Author's note: Hey everyone! This is my First story under the Cliche Kataang tag. Cliches/Tropes are: Met at a party, Instant Attraction, Murder Mystery, Suspense, and Amateur Sleuths.

This story is going to have some mentions of violence and a lot of sex, some more graphic scenes than others. This chapter mentions consensual sexual activity.

Will update every other week on Wednesday or Thursday. Chapter length will vary. Enjoy, and review/subscribe if you please. Thanks!

"So … you look good."

Dark eyes scanned her from top to toe, settling for a very long moment in the area of her chest.

"Heard you weren't dating anyone right now." A smirk broadened into an almost sympathetic smile. "That's a surprise. Miss me?"

Katara Palluq hated parties. All the fake smiling and silly conversations and nodding gave her a headache. But she especially hated parties where she ran into ex-boyfriends. Especially when those ex-boyfriends were smarmy assholes who had dumped her with the breezy comment that things were "getting too heavy" and he needed some "space for awhile," meaning the "space" to get behind … or maybe on top of … a new woman.

Katara glowered at Jet Lim, who was looking at her boobs again and leering in fond remembrance. Was this how it was going to be at every party until she left Republic City? Jet showing up to give snippy remarks and oily leers knowing he'd dropped her? Jobs weren't growing on trees, and she knew she couldn't just leave the city because her social circle almost guaranteed that she'd see her most recent ex, and he would taunt her with her singledom. Still, he was the one who had ended the relationship, and it was just customary for the dumpee to keep the circle of friends and go to all the parties. He couldn't even break up right!

She opened her mouth to retort that her life, particularly her dating life, was no longer any of his concern, but then shut her lips as a new idea occurred to her – a wild, rather ridiculous idea, but she was so tired of that stupid grin on Jet's face. It was the same one he'd had when he'd talked about taking "space."

"I'm not sure where you heard that," she said breezily, ignoring his question and smiling as if she felt sorry for him. "I am dating someone. Have been for a few months now. You need a new source of information."

"Really." Jet's cockiness deflated a little. "My source is pretty good. Anyone I know?"

"No."

Jet's eyes narrowed. "You've been dating him for a few months?"

Katara widened her eyes innocently. She understood the sharpness in Jet's tone. They'd broken up approximately 3 months ago, and he obviously had no problems doing the math.

"So, what's his name?" All the swagger was gone now. "He's here with you tonight, I guess?"

Katara hesitated. Damn. Now what? Of course a boyfriend of three months would be with her at a work function. The party was crawling with plus-ones. If she said no, then Jet would go back to smarming and conversing with her cleavage. But she couldn't possibly say yes either.

"Yes, of course he's here."

Oops.

Jet glanced around. "Nice. Can't wait to meet him."

Katara glanced around, too, trying to tamp down on her rising panic.

Stupid, stupid, stupid! Okay, chill … maybe we can bluff it out …

Her eyes frantically scanned the crowd of nicely dressed partygoers.

Haru … where's Haru?

Haru Liao was a coworker of hers at Laogai International. His office in the Accounts Department was right across the hall from hers. He was a tallish, attractive man with amazing hair and a somewhat unfortunate mustache to which he seemed extremely attached. It wasn't lost on Katara that Haru had a little crush on her, and she was sure that if she could find him and explain the situation, she could entice him to play the role of boyfriend for five minutes to get Jet out of her face. Part of her felt bad that she'd be using poor Haru as sort of a human shield, but she resolved to make it up to him by maybe going with him to one of those "friendly" lunches he was always suggesting.

But when she finally located Haru, her stomach dropped. He was deep in conversation with an eager-faced girl in a pink jumpsuit who was fluttering her eyelashes so fast Katara wondered how Haru's lovely hair wasn't blowing back in the breeze.

Scratch Haru, then. She supposed he had gotten the message that she saw him only as a friend.

She turned back to Jet with a somewhat sickly grin. "I think he must have gone to the bathroom. I'll look around –"

" – No need," said Jet, sneering as if he'd figured out she was lying. "I'm sure he's on his way to find you. No one would leave his beautiful girlfriend all alone at a party … would they?"

