To Gabriela Gonzales, who cheerfully tolerates the pain I am putting our favorite characters through, and even encourages me to do more.
CH 22 | Low Lay
It was lay-low time.
Appa dropped off an exhausted Sokka, a high-on-felonious-behavior Toph, and their treasure trove of stolen info. Aang decided he would stay with his bison in the barn until they were sure he hadn't been spotted downtown. Katara opted towards the barn as well, citing something about "news and sleep shifts."
"Completely unconvincing and I don't care. Stay near your phone so I can get to one of you if I have to." Sokka yawned and nudged the hedgehog cat off his boots.
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Aang and Katara spoke in hushed tones, peering paranoically at the blocks leading up to the barn space. Having a flying bison afforded them the opportunity to skirt the newly enforced curfew. The mayhem they'd caused downtown also ensured that no patrols were rooting around in south central currently and so they passed unseen. The two moved Appa into the barn silently, working in tandem to fish out their change of clothes from the saddle, and closing the door before turning on the lights.
"You'd think we'd done this before or something" Aang smirked as Katara tossed him his usual jeans and hoodie. "Yeah, we're a little too good at illegal things for a Team Avatar, don't you think?" she responded while slipping her black pullover off and replacing it with a baggy shirt and an old marathon sweater, "26k Annual Koala-Sheep Chlamydia Fund Run: For the Cure!" and some weathered blue leggings. Aang sighed affectionately.
Likewise, as Aang faced away to remove his own shirt, Katara couldn't help but feast her eyes on the muscled dimples of his lower back, framing the base of his blue spine. She surprised herself with an unbidden dirty thought, "I would lick that arrow for a mile to see where it ends…" Blushing furiously, she seized their discarded clothes and boots into a trash bag and walked out in search of a dumpster.
As soon as Katara stepped out, Aang swung his head, gesturing wildly to his bison. "Holy…we're probably going to be in here all night. What do I do Appa!?" he hissed stressfully. Appa grumbled with moderate sympathy before leaning into his fresh hay bale. "Snacks! Good thinking, buddy!" Aang whispered, snapping his fingers, and bouncing out of the barn on a puff of air.
When Katara returned and found Aang nowhere in sight she worked her fingers nervously, appealing to Appa "We're friends, right boy? Is it okay if I go for it?" If only a bison could roll its eyes…
After some awkward shuffling in which Katara tripped on her way down from the loft with a handful of ostrich-horse blankets, and Aang returned from the nursery with teething cookies and Pedialyte, the two settled in against Appa, watching the news on Katara's phone.
They were initially relieved to find that no witnesses had come forward reporting a flying bison. Aang and Katara had put all their effort into the thick marine layer and so far, it had paid off. Secondly, no one seemed to know about Toph and Sokka—the heist was interpreted as a two-man job. Most importantly, and the piece that made Aang's shoulders visibly drop with relief, was that there were no injuries sustained during Toph's explosion. Not realizing how big her "distraction" was going to be, Aang's stomach had been in knots worrying that his first official Avatar mission may have ended in bloodshed.
Some of the news was problematic, and other pieces surprisingly amusing. In the heat of the shuffle subduing Mayor Zhao, Katara and Aang had both slipped each other's names. Zhao had a rough description of her height, build, and (most dangerously) her eyes. While most of the water tribe had blue eyes, Katara's were an uncommonly deep shade of indigo, as deep and nuanced as lapis lazuli. They were definitely recognizable. Aang glanced at her nervously, thinking she might need to consider contacts.
Amusingly, Zhao had misheard both their names and investigators believed they were pseudonyms—a tall male waterbender named Fang, and a blue-eyed female non-bender named Katana. Aang and Katara laughed until they were hoarse and teary eyed, leaning against each other as they shook and wheezed uncontrollably. Once they regained some control, Katara lowered the volume on her phone and leaned it against the stall wall. Her heart stuttered as she looked into Aang's eyes.
It was his twinkling grey eyes that had captured her attention first on the day they met, only a few short weeks ago. They were old eyes—the type she could imagine set in the face of a wizened grandfather. And yet, they seemed to somehow suit him all the more surrounded by his youthful, light-hearted crinkles—a face becoming careworn not from age and grief that could be forgiven, but from smiles and laughs even in the face of his unwanted burdens. In this short time, she already loved him for that.
Looking down at the waterbender under his arm, Aang felt his throat become painfully tight. It was the incalculable warmth of her expressions that had him falling the moment he'd laid eyes on her. Chattering to Appa the same way he would when he was alone with the bison, she kept no walls between her giving nature and any one or any thing that might benefit from her kindness. Even in the face of upwelled grief—recent and unhealed grief—she would give of herself to others. In this short time, he already loved her for that.
Aang leaned in and placed a soft, lingering kiss on her lips. They hung there, basking in it with closed eyes, hearing lightning crickets crackling, Appa's soft breathing, and not much more. Katara returned a kiss moments after they parted, her mouth equally soft and generous. It was the way Aang had dreamed of being kissed, never had he shared one with someone in such a vulnerable manner. The ache in his throat extended to his chest, a mixture of tight energy and giddy joy. They kissed this way for much longer than they perceived, soaking in each other's gentility, feeling and filling each other's hearts.
