#myfanfictiontag

[the-last-cuddlebender]

Littleshit!Katara and tired!Aang

Words: 1,510

ao3

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It had been four weeks and two days since she last saw those bold blue arrows, and Katara couldn’t have sprinted any faster if she was born an airbender.

She ambushed him with the weight and consuming entanglement of a thrown bola. Staggering, Aang squealed and he caught her like she was a wolf aiming to rip out his throat. It took him a handful of seconds to recognize her. “What—? Katara!” he yelled, in a tone that bordered on a whine.

Katara laughed through her assault, hugging his neck and tugging him down so she could press her brow to his. “Hello, sweetie~”

“Wait—Wait, Katara.” Aang squirmed and might have wiggled away if she was anyone else. “I haven’t changed my clothes in days.” He ducked her kisses and tried to tug her hands from his cheeks. He pouted in the glimpses of freedom that he stole, revealing the dusted shadow of how long it had been since he last shaved his face. “What are you doing here? You—You promised me that I would meet you at—stop that—at the Southern Water Tribe.”

He was worse than Momo fighting bathtime. “Stop being difficult and let me love you.”

“I have—Kataraaaa…” He indulged in her offensive, allowing her to turn him to pieces. He laughed, exhausted, and ducked to protect his side, foreseeing a tickle attempt that she hoped would crumble him to the ground. “I’m filthy. And I have paperwork and you promised—”

“Would it surprise you to know that I don’t care?” She never felt more grounded than when she held him, firm as a mountain and as light-footed as the silver leopards that lived in it. He smelled like sweat and smoke and snow, and when she kissed him, she tasted home and all the things she had almost forgotten since memories could never do his presence justice. “You might be their Avatar, but you are my Aang. Deal with it.”

He put up his struggle for far longer than she was used to, but he must have been as alien to her presence as she was to his. Always living in the nightmare that he might burn her again. The idiot. Her idiot, but still. Katara pulled him into the hug he was desperate for, despite how he first flinched. He melted faster than chips of chocolate in a warmed pan, oozing over her in a pile of grumbling robes and returned touches.

He kissed her hair and held there for a suspiciously long minute before gently (attempting) peeling her away. “You promised me the Southern Tribe,” he said, his voice grated like he had been screaming. “You promised.”

“And now I’m here. Deal with it.”

Aang smiled, though it was a small and guarded expression, and Katara’s heart threatened to burst from her chest at the glimpse of her favorite sunrise. “No—Noooo,” he groaned, failing spectacularly to untangle them when she kissed him again. “Go away.” Aang turned and used his shoulder to fend off her cooing advances. “Go away and take your betrayal kisses with you.”

Katara did nothing of the sort. She was a persistence predator, and she would make sure he wouldn’t forget it. “Come on , sweetie~” she cooed, threatening to climb over him.

“Noo.”

“Yeeees.”

“Noooooooooo.”

“Yeeeeeeees.” Katara giggled like a madwoman and tugged him down to her level. He began a half-circle of escape, but she hooked her ankle around his waist, using his fluid momentum to swing herself onto his front. She held him with her arms and legs, like moss clinging to a tree.

All these years, and he still had so much to learn.

“You—” His face had nowhere to hide, but she gave him credit for trying. “You are ridiculous.”

“Mhm.” She zeroed in on a proper kiss, but he evaded by kissing her cheeks instead. Katara giggled and preened from the challenge. “Tell me more how much you love me.”

“Yuck.” Sokka hopped off Appa’s head and gave the reunited to-be-weds a wide berth. “Major oogies. Have some self-control, woman.”

Katara, from her arms wrapped around Aang’s neck, flipped her brother a pair of birds. She had the Avatar right where she wanted him, and she laughed against his lips when she finally caught him.

When she smiled so he could feel it, Aang stiffened a bit, which was strange, and Katara kissed him a bit slower to investigate his reaction.

She pulled back and looked down at him. His cheek was bruised, and his neck was oddly red. Both wounds were old and almost healed over, but she probed them like they were still new. Her stomach flipped. Tightening her legs around his waist, she pried one of his arms, holding her up, free so she could examine his wrist. The flesh just below his hand was even more red than his neck, scabbed over on the knobs of bone and then bruised almost half-way down his forearm.

“I’m fine,” he said, preemptively, trying to distract her with a kiss. He tried to pull his wrist away, but Katara gave him no freedom. She was taller than him in her position, and her shadow nearly eclipsed his face from the bleeding sunset just behind her.

She searched his face. “What happened?”

Aang hesitated. His hand flexed in her grip, convincing her to let him hold her hand. “Ran into some trouble on the way home.”

“You were captured.”

“Just a little bit.”

“Just a little bit?” She held up his hand. “You call this ‘just a little bit’?”

“It could have been worse,” he shyly offered. “It was only a few days.”

Her grip tightened. “Days?”

Aang’s smile was more of an apology than a reassurance. “I’m fine. See?” He held her hand to his face. “I’m home. All in one piece.”

Katara shook her head. She scowled, but not hot enough to burn him. She moved her gaze to his hand, where she was petting it with her thumb. The blue of his tattoos was oddly red and swollen. She pulled it close and kissed the arrow, trying to keep her heavy heart to herself.

Aang adjusted her a bit closer and moved his hand to her face. She was as heavy and binding as the iron net that had captured him, but he looked at her with a shy safety that kissed her almost as gently.

“What about me?” Sokka asked, in the tone that big brothers used when they tried to cheer up their siblings. “I was captured, too.”

Zuko handed him a sleeping roll before joining him on the ground. “You were caught as a fake informant to break him out from the inside. Not the same.”

“Everyone’s a critic.”

Katara shook her head, letting anything outside of Aang’s breathing turn to white noise.

Aang ducked into her vision. “I’m fine. Really, I am.”

She didn’t meet his eyes. Her attention was entirely caught on investigating the webbed veils of skin between his fingers. A fresh cut tore the flesh between the first two digits, but he had had it for so long—away from her—that it was almost scarred over. “…You always say that.”

“Have I ever been wrong?” He punctuated himself with a soft scratch up her back. She hated that it worked, but she invited him to do it again, melting her with the ease of beeswax held to a candle’s flame.

“You might dance around the truth well enough to fool them,” she nodded to her brother, bickering with the Firelord, “but you’re not nearly as good of a liar as you think you are.”

Aang hesitated again. He looked away, at something to his left, and might have curled up if she wasn’t holding him so bodily. “I guess…I could use a healing session.” Katara squirmed, telling him to allow her down, but Aang held her tightly and grunted with his first step towards their temple. “You can take care of me all you want in a minute, okay?”

“Aang—” Katara would have argued if Aang had the energy to keep up with it, but he was motivated by momentum and wouldn’t stop for a few pleading words. She tried not to show just how happy she was to feel the thumps of his familiar stride, like riding on the rolling shoulders of the snowy leopards—silver, like his eyes—that he often reminded her of.