Katara glowered at him. Yeah, you would, you ass.

She was about to make a more forceful excuse to exit when she looked over Jet's shoulder and saw a fellow guest – a tall, bald man – walking in their general direction.

She'd seen him earlier – Katara always noticed tall men – and this one stood head and shoulders above even those like Jet, who was well above average in height. His head was shaved to the skin, which seemed to suit the clean lines of his handsome face, and he was dressed nicely but not gaudily. When Katara had first noticed him, he'd been talking to a young woman in a dark-blue dress.

The tall man had a champagne flute in each hand and smiled at her when their eyes met. His eyes were grey, Katara noticed with interest … the deep, rich grey of a frozen thundercloud. They were startlingly beautiful and intense in a way that made her sit up and take notice.

Katara felt her heart knocking against her ribcage, because she knew she was about to do something daring and quite possibly immensely embarrassing.

She looked at Jet, saying with a bright tone, "You were right. Here he comes now."

Jet's head whipped round at the same time Katara took several long-legged strides to the stranger, hoping she didn't look like she was running.

She was in front of him so quickly he had to check his stride and nearly spilled one of the drinks.

"Oh, Spirits," said a deep-timbered, pleasant voice. "I'm sorry, I –"

"Sweetie! Aw … you got me a drink?" Katara could have bitten her tongue for speaking so loudly, but she'd wanted to be sure Jet could hear them. "That's so thoughtful!"

She smiled winningly up into what her subconscious noted was an extremely handsome face to go along with the striking eyes. She'd noticed his attractiveness in a sort of an abstract way before, but being so close to him … whoa.

Leveraging the man's obvious shock and confusion to continue her plan, Katara plucked one of the glasses from his hand and brought it carefully to her lips. It was peach champagne. Delicious.

The man was blinking rather rapidly as she placed a hand on his arm and sighed as dreamily as if she were being walked down the aisle. She leaned toward him in what looked like an affectionate nuzzle, but her lips were right outside the shell of the man's ear as she hissed rapidly:

"I'm Katara. Please play along. I can't get rid of this guy and I don't want to make a scene."

She felt rather than saw the man's answering nod. Suddenly Katara felt a little nervous. She had just glommed onto a man she didn't know. He was hot, sure, but what if he was even more of an ass than Jet? Katara doubted that could be possible, but if the guy was a weirdo, she was stuck with him until she could make a less-than-graceful escape.

Katara guided her new friend to where Jet stood, his brow webbed in annoyance and with his hands bunched in tight fists at his sides.

"Sweetie, this is Jet," Katara said in a honeyed voice to her companion, but stopped suddenly, quaking inside.

She didn't know this man's name.

This was supposed to be her "boyfriend," and she had no idea what his name was.

How in the name of Koi's gills was she supposed to make introductions if she didn't even know his name?!

But Jet, bless him, solved that problem for her by being himself – namely, a pretentious douche.

"Hey, buddy." Jet scanned the man with a twisted smirk. "I guess Katara's told you all about me, huh?"

"Nope. Can't remember your name ever coming up before," he answered in such a politely bland voice that the little sneer dropped entirely from Jet's face, and Katara had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing.

"I'm Aang." The tall man gave a friendly smile, sticking out his hand. "Good to meet you, Jet."

At his self-introduction, Katara couldn't help but give his bicep – quite impressive, by the way – a squeeze of thanks.

Jet mumbled something that Katara assumed was supposed to be "nice to meet you" before announcing that there was someone on the other side of the room he needed to see slinking away, muttering.

Katara felt her shoulders relax as Jet was swallowed up into the crowd. At her side came a dry, coolly amused voice.

"And I was just thinking this party was a little on the boring side."

She looked up at the man – Aang –and laughed lightly.

"Well, things usually get livelier with a little alcohol."

"True. Mine is just sparkling peach juice though." He smiled at her. "Yours is a little more potent, I think."

"A lot more." Katara suddenly felt guilty. "Thank you for helping, and I'm so sorry to have jumped in front of you like that -"

"It's fine." His voice dropped slightly. "Let me guess … ex-boyfriend?"

