#i rewrote this fic so many times and kindof ended up stitching together the two versions i liked most...hopefully you cant see the seams lol

[the-last-cuddlebender]

I wish you would write a fic where Aang is just flustered and is amassed at katara while she’s just doing nothing ❤️maybe after the balcony kiss (btw your my favorite fic writer 💕)

*smacks table* *kicks a chair over* *screams into the void*

(;´༎ຶٹ༎ຶ`) NO YOU’RE MY FAVORITE, ANON😤❤💕💖

Ngl tho, this prompt and one other have been haunting me for so long oml I just for the longest time drew complete blanks like...just nothing came to me. Nada. I even tried getting a legit 12 straight hours of sleep to turn my brain off and back on again but nOpE. I really wanted to keep it related to after the balcony kiss since I wanted the challenge, but gosh did it fight me. My brain go poof I hope you’re happy for making me question everything, Anon lol

Anywho, I love and cherish you, Anon, you bean, you godsend, you magnificent angel, you🥰~ I hope you enjoy the fic!!!

Words: 1,785

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Aang kneaded his right thumb into his left palm. The scars there were small and white and hardly noticeable unless he held his hand right to his face.

It was peculiar, to say the least. Only the hand that received Ozai’s lightning bore a shadow of his opponent’s cold fire. The belly of his palm was a memory of death barely avoided, but he tried (...tried…tried very, very hard...) to imagine the milky pattern on pale skin as looking like a leaf’s veins when held up to the sunlight.

Aang rolled his lip between his teeth. He was going to tear something if he crouched for much longer. The scars burned without burning, and he wasn’t sure which fate was worse. Was it even considered a scar if it was never open? It was just there after the battle like it was a maker’s mark on a finished piece.

Katara would know—there was little that she didn’t know—, but she had been far too exhausted for him to even consider asking—

Katara...

Aang’s face burned like the fire she lit in his cheeks was eternal.

If he was perfectly honest, he didn’t remember feeling the kiss.

He only remembered how the kiss felt.

Because remembering the moment when Katara redefined what happiness felt like was a moment Aang would never forget.

His shoulders rose to his ears; his face smoldered as giddy magma crawled up his neck. He teetered to one side when thoughts of her shifted gravity. Maybe it was a good thing that he was crouching, after all.

Katara…

...But then he looked at his estranged left palm and the new maker’s mark that it bore.

...And his heart crisped and flaked into ashes piling in the pit of his chest.

The scarring changed nothing but uprooted everything. It was a cancer, black and numb on his hand, like it was suffering from frostbite and needed to be removed.

The estranged left palm that saved his life was the same hand Katara held—all those months ago—when they kissed that day in the dark, trapped and alone, in an inky-black Earth Kingdom cave.

The kiss was a gentle waltz turning into a speedy tango, but her hand on his was the tug to lift him out of his chair. It was the strike of flint and steel that burned away the cobwebs in his heart and brushed aside all dust to welcome something new.

...Katara...

Sokka had interrupted before Aang could ask her to be his girlfriend. Time was an illusion, but time was precious. Memories framed in moments were the beginnings of beautiful new somethings.

What they were, though...

He really hoped Katara knew better than him. Of course, she would—there was little that she didn’t know.

Did the kiss make it—them—official? They said more in words unspoken than words said aloud ever could, but they hadn’t had a moment of peace since then. Surely, he had to ask her. He really, really wanted to, too. It didn’t feel right to celebrate an anniversary without a proper date—Spirits, he and Katara were gonna have an anniversary, oh Spirits—

Aang’s palm stared back at him. Embarrassment hit him like a skybison at full-speed.

Katara had nearly killed him during the meeting that morning.

Holding his hand—that hand—under the table was toying with whatever gave his heart reason to beat.

Aang had hugged her times a-plenty, but he had never held her hand in that way for that long. It eclipsed their kiss and left him powerless like a suddenly doused fire.

...It had felt like he was poisoning her—like he was touching her with an open wound. 

