sparklefiction

Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Characters: Aang, Zuko
Warning: I hate previews. I hate this fandom. I hate insomnia.
Pairings: Aang/Katara, Zuko/Mai

He flew.

He flew, and as he flew, his heart was in his stomach, and he was sick. His new training helped him to keep from bursting into blue light, but he was sick. He didn't eat. Sometimes he wasn't sure he was breathing. He flew and he flew, and when Appa had to rest and drink and eat and sleep he wondered how, how he could, when she was waiting for them, when she was in trouble, when he had left her there alone with Azula and the naive king, alone, he left her alone, he would never, ever forgive himself if anything happened.

When he slept, he dreamt of Koh, and the face that had made his stomach clench, of a woman he didn't remember, but somehow knew the loss all the same.

He was twelve and he was twelve thousand, he was a boy and he was a man and he was the world, and she was his world, and he flew, and he flew until his eyes streamed from the chill of the wind as much as from terror, because he had already lost everything once and he couldn't go through that again.

He needed her. He loved her and he needed her, and what good was all of his power if he couldn't protect the girl he loved? Nothing else mattered. The world didn't matter. What good would it do to save the world and lose Katara?

So Aang flew, and he glowed, and his thousand voices echoed to every corner of the world, and somewhere a king felt the echo and frowned as a chill spread across the royal person.

"Hang on, Katara. I'm coming."

"Leave it," he said, when she tried again. "Save your holy water to save a life."

"Are you sure?" his former enemy had soft eyes. Blue eyes.

"Yeah. I- I still need it for a while. It's- part of who I am."

He closed his eyes and thought of hard eyes, gold eyes, eyes that had met his and flinched away; though from the wreckage of his face or the impossibility of his situation, he might never know. He wished he had some answers, but all he had were questions.

Had she ever missed him at all?
Would he ever see her again?
Why did he want to?
Would they make it out of this cave in alive, and even if they did, how would they get past Azula?

"You don't talk much," she murmured in the dark. He'd put out the fire to save their air.

"No."

"What are you thinking about?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

Awkward silence.

"Mai."

"The girl with the razors?"

"She was- we were-"

"Oh. Before you-"

"Yeah."

"Oh." She was quiet for a moment. "And now she's with your sister."

"She can't marry my sister." Zuko pointed out.

"Do you want to marry her?" she seemed surprised.

"We- we had a lot in common." He was angry about blushing and glad it was dark.

More awkward silence.

"She's- pretty. In a really- Fire Nation way."

"...Yeah. Well."

"Maybe- maybe there's some stuff going on, maybe she-"

"Don't," he said.

And then they went back to being silent in the darkness.