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Zuko knows that it does not do to dwell on the fact that he’s in love with his best friend’s girlfriend.
He knows this the same way he knows his father is a piece of shit and that no matter how many times it is explained to him in excruciating, convoluted, parabolical terms, he will never appreciate the significance of tea like his Uncle does.
It does not do any good to dwell when he’s the asshole that has been in love with her for the better part of a decade and never said anything, subjecting himself to being her good friend Zuko, pining away like a loser and watching her fall in love, rather happily, with your friend, who did have the guts to say something.
Not that he almost didn’t slip up sometimes, like when Jet would get her vanilla ice cream when her favorite was butter pecan, or when he’d take her out for nice dinners, which yeah, that’s great and all, but Katara valued the little things more- such as helping her wash the dishes, or fixing her godforsaken AC unit in her apartment when it crashed, or watering the hanging plants in her balcony so that she didn’t have to get her step ladder out.
Well, not that he really knew she preferred this, but the glowing smile she’d always give Zuko every time he would do these things for her- a gratefulness that someone would take care of her- felt significant, and it almost made him spit out of course I’d do it for you, I’d do anything for you, why isn’t Jet doing this for you? I think I could understand you so much better if you’d let me. I think I already do because you seem to understand me, too.
He doesn’t, but it’s a near thing.
Not that he needs to be doing these things in the first place, but masochism isn’t a new concept for Zuko.
So in conclusion, Zuko had resigned himself to being in love with her forever, pathetically stuck in her orbit, with nothing to be done about it, because he couldn’t screw his best friend over, and he couldn’t jeopardize losing Katara, and he would just be single for the rest of his life until he was Uncle’s age.
Until the thing happened that shifted shit around in Zuko’s life. Uncle would call it a turning of the tides, or a moment of destiny you must pay attention to lest it flit by like a hummingbird (he said this to him once when Zuko was torn about buying a used couch online) though Zuko has no clue what he means when he says things like that; however, it seems fitting for the series of events that ultimately changed everything.
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.
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The first domino that fell happened when Zuko was playing Call of Duty with Sokka, something he didn’t do too often because Sokka screamed a decent amount into the mic and also because Sokka was much better than Zuko was and would let him know quite often.
However, it was one Saturday afternoon that Sokka broke Zuko down and Zuko agreed to play with him that he heard a commotion on the other end of Sokka’s mic.
Something that sounded a lot like crying and the muffled voice of Suki, and then Sokka was giving him a “hold on, dude,” and paused their campaign.
Zuko waited semi-anxiously for Sokka to come back, curiosity eating at him since Sokka muted the mic.
“Alright, let’s go.”
Sokka unpaused the game and kept playing like normal, so whatever happened couldn’t have been anything too tragic.
They play for a few minutes, Sokka’s normal litany of curses and insults pouring from his mouth per usual.
“Everything good over there?”
“Huh, what? Oh, yeah. Just Katara.”
Zuko’s heart nearly stops, and he fumbles with the controller for a moment, costing them a few kills in the game.
“Dude, cmon,” Sokka grumbles.
“Was that Katara crying?” Zuko’s trying to remember a time when he’s seen Katara cry, and all he can come up with was that one movie where the dog died.
Somehow he doesn’t think she came crying to Sokka and Suki over that.
“Zuko, dude, dude, RIGHT THERE,” Sokka’s yelling at him again because Zuko’s swiftly losing them the game in the wake of what he’s just learned, so he does try to focus in the hopes that Sokka will tell him more.
Sokka huffs at him, but answers anyway. “Yeah, Kat came over to talk to Suki. Something about Jet. They’re breaking up or about to or something, I’m not sure.”
Zuko can’t even pretend to play anymore, his mind short circuiting as the words break-up crosses his mind like a plane dragging an advertisement.
It runs circles through his brain.
“Dude, dude, DUDE, cmon! For fuck’s sake,” he hears a very dramatic groan from Sokka as they lose the round.
“Did you not ask her any questions?” Zuko asks.
Sokka groans again. “All I asked was if I needed to kick his ass, and she said no, it wasn’t like that. Besides that, I don’t particularly want to know anything about her love life.”
Zuko’s bursting with questions.
“I’m sure Jet will tell you.”
Ah, right.
“Actually, Kat will probably tell you, too. You’re practically closer with her than Jet these days anyway.” Zuko doesn’t miss the subtle tone in Sokka’s voice, but he says nothing.
Sokka just snorts and starts another campaign. “Fuckin hell, Zuko, if they’re broken up, can you just hurry up and tell her how you feel?”
Zuko makes a noise along the lines of an indignant scoff. “You know?”
“Everyone knows.”
“Suki?”
“Ha! She was the first to know. Well, actually maybe Toph.”
“Aang?”
“Yep.”
“Does Katara?”
“Ehh, iffy. She’s kind of oblivious sometimes, but it’s possible.”
Zuko groans, and drops his controller completely in favor of dropping his head into his hands instead.
“Dammit, man. I don’t know why I’m bothering even trying to play this with you right now,” Sokka grunts.
“Do you think Jet knows?”
Sokka sighs. “I don’t think Jet pays that much attention to anything outside of himself.”
Zuko doesn’t say anything to this.
“No offense. I know you’re friends.”
“No, I mean, that’s- that’s fair.”
Sokka gives another sigh like Zuko is exasperating him completely. “Again, I don’t want to know anything that goes on in Katara’s love life ever, but this little drama that’s been going on between the three of you has been pretty obvious for a long time, and clearly you’re not going to think straight until you figure this out, and you’re kinda the only one who will play Call of Duty with me, so just tell her, dude. In fact, she’s still here, do you want me to-“
“Don’t you fucking dare.”
Sokka laughs like he finds the situation great fun and not like Zuko’s just had his ass handed to him.
He sighs and picks his controller back up and attempts to play with Sokka again because in a very weird roundabout way, he thinks this was Sokka’s way of giving him his blessing, so really, it was the least he could do.
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Jet: Lovett’s in an hour?
Really, he should’ve seen this one coming.
Zuko has been on and off staring at Jet’s text for the past thirty minutes, knowing that he needs to respond to him now in order for them both to have time to meet at the all too familiar bar.