Aang slumped a little more in the corner of the balcony and stared at his callouses like they could tell him what to do.

The sunset was a smirk mocking his plight, but the moonrise was a gentle grin trying (...trying…trying very, very hard...) to heal his hurts.

Katara hated holding his hand. He felt that she did. She muted the room for him when she touched him; it brought her every reaction into stark relief. He had briefly wondered if that was what Toph felt like when she sensed when someone was lying.

Katara had stiffened. She even shifted like she couldn’t get comfortable. The breath that left her was fast at first like she was just told bad news. Her exhales after that were deep and almost seething.

...The worst part was when she wouldn’t look at him. She only glared about and around them.

Aang slumped from his crouch until his rear hit the ground. His right thumb stayed married to his left palm, and the white lightning stung tender like something freshly burned. He only partially wished that he had the top of his robes on when the thought of her regretting him cut the strings that held him together; he was a puppet collapsing against the balcony wall and sliding down gritty concrete. His scar—another reminder of her—stung him like smacks to the face and melted him into something made of noodles.

The moon was a bit higher, now, but its grin wasn’t any more reassuring than before. The bugs and small critters must have become annoyed with his melting because there was silence like Hei Bai’s forest when Aang made himself smaller than his shadow and dragged his kneading hand even closer to his face.

Their kiss—she had kissed him—barbed him with a sting like thorns on a rose bush except laced with poison and fiberglass. It was decaying from the start of something new into the empty longing for a once in a lifetime occurrence. 

Something shot him in the leg and crippled what made him Aang.

His right thumb kneading his left palm slipped and dug a fingernail into a callous.

He was goo freezing over—a body consumed by jennamite.

Aang breathed out, about to take the inhale to fuel the first hiccup dancing on his shaking lip—

—but then Katara stepped onto the balcony and leaned up against the bars.

Being an airbender had its perks, and his lungs not popping from the force and fullness of his panicked inhale was definitely one of them. He was a statue—a deformed gargoyle that looked more horrific to behold than to cross—, and the glimpse of Katara’s soft grin became a braided noose refusing to let him exhale.

None of the lights were lit.

Spirits, did he love his moonrise and the weakness that she gave him.

Katara was staring into something that didn’t exist on this plane and smiling at something he couldn’t see. She was a stilled lake normally raging and powerful and beautiful to behold. He wouldn’t dare disturb her. She was as calm as a reflection.

Sudden exposure reminded him of stepping into a forbidden part of the Southern Air Temple, and his presence became a violation of something precious. Katara was remembering moments of beautiful new somethings if the way she absentmindedly bent a stream of water about one wrist—her bending her joy unhindered—was anything to go by.

Aang blushed a shade of red that Aunt Wu could have mistaken as the intended location for eruption from the Symbol of Volcanic Doom. He closed his eyes, covered his ears, and dared to shimmy into the shadow of the corner. Katara was a warrior unmatched and without equal. That’s why she was Master Katara. He could no sooner escape her than escape the earthshaking hammer-blows that the hint of her smile drove into his chest. 

He sat on a tightrope whose cables were snapping and unwinding.

It was only when he felt weaker in a way that made him stronger that he peaked an eye open.

Katara was crouched and more concerned than bemused. “Aang?” She touched the knee that had curled to his chest and was threatening to buckle into his sternum. “Are you okay?”

…’Okay’ was a subjective and circumstantial term.

His voice was the sound of rubber sliding water off of wet glass. “M-hm.”

“What are you doing out here alone and...in the corner?”

“Well, I was just...Well, y’know…” His right thumb stuck to his left palm like they were nailed together. He tried (...tried...tried very, very hard...) to hide his wound from her. “Moon ‘s nice ‘n…’n stuff.”

Katara mulled over his words, said and unsaid. Her stare was an examination checking his vitals—his heart, his soul, and his happiness. She hummed a thoughtful sound that bookmarked her place in the pages of him.

It all happened in under the time it took her to breathe. Aang nearly stopped breathing altogether when she tapped her finger on his knee.