She tucked her face against his neck. Stubble from his jaw scratched her temple. He smelled like burnt ozone and coal, but there wasn’t a trace of blood. She held his neck a little tighter and shifted closer, belting her legs around his waist, so flush to him that he was sure to feel the hummingbird that had once been her heart.

There was only one person who wanted to hurt him and who never left any scars.

She tried not to think about it.

She hugged him tighter, gently kissing the necklace of black and blue that his robes couldn’t hide. “…I’m never letting you out of my sight again.”

“You always say that.”

He said it as a joke, but Katara flinched from how the words burned her. “You’re ridiculous.”

Aang laughed. It was a beautiful sound. A tired sound. A little scared, too. “Mhm.” He held her like he had the strength to hug her, even though she had to hold herself up. “Tell me more how much you love me.”

[the-last-cuddlebender]

Dancing Bear

Bumi takes his first steps, and Aang learns what freedom really is.

(just some cloud family, new parent vibes)

Words: 502

ao3

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Aang froze, the boy in the iceberg again, in the doorway. The sound was beautiful. Freedom was music. Two tender feet babbling on the floor like a stream giggling over a riverbed. It was dancing, a private party between the body and the spirit, and Bumi’s face finally knew why it was born to smile when he pushed out of Katara’s arms, steadying himself with knees that wobbled and showed him what a rhythm was.

Bumi almost didn’t give Aang enough time to ease into a crouch. Once, he lost his newborn balance and stumbled onto all fours, but never once did he lose his mad smile, not caring that he walked about as well as a skybison with six left feet and no tail. The world became real again when Bumi’s whole hands wrapped around a few of Aang’s fingers. He patted from Aang’s hands to Katara’s and back again, breathless and panting because he couldn’t speak yet and didn’t know how to say I’m free! with anything but his feet.

Bumi’s new world was hardly two feet across, just big enough for Aang to kneel on one side and Katara to sit on the other. They let him fall (but not too hard), and his smile thanked them for it. Aang thought he might burst with pride every time Bumi picked himself back up. His son’s very first acts of courage. And Aang was here to see it. All he and Katara stood at the ready for were the chances to hold Bumi’s hands when he clapped, wanting to dance in place with them. Aang had never seen a spirit puff out its chest so much. Bumi was king of his own world; he was in love, even if it was just the distance between his mother and his father.

Aang couldn’t stop smiling. He just…He just couldn’t. His son had cursed him. Stolen his face. His heart. Every bit and ash that Aang could or would ever be. It was the chilly tingle when stepping into the sea, in the cool minute before the blood recognized the ocean. It was the slight thinning of his vision, whenever his smile reached his eyes, cutting out his periphery and putting his family into focus.

He laughed and was scared because Bumi was laughing scared. It was an imbalance to dance to. It was dizzy freedom. Aang owed everything he had to every tragedy he had ever known, because he couldn’t imagine going back to the prison of not knowing the freedom that Bumi had.

“Look at you, Bumi,” Aang cooed. Bumi stomped in a circle and laughed, spinning by one hand’s hold on Aang’s fingers. “Walking all on your own. What do you think about that, bud?”

“He’s a very good dancer.”

“Of course. He’s your son.”

Everything about Katara softened, from her eyes to how she held her shoulders. She looked between his and Bumi’s smiles. “It’s like I’m seeing double.”

Bumi threw his hands up and would have fallen without Katara’s hand gently pressing at the middle of his back. Aang laughed harder, emptying his lungs so that he didn’t float away. Katara shared his efforts, looking for her words. Their little boy was free, and Bumi held his hands up like he powered the moon and held up the sky all on his own.

Bumi spun in a circle again, dancing in his crossroads, held in the safe foot of space closest to Katara. His eyes were wide and searching. So many directions. So many places to go.

Aang never felt more honored in his entire life than that moment when Bumi, having a whole new world, decided to run to him first.

Aang cried. Of course he did. What else was a father to do?

Bumi was king of his two feet, the distance between his parents, and the only things he allowed in his kingdom were dances and happy roars.

[the-last-cuddlebender]

Katara: Don’t do it.

Aang: :I

Katara: Don’t you dare do it.

Aang: :)

Katara: Aang, I swear—

Aang: :D

Katara: DAMMIT LET ME BE GRUMPY FOR TWO SECONDS—

[the-last-cuddlebender]

i wish u would write a fic where.... you elicit some kataang kids feels idk. all ur fics are really good. maybe..... something with kya and lin getting together or having crushes on each other and katara and and just being good parents while simultaneously being meddling little shits. sorry if that was incoherent haha. this is why i’m sending you a summary instead of trying to write it myself XD

Stop it, you🥺🥺You’re too kind! And you’re not incoherent at all! I love this prompt, and I really appreciate the ask!

(I’ve never written Kya’s and Lin’s relationship before, so I may have danced around it for fear of making them ooc😅 But it did give me an opportunity to try my hand at bestmom!Toph)

Words: 709

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“What are they doing now?”

“One second.”

“You said one second a minute ago.”

“I can’t see what they’re doing if you keep distracting me.”

“You’re the only one of us who can see, you nimrod. Now tell me what the hell they’re doing before I kick you out of this tree.”

“Shhh! I’m trying to—Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!”

“Shush me again, Twinkletoes. See what happens.”

Aang rubbed his now sore ear and shot his best friend through unwilling circumstance a glare that he hoped she could feel. Toph’s blind glare revealed nothing, but her middle fingers thrusted into his face said she ‘heard’ him loud and clear.

Aang almost grumbled an insult, but he remembered to keep it contained to his thoughts.

Toph punched him anyways. 

Toph wiggled a bit and readjusted her grip on the tree’s trunk. She held it bodily like a koalapanda refusing to leave its home. Her cheek pressed into the bark and made even a basic sentence a grumpy grumble.

Honestly, she had no one to blame but herself for having to rely on Aang for gathering intel. He told her that teaching Lin seismic sense would come back to bite her one day. Does she ever listen to him? Nooooooo.

“Tell. Me. What’s. Happening.”

“Alright! Alright! They’re...They’re talking. By the water. They’re adorable. I haven’t seen Kya smile that big since...well, I can’t remember since when.”

Toph laughed a little bit. It was a soft, quiet sound that reminded Aang of when they sat in front of the fire for Sokka’s birthday after the kids were all asleep. They reminiscenced for hours about old times.

“...Is Lin smiling, too?”

The wind stirred, but the leaves stayed silent. Aang’s look was probing, and he hoped Toph couldn’t feel it. His friend and practically-sister failed spectacularly to hide how much tighter she clung to the trunk.

Aang hummed and looked through the goggles again. “She was in the beginning.”

“That was an hour ago. I’m talking about right now, damn you.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say she’s ‘smiling’. Her face looks like it forgot how to work.”

“What?”

“Relax. Relax.” Aang forced himself to relax, too. Toph was still raw from watching Lin’s last heartbreak. His old teacher was a boulder, but her daughters made her as soft as river clay and just as at risk of falling apart in careless hands. “It’s a good thing, Toph. I promise.”

