Distractions

by Madame Bomb

Zuki Week – Day 2 (March 30th)

Prompt: TRAINING SESSION

Rating: T

Summary: Zuko proves to Suki what a distraction she really is.

Notes: Sexual tension while training is my favorite trope. Can you tell?

"Zuko!"

He barely had time to react to the sound of the familiar feminine voice on his left before something silver and sharp came winging his way. He spun on instinct, capturing what he quickly realized was one of his dual dao swords by the pommel with ease. He spun it in his fingers and turned to face the woman who had thrown it to him.

She was standing a few feet away, her chin raised, brow arched. The sun turned her hair into a red corona around her pretty face. She wasn't wearing her usual paint or uniform, and as always, seeing her bare-faced was like a punch in the gut.

One of these days he was going to get over how beautiful he found her. Today was obviously not that day, however, because just looking at her made his stomach tighten. Not to mention other parts of him.

He noticed the other dual dao sword in her fingers, held lightly, like it was an extension of her graceful arm. She lifted it, pointing the tip of the blade at him, her posture at the ready, in a guard position.

He let a little smile cross his lips. "What are you doing?"

"I'm about to kick your ass," his bodyguard said smartly, her blue eyes narrowing a little. "With your own sword."

"You are, huh?"

"Damn right," she said, with another smile that made his blood heat up. If she only knew what that look did to him.

"That's not how dual dao swords work," he said, pacing to the center of the dojo to face her. "Both swords work as one. You need both."

"And if you lose one in a fight, what then? The other one is useless?" she shot at him, swinging his sword through the air, loosening up. "You've been relying too much on both swords in our sparring matches lately. I disarmed you the other day and you yielded when you should have kept fighting with the sword you had left."

"I was tired and late for a meeting," he said, but he was really thinking, and you were wearing that little top I like so much, the one that shows your belly. I couldn't concentrate on the fight anyway.

Of course, he couldn't tell her that.

"Excuses, excuses," she admonished, as he grinned a little to himself. She gestured to him with the sword. "Square up."

"I could just Firebend at you, you know."

"Try it and see what happens," she shot at him, and then she was moving, coming at him in such a fluid spin that he damned near yelped in surprise. She was unholy fast, her body the kind of weapon that took years to hone. She was deadly, every move like the slash of a sharp blade, made even deadlier by the real weapon she held in her fingers.

Zuko had been training with her for years, however. He wasn't as good as she was, but he was fast and he knew how her mind worked. And he knew all too well how ruthless she could be in a fight. She always played to win and she rarely lost.

Her sudden attack put him on the defensive, a less stable footing which gave her the upper hand. He was stronger than she was, but she'd been trained since childhood to overcome that particular obstacle. He'd seen her throw men three times her size to the ground without breaking a sweat. His size made him slower, but she'd trained him to compensate for that too.

He'd always thought he was a decent fighter until Suki had walked into his life, taking over as his chief bodyguard, and personal trainer. She was a hard taskmaster, but he liked that about her too. She kept him on his toes, and he'd learned more with her than even from Master Piandao, who had taught him to fight with the dual dao swords in the first place.

Suki had turned his skills with the two blades into an art form. He was as good with the swords as he was at Firebending now, no small feat.

And still, no matter how good he was, she was better.

A man with less ego might have minded, but it turned him on to know that she could beat him nine times out of ten.

And he couldn't tell her that either.

There were a lot of things he couldn't tell her.

Suki put him on the defensive from the start, coming at him with the fluid grace of a dancer. She moved the line constantly, keeping him bouncing from one footing to another, shifting his weight to compensate. She lunged, feinted, and then rolled into him, coming in under his guard and shoving her knee into his stomach.

He folded, the air leaving him, and he went down on one knee before her.

He felt the blade of his own sword against his throat, tipping his chin up so that he was looking her in the eyes.

"You're dead, pretty boy."

"You think I'm pretty?" he scoffed. She shot him a smile, but she stepped back, withdrawing the sword.

"Again."

He shook off the blow that had dropped him to his knees and then went into another guard position, but only for half a moment. He went at her this time, forcing her into taking the defensive line. He used his size against her this time, as much as he was able, but she compensated for it, dancing out of his reach.

And that was what they were doing, what they always did. It was a dance between them. They moved across the dojo together, their bodies coming together and then spinning apart, only to crash back together. Just like his dual dao swords, they were two blades working as one.

She got under his guard again, and their arms tangled. She knocked his blade aside, trapped his leg with her own, and suddenly the sharp tip of her blade was digging into the soft skin on his lower belly, right above the vulnerable parts of him that ached for her.

He stiffened and in more ways than one, as the tip of the blade pressed in, just enough to let him know what it could have done to him.

"Fuck," he mumbled, as she withdrew it immediately. She hadn't drawn blood; she was too good for that, but the threat had been there. "Watch it, Sukes. I'm supposed to produce an heir eventually."

She stepped a half a foot away, and flicked the sword in a circle. "Remember that the next time you get distracted. An enemy would have cut it off."

Zuko rubbed at his belly, where she'd dug in the blade. "If I were facing an enemy out to kill me, I wouldn't let myself get distracted. With you, it's another matter altogether. I can't help myself."

"I'm distracting?" she shot at him, brow arching.

"Always," he said, and that was much too truthful. He blushed and rubbed at the back of his neck.

"How do I distract you?" she asked seriously, dropping out of her guarding stance and looking at him with her head cocked. He wanted to tell her it was things like that, that cock of her head that sent his pulse racing like a galloping ostrich-horse, and made him think about things that only a cold shower could cure, but tapped his sword against his leg instead, his lips pressed together.

"Nevermind, let's just fight," he mumbled, but Suki's brow furrowed.