His stomach is lodged somewhere between his ribcage and his throat at the thought of whatever Jet wants to talk to him about, but he also knows that no matter what the outcome of this conversation, there’s no answer he’d give him besides -
Yeah, see you there.
Zuko gets there first and sits at the bar, ordering a beer that he’s not sure he’ll even be able to drink and waits.
He bounces his knee and thinks for a moment about how many times Jet has dragged him to this stupid bar.
When they met in college, Zuko tried to ignore Jet because as personalities go, theirs clashed.
Jet has a charm that he naturally emits, and it tends to make people feel at ease. It tends to make him popular. It tends to make people want to follow him.
Zuko does not.
The charm didn’t really work on Zuko, but Jet was persistent in their friendship, and Zuko found in the end that he liked having an extrovert around that allowed him to sit back and observe.
It worked on Katara, which didn’t surprise Zuko because Jet really was an obnoxiously handsome bastard, but what surprised Zuko was that the otherworldly goodness that Katara emitted, an inner strength that was wrapped in caretaking as well as feistiness- the anger that came out when she found things supremely unfair- worked on Jet, too.
He was hooked, and something about that cut Zuko to the core.
Because Zuko met her first, when he roomed with Sokka freshman year, and she was still a senior.
Because he got to fall in love with her while Sokka fell in love with Suki when it was their freshman year.
Because he was the one that she’d fallen asleep on hundreds of times on movie nights before Jet came in the picture.
Because he was the one that sat up and talked to her all night before that wasn’t his job anymore.
Because there were so many facets to Katara that Zuko had already made note of and discovered, and she had already felt so quintessentially his, and not in a creepy pimp way, just in a I could hold your heart if you wanted, you already have mine, and I wouldn’t break it, type way.
But she was so good, and Zuko was so not, and he wasted so much time, and it was right in this very bar where she was introduced to Jet, and Zuko saw him get that look in his eye that he always gets when he meets a pretty girl he wants, that the ‘Zuko and Katara’ bubble popped.
So no, Zuko wasn’t surprised that Jet liked Katara, because Jet likes everyone and everyone likes Katara, but it killed him to find that Jet loved Katara.
Jet slides into the stool next to him then, snapping Zuko out of his reverie, and Zuko takes a proper look at him.
He looks like shit- unusual for Jet because he normally takes pride in his appearance.
“Hey, man.”
“Hey, Z.”
He sounds like shit, too.
He waits for him to order a drink before casually hitting him with a “what’s up?”
He hopes it’s casual.
Jet sighs, fiddles with his beer, and Zuko notes that that is also odd because normally he would have chugged half of it in one go.
“Me and Katara broke up. Have you heard yet?”
“Shit, really? No.” He lies because telling him that he kind of found out while playing X-box with Sokka would be…unkind.
Sokka and Jet didn’t dislike each other per se, but they weren’t exactly friends.
To put it in so many words, Jet plays Call of Duty all the time and was much better than Zuko and has never played with Sokka once.
Jet sighs and runs a hand through his hair.
“Yeah, earlier today.” He opens his mouth like he wants to say more, but he just grabs his beer and takes a healthy swig instead.
Zuko wants to ask what happened? Who broke up with who? Because Katara was crying but you look like shit and what the fuck is going on?
But he can’t really ask any of these things, so he takes a swig, too.
“Sorry, man. That’s…rough.”
“Fuckin brutal.” Jet’s staring at his glass, and Zuko’s internally screaming at him to give him anything. Any detail.
Unfortunately, he knows what he has to do, and he knows that every single part of him will regret it, but if he’s going to get Jet to crack an ounce, he’ll have to break the oath he made to himself several Halloweens ago in the Great Jungle Juice green vomit incident and cross the point of no return.
He makes eye contact with the bartender and raises his brow.
When he comes over, Zuko doesn’t hesitate when he says, “Two shots of fireball, please.”
.
.
.
It took four for Jet to give him maybe half the details.
“And she was ranting about her AC being out again, and I told her to just move in with me, and then she completely freaked out. I mean, we’ve been dating for two years now-“
It was a year and nine months, but Zuko didn’t think this would be helpful information to chime in with right now.
“-and I love her, you know, and I told her that I didn’t see what the big deal was!”
Zuko just barely manages to keep the wince internal.
Katara was a planner. The spontaneity of something this monumental would be a huge deal to her. She’d want to move in with someone for many more reasons besides a broken air conditioner unit.
He doesn’t point this out to Jet either.
“Anyway, she loses her shit at that, and we get in a huge fight, and that was that! Two years down the fucking drain.”
A year and nine months, but who’s counting?
“Wow, so, uh, have you talked to her at all since then?”
“Nope.” He pops the P on the word dramatically, now on his third beer, and he’s glaring at the foam.
Zuko says nothing, deciding it may be best to let him simmer in whatever mental debate he’s having with himself.
After a moment, Jet sighs again and Zuko looks over at him, finding that his glare has softened to something sadder, and this throws him.
He’s seen a litany of emotions come from Jet, but he’s not sure he’s ever seen him sad. It’s the first time in the evening he well and truly feels sorry for him. Fuck, he’s never even dated Katara and he’s yet to get over her.
“There’s something else, too, man.”
“What?”
“I’m moving back home.”
Zuko’s eyebrow shoots up, and his jaw nearly drops. “You’re leaving Ba Sing Se?”
Jet nods. “Yeah, I’ve thought about it before, and honestly, without Katara, there’s not much keeping me here. No offense.”
Zuko shrugs, but he thinks for a moment. A lot of Jet’s friends from back home would visit, but they never wanted to settle in the city like Jet.
Jet was popular, yes, but outside of Zuko and Katara, most of those connections were surface level at best.
And now that he’s lost Katara, all that would be keeping him here would be Zuko, a job at the Ferry, and his one bedroom apartment.
“What about your apartment?”
Jet shrugs. “I’ll pay to break the lease, and I’ll be gone in two weeks.”
“Jesus, so soon?”
Jet gives him a smirk. “You gonna miss me or something?”
Zuko snorts. “More like I don’t know how I’m gonna convince you to pay me back for last year’s poker game by then.”
Jet grins but shakes his head a little. “I mean, it’s the whole friend group thing, you know? I know you’re gonna hang out with her all the time, man.”
Zuko snaps his mouth closed at that.
