and Suki winced at it.
Toph rolled her eyes and picked at the pizza crust on her plate; they had been faking titles since after school, to see how long it took for someone to come up and ask if they were serious, or say something about it. So far, the deliveryman had bowed politely upon delivering their food; maybe their fake titles had had something to do with the speed with which the pizza had arrived. "Well, Lady Suki, I believe I am referring to the fact that you and Snoozles are no longer doing the nasty-nasty."
Suki scowled at Toph. "You're so ladylike, Toph. I don't know why you don't get invited to more parties."
"Parties stink," the colorblind girl answered calmly, "now tell me what happened!"
Suki ran her tongue across her lower lip thoughtfully. She supposed she could tell Toph; Toph knew how to keep her mouth shut, and not spread gossip that would ruin Yue's social life. Suki laughed inwardly - she really was the better person, watching out for the reputation of the girl who'd fucked her boyfriend behind her back. And Yue would've had to know they were together. As Katara put it one day, the two hung off one another like drapes.
"You really want to know?"
"Yes!"
"Sokka nailed Yue Chander behind my back," Suki explained smoothly, plucking a piece of cheese from her slice of pizza.
Toph's mouth hung agape. "No way."
"Way."
The blind bandit sputtered for a moment, before finally finding her vocabulary and managing to speak clearly. "Why? When?"
Suki shrugged again and licked the cheese and tomato sauce from her finger. "Probably because he was horny and she was the closest thing he could fuck, and I walked in on 'em after your party," she watched the television with a lackluster interest that showed she wasn't at all entertained by the wrestling that Toph had put on the screen.
Toph smacked her hands on the counter. "You walked in on them?" she exclaimed, before laughing out and clutching her stomach with how hard she was chuckling. "Oh, Snoozles!" she sniggered, "EPIC FAIL!" she shook her head and then put it on the counter before her, laughing all the way.
Suki frowned, "I didn't think it was really that funny."
"What?"
"Well-,"
"Seriously? He got caught in the act - I can see the fail whale swimming through his head just as you walked out the door. I mean, Snoozles is dumb, but this takes the cake!" then Toph broke out in laughter again, laughing so hard her stomach was beginning to hurt. She grabbed some pizza crust and tried to chew it, but only ended up nearly choking.
Suki managed the tiniest smirk. "Okay. Maybe it's a little funny," she shook her head and lifted her own glass from the counter, beside Toph's head. "I hope, Duchess, that this stays on the down-low, because if it didn't Sokka would look like a little bit of a douche bag. And I'm taking the moral high-ground."
Toph lifted her head and wiped her colorblind eyes of laughter. "Yeah, yeah, sure," she snorted. "That's priceless-," she was interrupted by a knock on the door and a chime of the doorbell, and her face screwed up in confusion and annoyance. Glancing up to the clock, Toph saw that it was way past ten in the night, and anyone knocking on Suki's door at this hour was either a male stripper or just plain rude. Not that Toph really cared. She secretly hopes her first assumption was right.
Suki tilted her head one way. "I'm not expecting anyone else."
"Think maybe the Blue Spirit or Painted Lady are in need of some assistance?" Toph's next thought came out on her tongue, her fingers curling in toward her palm, crackling discreetly from their overuse in keyboard typing.
Suki hopped off the barstool with a piece of pizza in her hand and a piece of pepperoni in her mouth and walked out into the badly decorated hallway. She walked toward the front door and grabbed the door handle, immediately feeling like lightning had shot through her. The piece of pizza almost fell out of her hand, but then her fingers tightened on it, getting tomato sauce under her fingernails. Toph ran out behind her, seeming to have gotten that lightning shock too.
There was a loud rumble outside, immediately after the shock, and they recognized the sound of thunder; they hadn't known there was a storm before this moment. There was no storm in the skies, but you can tell a blind man about a rainbow as much as you like.
"Don't answer the door," Toph told her friend gravely, looking paler than usual.