Toph’s snarl was fierce but different than normal. It felt like something baring its teeth in defense rather than attack. “If your daughter breaks her heart, I will make your insides your outsides, Twinkletoes.”

Aang hid his laugh in a grin and a neutral hum, and he shifted his weight on their branch. When he looked through the leaves at the fumbling duo dancing around the unspoken question to hold hands, he nearly did a double-take.

He flailed one arm at Toph and stiffened like a pointing hound. “Oh! Oh! Oh! Kya’s laughing! Oh my spirits, she’s adorable—”

“What about Lin?!”

“I’m getting there! I think Lin made a joke. Or, she did it by accident. I haven’t seen anyone turn so red. She’s almost as bad as Katara.”

“...”

Aang glanced at Toph in his periphery. Toph still clung to the trunk, but one of her legs had let go, dangling off their branch like it was trying to find the ground and get a better look at what was happening. The touch of a smile on her face became a ghost before vanishing. Her leg stopped. She hugged the tree like she was holding her mother’s skirts and watching something precious slip away.

“...I hate not being able to see anything.”

Aang patted her back with his free hand. “Don’t worry. I’ll tell your feet everything that happens. Lin is very happy. They both are. Kya is making her laugh, too, from the looks of it. Lin must have said something even funnier because Kya has to use her to keep from falling—oh no.”

“Oh no? What oh no?”

“Um—”

“What oh no, Twinkletoes?”

“Nothing, nothing! Lin just locked up for a second, is all. Kya is still leaning on her and—aaaaand Lin just passed out.”

“What?!” 

“It’s okay! Kya just—”

Toph was on the ground and on the run in an instant. 

Like a hidden trap, Katara and Bumi sprung from one bush and tackled Toph into another. 

Kya looked up, saw nothing, and helped the liquified Lin back to her feet. 

“Katara?” Aang hopped down and soundlessly ducked behind the three of them and their bush. “How did—Why are you—?”

Bumi puffed his chest. “We were on an ice column behind the bush! It was my idea. I told Mom that Lin could see us on the ground.”

Katara turned crimson, puffed her cheeks, and collected just enough of her wounded pride to face—but not look—at the grinning child she called her husband. 

Aang laughed like he was all-knowing and put his stupid face mere inches in front of hers. “Well, well, well…’Just letting it happen’ are we, sweetie?”

“...Oh, shut up.”

“Shhhh!” Toph hissed. She was lying prone on the grass with her hands, feet, and ear pressed to the ground. “I’m trying to watch!”

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[the-last-cuddlebender]

saw the tags on the reblog of the ficlet prompts, so I humbly ask for prompt #9 with sokka confronting aang abt his feelings for katara,,,,it’s for science. The sweeties and sokka and aang friendship, what’s better than this👀

Nothing is better than that, Anon😌

(I am rusty and crusty, but I hope you enjoy! Thank you for the ask, my friend!!!)

Dialogue prompt #9: “You’re in love with her.”

Words: 1,294

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Okay. Okay, you got this. It’s just a few words. Words are just air with sound, and you’re the youngest airbending master on record. It’ll be easy. Yeah. So easy.

Aang took a deep breath. “K...Katara?” he mumbled.

It shouldn’t have been loud enough to get her attention, but the mention of her name stopped Katara from petting Appa.

...Oh Spirits.

She smiled as she turned to face him, and Aang relied on his staff to keep him from becoming a puddle when she took a step closer.

I can’t. I can’t do it. Nope. Nope, nope, nope, nope, NOPE. Can’t do it. Not easy. SO not easy—

“Katara, I need to tell you something.” The words left him before he could abort his mission. A thin bead of sweat slid from his palm and into his shirt, and it was only by some undeserved miracle that his staff hadn’t slipped out of his hands yet. “I-I've been wanting to say it for a long time.”

Katara cocked her head. Neither of them paid mind to the Earth Kingdom soldiers who passed them to join Kuei’s entourage. “What is it, Aang?”

Aang froze up just like he feared he would; he would have blown over and clattered like a metal pole hitting marble if even a breeze came by. “Katara...Katara, I love—”

A familiar weight suddenly slamming into Aang’s side nearly made him jump out of his own skin. “Alriiiiiight!” An arm slung around Aang’s shoulders, and Sokka’s fist ground into Aang’s arrow. “Who's ready to get going on our little men-only man trip?”

Aang sagged, his stomach weighed down with stones, and he laughed only because it was impossible to do anything else when Katara tried to hide her giggle behind her hand.

So much for attempt seventy-four.

His emotional whiplash turned him to mush, and he went through the motions as he gave his thanks to the Earth King and gave his family one last group hug (and overheard something about the Kyoshi Warriors arriving?).

But then, as he was about to climb onto Appa, Katara tugged on Aang’s sleeve.

“Wait. Aang.”

Aang turned to face her, but her lips found his cheek mid-turn and struck him like lightning on a clear day, dancing static under his skin and in his ears until his heart bounced and remembered how to beat. 

The kiss felt like what he wanted to tell her, but Aang couldn’t find the words, yet again. Their meanings were ground into dust and powdered feelings that rode the winds she stirred in him. Her unspoken goodbye was short, chaste, but it filled Aang from bottom to brim with something so warm that it steamed from his cheeks and put his heart in her hands. He had to look away and look down, finding the ground, so he could remember which way was up.

“You see, Aang? A little positive thinking works wonders,” Sokka said a few minutes later from where he laid on Appa’s back. The sky was clear and without any draft to fight them as they flew east; the sun was warm and pooled under Aang’s skin in a way that felt like being hugged. “We got the king on our side, we got Long Feng arrested, and, when we get back, Suki's waiting for me.”

“Yeah,” Aang said dreamily. “Girls are waiting for us.” He smiled, but his voice drifted. The horizon held potential, but his heart was behind him and growing further and further away.

He didn’t know if Katara had spliced together what he was trying to say, before, but the kiss she gave him felt like something that wasn’t quite a goodbye--it was much more than that.

“...Thanks, positive attitude.”

There was a pause, but then Sokka’s voice changed direction like he had turned to face Aang’s back. “Everything is gonna work out perfectly. From now on and forever.”

Aang smiled even wider and shared the gesture with Sokka.

...But then Sokka squinted at him like he was trying to make sense of a mirage.

“What?” Aang asked, confused and feeling for if there was something on his face. 

Sokka squinted for another long minute before he gave his response. “You’re in love with her. Aren’t you.”

Aang blinked twice, remembered that he had to breathe, and tugged his collar. “What? In love? Me? Pffft.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Who would I be in love with? I’m not in love with anyone. Who said I was in love?”

Sokka raised one delicate eyebrow and inclined his head.

Aang sagged. “...Is it that obvious?”

“Obvious? That’s one word for it.” Sokka turned on his side to properly face him. “You blush so much whenever Katara does anything that Yue probably thinks there’s a red star on Earth.”

“...Oh.”

“Why don’t you just tell her that you love her and get it over with? Watching you two dance around each other was cute in the beginning, but it’s getting really old really fast.”