“I can’t hang around and just not see her.”
Zuko nods because he gets it.
“Can you promise me something though?”
Zuko hesitates for a moment because when it comes to Jet, promises can be a crapshoot on their level of intensity.
“Sure,” is what he ends up saying.
“I want you to tell me the name of the next bastard she dates.”
Zuko’s glad he wasn’t drinking at the time- he would’ve choked on his beer.
“Jet, why the fuck would you want to know that?”
“Closure,” he says succinctly, but the near murderous look on his face relaunches Zuko’s stomach back into his throat.
“Promise me, Z?”
Say no. Say I don’t know about that one, bud. Say anything else other than the path of least resistance because it’s a crazy request.
“I promise,” is what his brain pushes out of his mouth instead.
Fireball was a bad idea.
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.
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Katara: Hey! Can you come over tonight? I’m getting dinner with Suki, but if you’re free, like maybe 8:30? It’s ok if not!
If Jet’s text a week ago had made him nervous, Katara’s text, lighting up his phone like a police siren, has made him an absolute puddle of a man.
He can’t remember the last time they’ve gotten to spend one on one time together. He’s only gotten her in bits and pieces since she’s dated Jet- a time in the kitchen here and there at a party, or at Sokka’s when Jet can’t make it, just the two of them on the couch like it used to be.
But now here she is, asking him to come over with no real explanation- late, later than normal, and he’s sweating like a 14 year old boy instead of a grown man.
Fucking ridiculous.
He grabs his phone and types out his response, pausing for a moment when he thinks briefly of the alcohol-induced promise he made to Jet before hitting send.
Hey! 8:30 sounds good, see you then!
Fucking.
Idiot.
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Zuko stands in front of Katara’s door desperately trying not to feel like his destiny’s on the other side of it. He himself hasn’t been in here in some months. He helped Jet carry a new TV inside a while back and didn’t stay long.
He could never bring himself to stay long when he had to see the two of them together.
He knocks, chanting she’s your friend, she’s your friend, she’s your friend over and over until she opens the door, and he determines to be as buddy-buddy as possible; however, when she answers wearing nothing more than the tiniest blue tank top and the tiniest blue jean shorts, holding a piece of ice to her collarbone and marking a path back and forth to her neck and chest, his resolve crumbles, and he nearly surges forward to kiss the ever-loving shit out of her.
He didn’t, but it was close.
“Hey,” he says, hoping she didn’t notice how much deeper his voice goes, thankful at least it doesn’t squeak like a middle schooler’s
“Hey, Zuko! Sorry, my AC is out again, it’s brutal in here. Maintenance is coming tomorrow to fix it,” she stands aside with a little eye roll to let him in.
God help him.
He enters her, admittedly, very hot apartment, and appraises it for a moment, taking in the homeyness- pictures on every wall, blue mismatched furniture, moon and star string lights, the scent of vanilla and blueberries- and something tightens in his chest.
“Do you want me to look at it?” he asks, turning towards her again to find she’s gone to sit in the loveseat.
She shakes her head. “No, it’s fine.” She gives him a crooked smile and pats the seat next to her. “I didn’t invite you over to force manual labor out of you.”
He is, in a word, fucked.
He sits beside her, forcing himself to keep at a distance despite the pull to sit as close as humanly possible.
She pulls her knees under her to sit sideways so that she can face him fully, tossing her fluffy hair over her shoulder as she does, and her perfume hits him in full force- vanilla and white flowers, amber and something deliciously woodsy.
Zuko bounces his knee violently.
Reminds himself she just broke up with his best friend.
“So I’m assuming Jet told you we broke up?”
The crash back to reality is exactly what he needs.
The question was like dunking his head in a bowl of ice water.
“Yes, he did. I’m…sorry.”
She sighs, and he turns to face her on the loveseat so he can see her expression.
She didn’t look particularly sad. Frustrated may have been a better word.
“It’s okay, I just figured he would’ve told you some version of events.”
Zuko raises his brow at the turn of phrase but doesn’t pry. He’s not sure he wants to be the guy that she cries to about her ex, but he can’t say he’s not desperately curious.
“He’s already gone, you know,” she continues.
Zuko thinks his eyebrow disappears into his hairline at this point.
“What?”
“Yeah, as of yesterday, he officially left Ba Sing Se.”
Zuko can’t honestly say he’s not a little offended that Jet didn’t say anything to him. Their friendship was by no means mushy, but they were close. God, he must’ve packed fast, not that Jet was a pack rat, and if he set his mind to something, he was fairly singularly focused on it, but-
His train of thought was derailed by another burning question.
“Did he tell you that himself?”
Katara sighs, and he sees a faint blush crawl up her cheeks. “Yeah, sent me a sort of goodbye message, if you will.” She looks away from him, and Zuko frowns.
“Oh.”
“I mean, it was completely unnecessary, but you know Jet..” she trails off, making a vague gesture with her hands.
Zuko nods though he’s not quite sure what she means by that.
He decidedly does not ask.
“Anyway, I also didn’t ask you to come over to talk about Jet,” she gives a little laugh though Zuko thinks he can detect a little bit of a nervous lilt to it.
He turns a little more, shifting in his seat so he’s a bit closer.
“So what’s up?” he tries to keep his voice casual, and all things considered, he thinks he’s doing fairly well.
“I just-“ Katara gnaws on her lip, and he has a harder time concentrating on her words when she does that.
His eyes flit to her mouth, and though he doesn’t think it’s possible, the temperature seems to ratchet up inside.
“I just wanted to hang out. After the way things have been going the last few months, I’ve realized I really hadn’t seen much of my friends, and I-“ she locks eyes with him, and he forgets to breathe.
Is that even an autonomic function? Would Katara mind if he got a paper bag to hyperventilate into?
“I’ve missed you.”
Something blacks out in his brain like a breaker switch or some freak anomaly shutting everything down.
All systems offline.
He blinks, rebooting his neurons one at a time, synapses firing off one by one- she missed you, she missed you, she missed you until they finally make it to the forefront of the brain, and he recognizes that she’s looking at him a little nervously, and he desperately needs to respond to that.
“I’ve missed you, too.”
