Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: the Last Airbender.
Notes: Hehe. Part de deux. Wooo…this took forever to get out. I owe InuStar soooo bad, because she's so nice and sweet and stuff and I am faaaaailing at this request. I'm sorry, InuStar, I'm sooooorry! In other news, this probably puts a good deal of the story pacing to sh!t. Because, um, yeah, I sort of have issues keeping a certain tone throughout things. **twitches**
(In case anyone's wondering, this 'theme' of when he doesn't kiss her refers to that bizarre romantic cliché where someone is laughing and the love interest just sort of lunges over to kiss them because the laughing person looks "like so OMFG kawaii!!1!". It happens. Trust me. Now subverted by Zuko's stupidity! Yay!)
Chap: 2/6
year two
the time he doesn't kiss her when she's laughing
Sokka is wailing mournfully about his shoes. The wet sand has effectively ruined the fur creations, and the continued rain isn't helping matters. Perhaps Sokka is right to mourn, for the slippers will never be the same. On the other hand, it's beyond Zuko that Sokka could put so much love into a pair of slippers. Even furry ones. Scratch that, especially furry ones. Stupid thing are made of the very rabaroo fur that Zuko is desperately allergic to.
He sneezes again and thanks Agni that he hasn't broken out into hives. (Yet.)
Sokka shoves the ruined slippers into Zuko's face, all the while making wheezing, choking sounds and gaping like a fish. It's a sight to behold, Sokka in the throes of passionate mourning and Zuko on the verge of an allergy-induced asthma attack. To add to it all Aang is cackling like a little girl. It's either hilariously funny or ridiculously pathetic. Probably both.
So Katara closes her eyes and leans back in her luxurious chair. It's red velvet and dark mahogany, beautifully crafted by some great master. Right now all she really cares about is the fact that it's comfortable. Very, very comfortable. Nap-worthy, if she really wants to get down to it.
She listens to the sneezing, wailing, giggling cacophony of the men in her life. It passes in one ear and out the other, ignored with the skill of a mother who is used to chaos. The analogy is close enough when it comes to this bunch. And she is soothed by their unrelenting chaos as much as she is soothed by the pulsing, pounding rain outside.
Time passes, slow and smooth as the tide. Katara drifts in and out of sleep, cuddled into stiff velvet over too-plush duck-goose down. The rain stops, starts again, then stops again. The boys disperse, save for one who looks at her with warm honey eyes.
Zuko runs a hand through his hair, shoving and catching on strands the color of midnight. He should leave, or wake her, or drape a blanket over her, or something. Something other than stare at her as if he has some innate right. (Which he pretty much doesn't.)
But he can't be bothered, because Katara is sitting on a chair and looking like she damn well belongs there amidst the endless sea of reds and browns and golds instead of trussed up in the cool colors of her homeland. So he stares and stares and stares, regardless of whether or not he has any sort of right to.
More time passes, though it's difficult to tell just how much with the sky as dark as it is. Zuko gets stiff from sitting in one position on a hard wooden floor, so he gets up and manages to seat himself just so on her chair. It's an uncomfortable position until she snuggles up and into him, which means he can slump just a little.
(It's still uncomfortable, but hey, lapful of Katara. Who exactly is going to complain? Certainly not Zuko.)
Zuko can't properly stare at her anymore, which is vaguely annoying. He entertains himself instead with wrapping his fingers around locks of her hair. Not exactly combing, or grooming, like Suki is so fond of doing to Sokka. More playing, except it's not even quite that.
Her hair is thick and abundant and quite frankly rather bushy. It gets static when the air isn't humid enough, which is probably why she loves Ember Island because it's impossible for it not to be humid here. Which means it's not full of static now, even though it is thick and abundant and bushy. It's not really soft, not in the way of fur or silk, but it does have a pleasant slid to it.
She's got the perfect hair to tangle fingers in and he takes full advantage of that fact. He keeps taking advantage of it even when she starts waking up, because he knows that she knows that he knows (and isn't that a mouthful?) that she has the perfect hair for finger tangling, so it's not like she'll really think anything of it.
