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The corridor ahead is vacant, but she is not alone. The heavy doors thud shut behind her, swallowing the last echoes of the council chamber: the arguments, the skeptical glances, the slow, grudging nods.
Katara won. The proposal passed.
Aang’s fingers curl around her wrist before she can take another step. The size of his fingers has always been known to her—she has healed them, held them, traced their lines in quiet moments. But here, in the corridor, the span of his hold makes her feel content.
Aang pulls her, and suddenly she is pressed between firm stone and the familiar warmth of him. He is not much taller than her when he leans down, but the breadth of his shoulders, the way his frame brackets hers against the wall, makes the space feel tiny.
She has to tilt her chin up slightly to meet his eyes, and the angle sends a shiver down her spine that is not from the cold.
“That was incredible,” he whispers, and his voice carries the earnest weight she knows better than her own.
She scoffs, the sound more breathless than she intends, “Baby, it was a necessary proposal—it should have passed.”
Aang shakes his head. The smile on his face softens into a sincerity he has never learned to temper, “No. You walked in there and made a room full of stubborn old men listen.” He leans closer, close enough that she can count the flecks of darker grey in his irises, “You didn’t raise your voice, and they folded.”
The words land low in her belly, a quick bloom of heat. She opens her mouth to brush it off, but he speaks before she can.
“You’re really good at that.”
“Stop,” she breathes, and the word comes out weak, trailing into a tiny, breathy whine she did not intend.
“I mean it.” His voice drops, and he leans closer to her, “You’re incredible.”
The word hits her squarely in the chest and spreads outward, honeyed and warm. Her cheeks flush, and she knows he can see it. The telltale burn that creeps up her throat. She glances down, unable to hold his gaze, and her fingers find the front of his robes, curling into the rough-spun fabric.
The solid wall of his chest beneath her palm is a reminder of how much of him there is, how easily he surrounds her. A pleasant dizziness hums behind her eyes. Her body softens against the stone at her back, and she feels his eyes on her, steady and full of a devotion that makes her want to squirm and lean in all at once.
“You’re staring,” she murmurs, lower than she would like.
“Yeah.” The word is quiet, unrepentant, “I am.”
She swats his chest, half-hearted, and lets her palm rest against the steady beat of his heart. It is fast—nearly as fast as hers. Her skin prickles with an awareness that feels new, fragile, and dangerously sweet.
Aang notices this. She can feel the shift in his posture, the curious tilt of his head. He catalogues the moment. She can sense it, the seed planting in that patient, observant mind.
She prays he does not ask.
He does not.
Not yet.
Evening settles over their temporary home like a held breath.
Katara bends the last of the water from his forearm as she steers it into the ceramic bowl with a practiced flick of her wrist. The laceration was surprisingly deep and ugly, from a training accident earlier. But now, it is gone, only a faint pink line remaining. A familiar fatigue settles into her shoulders, but satisfaction hums beneath the exhaustion. Whenever he is near her, he is safe, and that is all that matters.
Aang flexes his fingers. Before she can withdraw, he catches both her hands in his own. His palms are warm, and residual water flashes on her skin.
“I don’t know how you do that,” he says, hushed, nearly reverent.
She blinks, still surfacing from the trance of healing, “Do what?”
“Every time.” He turns her hands over, studying her palms, the faint shimmer clinging to her fingertips, “It doesn’t even hurt anymore, and then it’s gone.”
His thumb traces a vein, slow and intended. The touch sends a shiver up her arm and prickles the fine hairs at her nape.
Aang presses a kiss to her knuckles, one at a time, while he stares at her, “You’re kind of a miracle, you know that?”
She pulls her hands back with a flustered laugh, reaching for the bowl to steady herself, “Aang.”
“I’m serious!” he leans forward on the bed, his weight shifting the mattress, and the full focus of those grey eyes pins her in place, “No one else can do what you do, not this quickly—It’s so beautiful to watch. You’re beautiful to watch.”