“I tried to!” Aang didn’t mean to sound as defensive as he did, and he definitely didn’t mean for his voice to crack. “Just before we left I tried to tell her!”

Sokka rolled his eyes. “Oh, yeah? When exactly did that happen? Because we were together the entire time, and I didn’t see anything oogie-worthy coming from your corner.”

Aang turned as red as his belt’s sash. “I-I did try! Right before you butted in, I tried to tell her!”

Sokka made a knowing sound. “Ohhhh, so that’s what you were squirming about. I thought you got caught pranking the Earth King’s guards, or something, and needed a bail-out. Sorry about that.”

Aang sighed. “It’s fine.” He crawled over the dip of Appa’s neck and plopped, spread-eagle, an arm’s-length from where Sokka laid. “It didn’t feel right, anyways.”

“Feel right?” Scooting closer, Sokka tugged bits of shed from Appa’s pelt and sprinkled it on Aang’s face. “How do you mean?”

Aang shrugged. He sneezed from the shed-shower and wiggled his nose, but Sokka didn’t stop layering it on him. “I dunno…,” he said, almost to himself. “It was just a feeling. Not a bad feeling, just...just a feeling. I don’t know how to say it.”

“Well, if you don’t know, then I’d say that you admitting the L-word to her is definitely not in your near future.”

Aang looked away. “Yeah...you’re probably right…”

“That’s not to say that it’s never gonna happen,” Sokka added. He paused, searching for another viable vein of Appa-shed, and sat cross-legged at Aang’s side. He propped his elbow on his knee and rested his head on the hand that wasn’t hunting for furry ammo. “These things take time, and you guys have plenty of that. You still have your whole lives ahead of you. Plus, with the Earth King’s armies behind us, the war will be over before you know it.”

“Do you—?” Aang hesitated. “Nevermind.”

“What?”

“It’s nothing. Forget I said anything.”

“It isn’t ‘nothing’, apparently. Come on, Aang. Sokka’s love-therapy sessions bear no judgment.”

Aang couldn’t help but laugh a little even as he stared at his twiddling thumbs. “Do you...Do you think that Katara might say it?”

Sokka scratched his cheek and cocked his jaw in thought. “Well, that depends. Are you asking me if I think she might say that she loves you first, or are you asking me if I think she might say that she loves you back?”

Aang stopped fidgeting and shrunk into the pool of his collar.

Sokka sighed and stopped littering him with Appa’s fur. “Aang, listen…” Aang dragged his eyes up to meet Sokka’s, “...Katara isn’t the best with admitting these kinds of things—things with strong emotion, that is. The woman can hold a grudge for a century and an apology for an eternity without batting an eye.”

Aang’s stomach dropped. “You think she’d get mad at me if I tell her?”

“What? No, no, no, no, that’s not it at all. What I’m trying to say is that Katara...Well, how do I put this...She isn’t exactly direct. Remember when Toph first joined and we got chased by Azula and her crazy lady friends? And how Katara started out all nice and dropping hints that Toph needed to help set up camp and stuff?”

“Yeah. I remember.”

“It’s like that. Katara was telling Toph that she needed her to help, but she was telling her without telling her. At least, before the lack of sleep kicked in. Anyways, I don’t know what she and you have been doing when you go off during the full moon for you waterbending-whatever’s—”

“W-We’re just—!”

“Whatever,” Sokka cooly said, his lip curling in the barest smile. “My point is, she’s more likely to show you than to tell you. Or, at the very least, she’ll tell you without telling you.”

Aang laced his fingers and chewed his lip. His thoughts were greased with the memories of his and Katara’s shared small kisses...and of their time in the Cave of Two Lovers when Katara used their survival to justify a real, real kiss.

“Please, don't go Aang,” she had said all those months ago when they were fighting against time to find Roku before the Solstice. “The world can't afford to lose you to the Fire Nation...And neither can I.”

...Oh.

Ohhhhhh.

Aang’s smile was small, barely there, and made his insides as soft as the downy shed that Sokka had started raining on his face again.

“...Telling her wouldn’t change anything,” Aang said.

“Exactly. And that—Wait, what?” Sokka backpeddled. “Hold up a second there, sport. I didn’t mean to not say it at all. Communication is key in a relationship, and telling her that you love her is—”

“No, no, not like that. I mean I have to tell her but also not tell her.”

“And how exactly do you plan to do that? Subtly isn’t exactly your specialty. No offense.”

Aang looked at the cloudless sky. The horizon held potential, but the heavens were infinite possibility. “I have to find my panda-lily,” he said.

“You mean that flower from Aunt Wu’s village? The one that only grew in the rim of that one volcano? Sorry to say it, but they’re buried under a few dozen feet of crusted magma.”

“No, not one of those. I mean my panda-lily. I have to find something to show her what I feel. I don’t exactly know if that means getting a flower or making a necklace or…” Aang looked up again. “Whatever it is, I’ll find it. I’ll show her.”

“That you love her?”

Aang shook his head. “No. Not love.”

“Oh?” Sokka rolled onto his stomach but kept one arm free to bury Aang under skybison-shed that didn’t stay on his face for long before being blown away. “Now you don’t love her?”

“No. I don’t.”

“You...You do realize that I meant that as a joke, right?”

“It’s true, though.”

Sokka groaned. “Okay, love-therapy session is officially over. Katara is going to kill me for turning you off from her.”

“But I’m not.”

“You just said that you didn’t love her!”

“I know. I don’t love her.” Aang smiled with closed eyes. “It’s so much more than that.”

“Wow, okay, now that, right there, is top-shelf oogie-worthy crud. Good Spirits, man.” Sokka playfully shoved Aang’s shoulder, and Aang laughed and flicked his wrist to blow a whirlwind at Sokka’s face.

“So, any ideas on what your panda-necklace is, lover boy?”

Aang turned red as if sunburnt, but he smiled like the sun cresting the horizon. “I have no idea.”

“And this makes you...happy?”

Aang pretended to draw shapes out of the nettings of faint clouds that were now above them. “It makes me want to know more about her. She likes flowers, but she doesn’t love them. I have to give her something that she doesn’t know that she loves.”

“Ugh-huh. Well, I’m sure you’ll find your panda-necklace or whatever it is, eventually. Positive attitude, remember? Anything is possible.” Sokka patted his shoulder. “Just try to do it in private, would ya? Nobody needs to see you two showing love if you catch my drift.”

Aang nearly passed out from the blood rushing to his face. “Sokka!”

“I’m just saying,” Sokka said with a smile. “It’s good future sense. I’d rather not need any trauma-therapy sessions.”

Aang pointedly turned away, grumbling and puffing his cheeks with insults and come-backs.

“Ah, ah, ah…,” Sokka clicked his tongue and rolled Aang, still hugging himself and pouting, back over to face him, “...I have to have your word, casanova. Promise me no public oogies?”

Aang grumbled some more and loudly. “...I wouldn’t make it public, anyways...”