Except honestly, she sort of does. Katara wakes up to heat that she immediately knows is Zuko's, to fingers in her hair that she immediately knows are Zuko's, to that quiet, purring feeling that only happens when she's with Zuko. In the bleary haze that surrounds waking up in such an environment, she rather thinks that she could be happy forever with him.
She thinks this even as Zuko thinks that it's lucky that her hair is so perfect, because it gives him a fine excuse for something he'd have been doing even without the perfection of her hair.
(They operate on very different planes, for being soul mates.)
"I…" he says. Then he stops, and silently berates himself. Because that one little word was totally uncalled for. They were getting along in silence just fine before he opened his big mouth. Agni above, and he calls himself intelligent.
But she's awake enough now to sort-of elbow him in the stomach, not hard enough to truly hurt but not gentle enough to be anything other than a prodding gesture. "Yeah?" she says, just in case he might have misinterpreted that oh-so-subtle elbowing.
"Nothing," he says. Which, not matter what she might think, is the absolute honest to Agni truth.
Of course, she doesn't believe him. "It's not nothing," she says. She elbows him again, mostly just for the hell of it. (Poor Zuko.)
"It just sort of…came out," he says.
She rolls her eyes even though she knows he can't see. "I don't care if it started as nothing," she says imperiously, "it is now most definitely something."
"That doesn't make any sense," he says.
They both fall silent. Him to cheer at his something-of-a-victory, her to stew on what to say next that will crush his something-of-a-victory into a cheap-win-that-meant-nothing-ha-ha-loser. When a good solid minute and a half passes without either of them saying anything, or in Katara's case thinking of something properly brilliant, Zuko says:
"I'm glad Sokka's slippers didn't make me break out in hives. That would have been rough."
(When Zuko says things like this, there are a variety of reactions. Some, such as his uncle, merely sigh and shake their head or maybe laugh a little. Some, such as Sokka, or Toph, realize it for what it is and laugh. Some, such as Aang, think he's being serious and attempt to be comforting even while they snort. And some…some are driven to fits of hysteria. Guess which category Katara falls into?)
Zuko had been expecting her mad, cackling laughter. He really had. He just hadn't been anticipating quite how uncomfortable her squirming, panting frame atop his would be. Agni hates him, Katara schemes against him, and all things considered Zuko is contemplating ritual suicide.
He thinks of naked, wrinkled Fire Sages dancing on a glacier while Mai sings the Fire Nation anthem for a whole sixteen minutes. How Katara is not in serious pain by the end of those sixteen minutes, he knows not. In fact, he sort of doesn't want to know.
But she stops laughing, eventually. She is still gasping and panting and generally sounding rather obscene, but she's not writhing anymore so he cautiously lets the naked Fire Sages go. Mai singing should be enough to keep away any naughty thoughts.
(He should have been less concerned with Mai's scratchy, monotone voice and more concerned with the girl currently sitting on his lap and giving him a slightly accusing look.)
"Zuko," she says. She still sounds sort of breathy, but all things considered she's returned to a normal breathing rate with remarkable efficiency. "Do you think I look pretty when I laugh?"
And what, exactly, is up with that? Zuko thinks that exact sentence, then shrugs it off as Katara being a girl. From what he can tell, Katara has a secret desire to appear gorgeous at all times. He hasn't asked her about this (rather wisely) but he thinks it nonetheless.
"Yes," he answers. "You look very pretty when you laugh." A brilliant red flush is covering his cheeks, red enough to rival the skin of his scar.
"Oh," she says, sounding put out. "Then why didn't…" she begins, then stops. With a move that would put a bearded cat to shame, she flips her body so that she is facing him. He's not entirely sure how she managed it, but manage it she did. She begins again. "Why didn't you…well, why?"
The question is about as baffling as her acrobatics. He prays to Agni before remembering that Agni hates him. He briefly contemplates finding a new deity, one who might be a little more sympathetic. Or at least less evil.
His ponderings on religion are cut short when she pokes him. Jabs him, more like, with one of her long, elegant fingers tipped with a thankfully blunt nail. "Well?" she says expectantly. He gets the horrible feeling that if she could put her hands on her hips and tap her foot, she would.
"Um…" he says eloquently.
Katara gives him a long suffering look.