It doesn’t encompass the scope of what he feels. I love you, I’ve loved you for many, many years, I think that you might be my soul mate, and I don’t know that I believe in that, all I know is that I feel like half a person when you’re not around is more appropriate for what he feels, but he’s not trying to be a complete freak right now.
They say the best things in life are free, and when Katara gives him a bright smile, so similar to the way the sun feels on his skin when it’s rising in the morning, another sensation that gives him a sense of overwhelming comfort, he cannot say he disagrees with the sentiment.
She stands for a second and heads into her kitchen, and he turns to watch her pull a bottle of wine out of her fridge.
“Want some?” she asks, throwing him a look over her shoulder.
He is damned. She’s trying to damn him.
“Yeah, sure.”
He really needs to work on his brain to mouth function.
She comes back with two glasses and settles deeper into the loveseat, seated closer to him than before, and after taking his glass with one hand, he feels a bit of reckless abandon, so Zuko throws his other arm over the back of where she’s sitting.
If he’s damned, it may as well be worth it.
“So,” she says, cupping her glass and looking at him with a small smile, “how have you been?”
Miserable. Absolutely completely miserable without you in my life, and I don’t know what to do.
“I’ve been..fine,” he says carefully, trying not to sound like he was completely lying, but Katara gives him a bit of a skeptical look.
She could always read him too easily.
“Cmon, Zuko, gotta give me more than that,” she elbows him in the ribs gently, and he pretends that the contact doesn’t set him on fire.
He’s pathetic, really.
“Well,” he starts slowly, “I’m officially done waiting at the Jasmine Dragon,” he offers. “I’m just doing Uncle’s books now.”
This is safe. This is neutral ground.
Katara gives him a little smile. “Really? I’m glad. I mean, I always worried you were running yourself too thin with your other clients.”
He was, but he’d never tell his Uncle that in a million years.
Katara’s also the only one who has ever pointed this out.
He gives her a little shrug.
She grins. “I am gonna miss seeing you in the little apron though.”
Is she flirting with him? No, the wine is impairing his judgment. She’s making fun of him.
He grins back at her. “Yeah, whatever. Don’t think I’ve forgotten your one week stint where you managed to break nearly every antique pot we owned.”
She sits up at this dramatically. “That’s an exaggeration!”
He laughs at her indignation. “Uncle’s still heartbroken.”
“No,” she sounds horrified, which would make him drag it out, except she’s reached one hand out to place on his thigh, and he suddenly feels like his mouth is full of sand.
He clears his throat. Loudly.
“Please, Uncle thinks the world of you. You could break everything in there twice, and I’d still get a lecture about how wonderful Ms. Katara is.”
She looks pleased at this and settles back on the couch, removing her hand, which circulates blood flow back to his brain semi-normally.
Emphasis on semi.
“How’d you manage to get him to let you go?” she asks.
“Oh, Jin finally went full time.”
A look he’s seen before crosses her face, which he finds interesting to say the least. It’s what he calls Katara’s Tectonic Plates look, where she’s thinking something over with purpose, shifting things around in her mind carefully before speaking, and he’s not sure why what he said warranted this look, but it makes him extremely nervous.
“Are you and Jin,” she cocks her head, hair falling back over one shoulder and exposing a defined collarbone in a distracting manner, “still close?”
He snorts. “I wouldn’t say we were ever close, but I never see her unless I’m at the shop, so no?”
He can still see islands rearranging in her eyes and finds himself immensely curious as to what’s going on in her head.
“So you guys don’t really talk?”
Zuko looks at his wine glass, feeling intense under her scrutiny. “No, not for a very long time.”
There had been that one date, right around the time Jet and Katara started talking, that he went on with her at his Uncle’s insistence that ended in an incredibly awkward one night stand. She had been a bit obsessed with him after that, but after his polite conversation and several unanswered texts she’d sent, he was pretty sure she hated him now.
“Are you seeing anyone right now?”
Zuko snaps his eyes up to her and finds that Katara’s Tectonic Plates have clicked.
“No.”
She nods subtly and looks into her wine glass.
But Zuko knows her. Katara’s not subtle by nature, and he sees a little flush grace her cheeks, and he’s reminded of nights a while back, before Jet, when she’d look at him like he meant something to her, when he’d almost kiss her, when he thought she’d almost kiss him back.
Don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t ask.
“Why do you ask?”
Katara looks back up at him, and he can see the blush in full, can trace it down her neck and to her chest.
She shrugs, but Zuko knows better than to find it casual.
“I guess I’m just curious as to why not. I mean, not that it’s my business, but you are one of my best friends, and I’ve never asked why you haven’t really dated much.”
Fuck him.
Because I’m in love with you.
And apparently am being punished for it.
“Uhh,” he attempts a little laugh and runs his hand through his hair, cursing the heat in the apartment for the way it makes him sweat, “you know me, Kat. I’m kinda awkward. Not great at talking to people in general. Besides, this” he gestures vaguely to his scar, “makes me a little unapproachable.”
He hears her make a pfft like sound, and he turns to face her.
“Zuko, please. You’re stupid hot.”
If he thought his brain blacked out before, this sentiment lobotomizes it.
“You- I- you think- what?” he sputters out, too shocked to even feel embarrassed at his lack of articulation.
Katara huffs a little laugh. “Do you not notice how many women hit on you anytime you’re out anywhere?”
No, because if you’re anywhere in the vicinity, that’s kind of all my brain has the capability of noticing.
He brushes over her question, circling back around to her earlier statement.
“You think I’m hot?”
She flushes again, and it’s pretty. It’s so pretty and especially gratifying that he’s the one that did it, he feels a little reckless.
“Well, I mean-like-“ she huffs, flustered, and Zuko feels heat crawl up his spine, “I’m not blind, Zuko.”
“Huh.”
She can’t manage to look him in the eye, and he can’t have that, so he reaches a hand out and brushes some of her curls behind her ear.
She looks at him in surprise, but she doesn’t look so embarrassed anymore, and he wonders if it’s written all over his face- the tenderness he feels for her.
Subtlety isn’t exactly his forte either.
“And you’re beautiful. Though I’m sure you probably knew I already thought that.”
He drops his hand but doesn’t look away, and she smiles at his admission, but it turns into something bordering on mischief, and Zuko’s heart stutters, the heat that crawled up his spine settling low at the base.