“That’s not what a promise sounds like.” Sokka dragged Aang into a headlock and ground his fist into his arrow. “Come on, Avatar. Spit it out. Think of it as payment for your love-therapy session.”

Aang laughed despite himself. “Fine! Fine, I promise!” He squirmed and blew small whirlwinds, but Sokka didn’t let Aang go until he stopped fighting his laughter and pretending to be grumpy.

“I’ll hold you to that,” Sokka said as he extended his hand.

Aang made a show of rolling his eyes before he clasped Sokka’s arm in the way of the tribesmen. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

...

Sokka remembered his and Aang’s conversation like it was yesterday even though a near-death experience and several months’ residence in enemy territory had passed since then.

The music was loud in the candlelit cave, and the Fire Nation gremlins flailed and flopped around like otterpenguins with their rears on fire. At least the drinks were good. And it was a pretty nice sight to behold when the gremlins, one by one, stopped ‘dancing’ to form a human circle.

“Wow, who knew Sugarqueen could dance?” Toph asked as she downed another cup of punch. The crowd of kids gasped again when Aang and Katara broke from their waterbending form and fell in sync with moves that they had never practiced but just knew like they had been waiting their whole lives to perform them.

So much for promising to keep his panda-necklace private.

Well, Aang’s promise wasn’t entirely broken.

The Fire Nation gremlins saw two people sharing a dance, an impressive form of self-expression that no one could ever take from them.

Sokka saw the way his sister’s eyes lit up like when they were young and thought tragedy was a myth that could never touch them. He saw the way Aang let himself grow breathless as he abandoned his birth element to bend some energy that no one else could see.

Sokka felt the aftershocks of the ‘I love you’ that Aang showed Katara when he led her into a spin, and he felt even moreso the aftershocks of the ‘I love you, too’ that Katara showed Aang in return, trusting him to catch her in a fall. 

Aang’s smile shone brighter than even those times when he was dragged into the Avatar State, and Katara’s laugh was a heart without walls or any defense.

She filled him with a strength that could move a mountain, and he gave her a power that she didn’t feel she had to prove.

“They look pretty good together,” Toph said.

Sokka leaned against the wall. The panting laugh Aang and Katara shared at the end of their dance—Aang still holding Katara in a dip with her arms now around his neck—looked like the beginnings of something new.

Well, not quite something new.

It was more like something that had always been there and was finally being let out—like a seed with a vast network of strong roots finally breaking through the soil and discovering how warm the world was.

The way Katara clumsily bumped her head to Aang’s headband looked like a kiss that they wanted the world to witness but that they would only ever share with each other.

“Yeah,” Sokka said, happy and sharing their peace. “They really do look good together.”

...But it was so much more than that.

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I will drag Kataango into everything I write, so help me—

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Send me a dialogue prompt and any other details ya want!

[the-last-cuddlebender]

Momo

Have you ever heard about those cats in the hospital that cuddle up to people about to die because somehow the cats just know? Well, I was thinking...

Imagine Momo following Aang around more than usual.

Imagine Momo insistently tugging Aang to Katara because she was the magic lady who made all the hurts feel better.

Imagine Momo cuddling into Aang’s robes and putting baby kisses on his head like Aang did to his kids and Momo to make them feel better.

Imagine Momo bringing Aang his favorite toys because he knew a bad thing was happening and that he wouldn’t be able to follow where Aang was gonna go.

Imagine Momo waiting by Aang’s grave because Momo had seen Aang go into the ground before and always come up afterwards.

Imagine Momo being the last survivor of the Southern Air Temple and not understanding why he felt so alone even though there were new lemurs and bison and an air-bending-human that looked so much like what he knew but also so different.

Imagine Momo wearing both a lock of Appa’s fur and a piece of Aang’s cloak around each of his wrists.

Imagine Momo, too old to fly, on Air Temple Island every day on the pier where Aang would always land his glider to greet him when he came home.

Imagine Momo, so old that he’s blind and lame, on Air Temple Island when Katara and everyone are moved out and even Tenzin is gone for the night so Momo has no one who could sense that he was about to leave where no one else could follow.

Imagine Momo struggling to breathe and feeling as lost as when he waited in the spot by the fishes in the North Pole where Aang would surely come back for him.

Imagine Momo being so scared when he hears a loud noise but can’t see what it is or move away from it.

Imagine Momo feeling something like relief when he feels baby Jinora, who had escaped from her crib to go to the little spirit she sensed was fading, plop on the ground next to him.

Imagine Momo getting as close to crying as a lemur can get when Jinora puts baby kisses on his head to make him feel better like how Tenzin did to her.

Imagine Momo cuddling into Jinora even though she was just barely bigger than him as she picks him up in her chubby little arms and waddles him to her room to give him her toys.

Imagine Momo purring for the first time in years as Jinora takes him all the way outside to the peach tree all while gently swinging him and making swooshing sounds like she was pretending he was young enough to fly again.

Imagine Momo too weak to curl up as Jinora cradles him in her lap and babbles happily about some human stuff as she shares a peach with him even though she has to hold the torn-in-half fruit right next to his face and he can just barely lick the sweet treat.

Imagine Momo somehow feeling familiar hands petting him even though it was just Jinora gently touching him.

Imagine Momo melting into Jinora’s little laughs and hanging on just enough to feel her airbend—her winds so blissfully familiar—for the first time as she struggles to make the leaves move all pretty for him.

Imagine Momo opening his eyes and being able to see for the first time in years and being greeting by Aang’s smile even though Momo was looking up at Jinora.

Imagine Momo being happy but confused as Jinora picks him up and gives him to the open hands that had been waiting so long for him.

Imagine Momo’s spirit holding onto Aang’s and Appa’s as they all three wave goodbye to baby Jinora who waves back just as a frantic Pema bursts into the courtyard looking for her and not seeing the the trio made whole again.

Imagine Momo’s spirit cherishing the feeling of being in little Jinora’s arms because it felt so much more freeing than flying.

Imagine Momo’s spirit too timid to step through the spirit portal until Korra takes his hand—so familiar—and guides him through to the physical world.

Imagine Momo’s spirit being so happy he can’t contain himself as he tries his damndest to make Jinora and the-new-Aang-but-with-hair-and-dark-skin feel as free and happy as they had always made him feel.

...but that’s just a thought.

[the-last-cuddlebender]

I wish you would write a fic where.... Aang and katara take their kid penguin sledding ❤️ or just visit the South Pole

My immediate thought with “visit the South Pole” was ice-skating, but the otterpenguins get a honorable mention lol.

(This somehow became Kya-centric, and I absolutely adore it.)

feat. bestdad!Aang, bëbë!Kya, bestmom!Katara, bestuncle!Sokka, bestPap-Pop!Hakoda, littleshit!Bumi, and bëbë!Tenzin

Words: 2,004

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Sokka was going to die if he didn’t stop laughing long enough to breathe. That, or Katara was going to creatively kill him.

Aang was beauty. Aang was grace.

Aang could not ice-skate.