But it was too late. The handle was already turned and Suki was pulling it toward her to see who was at the door. Toph's face seemed to twist in horror as Suki pulled the door back, because when the cheap doorway was opened out, the colorblind girl's father stood on the doorstep, and Toph could see their family driver, whom she hardly knew, out in the logic-defiantly clear night by the black car her parents got driven around in by the road, behind him.
"Toph," Lao spoke seriously, ignoring Suki completely, focused only on the horrified face of his daughter.
Toph's brows came down and she tried to put on a hateful expression, but only fear was written on the front of her head. "What's going on?" she asked; her parents never checked if she was home, unless they wanted something from her. So what could they possibly want or need her for? Where else had her father looked for her? Had he gone to Aang's house? Katara's?
Lao's eyes narrowed. "Come with me," he told her in dry, flat tones that she tried to dissect with her amazing mind, but couldn't.
With wide, pale green eyes, Toph shrank and took a hesitant step toward him. Suki watched her with parted lips and an expression that would've told them she was flashing back, had they been less fixed on one another. She began to believe there really was a storm, and it would go down as soon as Toph got into that serious black car and the door clicked shut, locking her in. Toph got outside into the clear night, and Suki could've sworn she looked like she was being rained on.
The shorter girl looked back with huge, sparkling eyes, asking for a rescue, but before anything else could be said, Lao had put a hand on Toph's shoulder, nudged her further out the door and further from the house, and shut the front door between them.
Katara stretched calmly and silently, her arms spread up and out to the sky as she and Zuko walked along a rooftop toward the downtown apartment that he was sure Aidan was staying at with his brother. The two hopes from the roof of one building to the fire escape of the next, and climbed up to the roof, before continuing to stroll. Zuko was sure that if Aidan got up to anything tonight, it would be later rather than earlier.
Her mask already fastened, Katara spoke up. "What do you expect to find tonight?" she asked curiously, her arms finding their places on her hips, on utility belt fastened to the harness that held her guns. "Drugs? Bodies? Clues?"
The Blue Spirit shook his head and took a long step onto a skylight, not bothering to look down. "No. I don't expect to find anything." His voice echoed inside his own head thanks to his mask, and his own mint-scented breath bounced back at him. "I want to study his habits. Know his weaknesses."
The Painted Lady raised an eyebrow beneath her mask and then tossed her head, her ponytail flicking at the cool night air in her mesmerized state. A tall building moved out of the way as they walked and the light of the three-quarter moon washed over both vigilantes. She breathed in its cool light as if it offered her some kind of secret power, and when she breathed it out, she opened her eyes and smiled at it. "Check it out," she murmured, eyes fixed on the bright orb, with its darkened quarter withheld from the eyes of the earth until the full moon.
Zuko was already looking at it when she told him to look. "It's beautiful," he smiled under his mask as a cool night breeze blew between them, taking the Painted Lady's ponytail with it and causing her to give a tiny laugh of excitement. The gold eyes beneath the blue mask moved from the moon to the stars, and then to his companion, who watched the sky as if waiting for something. 'Beautiful' he repeated in his head, observing as the moon bounced off her in the most mesmerizing way.
He suddenly wanted to forget Aidan; to banish him to the back of his mind so that he could instead reach out to Katara, embrace her and then whisper - ever so gently - 'Can I kiss you?' but Katara shook her head as if she were thinking upon how strange things were; not that they weren't, though.
Red-painted lips drew in a breath and then she was talking in her thoughtful, contemplative way. "I always feel like the moon is more significant than people think," she spoke quietly, as if only half sure she wanted him to hear her speaking.
"How so?" Zuko stepped closer to her, his eyes moving back to the moon.
Katara shrugged. "I'm not entirely sure," she turned her head to meet his eyes, but only saw the dark eye holes of his mask, so she looked back to the sky. "I can't help but think that maybe … the moon has some kind of influence on the world," and she cleared her throat quietly, looking away from it with a blush hidden by her mask. "It sounds stupid out loud," she gave a nervous laugh.