“Why did you never ask me out?” Katara asks this so suddenly Zuko has no time to prepare his face for the bluntness.
He thinks his eyes might bug, or maybe his jaw drops? He doesn’t know, but whatever stupid expression crosses it, Katara doesn’t acknowledge.
“I mean, before Jet, you and I were close, you know. I’ve just..always wondered.”
She watches him steadily, curiosity mixed with something deeper, richer, like dark chocolate or a shot of espresso in a latte, and that look makes Zuko lean in a little closer.
“I- I-“ he cuts himself off, having a hard time finding the words to work around I love you, while also looking into her eyes, which at present, were holding him hostage with their intensity. “We were friends, good friends-“
“Best friends.” Katara interjects.
Zuko melts. He’ll die here. He’ll die in Katara’s apartment, and she’ll have to figure out how to dispose of his body, or maybe she won’t. Maybe she’ll let him rot and live her life around his corpse, too chicken to even answer her questions.
“Best friends,” he repeats, “and I guess I didn’t want to ruin that. I didn’t think you’d want me to.”
Katara furrows her brow for a moment, and Zuko’s stomach drops. She lets her face relax into something serene, and this somehow makes Zuko even more nervous.
“You didn’t want to be more than friends?”
He nearly blurts of course I did, but it was more than that for him- his reasoning behind never asking her. He tries to think of a way to word it without giving himself away.
“I didn’t want to run the risk of losing your friendship entirely, you know?”
Katara furrows her brow again, and to Zuko’s horror, hurt leeches into her face slowly. He can see it in the downturn of her lip, the slight widening of her eyes- an emotion that he’s never known to cause her before.
Panic grips him, and he begins babbling to try and explain himself.
“Because I didn’t want to make things awkward and then it would be weird for you!”
She looks down at her empty glass.
“Because, you know, I’m awkward, and not terribly good at dating or in general, and you deserve that, so I didn’t want to make it uncomfortable for us to be around each other, and-“
“Yeah, I got it, Zuko.”
She looks back up at him, and he can see a steeliness to her face. Shutters over her eyes, and a mask to her normally open book features.
She’s locked him out.
Fuck. He’s fucked up, and he’s not even sure how.
She stands, grabbing her glass and holding her hand out for his empty one that he slowly passes to her. She practically snatches it from his hand and deposits them in the empty sink.
“It’s getting kinda late, and maintenance is coming early tomorrow,” she calls from the kitchen.
It’s a dismissal. She’s kicking him out.
He stands to face her, and she’s leaning against a counter with her arms crossed. He still can’t read her expression.
His heart throbs with an ache, bursting with fix fix fix it.
“Katara, if I said something wrong, I-“
“No, you didn’t. I’m just tired.”
She’s not. He knows her- this beautiful, brilliant woman. He’s hurt her, and this hurts him, and he doesn’t know how to rectify this.
“Okay, are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
The ache throbs, jumps around his chest like a bouncy ball made of needles.
“Okay, well, I’ll let you get some sleep.”
She goes to the door and opens it for him.
He makes his way over, pausing at the threshold, desperately wanting to reach out to her, hold her, but he doesn’t think that would be welcome at the moment.
“Goodnight, Katara.”
She gives a wan smile.
He crosses into the hallway.
“Zuko.”
He turns and has just a moment to brace himself before she’s flung herself into his arms, wrapping her own around his neck and hugging him tightly.
He automatically holds her, wrapping his arms around her waist and burying his face into her hair, relishing the scent of her shampoo, the warmth she emits, the skin to skin contact his hands make with the small of her back.
Before he can say another word, she slips from his hold like water and is back inside closing the door.
He stares at it for a minute, bewildered with only one thought racing through his head: What the fuck was that?
.
.
.
The next morning is a Saturday, which unfortunately finds Zuko in the office of the Jasmine Dragon combing through his Uncle’s accounting records, doing a piss poor job of making heads or tails of it due to the fact that one, Iroh was shit at keeping a ledger and two, all Zuko could think about was the night before with Katara.
God, their conversation, the look on her face.
That hug- the way she felt against him.
An evening full of things that he also couldn’t make heads or tails of though he knew he had done something wrong but didn’t know what and didn’t know how to go about making it better.
His phone rings then and was surprised to see Suki calling him. This makes him nervous, and he answers it in haste, thinking worst case scenarios about Sokka or Katara.
“Hello?”
“Are you actually stupid?”
He makes a rather unmanly squeak at that- a feat that Suki is excellent at eliciting from the male population.
“What?”
“Are you or are you not completely in love with Katara?”
“Suki, why are you-“
“Answer the question, or I’m threewaying Toph in on this conversation.”
“Fuck, yes, okay. Also, please never use threeway in a sentence in reference to me, you, or Toph again.”
“Seconded!” he hears Sokka shout vaguely from the background.
Zuko rolls his eyes.
“Then what the fuck did you do last night?”
“What do you mean?” he can hear the panic edge into his tone.
“Okay, let me lay this out for you and you somehow convince me how you’re not stupid. Katara invites you over late, pops open wine for the two of you, cuddles with you on her tiny loveseat, flirts with you the entire night, and not only do you not make a move, but you tell her you just wanna be friends!”
He hears cackling coming from Sokka and Suki pulling away from the phone to yell at him.
“What? I never said that!”
“You told her that you didn’t want to ruin your friendship by asking her out!”
“She asked why I’ve never asked her out before, and I told her I didn’t want to ruin losing what we already had! Isn’t that a good thing?” he can hear the hysteria in his voice.
“Zuko, you idiot! She was teeing it up for you to ask her out!”
Zuko debates stabbing himself with the pencil sitting on his Uncle’s desk.
“What are you talking about? But she- she doesn’t?” His brain stutters. “Does she?”
Suki sighs and grumbles to herself. Zuko can’t catch a lot of it, but he hears several curse words that would make sailors blush.
“Suki, she just broke up with Jet. I heard her crying to you about it last week. Why would I ask her out right now? I didn’t know that’s what she wanted!”
“Fuckin hell, Zuko, are you that oblivious? 75% of why they broke up was because of her feelings for you!”
If Zuko had not been sitting down, he would have keeled over.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“But, but-“
“Use your words.”
“But he said he asked her to move in.”