Once his words register in her mind, her fingers fumble the bowl. Water sloshes over the rim, splashing across the wooden floor in a silver arc.
A short, embarrassed scoff from her fills the air as her whole face ignites with a blush.
Katara tries to bend the water back, but her hands tremble, and the puddle only ripples uselessly. She can feel his eyes on her, that curious tilt that returns to his head. The heat in her cheeks spreads down her throat, down her chest, and settles low and insistent in her belly.
“You really like it when I say that, huh?” Aang asks softly.
His voice is not accusatory. It is faint. Knowing.
She hides her face behind one hand, but she stares at him behind her fingers, “Maybe, uh, I do… so what?”
The mattress shifts. His warmth moves closer, and then his fingers wrap around her wrist, tugging gently until she lets the hand fall away. The casual possession of it makes her breath hitch.
“Hey,” his thumb brushes her knuckles, “It’s okay.”
He is smiling, but there is no teasing in it, only that terrible, wonderful seriousness that undoes her every time.
“You mean it,” she whispers, the words coming out raw, almost accusing, “That’s the—that’s why.”
“I always mean it,” he says, “You know that.”
She buries her face against his neck, and the noise she makes is more of a laugh than a sob, muffled by his warm skin. A hand reaches for her chin as he leans down. The kiss begins slowly. Intensely. The way they have kissed a thousand times, except now there is a new fondness that hums beneath it. A tension she feels in how his hands slid into her hair, tilting her head with a sudden devotion that borders on worship. Katara quickly melts into him with a quiet, urgent noise.
And then footsteps echo in the hallway.
The two of them break apart, breathing ragged. The water is still pooled on the floor, and the promise of later hangs thick between them.
Later comes sooner than she would have assumed.
Dinner is a quiet, distracted affair. She catches him watching her over the rim of his cup, but she can barely meet his eyes. Still, she continues to count down the time until the two of them can retreat to her apartment.
And that time is now.
Katara stands by their bed, still dressed, still wound tight from the day. Fatigue presses on her limbs, but beneath it stirs a restless anticipation that makes her breath catch when Aang turns to look at her. The candles carve the lines of his torso, the broad spread of his chest, the taper to his waist, and his arms corded with muscle. Aang has quickly grown into a man’s body, and some part of her never stops marveling at it. The arrow on the back of his hand flexes as his fingers curl and release.
“C’mere,” he says, low and certain.
The word frays at the edges—a tremor of need beneath the steadiness. As he speaks, a faint current of air stirs the loose strands of hair by her temple, an unconscious slip of his bending, a caress she feels against her skin.
She moves.
As she approaches him, his arms fold around her, and her head tucks beneath his chin, a perfect fit, her shoulders lost inside the circle of his embrace. The scent of him comforts her, sandalwood and a hint of sweat.
His mouth finds hers—gentle at first. Then deeper, hungrier. Her hands slide up his chest, and the span of it beneath her palms feels endless. The air around them shifts, and he undoes her sash with fingers that fumble before the knot breaks. As the fabric slips away, his mouth leaves hers to trace a frantic path along the side of her neck, and then the sensitive hollow behind her ear.
The sensation is so sharp, so unexpectedly tender, that her control weakens. She turns her head without thinking and sinks her teeth into his shoulder—not hard, but not delicate either. A quick, desperate nip that leaves a faint imprint in his skin. Aang inhales sharply, fingers tightening on her waist, and a shiver ripples down her spine. Her hair, still pinned up from the council meeting, tumbles loose as he works at the ties, his fingers tangling in the thick brown curls until it runs over her shoulders and his hands.
He pulls back far enough to rest his forehead against hers. Their breath mingles as his thumbs stroke her cheeks.
His voice is a low, splintered whisper, “You worked so hard today.”
A kiss to her brow causes her to blush. The air against her bare skin is warm, and she is not sure if it is from her or him.
