concoursec | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Character(s):

watertides
Location: Zuko's dorm
Rating: Uh. PG?
Open/Closed/Finished: Closed
Summary: Hours after this. Katara goes to speak with Zuko about what was left unfinished in Home EC.

It was just after dinnertime. Zuko had left the Home Ec. class early with permission from his Instructor. He had finished his gardening project and had promised his teacher he would revise his notes after his physical therapy session with Dr. Kadowaki. His schedule had looked something like this: Home Ec, physical therapy with the doctor for an hour and a half, a walk to the showers and then to the Cafeteria to grab some food, then a walk back to his room where his tray of food sat untouched on the table.

The words exchanged with the waterbender earlier had left a sour taste in his mouth and his stomach churning. He had practically accused her of being no better than Ozai, something he shouldn't have done. Zuko knew she was a good person deep down. Well, he didn't know but he had a pretty good feeling considering she'd been there to take care of him and help with the pain most of the beginning he was on the mend.

It wasn't easy to find the words to explain his thoughts properly. Not to her.

Golden eyes opened to glare at the five thick candles that sat in front of him on a low table. He was trying to meditate, a towel rolled up to hang around his neck, his hair still wet from his shower. It was frustrating, how his thoughts were distracting him from being able to find peace in the simple act of meditation.

"Why isn't this working...?!" he then growled out, jaw clenching. The flames on each of them rose a little higher, flickered, and then lowered again.

Zuko exhaled, irritated, and closed his eyes to try again.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He eyed her in silence, eyes narrowing. The last time she'd tried helping with the ache, she'd shifted the bones and caused them to rub against one another. Definitely not the best feeling in the world.

"You won't poke at it again, will you?"

Katara held both her hands up in a gesture to indicate that she means no harm, her eyes wide as she slipped on an innocent expression. "I promise I won't poke at it again. Which was a stupid thing for me to have done, now that I think about it..."

"Yeah. Just a bit."

And he stands there, waiting, unsure of if he should sit or simply stand.

Katara moved away from the table and walked up to Zuko, equally unsure of how to proceed. Thankfully, she realized an important factor missing to her healing session.

"Do you have any water?"

Zuko reached over to grab his cup off the table. He held it up for her to take or do whatever she needed to with it. "Here."

With the cup held out towards her, Katara gently willed the water out into her hands, drawing it close with small tugging motions of her hands. The water then engulfed her fingers, and she stepped in closer to rest on the area of his shoulder where she remembered his bruises to be. While it would have been more effective for him to remove his shirt so the contact would be directly on his skin, she didn't particularly need that distraction at the moment.

She kept her eyes fixed on his shoulder, head ducked down slightly as she concentrated on the flow of chi in the injured region.

No words left his lips as she came up to him and began to do what she did best. Awkwardly Zuko held the empty cup in a hand before leaning away for a moment to slide it back onto the table. She was so close that even his quiet, faint breaths stirred the short baby strands at her forehead.

Zuko cleared his throat and looked away. But it didn't last long before his eyes were shifting back to focus on her and notice even the slightest of features. The delicate arch of her brows, those faint faint freckles on her cheeks, the one beauty mark at her eye. How the dark hues of the school uniform oddly enough brightened her eyes and made the blues stand out.

As much as she tried to ignore it, Katara could feel the intensity of his gaze as he looked down at her, the knowledge of their closeness causing a strange sort of flutter to stir within her stomach. Her palms had begun to move in a small circular motion to help the energy flow through the shoulder area, and after a long pause she asked, "Does it feel better?"

"Huh..? Oh- uh. Yeah..." he distractedly replied, eyes focused on her hair.

Eying the hair loopies resting against the sides of her cheeks, Zuko stood in silence as he brought his good arm up to touch one. He felt the texture of her hair, soft and somewhat cold between his fingers like cold silk. Zuko remembered her wearing her hair exactly like this in the dream he'd had of her as a child.

The backs of his fingers accidentally grazed the apple of her cheek in the process of picking the hair loopie up.

So concentrated on healing his shoulder that she didn't notice the movement of his good hand. When she felt the strand of her hair loopie being lifted combined with the light brush of his knuckles against her cheek, Katara looked up sharply, startled.

"What are you doing?" Her eyes were wide as she locked her gaze with his, her expression a mixture of confusion and questioning.