“You’re hiding on the balcony because ‘Moon ‘n stuff’?”

“...Yes?”

She spared his ‘hidden’ fiddling hands a half-lidded glance. “Aang...”

“What?”

Katara flicked his arrow. Then, she waited.

Aang didn’t crack. He melted. 

“I was just—I thought…” He deflated. “I needed somewhere to think.”

Something about his words or the way that he said them made every bit of her soft. Her concern riddled him with holes, and, when she settled on the ground before him and propped her head on her arms on his knees, there was barely any of him left to keep him together.

“You wanna talk about it? It’s okay if you don’t. I just haven’t seen that look on your face since...Well, I can’t remember since when.”

One part of Aang threatened to grab the other part of him and throw him into a volcano.

He was making her worry. He should never make her worry, especially over something so silly—

He opened his mouth but hesitated. He didn't want to say no.

“Not—Not now.”

His honesty tamed her like she could feel it as easily as a temperature change. “It’s not something hurting you, right?”

Yes.

“No.”

Katara frowned with her eyes.

Then, she stood.

(Spirits, Aang loved his moonrise.)

“Take my hand.”

Aang’s heart took a trip to the tiny star just to the right of the moon.

She looked at him, and he felt hot cinders flake from his face and into his twisting belly. It sparked a fire so hot that it turned his sea of chi into an ocean of molten ore.

He was suddenly empty of something and filled to the brim with something else.

Katara’s hand was an invitation without equal, and the instinct to grab hold and never let go was a god’s hand trying to push him forward. 

He almost did.

But then his right thumb paused on his left palm, and white lightning struck him down.

Katara flinched like she felt it.

Aang curled into a knot like he could still hide it. 

Kneeling, Katara unraveled him without touching him. Her eyes found his and held him in place not like in a trap but like in a hug. Too soon his right thumb was hushed away from his left palm and his estranged hand was held close to her face. 

Aang couldn’t remember hearing her words, but he felt what she was saying.

Her sorrow nearly tore him apart.

Luckily, her smile kept his shredded heart together. 

And the kiss to his white lightning and the three points of his hand’s arrow put air back into his lungs. He dove into the cool-blue look she gave him and drowned himself in all that she was. 

He was filled with clouds so puffy that they threatened to let loose their rain, but his eyes became only wet and never misty. He smiled beyond the limits of what anatomy allowed when her face turn as red as his felt.

She said something that put his pieces back together, and she looked at him with something that gave him the strength. Cherry-red metal poured from a kiln and wept up her neck and into her cheeks.

Katara rolled her eyes to something that wasn’t there, disappeared inside, and returned with a mass of blankets.

“What are all the blankets for?”

“Moon ‘n stuff,” Katara said as she finished her nest of comforters and fortified quilt walls. 

Then she offered her hand again—she slipped it loosely into his own and waited for him to hold her first. 

“Sit with me.”

Aang shouldn’t have been as giddy as he was, and Katara pursed her smile like she was struggling not to enjoy his happiness too much when she tugged him up from the ground and laid with him against cushioned concrete. 

Moon ‘n Stuff was laughing and pointing out funny bits in constellations of their own designs. It was gossiping all the good rumors and their hopes about which of them might be true.

Katara crowned him King of their Chateau of Comforters with the softest blanket she had. It was blue and smelled like mornings when he could sleep in and like the small joys of finding warm things in cold places.

Katara accepted his invitation into his Blanket Castle within their Comforter Chateau. The blanket was plenty big for both of them and tied them together in a fuzzy cocoon.

She relaxed against him like she was sinking into warm water. The air that left her was fast at first like she just saw something she dearly missed. Every exhale after that was slow and satisfied—drunk on the indescribable and bewitched by the unimaginable. Aang felt her every movement so clearly that he wasn’t sure whether to give thanks or repent for the precious moment she was creating with him.

But then she shifted like she couldn’t get comfortable enough.

And she dragged an eye open to glare at any critter’s sound breaking their peace.