“Did so much,” he murmurs against her temple, “Always taking care of everyone.”
A sound escapes her. It is a soft, stuttering exhale that almost forms words, “I—it’s nothing.”
He cuts her off with a kiss, short but firm, “It's not nothing.” Another kiss, but this time slower as he starts to lift her undershirt, “You do so much.”
She shivers, and the fabric catches at her elbows, making him sigh in frustration before she helps him, shrugging free. His palms skate over her shoulders, down her arms, then back up to cup her face. He pauses there, looking at her with an expression that shifts—still tender, but newly curious, newly bold. The blue arrow on his temple seems to darken in the dim light, his grey eyes luminous beneath it.
“Even when you’re tired, you’re still so beautiful,” he tells her, testing the words, “I love watching you. I always have.”
She opens her mouth, but only an embarrassed laugh comes out before she manages, “Aang…”
Aang slides his hand down until it comes to rest on her waist, and she cannot help but lean into his touch.
“You’re the strongest person I know.” he leans down while he presses a kiss to the corner of her mouth.
A whimper slips from her throat before she can stop it, and her whole body flushes hotter. He feels it; she knows he does. Katara watches his pupils darken, watches understanding click into place, and then he kisses her again with a hunger that makes her knees buckle.
That small success has emboldened him—she can feel it in the touch of his hands, the new confidence in his voice.
Aang continues to undress her between kisses, each piece of clothing peeled away and replaced by the heat of his mouth. He walks her backward until the mattress meets the back of her knees. She quickly sits, looking up at him.
A dark bruise she left on his neck days earlier is obvious now when she looks up like this, and she wonders if this is retaliation. From this angle, he looms over her. There is a sense of want in his stare, and it makes her blood start to sing. She needs him. Now.
Unfortunately, Aang does not hear her thoughts; instead, he takes his time.
A kiss to her collarbone, and she gasps.
A kiss to the swell of her breast, and her fingers tighten on the back of his head, her fingertips tracing the edge of his tattoo. Her breast fits neatly into his palm, and the sight of it, the way he fills his hand with her, makes her stomach clench, and her hips lift.
A kiss to the soft skin below her navel, and her breath hitches audibly. The muscles of his back shift beneath her searching fingers.
Aang pauses there, breath hot against her stomach, and she squirms, toes curling. “Watching you take care of me—” He kisses her belly between words, voice strained, “…you’re so patient.” Another kiss, lower, and this time his tongue traces a slow line, “So kind. So pretty.”
A broken sound escapes her throat. She can't. She can't take another word, another kiss, another moment of his voice wrapping around her and holding her close.
"Stop," she gasps. "Stop talking—"
She surges up and pulls his mouth to hers. The kiss is messy, open-mouthed, desperate. And then, before she can think better of it, she catches his lower lip between her teeth and bites.
Not cruelly. But firmly.
Aang makes a sound she's never heard before—something between a gasp and a growl. When she releases him, his lip is pink and slightly swollen. He stares at her, chest heaving, eyes dark.
"I—" she starts, her own voice shaking.
He doesn't let her finish either. He kisses her again, and whatever words were on her mind dissolve into the heat of his mouth. After a moment, she turns her face away, pressing her burning cheek into the pillow. Her fingers twist the sheet beside her head, knuckles whitening. And as she starts to press her thighs together, he is already there between them, a solid, immovable warmth.
She feels him lift his head, feels the intimidation of his stare on her averted profile. She squeezes her eyes shut, every nerve alight.
“Baby,” his voice is impossibly gentle, but it shakes, “Look at me. Please?”
She shakes her head, a quick, frantic motion. Her lips part, but only a thin, keening breath escapes.
Aang’s hand shifts lower; she feels him settle fully between her thighs with a kiss to the dark curls below her waist. Katara tries not to move, to not allow him the satisfaction of a reaction, but it is hard. And she is not surprised when she fails.
