another tumblr prompt! - zutaraang + "urgent"
Zuko's party stand at attention behind him, ready to board the hulking vessel that will take them back to their homeland. Aang tucks his face into his friends shoulder, squeezing him; he can see the captain shuffle his feet awkwardly, and he kind of relishes how scandalous this greeting must be by the standards of Fire Nation decorum.
"…don't be late next week," Zuko's saying, reminding him again of the Sun Festival. "This is crucial, Aang, everyone important from the Fire Nation will be there, and they'll be looking to see if I have your support. It's only once–"
"-once every ten years. Yeah, yeah. I'll be there, Sifu Hotlord, when am I ever late?"
"You don't really want me to answer that."
He drinks in Zuko's grinning face in the misty orange rays of sunlight – the lowest it ever gets at this time of year. Aang watches Zuko and his entourage board, and waves the ship off, trying to wrest away the dull throb in his chest that always rises when he has to say goodbye to his friend; when he knows they won't meet again for months. He flies back to the village and ducks inside the ice hut, ready to get a few hours sleep, if he can, before the sun is high in the sky again.
Night falls over him. Grasscrickets chirp loudly in his Aang's ears. As he stirs awake, his hands push down onto cool, damp earth, and he springs up into a sitting position. His limbs are too light, splaying too easily. He'd fallen asleep heavy, under layers of skins and blankets in the igloo, but they're all gone now. Just as well – the stagnant air hugging his naked chest and back makes the idea of being wrapped up inside blankets unthinkable.
The niggling feeling that he's forgotten something settles in his stomach. He'd promised Zuko he wouldn't be late, but he doesn't remember what for, or where to go, or where even to start looking.
He rises clumsily onto his feet to look around, the quickness of the movement making his head lurch. It's like he weighs nothing. It's unpleasant; like airbending without bending, out of his control. The vaguely familiar shape of the palace garden takes form, clusters of fire lilies, starbursts and marigolds materialising in the blue nighttime.
Is he here for a meeting? For the ceremony? Or just to see Zuko, or someone else in the court? And where is everyone? He's just about to rouse Appa to take a look around the perimeter when from the tall grove of trees in the horizon, Zuko appears. Something about him strikes a creeping unease in Aang's spine, but just like everything else about this place, he's not sure what.
"Has the ceremony started?" Aang asks, though judging by the sky, it's well past dusk, and the answer is obvious. "Where is everybody?"
Zuko doesn't seem to register the question. "You're late," he says, but he isn't dismayed, or even annoyed, like Aang expected he would be. He's only staring, expression blank, fixing Aang with a gaze that makes the back of his neck tingle.
Confusion gnaws at Aang's chest. Zuko wears his snow jacket, the tall sealskin boots gifted from Sokka and Katara, the gloves that the children in the south had knitted for him – everything the same from when he'd set off out of Aang's grasp mere hours ago. "If I'm late why are you still–"
"You are late, Aang," he interrupts. Now that he's closer, Aang can see why he had felt off. Zuko is older – a lot older, maybe ten years older – the line of his jaw firmer, his cheeks harder, his billowing hair longer than Aang has ever seen. "You couldn't decide, could you? You couldn't get a grip on yourself to tell me how you felt. You couldn't choose, and now it's too late for us. If it's always been Katara, then why didn't you-"
A screeching noise crashes into his ears, the grasscrickets amplified by the thousand. "No," Aang says – shouts – over the din, but he doesn't believe in his own words. Zuko's looking through him now, right through his face like he's an invisible thing stuck in the Spirit World. "No– no, that's not true, It's you, too," he blurts. "It's you, Zuko."
Zuko stops short. His face softens, morphs into an expression so tenderly hopeful that Aang forgets to breathe for a second.
The crickets quieten, and just like that, he's grounded again. He glides towards Zuko on a breeze of his own making, closing the space between them in one decisive movement, their lips meeting desperately as if they've done so a thousand times before. Aang tugs at the fur-lined jacket, tugs at every stupid item of clothing keeping Zuko from him, not resting until Zuko is just as shirtless as him. His head pounds and his hands shake, but he can't stop, not now, not when Zuko is here, and he feels the same way, he feels right.
Aang pushes him gently down into the cool grass, Zuko's firm arm around his waist taking him with him. There's no moon tonight in this garden, but still, moonlight catches Zuko everywhere: long hair fanning out under him, his eyes, dark bronze with lust. It makes silver globes of his strong shoulders, and brightens the smattered ridges of his lightning scar. Aang presses their bodies together. Their breaths mingle, warm and sweet, Aang's mind shuttered by the look of raw, unfamiliar want on Zuko's face. He licks his lips, parched, and scratches the itchy fur of the hood at his neck, momentarily distracted.
He could have sworn he wasn't wearing–
The thing purrs, and Aang startles awake.
Momo is tucked against the back of his neck pecking away at a piece of dried fruit. Aang sits up with a start and takes long, gasping breaths. Sweat trickles on his chest, sticky against the stifling blankets and below that, something more uncomfortable strains his breaths.
The biting cold of the polar winter seeps into him, just as icy as the realisation that it had been a dream. He looks down; Katara is fast asleep next to him, her brow clear of worry, one hand pressed underneath her cheek. Her hair fans out behind her, soft tresses tickling Aang's arm.
Frustration crawls its way up his throat, and so does the bubbling shame that comes with guilt, no matter how much he tells himself that what he's been feeling is natural.
Feeling may be, but hiding isn't. The monks would have backed that one up.
He wants to brush her hair away out of her face, but he can't bring himself to, not when the ache of Zuko presses so urgently. He can't get that expression out of his head.
It had all felt so real.
Momo climbs onto his shoulder, chirping confusedly. Aang scratches his floppy ear with a thumb, feeling cold, clammy and tired in a way that he knows sleep won't fix. "Why me, Momo?" he asks, sighing. "Why now?"