At last, they broke apart with peaceful sighs and Katara stretched out to lay her head on his chest. "So…what are we now?" she murmured in no particular direction.
It was a question that was more troubling to answer than it needed to be. Aang thought of how their relationship started: how he'd been dishonest about his past, about being the Avatar. He thought of how Azula had shoved her, how Katara had ended up the focus of a series of very unflattering gossip columns. How even now, they were sharing a brief moment of peace and affection under the auspice of potential arrest. She deserves so much better.
"We're friends…. who kiss?" Aang ventured lamely.
Katara pushed herself up on a hand to meet his eyes, her expression dubious. "We're more than that. We're more than friends and you know it." She hadn't meant it in a demanding way, but also refused to downplay their connection.
"I know…" Aang replied apologetically. "You deserve complete honesty, Katara. When I left to see Guru Pathik, I promised myself that when I got back, no matter how bad things get, no more running. I feel like I need to earn your trust before we go forward with anything…" Aang continued, noticing she was about to object. "If you're going to say you do trust me, then I urge you to reconsider. The time we've spent together hasn't been kind to you, and yet I don't hear a word of complaint from you. Why?"
Katara couldn't help but smile as she responded. "Aang, before I met you, the farthest I had ever gone outside of my hometown was to the artic sand islands to celebrate the midsummer solstice. My life was predictable, and safe, and comfortable." Aang responded with an emphatic hand, as though she were proving his point. "I love your chaos Aang. I'll admit, I'm excited to hear you wanting to communicate more, and I do have a lot of questions about your past. But I feel purpose here. It feels right to be standing up to the Fire Nation. I haven't complained because. Well…the things we're doing when we're Team Avatar are a different world than the one we have right here…those aren't problems between you and me right now, in this moment. Right?
"Right, but…"
"Aang. I like you."
"I like you too. You deserve better, Katara. I need to do the right thing here even though all I want to do is kiss you. I want to be a good friend and tell you we should let it go. There's no future for me right now. I literally can't see where I'll be beyond next week."
Katara sighed and folded her legs underneath her. "Alright, let's start with my burning question. What's the deal between you and Azula?" Aang's lips folded into a grim line, but he sat up to pull his wallet out of his jeans. Thumbing through business cards and old receipts, he fished out a rather shabby, folded polaroid and handed it to her. Katara was absolutely stunned at what she saw.
The photograph was of Aang and Azula—at least four years younger. Aang's face still had a soft, childish curve, and Azula was a skinny thing with none of the tone or muscle she was known for today. They both appeared to be amid a conspiratorial joke, laughing and unaware of the camera. She had flowers in her hair that flowed down over a set of traditional acolyte robes normally reserved for the students of the air temples. Not a Fire Nation color in sight.
"Whoa. She looks like a completely different person. What happened?"
"I told you that Azula found me in the ice, but I haven't told you came after that. She was there to capture hot lightning, but it took a while for us to figure out that the wind friction on the iceberg was actually coming from me. Not on purpose of course—I was stuck in an ice ball in the Avatar state for crying out loud. I didn't know that I was basically making static electricity wind farts for a century." Aang rubbed the back of his neck with an apologetic expression.
"She was trying to beef herself up to face her father. Ozai…for as bad as he treats his subjects, he treats his children so, so, much worse. She told me some things that he's done…" Aang's jaw tightened and his eyes watered. "She shouldn't be functional. Her brother isn't. I'm not going to make excuses for every aspect of her behavior, but for a long time I considered her a friend. I convinced her not to go back home, and for a couple years we ran together." His smile was wistful, thinking of the carefree years when they'd anonymously travelled to some of the most beautiful highlands and mountain ranges in the world searching for bison.
"I taught her to meditate, she taught me to say what was on my mind. For a while we got lost in just being a couple of kids. It was…peaceful."
Katara nodded, not knowing if any of this answer made her feel better about the Fire Princess. "So, what happened? I don't know if you've noticed, but she's a nightmare incarnate."
"It's my fault. I messed up, Katara." He said, not meeting her eyeline. She taught me to firebend, and it went…horribly wrong. He took a deep breath and held out his palm, igniting the smallest wisp of flame. It was blue.
Katara's eyes went as wide as saucers. "The arctic lightning?" he shrugged. "I'm not really sure how. We guessed that I must have absorbed it when it cracked through the glacier. But after that she was bent on me using it to confront and kill her father. Everything started falling apart—like all the horrible things he'd done to her re-surfaced and my refusing to confront him made it my fault somehow."
Katara leaned forward, grasping his other hand. "Aang, that is not your fault. You are not responsible for doing something like that to help her achieve closure. As a friend, it was wrong of her to put that on you."
Aang nodded softly. "I stranded her on Ember Island, Katara. When she wouldn't let it go, I packed up Appa and left while she was asleep. Every person she's ever been close to has hurt her and abandoned her, including me. She went back home and suffered. I don't like to think of how much she suffered." He wiped his red-rimmed eyes, spilling tears over his shame-reddened cheeks.
"So now you know. She is the way she is because that's the only way she can deal with people. She can't love. She can't trust. And it's my fault. That's why she treats me the way she does, and that's why I deserve it."
He wiped his eyes again, meeting hers with a heavy exhale. "Do you still like my chaos now?"