Pressing his forehead to her hip, his breath starts to come in as harsh, uneven bursts as he kisses the skin there. The cool wisp of a phantom breeze brushes her heated skin. Slowly, his hand stirs along her inner thigh, and the slick heat he finds tears a raw noise from his throat.
Finally, she looks at him, but he does not notice, not when his attention is drawn elsewhere. As he starts to move his hand, his thumb slides over her cunt, collecting the arousal that lingers there, “Look at you making a mess for me.”
An intense whimper leaves her throat, and that causes him to peek up at her. It never takes long for her to be like this, all wet and needy for him.
After a few seconds, he pulls his thumb away, and he slides it into his mouth for a moment. Aang smiles at her with a slow, wicked curve of his lips as he murmurs, “Is that why you didn't want to look at me? Wanted this so badly, huh?”
Once he darts out his tongue to taste her fully, she quickly becomes distracted. Aang dips his tongue inside of her, and then licks a trail towards her clit. His mouth is warm, so warm that she knows he is the reason behind it.
A deep sound rips from her throat as her hips buck involuntarily against his mouth. Katara tries to reason with him, “Aang, wait—”
Before she can finish, he hums around her clit as he latches onto it with his lips. The subtle vibration is not much, but it still has her clutching at his ear with desperate fingers. While she is distracted, he slides a finger inside of her, curling it perfectly—exactly how she taught him. But it's not enough; it's never enough, not when she wants to be full of him.
It feels like she can hear his thoughts, how he wants to ruin her, to make it so that she cannot remember her own name, to overwhelm her so that all she thinks about is him. And maybe she will let him, because a part of her wants that too.
Once he seems content with how wet she is, he slides another finger inside of her. The stretch is tolerable around only two of his fingers, but she still clenches around him. There is a rumbling purr from him as he laps at her arousal, and then back up towards her clit with a flattened tongue. Katara whimpers because everything is so warm, and it feels like she could melt under his touch.
Gradually, he starts to thrust his fingers inside her faster, and the world narrows to him. Nothing else matters, and she is thankful that no one else lives with them, because the noises from her are so loud.
The burn of pleasure coils low in her belly, and her mind starts to blank. Her vision starts to tilt in places it shouldn't, and she stares over at him, dizzily. Only a few minutes in, and she is close. She’s almost embarrassed at how quickly he has her here, but she's wanted him for the entire day.
All of a sudden, she feels him slide another finger inside of her, and she whines.
“I knew you could take more.” he kisses her clit once, quick and fierce, as if he cannot help himself, “Such a good girl for me, aren't you?”
And oh.
Now, she’s leaking helplessly all over his fingers, and he is still staring directly at her while he fucks them into her, and it’s so much all at once that she starts to drool on the sheets, and—
A sharp, keening whine vibrates against her cunt. Aang's cadence falters for a moment, and then he moans into her, the sound muffled but unmistakable.
It happens so quickly that she does not know when it starts, but her thighs tense around his head, and then she shatters. A rush of pleasure clouds her vision, and she feels herself clench harder around him, even while he continues to lap at her.
While she gushes around his fingers, he continues to lick through the fluid as if he could savor her release. A few seconds later, she floats back down from her peak, unsettled at the mess she made.
Aang still does not stop, and she nearly has to push him from between her thighs as he lifts his head. On his chin and lips is a blend of saliva and her arousal, but his eyes are still concentrated on her.
Trailing kisses up her body slowly, he arrives at her mouth as he whispers, “Next time, look at me when I ask you too.”
And she so desperately wants to roll her eyes, but he’s ravaged her so thoroughly that the thought of it takes too much effort. If all of this was supposed to be a punishment, she is not sure he succeeded.
Regaining her composure, she pulls him into a desperate kiss, tasting herself on his lips.