She nodded morosely. "I wouldn't have come tonight if I'd known he'd be here."

"That's always awkward." Aang frowned a little. "You're not going to have any trouble with him, are you?"

"No, he's gone off with his tail between his legs. He probably won't even look in my general direction for the rest of the night."

Katara was staring into her glass when a thought occurred to her.

"I should get you another drink to replace the one I just kind of snatched from you. I -"

"No need." Aang's lips bent into a wry grin as he cast a glance toward the other side of the room. "Looks like she found someone else to get her a drink."

She followed Aang's gaze to a man and woman talking animatedly over in a corner. She recognized the woman in the dark-blue dress that Aang had been chatting with earlier. She was smiling winningly up at her companion and did indeed have a glass of something golden and bubbly in her hand.

Katara was mortified. She'd not only gang-pressed an innocent man into going along with a lie that wasn't going to hold up for more than a few hours, but she'd also ruined his flirtation with someone else.

"I am so sorry. I could go over and get you off the hook, if you want?"

Aang laughed. "No, it's fine. She's having fun. But I'm a little worried … is it going to be okay if your boyfriend finds out what happened here?"

Katara had been about to take a sip of her drink, and was grateful she hadn't, because she would have probably spit it out.

"My what?"

Aang's smile disappeared.

"I just assumed I was standing in for your actual guy, who couldn't be here tonight for some … reason?"

Katara contemplated downing the rest of the champagne and slipping off into the night with what shreds of her dignity remained, but Aang looked so bewildered and concerned that she knew she'd feel even worse without trying to give some sort of explanation.

"No, it's actually a lot more pathetic than that," she said, hoping she didn't sound as miserable as she felt.

Rapidly, she gave Aang the background on her lackluster relationship with Jet, noting with some satisfaction the gobsmacked expression that flitted across Aang's face when she got to the part about Jet breaking up with her.

"... And so I just wanted him off my back," she said as the story drew to a close. "I know it was stupid and I'm so sorry I got you involved … I just hated the idea that he thought I was still single because I'm pining for him or something. I wasn't even going to come to this party, but my brother was threatening to drag me to karaoke night with his friends if I didn't do something on my own."

"I know what you mean. Work has been kicking my ass," said Aang. "This is actually the first time I've socialized in forever. I've been practically locked in my office for nearly four months, and my friends decided enough was enough. I actually don't even know whose party this is."

"Well, I can help you out there. It's a birthday party for Jin Mizuno. She's really nice. We used to be neighbors before I moved to the Iri Quarter."

Aang shook his head. "Not ringing a bell. I guess one of my friends must know her."

Katara took a healthy sip of her drink and then looked at him curiously. "What is it you do that keeps you so busy?"

"I work for a financial auditing service," he said vaguely. "It's pretty boring. Lots of numbers … and things. How about you?"

"I'm an events coordinator for a company here in the city," she said, not wanting to get into the minutiae of her work, either. It was rewarding, but not exactly party conversation.

"Are you from Republic City originally?"

"Nope! I'm an Air Nomad." He looked wistful. "I grew up in the Whisper's Corner section of Omashu. I went to university here, though. When I graduated two years ago, I got a few job offers here and decided to stick around."

Katara's eyes widened. Whisper's Corner was the designated area for survivors of the Air Nomad massacre that had been perpetrated toward the end of the so-called "Dragon War" nearly 20 years earlier. The peaceful Air Nomads, with their flowing robes, vegetarian diets, shaved heads, blue-arrow tattoos, and love of all living things, had for some reason been Fire Lord Azulon's chief targets. He'd ordered his troops to destroy the mountain homes of the peaceful nation, and had been fairly successful in doing so.

A few dozen Air Nomads had managed to escape the carnage and had been granted asylum in the Earth Kingdom by King Bumi of Omashu, settling in an area high on the steppes of the fortified city that came to be known as Whisper's Corner. With nature taking its course, the Air Nomad population had grown somewhat in the ensuing two decades, but they were still considered more or less an endangered people.