"Seriously, how do I distract you?" She was stubborn, and he knew now that he'd said something she wouldn't let up until he'd spilled his guts out to her. She had a way of wrestling the truth out of him. "If I'm doing something that could get you killed if we're attacked, I need to know so I can stop doing it. And I need to train it out of you so that you can ignore it."

He sighed in exasperation. "Trust you to only worry about the battle."

"I was mostly thinking about keeping you safe," she said lightly, tapping his sword against her leg as well. It was a habit they both had, and it amused him. "That's why we do this, Zuko. I know I can be a little hard on you, obsessed even. I push you a lot in our training sessions, but I'm just worried about keeping you safe. I sleep better at night knowing it would take half an army to take you down if I weren't there to get between you and danger."

"Half an army? Sukes, I don't even win against you half of the time. Let alone half an army. I'm nowhere near as good as you are."

"But you are! You're amazing, Zuko. It's not just the swords. Your Firebending? I'm not a bender, I can't train that into you. That's all you and you are a sight to behold when you're Firebending. I love watching you. It takes my breath away. You take my breath away. "

"You take mine away too," he said before he could stop himself. Suki looked struck, blinking at him. He cleared his throat and stood up straight. "Watching you fight is like watching dragon fire, Suki. It's pure, and elemental. You're incredible. I get so distracted when we fight because I just want to watch you move. The way you breathe, the way you handle a weapon...It's like poetry, like you were made for this. I can't help myself. You're beautiful."

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are," he said, closing the distance between them. "And I sleep a lot less peacefully every time I think about you getting between me and an army. Even thought I know you can take them, I don't want you to put yourself in harm's way. It gives me nightmares."

It was the truth. Most of his nightmares, the ones that didn't involve his face on fire and his father's cruel laughter involved watching Suki die in his arms. He always woke up in a cold sweat, screaming her name, every instinct he possessed wanting nothing more than to run to her, to find her and make sure that she was okay.

And the more time went on, the more those nightmares had started to plague him. He didn't want to tell her that. He didn't want to worry her.

She already worried about him far too much.

"That's my job, I'm your bodyguard."

"You're more than to me," he said and then winced. He'd said too much. He was always saying too much.

Suki cocked her head again. "Am I?"

Something in her voice made him stop, his gaze slowly lifting to hers. She was looking at him with her heart in her big blue eyes. He hitched in a breath.

Don't do it, he told himself, but he ignored the warning.

"You know that you are, Suki," he said, and he reached out a hand, touching her face with the lightest of caresses. Suki's eyes blew wide, her lips parting for a moment. Then she flushed, biting down on her bottom lip and stepping back.

"Zuko," she said, looking away, her face bright red. "I... We... We should..."

"Should what?" he asked, feeling hopeful, the moment between them coming so close all of the little things he'd wanted to say to her for so long.

"Go back to sword-fighting," she mumbled, turning her back on him and pacing away to the center of the dojo again. Zuko's shoulders sagged in disappointment. The moment was broken, whatever that had been fading away like sparkles in the sun.

Zuko fell back into his guard position when he saw that she wasn't going to restart the conversation. He felt a grim kind of frustration now. He had come so close to telling her, really telling her how he felt, and like always, he'd had to pull back at the last moment.

He wanted to tell her how he felt. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to be with her, and sometimes he thought she might want that too, but she always pulled back when they got too close, like just now. It was frustrating. Maddening. Distracting.

His mind was still on their conversation when she went for him again. He got his sword up, but she got the upper hand almost immediately. He found himself on his back with her straddling him. She had her sword pressing down on his blade, which was keeping her sword from his throat.

Her teeth bared as he glared at her, pushing back against the weight she was putting on the blade. He was stronger, but she had the upper hand. She usually did.

Then his gaze went to her mouth, that soft pink pucker that had been the bane of his existence for far too long. How often had he been lost in the enticing fantasy of taking that sweet mouth of hers and kissing her until she yielded against him?

Too many times.

Far too many times.

"Yield," she said.

"No," he squeezed out.

She was going to win though. They both knew it.

Unless he could distract her.

Zuko's free hand caught the back of Suki's neck. He yanked her down at the same time he lifted up. The kiss was rough, imprecise, and completely, utterly, totally amazing.

Suki made a soft sound of surprise as his mouth slammed to hers, sparks practically arching in the meager space between them. She stiffened, and then...

Somehow the dual dao swords were pushed aside without hurting each other. Kissing with live steel at each other's throats wasn't exactly the smartest of moves, but he decided not to worry about it. Not when Suki made a soft moaning sound and her hand caught in the front of his shirt, twisting up and yanking him off of the ground.

He'd known how badly he wanted to kiss her; it was his favorite fantasy, and his daily obsession, imagining what it might be like whenever his mind wandered, but he was totally unprepared to realize that maybe he hadn't been the only one who had been longing for this to happen.

Suki's mouth was warm and sweet against his, better even than his best fantasies. The taste of her... He groaned into the heat of her mouth and sank his hands into her hair, sitting up until her weight shifted into his lap. Suki's arms were around his neck, her tongue in his mouth.

There was something desperate, something hungry, in her kiss. And he matched it with his own hunger, his own desperation, lost in her, the heat, the soft of her breath, the velvet of her mouth and the sweet moans that rolled from her throat into his mouth.

It was too much. His head spun.

Zuko pulled back for air and Suki trembled in his arms. His eyes opened and he looked at her, at the desire in her blue eyes as they slowly fluttered open. He searched her gaze as they both panted.

"See?" Zuko said, nuzzling her nose, a little smile on his lips. "Distracting."

Suki didn't say anything. She just kissed him again.

He was pretty sure that meant he'd won.

(end)