He could surf on the wind and walk on one hand through fire, but put him on bladed shoes on ice? He was worse than a newborn catdeer.

“Daddy, you gotta do this, r‘member?” Little Kya had her mother’s grace and twice her father’s flair even when she was so thickly layered that her arms perpetually stood at the horizontal. Only a thin strip of her face was visible between her parka and her hood.

“I-I got it, moonpeach.”

Aang, in fact, did not have it.

He’s lucky he’s so flexible, otherwise the split he windmilled and then belly-flopped into might have hurt him.

Sokka laughed so hard that the otterpenguins two glaciers down made disgruntled sounds at him.

Aang tried to hide himself in the ice. Kya bent over and patted his arrow with one of her horizontal arms.

The snow melted around Sokka from the force of Katara’s glare, but he really, really couldn’t care less.

Oh, how he wished to have one of those new photo-whatchamacallits that they had in the city.

“Daddyyyy...,” Kya whined in a chastising tone that nearly swapped their roles as parent and child. “Daddy, you gotta do it like this.” Kya was insistent, stern, and extremely amiable with her wobbling student. “Here, hold my hand. I won’t let you fall again, m’kay?”

Aang managed a weak laugh and tried to nervously decline for fear of accidentally smushing her when he inevitably fell again, but little Kya was already taking his hand. Her face flushed a little red as she struggled to gain initial momentum, but it wasn’t long before she was skating with her father, crouched and holding her hand with both of his, like he was cargo tied to a sled.

The ice sang as Katara slid up next to them. Her hands laced behind her back as she swayed with complete control of and on her element. “Very good, Kya. You’re a great teacher.” Katara patted Aang’s back. “Isn’t she, sweetie?”

Kya puffed her chest and smiled so wide that they could see it in the small space between the neck of her parka and her hood. Aang’s legs were starting to shake from crouching for so long.

“Katara,” Aang hissed. “Katara, help me.”

Katara laughed something bordering on pride and mischief. She kissed his cheek, maneuvered to kiss Kya, too, and skated away to push Sokka, sitting on the border of the ice, into the powder again.

“Kataraaaaa…” Aang shook a little more, threatened to windmill again, but caught himself by sinking into a crouch so low that his rear nearly touched the ice. He was level with his daughter, now, and their speed was inches at a time. “Katara, please.”

“You’re doing really good, Daddy.” Kya patted his head with her free horizontal arm. “‘S okay to be scared. Don’t worry. I'll catch you if you fall again.”

“Hehehe, well, you see, Kya, Daddy is really heavy, and he doesn’t want to—”

Kya rounded on him with a familiar glare that compelled Aang to sit straight and speak clearly when he talked. “I’m strong!”

“Oh, I know, sweetie, I know. You’re very strong, but that’s not—”

Kya tried to press her finger to  his lips but ended up pressing the whole of her mitt to his mouth. “Shhh!” She straightened like a woman going to war. “I said Imma catch you, so don’t be scared, ‘kay? I promise.”

Aang melted and would have become a human puddle if he wouldn’t have smushed Kya in the process. She had his heart in the palm of her hand.

“I promise, okay?” Kya waddled close to Aang—who was still crouching low enough to be at her level—and strained her horizontal arms to circle his neck in a hug. “I promise.”

Aang’s insides liquified. On the border of their little ice ring, Katara oozed pride so thick that it escaped her in a giggle. Even Sokka picked himself out of the snow and smiled at the loving little oogies.

...The moment was broken the second Bumi appeared.

He and Hakoda were sprinting for their lives.

“What—Dad?” Katara stood at attention with Sokka right beside her.

“No time!”

“Gotta hide!”

Hakoda and Bumi dove into the powder that was once Sokka’s little purgatory of Katara’s design.

They missed. Terribly. Partially because they dove through the powder and onto the ice.

Aang really wasn’t being given much luck that day.

The duo took him out at the knees just as he stood with Kya in hand. A Mother’s instinct was a force stronger than nature, and Katara was in his wake and catching their daughter before Kya was ever in danger of hitting the ice.

“Daddy!” Kya, thoroughly distressed, squirmed to be let down. She was so frantic to get to the bundle of limbs and groans now stuck in the powder that she treaded on nothing for the first few seconds after Katara put her back on the ice. She windmilled her horizontal arms and skated to the scene of the accident.

Aang was on his back and trying to remember how to breathe, mutely groaning a ‘why me’. His daughter’s teary eyes took up all he saw when next his vision found focus, and his heart broke with a crack so loud that he swore everyone could hear it.

“D-Daddy…” Kya maneuvered onto her knees and patted Aang’s face with her mitts. “I’m sorry, Daddy…”

Aang, half-buried in the snow, reached up to wipe away her little tears. His world was collapsing, but he tried to keep the bulk of his worry and desperation out of his voice. “Hey, hey, hey, shhh...It’s okay, Kya. See? Daddy’s okay.”

Kya hugged his head, nearly wrapping the whole of her around him and his neck. “I promised to catch you…I promised...” She sniffled. “I’m sorry…’M sorry…”

Unadulterated fury like a tempest made flesh skated over to them, but Katara channeled her bloodlust into a somewhat rough wave of her hand to free her son and father. They raced to tell her something about ‘Gran-Gran’s retribution’ and ‘leopardseal boots and octopus’ and ‘they didn’t know the sea prunes were hers’ and ‘pretty please tell Gran-Gran to grant us mercy’.

Katara crossed her arms. They sat straight and shut their mouths.

(Sokka, shaking his head, was already working out how he could possibly use his diplomatic skills to save his father’s and nephew’s lives.)

“Sorry…’M sorry, Daddy…”

“Oh, Kya…” Aang was sitting cross-legged and hugging his daughter in the next second. He was flexible enough to move like water even with his skates on. “It’s okay. You didn’t break your promise.”

“But...B-But…” Kya was struggling so hard to not cry that Aang was half-prepared to bargain with even Koh himself for the secret to keeping her from tears.

“You said you would catch me, and I didn’t fall. I was run over by your brother and Pap-Pop.” He kissed her cheek and blew a raspberry until she smiled, and her little giggle stitched the world back together.

The hand on Aang’s shoulder was relieved and no longer thirsty for blood; Katara was a tide receding back to calm waters. “You’re a fantastic teacher, moonpeach,” she softly said as she kissed Kya’s other cheek.

Kya smiled even wider, patted both of their faces, and laughed a sound that even the otterpenguins two glaciers away were calmed and drawn towards.

Aang held her to his chest so she was sitting on his arms. “I guess I need to start calling you, Sifu Kya, won’t I?”

Katara sagely nodded. “Oh, absolutely. Though I must warn you, Kya, Daddy is a pretty difficult student.”

“I am not—”

“Hush, Pupil Daddy.” Katara’s eyes howled with the laughter that she struggled to keep at bay (but that Sokka, Hakoda, and even little Bumi, freely let out).