“He did.”
“And they fought.”
“They did.”
“But then, what?”
“Goddamn the two of you are exhausting. She started dating Jet in the hopes it would wake your ass up and you’d ask her out.”
No fucking way.
“Yes way.”
He didn’t realize he had said that out loud.
“But she dated him for-“
“Two years, yeah I know.”
“A year and 9 months, actually.”
A pause.
“Jesus, Zuko.”
“But why would she..?”
“Because you never did ask her out, and it’s Jet, you know? He was charming enough, and she did like him, and they got complacent, and then when the move in with me bullshit happened, she realized how desperately she needed to break up with him because she was still in love with you, hence coming over here and crying about it all. It was a lot.”
Fuck, so he was the one that made her cry?
“She was crying over me?”
“Amongst other things. It’s complicated. Although there’s a decent chance she’s been crying over you today because you had the perfect opportunity to act on your feelings last night, and you didn’t. And now she feels stupid.”
“Fuck.”
“Yep.”
“She’s in love with me?”
“You two are fucking infuriating.”
Zuko took this as a hesitant yes.
“What do I do?”
“Well, your window to fix this is approximately between yesterday and right now, so I’d get your ass in gear.”
“Meaning?”
“Fuck, dude, do I have to spell it out? Tell her how you feel.”
And then he heard a click and checks his phone to find that Suki hung up on him.
He shivers involuntarily. It was easily the scariest phone conversation of his life.
He drops his head to the table face down and groans.
“Nephew? Are you okay?”
“Yes, Uncle,” he says, but he doesn’t pick his head up.
“Is it my books? Is it bad? Give it to me straight. How many months does my shop have?”
Zuko groans again and picks his head back up.
“Uncle, your shop is fine, but really, you need to start using actual numbers instead of smiley faces for the tips. I’ve told you a thousand times.”
Iroh gives him a sheepish smile and sits in the chair at the table across from him.
“Then why do you look paler than normal? That’s saying a lot, you know?”
Zuko rolls his eyes.
“It’s nothing, but there’s something I have to do, and I’m not sure how to go about doing it.”
Iroh gives him a pleased expression. “Why, nephew, you know you can always come to me for advice! Now, come, tell me what’s ailing you.”
Zuko looks at his uncle, his kind eyes and open face, and debates the sanity of actually telling him the situation.
Maybe if he keeps it as vague as possible?
“Okay,” he says at last. “So there’s a girl-“
“Oh, how wonderful! Nephew, I didn’t know you had a lady friend! Tell me, is it Ms.-“
“Uncle, if you want me to tell you anything, you will not ask any questions,” he keeps his voice as severe as possible.
Iroh smirks in a knowing way but nods sagely, gesturing for him to continue.
“As I was saying,” he gives him a pointed look, “there’s this girl, and I’ve liked her for a while.” He looks at Iroh, who has his chin propped on his hand, looking rather smitten at the story already, and Zuko rolls his eyes again.
“Fine, I’ve loved her for a while, and I’ve never had the guts to tell her because we’ve been such good friends and because she’s her and I’m me, and well, she was dating someone and they just broke up, and I’ve just found out that apparently part of why they broke up is because she loves me back, and I had the chance to tell her last night, and I chickened out and screwed it up and hurt her feelings and now I need to fix it, and I don’t know how.”
He takes a deep breath after his monologue, feeling oddly better at voicing it all out loud and chances a glance at his Uncle.
He’s leaned back in his chair, stroking his beard with a very serious look on his face and nodding like he’s processing what Zuko just said.
“So what I’m hearing is you’ve been in love with Ms. Katara for years and never told her because you are good friends and have the skewed perception that she is somehow too good for you and then she dated Jet, but they just broke up because she loves you too, and you could’ve told her last night but didn’t, because you still believe she is too good for you and also have hangups about dating your friend’s ex girlfriend, but in not telling her, you hurt her and now need to fix it before it’s too late.”
Zuko’s jaw is hanging open, and Iroh simply raises his eyebrows.
“You said not to ask questions, I just made a simple statement. Please correct me if anything I said was wrong.”
Zuko grumbles and crosses his arms but ultimately says nothing.
“Right. So, now may I present my advice to you?”
Zuko recognizes the look on his face- it’s one that tells him his Uncle is about to regale him with a proverb that will confuse the ever living shit out of him, but he did agree to this, so he nods and braces himself.
“A good woman, nephew, is like a vintage wine.”
Zuko thinks this may be so much worse than he thought.
“They are rare, hard to find, and unique in that they blossom for you over time. A lesser wine can sit on your shelf and taste the same whether you open it the day you get it or whether you open it 20 years from the day you get it; however, a vintage wine changes overtime, grows richer and fuller in its flavor.”
His uncle has his hands folded over his potbelly and is staring out the window of his office, looking miles away while waxing poetic about his wines.
“Now, when you are lucky enough to find a vintage wine, as with a good woman, it is tempting to jump the gun and open it immediately, but, you should take your time, let it age, let the flavor grow and then have a taste. It truly is worth the wait when you do. But, what you cannot do that many wine connoisseurs fall victim to, as well as many stupid men, is make the mistake of never allowing yourself to open the bottle. If you let it sit on the shelf forever, and you never bring yourself to open it, taste it, enjoy it, then one day, it will be taken from you, and someone else will.”
Iroh looks at Zuko then. “Do you understand what I’m saying, nephew?”
“Not at all.”
Iroh rolls his eyes.
“Someone else will whisk Ms. Katara away from you unless you do something about it, nephew.”
“You couldn’t have just said that instead of this roundabout metaphor?”
Iron’s stroking his beard again. “You know, I used to have a wonderful red blend from the year your cousin was born. I wonder if I still have that somewhere.” He laughs heartily then.
“Perhaps I should take my own advice.”
“Uncle, what-“
Iroh points a finger at him.
“Don’t let her sit on the shelf forever, Zuko.”
He says this vaguely as he gets up and walks out of his office humming to himself.
Zuko stares after him dumbly and then promptly slams his head back down on the table.
.
.
.
Despite the war waging in his brain, Zuko stands outside Katara’s door for the second day in a row sincerely hoping that by the time he gets the courage to knock on it, he’ll know what to say.