Aang uses this moment to hover over her. The wild, blown pupils in his eyes are unmistakable when he is above her like this, and beneath the hunger, there’s something else—a flicker of awe he still has not learned to conceal, as if he cannot believe she’s real. He catches her wrists. Pins them lightly to the mattress on either side of her head. One of his hands spans both of her wrists, holding her in place with infuriating ease.
“Aang—” she breathes, his name a broken mutter.
And she is not sure when he removed his clothes, but once she feels the blunt pressure of him at her entrance, she loses focus.
Her hips roll up, body answering before she can think. The feel of his cock is thick, insistent, and so much larger than she ever quite remembers—it makes her mouth fall open on a soundless cry. The tip of it rests inside of her, and she so desperately wants to move, to take it all within her.
As he leans down to whisper in her ear, the words from his lips are a ramble, “I can't think when you look at me like that.”
And before she can shout at him to stop teasing her, he sinks into her slowly—so slowly. She feels every inch of him, the way her body stretches around him, the deep, aching pressure of it. He is large—she has always known that, but at this moment, with her legs splayed wide to accommodate him and her hands clutching at his shoulders, the stretch is overwhelming. She cries out as her nails bite into the skin beneath his shoulder blades.
Slowly, he works himself deeper, easing her open, and he hisses as he leans on his forearms, “Fuck.”
To hear him curse is a pleasure in and of itself, and she would laugh if the thought of it did not dissolve into a series of moans as he slid further in her.
Aang pauses, nearly buried within her, shaking apart above her. A raw moan rips from his chest, and he buries his face against her throat, his whole frame wracked with shallow, panting breaths.
For a heartbeat, his brow furrows. The air pressure in the room dips, a subtle thrum that echoes his loss of control.
“Look at you taking me so well, baby.” he breaks off with a groan, a sound dragged up from somewhere deep. His hips rock, a tiny involuntary movement that makes her vision split.
She cannot form a sentence, cannot think around the warmth inside of her. A sob catches in her chest, half a moan and half a stuttered breath. “I— I feel—” she tries, but the words won’t come. The fit is familiar, impossibly so, and the pressure makes her eyes water, but she never wants it to end.
Aang closes his eyes for a moment as he murmurs, “I know. I know, baby. I’m here.”
She feels utterly seen, utterly filled, and the pleasure that blooms beneath her skin is intolerable.
Aang starts to move. The first roll of his hips is unhurried, but the second is quicker. The movement builds, sloppily. It is desperate, each thrust accompanied by a shattered breath or a low, helpless groan.
A soft breeze circles the bed, lifting strands of her dark hair as he fucks her. When he finds words once more, they are broken, half-formed, “Taking me so beautifully.”
She keens, the sound rising as he shifts his angle, hitting a spot that makes her see black specks in her vision, “A-Aang!”
Her legs wrap around his waist, ankles locking at the small of his back, pulling him deeper. Aang blurts her name in response, a broken, reverent thing, and drops his forehead to hers. Another thrust, deeper, slower, as if he wants to feel stay inside of her forever.
He kisses the corner of her mouth, messy and uncoordinated, then presses his cheek to hers, his whole body shuddering. His voice is barely a whisper, cracked and raw, “Did so well earlier—spirits—all for me.”
She tries to turn her head away immediately after, but he follows, lips brushing her ear.
“Don’t hide.” A whisper, wrecked. A moan swallows the end of it, “Let me see you.”
Her body answers before she can. Her neck arches, baring her throat, and her eyes, half-lidded and glassy, find his.
“I’m not hiding,” she breathes, the words shaky and thin, “Not from you.”
The look on his face—awed, wrecked, desperately in love—makes her chest ache. Her nails drag down his back, following the lines of his arrows, and he whines, hips faltering, his movements stuttering.
The tension in him is noticeable in how he restrains himself even now, and the knowledge that all that strength, all that size, all that power, is bent entirely to her pleasure, sends a fresh wave of heat crashing through her. It all crests together—the feel of him, the weight of him, and it coils at the base of her spine.