Aang grumbled but couldn’t care less about their audience when Kya smiled like that. She bounced more than she squirmed to be put down, and she bounced even more as she took Aang’s hand and ‘helped’ him to his feet. She was so excited that she either didn’t notice or didn’t care about Katara picking her husband up and tapping his legs apart so he (resembled) a stance that would keep him from immediately falling.

Aang stayed crouched so low that his rear nearly touched the ice. He was a puddle in airbender robes holding onto his daughter’s horizontal hand with both of his. Katara was a gleeful shadow right behind him and oozing pride as readily as the sun gave heat.

“Can you show me how to stop again, Sifu Kya?” Aang gently asked. “I’m not a really good student—”

Katara laughed.

“—and I could really use another demonstration from a Master.”

Kya spoke in excited huffs and bubbles of giggles, just too excited for words. She nodded so fast that her head threatened to come clean off her shoulders, and she tugged him across the ice even faster.

Hakoda and Bumi sat with Sokka in the powder and cooed at the little oogies.

...But they didn’t have very long to enjoy it.

Gran-Gran crested the hill like a deadly omen armed with a broom that she wielded like a master spearman.

The look in her eyes was a force of nature that put even Katara’s to shame.

Even the otterpenguins two glaciers down cried for mercy and sprinted for their lives.

Katara and Aang were content, for the moment, to let natural selection determine Bumi’s and Hakoda’s fates.

(A Mother’s instinct was a force of nature, though, so Katara’s calm became Aang’s waypoint to gauge when or if he had to save the eldest-born part of their world.)

For now, they were content. Class was in session, after all.

Kya puffed up, waddled with her arms horizontal, and spoke in a tone that compelled Aang to speak clearly when he talked and fight the overwhelming urge to hug her.

The spark in her little eyes was a force of nature all on its own.

A Father’s instinct was a tide that was pushed and pulled with her every smile.

Aang was an ocean reduced to a puddle.

His full moon stood at his back.

His Morning Star waved her arms in excitement, and his Evening Star faintly laughed among Hakoda’s pleas for mercy.

“—this move all on my own! It’s really easy, but I’ll be right ‘ere in case you fall, Daddy!”

...It took Aang months to learn that move.

But it would have taken him lifetimes to learn it all on his own.

He loved every second of it—even the bruises that came with it.

...The first time Aang fell during a ‘lesson’, Katara was too slow to catch him.

A Daughter’s instinct was a force of nature, though, and little Kya was braced with her arms vertical to catch him. Aang should have known better. His daughter was his and Katara’s. If Gran-Gran could chase down three warriors and bring them to their knees even in her old age, it should be no surprise that Kya could hold up one man in her young years.

...The first time Aang skated ‘freely’, Kya and Bumi were on each of his sides.

...The first time Tenzin wore his ice-skates, Kya helped lace them up for him. Her voice was stern but calming like something protective as she herded him onto the ice.

“It’s okay, Ten-Ten. I got you. I won’t let you fall. I promise I’ll catch you.”

Aang and Katara were going to melt the whole South Pole if they smiled any bigger.

...Sokka was going to kill himself if he didn’t take a break from laughing to breathe, but Aang was no better. Katara, either, for that matter.

Kya puffed her chest like the world and everything in it was hers.

“Sifu?” Tenzin didn’t know what most words meant yet, but he was convinced he knew the word for ‘sister’. “Sifu, ‘m hungry...Bumi didn’t share the ‘prunes.”

No one dared to correct him.

(Kya held it over Tenzin’s head for years.)

(“Korra, I gotta hand it to you. Tenzin is a terrible student, but you helped him learn how to be a great teacher.”)

(“Kya, please…”)

(“Ah-ah! That’s ‘Sifu’ to you, Ten-Ten.”)

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I don’t know how this became a Kya-love fic, but I’m not complaining in the least. The splash-bëbë deserves all the love in the world😤, and she has Aang wrapped around her finger💖

[the-last-cuddlebender]

When Aang Was

When Aang was hurting, he became a walking wound. His reflection turned into a stranger. His smiles got a bit bigger—his magician’s one-liner to hide his slight-of-hand—, but he couldn’t keep himself above water forever. Even he sometimes forgot that he lost everything and everyone, and forgetting turned remembering into daggers through each of his lungs. It stole his air—his element, his last connection to them. 

...the Gaang have a few things to say about that.

And Aang’s family would be damned if they let him bleed alone.

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A/N: The Gaang will walk backwards into hell if it means they can give Aang a hug when he needs one. This was HIGHLY inspired by this beautiful photoset by @imreallyhereforkataang💕 because Yin and Yang make me soft for the airbean I stg. (also special thanks to @demigodseameg16‘s fic request for putting orphan!Aang on my mind!) (also, also, this is my first time writing Mai so ya-hoooo) 

Rating: T 

Words: 5,074

ArchiveOfOurOwn (AO3)

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When Aang was happy, he talked really fast. His master’s tattoos lost meaning. He tripped over his own feet—graceless but playful—and laughed like giggles were more vital than breathing.

He was an airborne contagion that no one could escape. His family were patient zero, and, almost four years after the war, his quest for world domination was nearly complete. Peace was proven with the smiles he nurtured in others, and his empire of friends and friendly acquaintances circled the globe a dozen times over.

Their symptoms of Aang were chronic—their cheeks always hurt, their middles never stopped aching, he hid their breath behind hurdles of giggles and slap-fights about the absurd...

The list went on and on, just like the peel of his laugh and the warm feeling he left in his wake.

If only the world could see him when he curled up like a cat in its favorite sunny spot every time he lounged across the fuddy-duddy Firelord’s lap. If only the world could see him when Suki caught him using her good makeup—the expensive kind she saved for formal occasions—and the monstrosities he made of his and Sokka’s faces. If only the world could see him when he sent messages to Sokka saying they were from Toph demanding a rematch of whatever they were practicing lately.

Mai didn’t exactly help. She graded his antics with a rubric and gave him feedback, to boot. She refined his nonsense like a blade on a grindstone for greater impact and outcome every time.

The world definitely saw him when he and his lifeline went out in public. He guided Katara down an invisible red carpet every time, and he announced his befuddled Moon’s presence without having to say a single word. He adored getting her flustered—his Mighty Katara—and seeing the beautiful color she turned into. He especially loved the sharp smacks she swatted his shoulder with. He adored her puffed cheeks and her face’s valiant attempts to scowl at him. She hid in his arms from something that wasn’t embarrassment, and Aang kissed her hair at another mission accomplished.

But even if they were ever ‘cured’ of him, his family knew they would never be rid of him. Aang was a master of his craft. His hugs were blue ink, his understanding was his steady hand, and his shoulder to lean or to cry on was a thousand fine needles. His tattoos were unseen but brighter than the sunset’s reflection when the Ocean was in a good mood.

To the world, he was a cure, but, to his family, he was a vice. Neither his better half nor his siblings could shake his grip on them, no matter how hard they rolled their eyes and shooed him away. He saw their pursed lips and grumpy looks as something they wore and that he could take off of them. He found the cracks in their armor like he was a thief turning lock tumblers, and he dug his hands into where they hid their joy.