He knows she’s home because when he pulled up, he saw her beat-up Volkswagen outside, so he has no excuse to linger, really, except for cowardice.
He takes a breath and knocks.
He hears her melodic trill of “just a sec” and then the sound of padding across her floor and then she swings the door open.
She looks surprised to see him though not unhappy, which is a plus, and she’s as beautiful as always, which does nothing to help him get his words out so when she says-
“Zuko, what are you doing here?”
He had been hoping to say something eloquent or suave, but what came out was-
“This is a vintage red blend,” and he shoves the bottle of wine he was holding into her hands, and she takes it with her brows raised and looks between him and the bottle skeptically.
“Sorry, I just- I misspoke last night, and I wanted to talk.”
“Again,” he clarifies.
It was by no means eloquent or suave. If he was being honest, it was rushed and laced with nervousness, but Katara steps aside to let him in, so it got the job done.
He thinks the relief he feels is visible.
She takes her time walking towards the kitchen and placing the bottle on the counter, and for this, he’s grateful. He collects his thoughts, and when she turns around and looks at him expectantly, he doesn’t feel as off center as he did before.
Until he takes notice of the black hoodie she’s wearing with a faded blue spirit mask on the front.
“Hey, is that my sweatshirt?”
He’d lent her a few here and there, but he had assumed they’d ended up in some pit of her closet in the wake of dating Jet.
She pinks and looks down like she’d forgotten what she was wearing and attempts a casual shrug, looking off towards the side.
“Is it? I assumed it was one Jet had left.”
Truly, a blow to his ego.
He shakes his head a little and brushes it off, taking a breath before speaking.
“Last night when I said I didn’t want to ruin our friendship, I was trying to say that I didn’t want to lose you in my life by screwing things up. I do that, sometimes, and you are my best friend, and you have to be in my life, and-“
“Zuko,” she cuts him off though she still won’t look at him, favoring the balcony door to the left of her kitchen. She hadn’t moved from where’d she’s leaned back against the counter. “You don’t need to explain. We’re friends. We’ll always be friends, okay? We’re good.”
We’ll always be friends cuts into him like a knife.
Not good. Very, very bad.
“Kat, that’s not what I mean, exactly. I just- losing you would kill me, and-“
“You won’t,” she stops him again and this time, she’s looked back at him, and that infuriating mask from the night before is still in place, and Zuko begins to panic. “I should never have asked you all that stuff last night. Seriously, you won’t lose me as a friend, ok?”
She smiles at him, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. He knows her smiles, knows what she looks like when’s she’s being placating, and he can practically feel her slipping away, and he thinks wildly of don’t let her sit on the shelf forever, and even if he doesn’t really understand it, he understands the sentiment behind it.
Katara finally moves from the counter towards him and back towards the door. “Thanks for the wine and everything, but if that’s it, I have some stuff that I need-“
“I love you!” He blurts this a little too loudly, a little too aggressively, perhaps, but she was almost at the door, hand outstretched towards the knob, and it felt like an omen, like if she reached the knob, he’d be done, and really, any speech he would try to give would boil down to I love you, regardless.
She snaps her head towards him, her mouth open incredulously. She looks like she’s going to say something, but no words come out, so he decides if the worth of his heart is being weighed in her mind like the ancient Egyptians used to do for their deceased, he could plead his case a little.
“I’ve always been in love with you, and I should’ve said something years ago, but I was scared because I guess I thought maybe you deserved better than me, but I’m realizing that’s not fair to either of us, and I’m working on getting over the part of myself that doesn’t think I deserve things.”
Her mouth has snapped shut, and she watches him with rapt attention, but her expression is morphing into something warm.
“I didn’t ask you out for lack of wanting to, believe me, and I hated seeing you with Jet. It should’ve been me. And if I’m being really honest, you’re the main reason I haven’t really dated anyone either. It’s kind of you or bust for me.”
She laughs at that a little, but it’s still in that incredulous way like she can’t believe him, and he’s not sure if it’s good or bad, and he hopes his heart doesn’t tip the scales too heavily.
“You love me?” she asks, watching him carefully.
Zuko smiles now. “I really do.”
Katara gives a happy bubble of laughter and launches herself at him like she’s been fired from a rocket.
She’s in front of him in a flash, pulling his face down to hers and kissing him with enthusiasm, and Zuko thinks he actually might have died because holy shit and what the fuck and never in the many times he imagined this, could she have felt this good and tasted this good, and he when he wraps his arms around her waist and pulls her to him, the sound she makes in the back of her throat quickly becomes his favorite thing he’s ever heard.
She snakes her arms around his neck, and he kisses her hard- tongue moving with hers, and he devours her, eats her up like he’s wanted to for years. God, pining will do that.
He pulls back briefly to rake her bottom lip between his teeth.
She makes a noise that’s almost like a whine when he pulls back further, away from her. He doesn’t want space, he loathes the idea of it. He would live in her skin if he could, but he needs to see her, needs to know what she wants.
Her pupils are blown, the blue so dark that it shoots straight to his crotch, and he’s delirious with the knowledge that he’s done it to her.
She takes his hand and drags him towards her bedroom- the one room he’s never actually been to in her apartment.
He considers the space to be sacred, and he’s practically shaking when she pulls him inside. He tries to take in what it looks like- the plants, the fluffy white comforter, the blue chair, but when Katara pushes him to sit on the edge of the bed and steps between his knees to kiss him again, he gives up in favor of watching her and her alone.
She takes a step back from him, and he’s the one groaning in need from the separation, but when she takes the sweatshirt off, and he finds that all she has on underneath it is lacy black underwear, the only thought on his mind is -
I should’ve told her a lot sooner.
.
.
.
Katara lays with her head on his chest, her hair spread all around him. It tickles when she moves.
She turns so her chin is resting on his sternum and she’s looking into his eyes. He finds with no small amount of satisfaction that she looks quite sleepy.
“I knew the sweatshirt was yours.”
He bites the inside of his cheek to prevent what he’d imagine would be a dopey smile and runs a hand through some of her curls.
“Yeah?”
She sighs a little. “I was feeling a little..dramatic after you left last night. I wanted to feel close to you.”
He pulls her up until she’s face to face with him, using every ounce of willpower to ignore the way her bare breasts feel against his chest.