Zuko gave a smile beneath his mask and shook his head. "No, it doesn't," he assured her, before glancing back in the direction they had been walking in. "Come on, we'd better get a move on."
Katara nodded in agreement. "Yeah," she took the first step ahead of him and approached the edge of the roof. When she went to hop to the next, Zuko grabbed her wrist and pointed down, crouching. Katara's eyes followed where he was pointing and she saw he was pointing to a window on the building before them. In the light of the apartment, she could see that boy she'd met earlier grabbing a jacket from somewhere and walking in a manner befitting someone on their way out.
"He's going out. Come on!" Zuko wheeled a few steps back, then had a run up and shot himself from one roof to the next, gloved hands taking hold of the lip of the apartment building's roof. He hoisted himself up and began to run across the roof of the building to look down for the front door, eyes searching for Aidan's swaggering walk and cocky demeanor.
The Painted Lady walked back a few more steps than her comrade had and held her arms and legs in a swan-diving position as she crossed the space between one building and the next. When she made contact with the next roof, her hands hit the flat top surface rather than the lip Zuko had grabbed, and she kicked her legs over her head, and then rolled forwards on her back, tucking her knees back in until she got her feet under her and she found herself crouching. She stood and ran after Zuko, finding him watching the street below intently.
Katara's eyes had to search for a moment for Aidan, but they found the older boy crossing the street calmly, with an undeniable swagger to add to his confident expressions, walking toward a coke machine outside a 7/11. "Does coke count as a weakness?" she joked in a breathy whisper.
Zuko's mask turned to her but said nothing, and then he looked back to his subject. By the way his head had moved, Katara guessed he'd been giving her a displeased look along the lines of 'shut the fuck up'. Katara then figured she could be exaggerating in this, but his look had said something like that. Maybe it had been more like 'can we have a mutual seriousness right now?' but Katara didn't know. She laughed in her head at herself for trying to decipher his expression while he wore a mask.
Returning his eyes to Aidan, who now held a can of cola in one hand, and was walking down the street with a phone in the other. He seemed to be blindly dialing a number off by memory, with eyes dancing around suspiciously. Aidan hadn't thought to look up, Zuko noted with minimal satisfaction. After all, what would the Blue Spirit want with Aidan? Nothing. Truth be told, Zuko - alter ego aside - didn't really want much to do with him either.
Both masked figures moved, crouching, along the building in the unassuming way a shadow moves when you walk in the sun, following Aidan discreetly. Perhaps they chose the right moment on instinct, or perhaps they read one another's minds. Either way the two followed the ex-con with their feet moving on the roof as fingers do on a piano during an arpeggio. With some effort, the two crossed the gap between the apartment building and the office building adjacent to it.
They followed until Aidan came to a halt before a gas station to talk on his phone. The irony of that fact didn't hit Zuko, and was wasted on Katara, who found no humor in it. Once she saw that he was listening for an answer on the other end, Katara grabbed for her leather pants and drew out her own phone, which had been tweaked - just a little - by Toph in the same session that had resulted in that cheesy song playing each time Zuko called her. She opened a custom application Toph had scripted for her and aimed her phone at Aidan on the street below. The quiet ringing of a phone was audible from her phone, and the both of them knew it was picking up the signal of Aidan's phone clearly.
"Hello?" - a woman's - no, a girl's, voice.
"Hello to you too," - Aidan's voice was clear and crisp and confident.
There was a pause. "Aidan?" the girl's voice was excited, perhaps overjoyed. "Aidan?" she asked again to be sure.
Aidan chuckled on the line and then spoke again. "Miss me, babe?" he drawled in satisfaction.