Though Katara had never met an Air Nomad before, she felt a strange sense of kinship with Aang, since her village - and, in fact, the entire Southern Water Tribe - had also been horribly attacked during the war.

She blinked in shock. Aang's mouth had been moving, but she'd been so deep in her musings that she'd inadvertently tuned him out.

"I'm sorry?" She cringed inwardly. "I didn't catch what you were saying."

"I was asking where you were from?"

"Oh! Well, the South Pole," she answered. "I graduated from the University of the Antarctic four years ago and came to Republic City to sort of figure out what I wanted to do next. I crashed with my brother and thought I'd be here a few weeks, but I ended up getting a job and staying."

"Nice! And you like it here?"

"I do. It took a little getting used to. My whole village could practically fit in a city block, but I'm starting to see this as home now, too. Do you like it here?"

"Mostly. I have my moments where I miss Omashu," said Aang, glancing around. "But it's been good to sort of stretch out a little. I know that right now, I'd feel a little stifled if I went back."

Katara nodded solemnly. "I understand exactly what you mean. I love my family, but after college, I knew I wouldn't be happy going back to my village helping my Gran-Gran in the birthing huts and waiting for some guy to talk to my father about being able to 'provide' for me and how big a family compound he planned to build for me and the string of kids he'd assume I'd be popping out."

She was gratified that Aang didn't look at her with sympathy or with the raised eyebrows she tended to get from those from other nations who felt that the Southern Water Tribe was a group of "noble savages."

"I think a lot of people our age who were so young during the last parts of the war knew we wanted something different when we got older," affirmed Aang. "We'd seen and experienced so much horror and destruction, we wanted to just … escape from the places that reminded us of so much pain, you know?"

Katara reflected how well-put that sentiment truly was. She for one hadn't wanted to go back to her village as much as for what she'd told Aang as for what she hadn't told him, namely that the pain of reliving her mother's death was still too much for her, even 18 years later.

This time when he upended his glass, she could see the pale-blue lines of an arrow tattoo visible just past the edge of his shirt cuff.

"I don't think I could've stayed in Omashu, even if I hadn't gone to Jenn Tech," he continued, using the popular nickname for the Joint Nations Institute of Technology, which had its sprawling, modernistic campus out on Oshii Island in Yue Bay.

Katara was impressed. Jenn Tech was probably the best college in the city. Aang had a brain to go with good looks, it appeared.

"Rebuilding the Air Nomad populace is important, but … well … we're nomadic," Aang went on. "I knew I had to chart my own path, at least for now."

He suddenly gave a sheepish smile and scrubbed at the back of his neck.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to get existential on you. And I'm sorry if I'm monopolizing your time. I can keep an eye out, and if there is a chance your ex starts bothering you again, you can signal me or something to come over and rescue you."

Katara felt a warmth in her tummy that she was sure was only partly due to the champagne. As they'd been talking, she'd noticed quite a few women shooting her envious looks. If anyone was monopolizing, it was her. She realized that other than determining that he had been her savior of sorts, she enjoyed talking to Aang. She enjoyed it very much.

"I don't feel monopolized at all. You're the most interesting person I've met here," she said with a smile. "And I really like existential conversations. Beats talking about kuai ball."

"Ha, true! And I'm glad. Because you're the most interesting person I've met here, too." He gave her a long look, and a slight blush stained his cheeks as he murmured, "and definitely the most beautiful."

Katara felt her own face begin to heat up, but she frowned when Aang's eyes suddenly widened and then narrowed.

"What? What's wrong?" she asked anxiously, but the question was answered when Jet's voice, whiny and suspicious, came suddenly from over her shoulder.

"Hey, buddy," said Jet, his eyes on Aang even when Katara turned to face him. "Just curious … where'd you and Katara meet up? Because she's glued to her job." He flicked a contemptuous look at her. "And I asked around, and you don't work at her place."

"Nope." Aang's voice was steady. "I don't."

"So where'd you meet each other," persisted Jet, confirming Katara's suspicions that he thought there might be some "overlap" between the ending of their relationship and the beginning of this one … nevermind that the supposed relationship with Aang didn't even exist.