The question brought him out of his thoughts and cut through his concentration. Immediately his fingers dropped the hair loopie and he held up his hands. "So-sorry- I was just--"

It really did seem like he wasn't aware of his previous actions, the way he was reacting to her question. Katara would be more amused if she weren't so confused at the same time. But she shrugged it off, eyes lowering to his shoulder again.

"It's okay-- it was just kind of... random. People usually don't play with my 'hair loopies', as Sokka likes to call them."

Had he really been 'playing' with her hair?

Zuko gave himself a mental shake. "...Sounds like a name your brother would come up with. Hair loopies." It felt weird to actually say it out loud.

His cheeks felt warmer than normal. Why the hell had he been 'playing' with her hair? He was Zuko, a jerk, a pompous jerk who only cared for himself. What in the hell was wrong with him?

She shrugged. "I guess there's no other way to describe them, and it kind of stuck. Jet called them 'hair loopies', too." And she quieted at the mention of the other boy-- Katara often tried not to let her mind linger on his sudden disappearance as she always got an uneasy feeling in her stomach as she tried to fathom what could have happened to him.

Edited 2010-09-07 21:00 (UTC)

"Jet...?" Oh right. The other guy who seemed so at ease in peeping down at him in the shower all those months ago.

Zuko scowled then and shrugged a shoulder. "Who knows. Who cares."

Note to self: Don't use the term 'hair loopies'. It ruins the moment.

Edited 2010-09-07 21:03 (UTC)

Katara remained quiet as her hand easily massaged at his shoulder-- while healing was beneficial to the patient, it was also a bit calming for herself as well. It required her to settle in a state of peace to properly direct the flow of chi. She tried to convince herself that was the only reason why she felt a bit more at being so close to Zuko now, and why they weren't in the middle of another heated argument like they always were.

She sneaked glances upwards every now and then, but just as quickly her eyes would dart back down, not wanting to be caught looking at him.

The silence between them dragged on.

Zuko kept to it regardless of how awkward it felt. Yet as awkward as it felt, it was a comfortable sort of silence as well.

Glancing down briefly since neither of them were talking he caught her looking at him, and blinked. "...What is it..?" he asked somewhat hesitantly, leaning his head back slightly to get a better look at her.

Of course, he had to have caught her looking. Her eyes shifted downward again, and she let a silence settle between them before she finally spoke.

"I shouldn't be this nice to you, you know."

"And I should probably be beating you into the ground with fire. Or at least kicking you out of my room," he answered, rolling his eyes. "But I'm not. Why is that?"

His eyes stayed focused on her face, watching her.

Katara rolled her own eyes at his words. "As if you would succeed in doing that."

The question he posed silenced her, though, and after a moment she finally lifted her eyes to meet his. The expression she wore was slightly troubled, and there was also a flicker of confusion though she tried her best to hide it all behind a poor mask of indifference.

"I don't know." She gave a shrug. "Maybe the Time Compression did something to us." It was a half-heart attempted at a joke.

Zuko didn't buy the joke, nor did he respond to it. He was sick of everyone using the 'Time Compression' as a reason for everything. It seemed too easy, to blame something that no one really understood.

"I thought you came here to 'talk'," he pointed out after several moments of silence, meeting her gaze.

"Right." And with that, Katara drew her hand away from his shoulder, crossing her arms over her chest but not before bending the water back into the cup. She took a step back to put some space between them now that she didn't need to be in such close proximity with Zuko.

"You don't really think I'm like your father, do you?" She tried her best to sound strong with her question, though there was an underlying uncertainty in her words.

He sighed to himself and glanced away for a moment, then looked back to her. "I don't know what to think."

For some reason, his uncertainty made something inside her flare. Zuko should know that she was nothing like that monster-- it shouldn't even be something he needs to question!

"But I was the one who trusted you first-- I was the one who offered to heal you! You were the one who betrayed me; I shouldn't even have to be justifying myself to you."

"I already told you I don't expect you to understand!" he snapped back, his own temper sparking at her outburst and causing the candles to come to life, their small flames flickering. "You of all people-- you who is undoubtedly a good person deep down and caring enough that you would actually help your enemy-- I'm not saying you should be justifying yourself.

"You lashed out for the same reasons he did. And I get that."