Prompt Two (August 20, 2009): Skin
Throwing in the Towel
The rebels could not have attacked at a worse possible time. Ugh, didn't they have lives or families to attend to at this hour? Aang thought. He was helping the villagers fend off his attackers. After the war, the village had grown into a bustling small city, and they could take care of the assassins very well themselves, but he had insisted on aiding them. From the beginning, the innkeeper had urged Aang and Katara to gather their things and leave as soon as possible. The negotiations were completed anyway.
Earlier, Aang was settling down for bed while Katara was busy washing up. It had been a long and exhausting day of treaties that Fire Lord Zuko had asked them to handle. He would have fixed the issues himself, but he needed to attend to an uprising in the Blaze Island Chain. So that left Aang, being the Avatar, and Katara, being a Southern Water Tribe diplomat, to act on his behalf. That day, proposals had been sent to the appropriate locations, and the couple was planning on relaxing an extra day before heading back to the capital. If need be, Zuko would come down later and speak with the village leaders himself.
A small insomniac girl first spotted four rebels climbing up a sidewall of the inn. She let out a terrified scream, sleep forgotten instantaneously. The girl's parents then alerted everyone else they could find and managed to dislodge the men and women from the wall. With that, a huge fight ensued.
Instead of fighting, Katara was busy packing inside. She wanted to fight, but she knew it would be better to go. So she ran into her room first, haphazardly threw her luggage together and carried the bag into Aang's room. Once there, she thanked the spirits for Aang's habit to never unpack, grabbed his bag and staff, and darted down the hallway, stairs, and out the back door.
The brawl was becoming taxing on everyone, and the gang wouldn't stop until they had captured and murdered the cause of the Fire Nation's fall from grace. One particularly ambitious man tried to catch Aang off guard, and was now fighting him with all his strength.
Aang was having trouble restraining the man. Their desperation collided in a fierce battle, which one was certain that it would be to the death. Matching the man blow for blow, he felt vibrations in the earth the way Toph had taught him to make sure no one else was planning on assaulting him. At least his bare feet gave him an advantage, and he was able to concentrate more on the fight at hand.
Suddenly, a woman with the biggest chip on her shoulder Aang had ever seen began to relentlessly firebend enormous blasts of fire at her enemy's back. Aang immediately spaced himself away from the two and continued to fend off their misplaced aggression. Things were quickly becoming dangerous, between the fire and sharp weapons aimed at him.
A stray fireball nearly grazed Aang's bare shoulder. They needed to go now.
As if Katara had been reading his thoughts, she and Appa appeared out of the sky. Aang propelled himself up to his bison and latched onto Katara's outstretched hand. With shouts of thank-you's and apologies, they flew off.
"Are you okay?" Katara asked in crippling worry, glancing for any burns or injuries on Aang's body. Finding none and satisfied with Aang's nonverbal confirmation, she relaxed against Appa's soft fur.
"Don't they have other things to do?" Aang asked irritably, voicing his earlier thoughts. The Avatar couldn't stand being interrupted at night when sleep was such a rare commodity. He slid closer to the seventeen-year-old next to himself to keep from tumbling off Appa's head.
Katara sighed in agreement, but Aang could barely notice. Instead, he was noticing all too well the fact that she was wearing a very short towel. Heat rushed to his face and his lungs stopped working properly. When he had scooted toward her, bare skin made contact with bare skin, sending his hormones spiraling way out of control. "Uh, uh, why didn't you get dressed?" he stammered in an attempt to keep his cool. In all honesty, he was anything but cool. He was becoming way too warm.
"Why didn't you?" she volleyed back. She couldn't help but notice his lack of shirt, also. After a few awkward minutes of trying to look at anything but the other, Katara climbed into the saddle, muttering about how she should really be getting dressed and admonishing him not to watch her. He uttered a vague reply and kept a weary eye on to make sure she didn't fall into the unforgiving air. He saw more leg than he had ever meant to. A blush found its way to his face again.
He turned away as soon as she was safely in the saddle and attempted not to think about all the things couples do together in private. He pushed away the images of him seizing her towel and having his way with her.
Aang failed in his attempts.
He didn't know why he was reacting this way – he had seen her plenty of times in her undergarments and never thought anything of it. Towels just felt so… temporary… and they just begged to be snatched off. He swallowed and ended his line of thinking.
"How're you doing up there?" Aang stammered again. Maybe making conversation would distract him from thinking about this infinitely embarrassing situation.
"Uh, good." Katara didn't quite know what to say. This was brand new territory for her. Of course she had thought about Aang different ways, but she was almost completely nude! "Those rebels just won't ever stop, huh?" she ventured shakily. He instinctively looked back at, and found a smooth expanse of back in his line of sight. She must have not donned her breast wrappings yet, he thought guiltily. He snapped his head back and tried to maintain a calm voice.
"I'm glad that Fire Nation town has grown big enough to be able to take care of the group. Being almost burned alive isn't exactly how I'd like to spend the day," he joked.
As they chatted aimlessly, things started returning back to normal between them, thankfully. Aang was even able to return his heart back to a somewhat normal rate. The awkwardness evaporated from the air temporarily as Appa flew to the Palace City.
Little did Aang know that he would have trouble sleeping that next night.
And little did they both know that Sokka would sit them down for a talk a month later, almost eerily aware of what had occurred.
Being a teenager was complicated.
Lesson learned: Ordinary washroom items have much bigger psychological effect on people than you would think. Especially towels.
A/N: Prompt numbah two! I'm so excited that I actually got this in before the day was over. Blah, not proud of this one. So, yeah, as always, give me tips on improving. Thanks for reading, and special thanks to those who have reviewed. See you all tomorrow!