Aang shot Jet a mild grin and shrugged. "Actually, we met at a party."

With that, Aang turned away from a glowering Jet and offered his arm to Katara, who was torn between giggling and swooning.

"C'mon, Sweetie," he said in a voice that made Katara shiver pleasantly. "Let's go top off your drink."

Katara knew she wasn't in her bed even before she could open her eyes and notice that the light was entering the room from all the wrong angles and see the whitewashed walls and low-slung modern furniture and bronze-framed art prints were nonexistent in her nice, but fairly spartan, apartment.

It was the smoothness of the bedsheets. The bedsheets told the entire story.

Katara lay with her eyes shut, feeling the soft nap of satin caressing her skin like a billion miniature fingers. There was something across her feet that she could identify as one of those heavy down duvets that usually were used in ritzy hotels and resorts.

She fought against a rising panic, and eyes still shut, decided to logic it out. She wasn't in her bed, ergo, she was not in her home.

Moreover, she was not in her clothes.

That was not, in and of itself necessarily strange. She slept naked or nearly so most nights, but knowing that she wasn't in her own bed added a new dimension to that detail.

Katara did a quick survey of her body, and confirmed her first hazy suspicions.

And yes ... there it was.

She'd had sex.

That night ... morning ... whatever, she'd had sex.

With that confirmation, she ran through another checklist.

Yes, her partner had used protection, yes it had been good – very good, in fact – yes he'd not been selfish in taking his pleasure without giving back ...

Katara kept her eyes tightly shut and reached out with her other senses. She was reasonably sure there wasn't anyone in the bed with her - at least not at the moment. She couldn't hear breathing or snoring or any other signs of life from another person. The air was subtly scented with an aroma she couldn't quite place initially.

She took a few more exploratory sniffs, and frowned.

It smelled like ... bread baking?

That prodded some recent memory, and after a few moments, she had it. Sometime last night, Aang had mentioned loving to bake his own bread.

Katara's eyes shot open and she shot up like she was trying to escape a coffin in a third-rate horror movie.

Aang ...?

She blinked against the harsh light that was reflected off the white wood floors as her suspicions began to crystallize into self-conscious realization.

Right. Aang.

It all came back to her. She and Aang had spent much of the time at the party talking and snickering quietly at Jet's baleful glances at them from across the room. They'd both had enough of the party at around the same time and decided to leave together as a way to keep up the pretense. Aang had let the friends he'd come with know he was bailing, and Katara had mouthed the requisite niceties at Jin before she and Aang sailed out the door with twin sighs of relief.

They had planned to split a cab, but both had been hungry and had found a cute little place up the block called the Green Plate, which featured plenty of meatless dishes to appeal to Aang's vegetarian palate. Then it had started to rain, there were no cabs to be found, and Aang mentioned that his apartment was only a few blocks away and he could drive her home himself. He'd walked to the party, so his car sat at his apartment complex.

Katara had felt only the slightest bit of squeamishness. Aang was a veritable stranger, and going in a strange car with a strange man was still pretty much a 'no' in every part of the world, even Republic City. Maybe especially Republic City.

But she'd looked into those lovely grey eyes and felt she could trust him - to a point. She hadn't even finished a second glass of champagne, and so had her wits about her. They'd been seen leaving together, so she didn't think he'd risk trying anything - but still she declined his offer of a lift home. He'd seemed to understand her hesitation and gave a counter-offer of an umbrella he was sure he had in the entryway of his home and waiting outside with her while she called for a cab. Aang had stressed she didn't have to come inside the apartment itself if she didn't want to, and that if she'd rather wait alone for the cab, that was fine, too, but insisted he keep watch from his windows until she got in the car. He explained that his neighborhood was fine at the moment, but the criminal activity from the gangs known as Triads were starting to penetrate into even the nicer neighborhoods, and a person could never be too careful.

And so she'd gone back to his very nice, white-bricked apartment building, and waited in the vestibule of his ground-floor apartment as he rooted around for the umbrella. Over his shoulder, Katara had seen the living room and spotted several framed pieces of art that she realized were photos dating before the attack on the Air Nomads.