That was when Aang understood.

That was also when Aang lost it.

The urge to laugh was so overwhelming that it didn’t process into the bodily function, instead filling him from toe to brim with small giggles and soft feelings.

Katara didn’t want to share.

Of course, she didn’t.

Their moments were their moments, and he was hers and hers alone.

Master Katara was a being without equal, but Aang knew that which even she didn’t know.

Don’t worry about them. It’s just you and me right now.

Aang’s confidence limped back to him and convinced his estranged left hand to sidle towards hers. He touched the back of it with two fingers—an almost mute invitation, an almost silent knock on the door.

Katara laced her fingers with his like it was the most natural thing in the world. She handled it not like it was something wounded but like it was something precious, and she kissed all of his knuckles before cooling his white lightning with the gentle touches of her snowy-soft palm.

The hands were the most sacred part of a bender. They were the outlets from which their soul leaked. They were the culmination of all of their senses to interact with the world.

Aang’s world shyly smiled and fiddled with her hair. She shifted like she couldn’t decide on which spot against him or which way to hold him would bring them as close as she wanted. 

She wouldn’t even look at him for fear of changing color and state of matter from beautiful young woman to gorgeous little puddle.

She blushed like something beautiful coming into bloom.

Then, she said something.

Her words bypassed all feeling and branded themselves onto his heart

“...want to be my boyfriend? O-Only if you want to...because I want to, so...um...”

She inhaled on the word like she was telling good news and hoping for the universe to talk back to her.

Aang’s current incarnation threatened to be kicked out from under him and reborn into the Water Tribes.

His head nodded like it was trying to make a break for it.

Katara laughed like it was the only language she knew.

They shared each others’ smiles in a shy kiss that felt like a brushing of souls—like the gentle zap of lightning between earth and sky that brought beauty and shook all that they knew but brought with it no scars or destruction.

She squeezed his hand.

He kissed her again just because he could.

White lightning and snowy-soft touches connected what made them each other.

Aang wilted like soggy grass, full of that which gave him life and drunk on all that she gave him.

His hand didn’t hurt anymore. His heart was starting to ache, though. It was going to burst if he looked at her for much longer.

His night got darker when Katara closed her eyes, but he welcomed the weakness his rising full moon gave him.

She fell asleep against his side, and even when Aang no longer felt his arm, he didn’t dare move.

The balcony was empty except for them, and his heart was full of only her.

Katara mumbled once, shifted twice, and adjusted her grip to hug the whole of his arm.

She was hardly doing anything, but her doing nothing did everything to him.

Aang’s courage found him just as Katara found her new favorite spot.

He kissed her cheek, but, if he was being honest, he didn’t remember feeling the kiss.

“...I love you.”

He only remembered how her smile felt.

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I hope you enjoyed, Anon! I know this isn’t Katara doing “nothing”, per se, but this is what my mush-brain put down when I sat and wrote😅  (I did, however, tuck that little ”doing nothing” idea away for different ficlet👀)

#kataang #Aang #Katara #avatar the last airbender #atla #balcony kiss #lightning scars #insecure aang makes my heart bleed #hand holding is so incredibly underrated #blanket fort on a balcony is my ideal Friday idk about anyone else #kataang ask to be boyfriend and girlfriend #I think about ozai's lightning a LOT #cuddles and nonsense becomes sometimes the sweeties sweet just for sweetness’ sake #trying a different style? me? I figured why not😁 #i rewrote this fic so many times and kindof ended up stitching together the two versions i liked most...hopefully you cant see the seams lol #I HOPE YOU LIKE IT ANON ILY BB🥰🥰😘😘❤️❤️ #fic request #answered #myfanfictiontag #post #AND BTW #IF YOU THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO MISS THE OPPORTUNITY FOR CHRISTMAS/HOLIDAY THEMED ONESHOTS #THINK AGAIN #I might start taking prompts out of order if I get stumped on one bc not completing anything for like a week left me STARVED😭