The girl sounded like she was getting out of bed, because they could hear lights clicking on and the ruffle and rustle of someone getting dressed, a sound they would come to find humorous in a few weeks. "Where are you? When did you get out?" she asked quickly, and by her tone, Zuko and Katara figured she had - in fact - missed him.
Aidan answered in a vague, nonchalant tone. "Don't you worry about that, babe; I'm downtown."
She laughed enthusiastically. "Me too. You aren't at-,"
"You know me too well," Aidan cut her off. "See you in ten, right?"
She paused and then in a hesitant tone; "Yeah."
Aidan hung up.
Katara slumped visibly and stuffed her phone back in her pocket, eyeing Aidan with more contempt this time than before. The girl on the other end didn't even know he was just making a booty call. She was beginning to understand what Zuko had told her of Aidan's manipulative skills. Even she - a fifteen-year-old virgin - could see what this girl, who sounded older, couldn't. Before she could speak, the phone she'd just put into her leather pocket vibrated against her thigh.
Zuko looked to her at the sound of the vibration.
Katara pulled the phone out and shielded the light on the screen from anyone looking up, to see a name on the screen; 'SUKI'. Her brows knit together and she glanced to Zuko for permission to answer, which he granted with a nod, before she tapped the screen's little green button, turning away from Aidan below and cupping her hand around her phone. "Hello?"
"Katara?" Suki's voice sounded worried and stressed. "Are you there?" and with that Katara realized she's paused initially.
"Huh? Yeah, yes, I'm here. What's wrong?" she asked carefully, almost wanting to reach through the phone and put a hand on Suki's shoulder.
"Is Zuko with you?"
Katara was taken aback, but she answered. "Yeah, he is."
"Can you put him on?" Suki asked with a sniffle, and both of them realized she'd been crying, or trying not to.
Zuko snatched the phone from Katara and put it to his ear, and somehow Katara wasn't offended by this; his services were required and he helped people who needed him. It seemed less that he was being rude and more that he was eagerly available to help wherever he could. He was a good friend. "I'm here."
"I think Toph's in trouble."
And that was why they abandoned their surveillance duty.
A/N: CHAPTER DONE. Finally. I keep giving myself writer's block. Yep, so I'm a terrible person; I know for a fact that going to my dad's house gives me writer's block. And yet I keep going. What the hell is wrong with me? But, I know a remedy for my writer's block - it may not work for yours, but here's my remedy.
Rule 1, (the most important) Two WHOLE days, NO WRITING. (Even if your writer's block goes before the days are over).
Rule 2, At least FOUR hours of good reading (BOOKS, not fan fiction) to be done in those two days.
Rule 3, Watch at least TWELVE fan videos.
Rule 4, Find a SINGLE long fan fiction story (20 chapters at least, preferably complete) and read it.
Rule 5, keep DeviantArt open in your browser, search ZUTARA (or other favored ship name) and browse each time you get bored of playing online games.
Rule 6, have A4 pieces of paper and a pen. Use paper to write down words you'd like to remember for writing, as they come to you. Keep these papers handy when writing, and if you like, use them as inspiration for word-themed oneshots.
And that's how it works for me. Now then, RE-VIEWS for Reviews! YAY!
Zuko shrugged off Azula's hand. "No." he frowned, golden eyes still fixed on Katara. "I want you out of here, right now."
The brunette shook her head in disbelief. "I don't- Why?" she made a face.
"Because it's your fault Ty Lee got hurt in the first place." He hissed viciously, his eyes narrowed into slits.
Katara stared. 'Ouch, man. Seriously. Ouch'. She shook her head again and continued to stare, her mouth falling open a little. 'You think I don't know that?' Katara finally shut her mouth and regained seriousness. She looked to Azula. "Hey, where's Mai?" she looked about.
"She's-,"
Zuko interrupted. "Don't tell her." He whipped his head around to look at his sister.
Azula stared. "You … are … a sad little man." She shook her head, ashamed for him.
I say this word so much, if I were a pokemon, that would be what I was called. 'Reviews?'