When he lifts his head to stare down at her, his expression is raw, stripped bare, “We fit so perfectly together, baby.”
She practically sobs, a sound torn from her chest, and pulls him down, kissing him hard.
“We do,” she manages against his mouth, “We do, we do—”
Her voice cracks on the third repetition, and as her body pulls him deeper, she drowns in the feel of him. Aang doesn’t need to say it. He must feel it—the flutter of her pulse at her throat, the way she clenches around him, the desperate, keening edge to her moans.
One of his hands slips between their bodies, his fingers find her where she is wet and aching, and he circles her clit with a devastatingly soft touch, a stark contrast to the practiced thrust of his hips.
At the same moment, he dips his head. His mouth closes over the shell of her ear, and then his teeth trace the sensitive curve. A sharp, bright spark of sensation arcs through her, “Don’t stop, please—don’t stop.”
Another tear leaks out of her blue eyes, and the noises from her cunt are obscene as he continues to fuck her. Each time he bottoms out inside of her, there is a subtle twitch to his cock that reminds her that his release is near.
Aang’s breath is hot in her ear as he pants, “Where do you want me to come?”
Katara is not sure that she can respond meaningfully, but she manages to babble out a fractured, “I-Inside.”
And she knows the implications of that are risky; she knows this. But she needs him inside of her, entirely.
Suddenly, the combination of touch is too much. The feel of him inside her, thick and relentless. The pressure of his fingers, coaxing her higher. The sting of his bite, breath hot against her skin.
Everything tightens, and her eyes flutter closed. A broken whimper rips free, her body arching as the climax tears through her, bright and blinding. The feel of him inside her becomes the center of everything—the overwhelming pressure, the way her body clenches and flutters and gives, the weight of him pressing her into the mattress until there is no space between them.
She clenches around him in a series of helpless, fluttering pulses, and the sensation drags him over the edge with her. A rough groan emerges from his lips—her name, or a prayer, or both—as he follows.
The tattoos on his skin become a solid white as a rush of warm air sweeps through the room. Grey eyes become lighter, more prominent once his irises dissipate into a snowy feature.
As his pulsing cock pushes deeper inside of her, it pulls a whimper from her. Aang’s eyes flutter closed, and she wraps her legs around him tighter as he spills in her. Once he buries his face in the curve of her shoulder, she watches as the tattoos fade back into a subtle blue.
There's so much of him around her and in her that she is not sure she wants to move. Tangled in the aftermath, she tries to catch her breath.
The sheets are soaked beneath her, and she feels his heartbeat beneath her hand, a beat she knows better than her own. The silence is full, not empty—the kind of quiet that holds everything they don’t have words for.
Eventually, Aang shifts. The air settles around them, still once more. He presses a kiss to the top of her head and murmurs, “I’ll be right back. Don’t move.”
She makes a small, wordless sound of protest when he slips out from above her, the cool air replacing his warmth that drips out of her.
Aang returns quickly with a damp cloth and a cup of water. She watches him through heavy-lidded eyes, still too wrung out to move, as he gently cleans the inside of her thighs, and then the soft skin of her belly. The cloth is cool, a tender contrast to the heat that still lingers under her skin. She shivers, and he pauses, his grey eyes flicking up to hers.
“Okay?” he asks softly.
“Mmh.” She nods, a tired, sated hum.
When he’s done, he sets the cloth aside and helps her sit up enough to drink. The water is not as cold as she prefers, but it will do.
She takes a few sips, then presses the cup back into his hands. Quickly, she settles back against his chest, and tucks her face into the hollow of his throat. The skin there is damp with sweat, warm and familiar. She presses a kiss to the pulse point. Then another. Aang’s hand settles on the curve of her hip, thumb stroking a slow arc. She does not hide from the warmth of it.
Somewhere in her head, there is the quiet certainty that tomorrow he will find new words that soften her—words that make her melt. And she will let him whisper them against her skin, because he means it.