He kisses her sweet and slow. She buries her face in his neck.
“You know, Jet and I fought about that sweatshirt a few times.”
Zuko’s glad she can’t see his face for the shock that comes over it.
“You- what?”
“He kept telling me to give it back to you. You know, the whole male pride thing of having another guy’s shirt. I told him he was being ridiculous.”
She peeks out at Zuko. “Pretty sure he knew I was in love with you even if I never told him.”
She hadn’t said the words yet, and sunshine fills him from the top of his head downwards. She must see it on his face because she leans forward until they’re nose to nose.
“I love you,” she says it quietly, and Zuko kisses her again, cradling her face gently, believing that if he lets go, she’d float away from him.
But he does let go, and she’s still there, anchored to him, holding onto him like she wants to be tethered, too.
She gives him a funny look then.
“By the way, where the hell did you get vintage wine?”
He huffs a small laugh, feeling his face warm slightly. “Iroh insisted I bring it.”
She opens her mouth and closes it. Opens it again. “Umm, Iroh? Your uncle?”
“Yeah, he knew I was coming here to do this,” he gestures vaguely.
Katara blanches and gets a distinctly horrified look on her face, looking between their bodies.
Understanding dawns on Zuko at his verbiage. “No, no, no, no! He knew I was coming to tell you I loved you! He noticed something was wrong, and against my better judgement, I told him, and he essentially told me to get my shit together and tell you how I felt, I think. I’m not entirely sure. You know how his proverbs are.”
“And that involved vintage wine?”
Zuko rolls his eyes. “Something about good women and wine and not letting you sit on a shelf and rich flavors, and-“ at the turn of Katara’s mouth, Zuko stops trying to explain it, “anyway, I think he just meant I should be honest with you finally. He gave me that bottle in the hopes that I didn’t screw this up too bad.” Katara smiles at that.
Zuko swallows. “Also, for the sake of honesty, Suki yelled at me, too.”
Katara laughs. “She can’t keep a secret to save her life.”
“I, for one, am glad.”
Katara rolls her eyes.
“What do you want to do now?” Zuko asks her, and Katara sits up a little until she’s straddled him, and the view is breathtaking, and she’s cupping his cheeks and looking at him with eyes shining like the moon, and there’s so much emotion in them, and Zuko thinks she’s going to say something sweet and heart-wrenching because she’ll do this sometimes when she’s overwhelmed and he loves her for it because he knows her, and he’s ready for what she’s going to say, and -
She leans forward, licking into his mouth and kissing him until he’s gripping her hips possessively.
She pulls back with a smirk.
“Round two?”
Fuck, he really should’ve told her a lot sooner.
.
.
.
When Zuko wakes up in the morning, it was slightly later than he’d normally wake but still too early to wake Katara, so he scrolls on his phone for a while and after seeing a few posts from Jet with his hometown friends, he knows that there’s a pending conversation he can’t avoid.
He gets out of bed and throws on his (Katara’s whenever she wants it) sweatshirt because now that her AC is fixed, it really is rather frigid in her apartment, and heads out to her balcony to text Jet, hoping he’ll actually respond.
Zuko: Hey man
Jet: Hey what’s up
Zuko hesitates for a few minutes before hitting send, allowing himself a tiny cringe.
Zuko: Up for a call?
Jet: yeah
Zuko calls him and can hear by the gruff hello on the other line he’s just woken up, possibly with a hangover.
“Hey, Z, miss me already?”
Zuko scoffs. “Lovett’s does. They’ve been hounding me about your unpaid tab.“
“Very funny,” he hears him yawn. “So what’s up, dude?”
“How’s home treating you?”
“Fine. Nice to see some old friends, you know?”
“Right, good. That’s…good.”
A pause.
“Yeah, so, did you need something, dude?”
Zuko huffs a sigh. “Yeah, so, I needed to tell you that-“
A chuckle on the other end of the line cuts him off. “Let me guess, you finally told her how you felt.”
“What?”
“Katara. Did you finally get around to telling her you’ve been in love with her for, like, ever?”
“You knew?”
“I had a feeling.”
Another pause. Zuko squeezes his eyes shut.
“Well, yeah, I did.”
Jet sighs. “Good for you.”
Zuko thinks his head might explode. “You’re not pissed about it?”
“I mean, I’m not thrilled, but you’re not, you know, a complete fucking dick.”
Zuko scoffs. “Wow, thanks, asshole.”
Jet snorts and takes a minute before responding.
“She loves you, you know. More than she ever loved me.”
Zuko processes that slowly.
“You never said anything to me about it.”
Jet huffs an annoyed sigh, but Zuko gets the feeling it’s not directed at him. “Yeah, well you and Katara are both better people than I am.”
He doesn’t really know what to say to that. He sighs a little awkwardly.
“Jet, I wasn’t trying to-“
“Zuko, dude, just don’t fuck it up, ok? Not like I did.”
.
.
.
When he gets back into bed with Katara, it’s considerably later in the morning, and he pulls her back into his arms gently, relishing the way she stretches and leans into him.
“Kat?”
She makes a grunt sound that’s somewhere in the realm of annoyed.
He smiles. “Kat, it’s 9:30. Do you wanna get up?”
She moulds herself closer to him if that’s even possible but doesn’t say anything, and he kisses the top of her head.
“Katara,” he whispers it again.
“Too early,” she groans out.
He laughs. “May I have a timeline on when you’d like to wake up?”
The snark does make her pick her head up, and she manages to crack her eyes open to glare at him.
“Don’t be cute.”
He presses his lips together to keep from laughing again.
“Yes ma’am.”
She lays her head back down on his chest.
“Do you love me?” she asks.
He leans his lips down to brush by her ear. “Very much.”
She wriggles happily at that, even though she responds with “then let me sleep.”
Zuko sighs and adjusts himself more comfortably since he’s now to be the pillow for an unforeseen amount of time.
He figures all in all, things couldn’t have turned out better for him. He could probably learn something from this-his Uncle would definitely say so. If he thought really hard about it, he could probably try and imagine the vague poetic things his Uncle would say to him about this situation- the weird inanimate objects he’d compare Zuko’s love life to- but as it currently was, the woman he loved was sleeping half-naked on top of him and really, that was kind of all he wanted to think about at the moment.