So remember the last time I actually wrote something? Me neither, though I was looking through my old stories and found something from kataang week last year that for some reason I never posted. A few minor tweaks and here it is. Honestly I don't remember the prompts, and this isn't the best thing I've ever written, but here it is.
I don't know if I'll continue writing much more for this little group of stories. If I finish some other stories (I doubt it'll be any time soon) I will either put them here or just have them separately. I haven't decided yet. But, I'm getting ahead of myself, so enjoy.
"It doesn't look that bad Sweetie," she tried to comfort him. She placed a hand on his shoulder and tried to give him a reassuring smile, but he still didn't look at her. She shook her head in amusement and grabbed her pair of tweezers. "I'll need you to hold as still as possible."
Aang nodded, but tensed when the tweezers made contact with his lower back. Katara pulled out one of the needle sharp pins in his back, but stopped when she realized just how tensed up he was.
"You can't just heal it and get it over with?" he asked over his shoulder desperately, and Katara shook her head. His pleading eyes were wide with pain, and she shook her head, returning her eyes to her task.
"I have to get them out of your skin first." Aang grimaced. "Don't worry Aang. I'll make this as painless as possible."
Aang lowered his head back onto the bed with a sigh and tried to relax, "How long do you think this'll take?"
"A while," she said, and he sighed. "Maybe talking will help pass the time?" she suggested as she scooted closer and moved the tweezers back to his skin. "You can start by explaining what happened." She plucked another out of his skin and examined it while Aang whimpered in pain.
She placed it with the other on a rag next to the young Avatar, who looked more embarrassed than before. "I'd rather not right now."
"But I still don't see how you could-"
"It was an accident," Aang quickly replied, pleading with his eyes for her to drop it, "Can we please talk about something else right now?"
"Alright," Katara smirked, "What do you want to talk about then?"
"Nice…weather we're having…" he tried, and Katara just rolled her eyes.
"I guess. If you like spring," Katara managed to pluck out another three of the pins in his back, all of varying length, but still smaller than she expected. There were still dozens left and she shook her head.
"I love spring," he chuckled, trying his hardest to give her a genuine smile, "though it does have downsides."
Katara hummed in agreement, half paying attention to what he said and keeping him distracted, and the other half focused on the task at hand. "Like?"
"This," Aang laughed, but grimaced as another left his skin. "Also, Appa's starting to shed again. Maybe we can give him a bath sometime? Get rid of all that extra fur."
Katara nodded, a faint smile on her lips, "That'll be good for all of us."
He laughed and she saw him visibly relax when she pulled water out of the jug she had placed near her feet and began to heal the little red marks left behind from the first few pins, and she sighed when he looked at her. "We're just getting started, Aang. I think you'll have to find something to actually distract yourself." He slumped down again with a sigh as she discarded the water and continued on his other wounds, but he rested his head on his arm and watched her, trying not to draw any more attention to himself.
It was a few minutes and a couple dozen pins later that she noticed his eyes on her. Aang was just resting his head on his arms and smiling softly at her, trying to ignore his pain. He really did enjoy watching her focus on work, but he didn't notice when she stopped and looked at him.
"What?" Katara leaned back a bit, suddenly self conscious.
Her voice snapped Aang out of his reverie, but his smile only grew as a blush spread across her face. "You're beautiful."
Katara rolled her eyes, but smiled nonetheless at his unabashed compliment. "I'd love to say the same about you, but uh…I think I'll save that for when you don't have a bunch of boar-q-pine quills stuck in your back."
"It was an accident," he mumbled just loud enough for her to catch, and she laughed.
"Yeah, well you're lucky it was just a baby," she continued, pulling out another of the quills and looking at it closely. "An adult might have shish-kabobed you."
Aang pouted as she returned to her task. "Why does this have to take so long?" he whined.
"Because you decided that a poor little boar-q-pine would make a good cushion to sit on," Katara deadpanned.
"Accident," Aang reminded. "I didn't see it there, and I said I was sorry. And I didn't sit on it…" he mumbled. "It crawled behind me."
"Poor thing must've been so scared. It probably didn't know what to do." Katara looked at his face out of the corner of her eye with a slight smirk. His face twisted in pain as another pin left his skin, but he relaxed again as Katara used waterbending to heal him again.
"Please don't make me feel even worse about this," Aang pouted again. "That 'poor thing' knew exactly what to do and used an unnecessary amount of force to get its point across, literally, and I know I had it coming, but it didn't have to scare me half to death in the process."
"Fine," Katara chuckled. "But for the record, you did have it coming."
Aang could only sigh in agreement and put his head down as she got back to work.