Intrigued and not at all concerned about going into Aang's home, Katara had drawn further into his apartment, awed at what she was seeing. Aang had seemed surprised, but he'd rolled with it, giving her a quick tour of the living room and a rundown of the interesting art and other photos that had been salvaged from the attack on the Southern Air Temple - his childhood home before Azulon's attack.

Somehow they'd gotten to talking about the legacy of the Air Nomads. Somehow, the umbrella had been forgotten, and the cab, too.

And somehow, some unspecified amount of time later, Katara had found herself pressing Aang against a nearby wall. With her mouth.

So by process of elimination, this had to be his bed, his sheets, his lovely modern furniture, his taste still on the tip of her tongue …

Rolling onto her side, Katara looked across the vast empty space of the large bed and saw that the mound of pillows there had been indented where a head had lain not long before. A bra dangled from the edge of the bed and Katara knew without looking that on the floor she'd find the rest of her underwear and her dress, all of which had been cheerfully discarded the moment she and Aang had entered his bedroom and fell upon each other like hungry, horny wolves.

She then flipped onto her back, staring at the slanted wood beams that made up a dizzying high ceiling. She'd often thought that loft apartments were the only ones that deserved the hype they often got in popular media, like those house-flipping shows. The wooden floors, the high ceilings, the big windows that let light stream in, the industrial fixtures ...

She gave himself a sudden mental shake.

Stop acting like you're on some home-flipping reality show and at least get your panties on!

But Katara had managed to do no more than just sit up, entangled in the sheets when the knock came.

She froze, momentarily panicked. Should she pretend to still be asleep? Act as if she were looking for something under the bed?

The door opened a crack.

"Katara? Are you awake?"

With effort, Katara shook off the initial alarm that spiked in her at the sound of Aang's voice. Sternly and silently counseling herself to stop acting like an idiot, she sat at the edge of the bed, wrapped the sheet around her bare upper half, and ordered her face into what she hoped was a nonchalant expression.

"Um … yeah, I'm up. Hi."

The door opened wider, and Katara nearly gulped. Aang was wearing only a white singlet and a pair of cottony deep-yellow pajama bottoms that made it fairly obvious that he didn't have a blessed thing on underneath them.

The winding blue streaks that snaked down his arms seemed darker than Katara had remembered, though to be fair, she had been nibbling her way down them the last time she'd gotten close enough for a good look. The points of the arrow tattoos that began high up on his thighs peeped out from the hem of the pajamas. She noted a sliver of skin not covered by the singlet that exposed the downy, dark hair that trailed from his belly button, disappearing into the sun-colored pants, and she nearly gulped again.

Her mouth wasn't the only thing that was watering.

"Hi." Aang's face wore a soft, sleepy look, but his eyes were glowing. "I'm making breakfast, if you're interested. Do you like brownberry muffins?"

Katara blinked rapidly. So that's what that smell is.

"Uh … yes. They're good," she said, clutching the sheet a little tighter. "I haven't had them in ages, but I love them."

"Great! And what's your opinion on scrambled eggs?"

Katara shifted nervously on the bed. "... Strongly in favor?"

"Excellent." Aang leaned into the doorway. "Everything should be ready in about 20 minutes. If you want to shower, I laid some towels and things in the main bath. It's the second door on your right coming down the hallway."

"Okay. Thanks." Katara cleared her throat. "Um … this is going to sound weird, but do you know what time it is? I think my phone is in my purse."

"Sure! It's a little after 7:30."

"In the morning?" Her mouth fell open. "You're making a full breakfast at 7:30 a.m. on a Sunday?"

"I'm an early riser," said Aang with a shrug. "I like to meditate first thing. And this morning, I woke up with a really hearty appetite for some reason."

His grin shot straight through her and she tried to look nonchalant as she clenched her thighs together. Aang turned then - giving Katara a view of all the nice things clingy cotton could do to a perfect ass - before disappearing down the hall.

Katara grit her teeth. Showering. Yes. A shower would be good. A shower was necessary.

A cold one.