He was a purple pentapus in airbender robes clinging to their arms, their legs, and their backs. He was their goofy little brother and their grinning parasite, and they wouldn’t have him any other way.

They loved his smile, despite how badly it crippled them. His joy was so second nature that his good feelings became as essential as Mother Nature. The flowers weren’t pretty if Aang wasn’t smiling. He was their greatest weakness—the biggest, happiest, dorkiest chink in their armor.

May the Spirits help the next person who tried to kill him.

Katara would not be held back a second time.

Toph would find someone who needed some punishment if she was left out of ‘the fun’ again.

(Sokka tracked the bastard down, and Suki caught him without—just barely without—snuffing him out)

(Zuko held Aang’s head in his lap while Katara patched up what was broken and tugged his bleeding spirit back into him)

(None of them knew what to do when his fever hit critical. He started talking to people—children, mentors...family—who had been dead for over a century. The six of them were worse than lost when their seventh begged for his old family to talk back to him. He was sorry. He was so, so sorry. He missed them so much—please, he missed them and he missed home so much—)

(When Aang was conscious two days later, Mai sat him down and taught him all that he didn’t want to know but all that he needed to learn about poisons)

...

Four years of healing were four years of silly smiles and cozy camp-outs in the Palace courtyard. Four years of new family were four years of new brothers and sisters discovering, together, what family really meant.

Four years of new family were four Fall seasons where and when nothing (seemingly) happened. Four years and four seasons of dead and dying things came and went like they were never there.

Four Fall seasons became four bundles of dead branches burned between Summer and Winter. A pile of ashes became a memory barely remembered and a nightmare never forgotten.

Four years and four fires were four times he slipped away, unseen, from the anniversary of the war that they ended. Four times he slipped away were four times left by himself with a feeling that was worse than alone.

Four temples and four Fall seasons were nothing more than marks on a map and a calendar.

In the room that Aang used to call his in the home that he used to call theirs was where he kept all of the ‘counts’. At first, he marked the things they missed, just tallies and names on the wall.

Four years and four Fall seasons meant four-thousand names and smudged scribbles of forgotten faces and places they might have thought were pretty. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking and what was left of his heart wouldn’t stop breaking as he carved chalky tattoos, like unhealed scars, into the wall—the one with the window overlooking the places where he struggled to remember playing before.

He didn’t know he was forgetting them until he started having trouble remembering them. The tallies were lives lost, the dashes were shadows without faces, and the names of his family—the names of his old family…—decorated the head of the bed that he used to call his. 

He left them notes like they could read them and asked them questions like they might respond.

Four years and four Fall seasons meant nothing to him. He lost everything and everyone in the blink of an eye.

Aang tried not to stay at the temple, especially if he was alone. Thinking alone was dangerous. His thoughts were wild and threatened to burn him.

He made the mistake, once, of walking past the hidden hall that he and his friends—his old family...—used when they sewed chaos into the weave of their home. The hall was stuffed with fond memories but so poorly constructed—so narrow—that it only allowed enough room for a one-way direction to and from the outside.

It was a charred hole with a sooty-black throat that greedily swallowed his shadow. The blackened stone was melted—glassy—and smelled like the instinct to run.

It wasn’t until Aang got back to his family—his new family…—that he imagined his newest nightmare.

It wasn’t his new family’s fault. They weren’t the ones on the festival ride just to his left and screaming into his ear.

Aang’s empty stomach turned inside-out, and he dry-heaved so hard that he couldn’t breathe. It was a strange feeling, struggling for air, having his element all around him but kept just out of his reach.

Those few seconds of breathlessness turned the ground black and the sky into dirt, but someone caught him before his knees buckled. Someone else was patting him from head to toe with tender touches that left no part of him unturned.

His family were worried sick—sicker than he felt. They asked him in a million different ways and in a million concerned voices if he was okay.

Aang struggled to smile for them. It took him four or so tries to get it right. He couldn’t do anything about his shaking, though.

“Can...Can we go home, now?” He whispered his trembling words like they were secrets never meant to be said aloud. He looked at them like a wounded animal limping back to its master—a stray tucking its tail but crawling closer, desperate, with a broken smile peace-offering and a fit of flinches at any sharp sound. The beating was inevitable, but he pleaded for the chance to feel something soft before he was kicked again. He leaned into Katara’s hand, and he flinched and pressed harder when she was warm and real and didn’t move away from him.

He was their goofy little brother and their grinning parasite.

Aang fought his struggle to smile for them, and he trusted his big brother to carry the whole of his weight. Zuko was warm and familiar, and his gentle squeeze was a promise to not let go; Katara’s worried touches and soft kisses were safe, and she swarmed around Aang like a mobile shield.

Aang sensed their tensing. They were his family, after all. He always had two fingers on their happiness’ pulse.

Their questions were a distressed tidal wave.

He didn’t stop smiling even when he closed his eyes.

He couldn’t tell if the hushed voices he heard were from his new family in front of him or from his old family behind him. Aang remembered...

Aang rearranged his lips into what he remembered a smile felt like.

“Please? C’n we...Can we g-go home?” He opened one eye and found both of Katara’s waiting for him. She was horrified and concerned to tears, and she wasn’t the only one.

Aang almost sighed. His strength was bleeding out of him along with everything else. He struggled to keep smiling for her, and he struggled even harder to keep his eyes open. He flinched from the kicks that were their heartbroken looks, but he tried to give them a reason to smile. 

Zuko was really warm, though. And Katara’s hands felt really nice on Aang’s face.

The flame of his consciousness flickered—a candle left out in the rain.

“Please, K’tara?” He spoke without meaning to. It was an impulse, an instinct. It was the orphan and the last airbender crawling through the carnage and finally having a spot on the stage to speak.

Cold sweat beaded his brow, and frozen shivers shook his insides. He just wanted to go home, wherever or whenever that was. Everything was too blurry. He couldn’t remember anymore. 

Even his new family’s faces were blurry, now, and Aang’s element was torn out of him when his first choke on everything and everyone he lost freed the Oceans behind his eyes.

He just wanted to go home...

“...Please?”

Aang’s voice was the last of him to break, and his family all flinched like they could feel it. His shattered pieces fell all at once and shredded everything he knew and loved.

He curled his fingers into Zuko’s robe to keep himself above water. He shook like something dead about to be churned to ash and carried away—a forgotten memory—on an indifferent passing breeze.

...

When Aang was scared, he talked too fast. His sunshine-warm smile lost meaning. He hugged like he was trying to hold onto something, and he laughed a sound that rang hollow—distorted—like an echo returning from far away.

Toph was the first to notice. His heartbeat was...off. He acted like he was surprised by their group hugs, but the evidence of feeling anything was only skin-deep.

Aang was never happy. He didn’t get happy, either. Aang was happy. He and the word meant the same feeling like how the sun would always mean warmth.

Katara noticed it next—nearly in the same moment. She had no seismic sense, but his kiss wasn’t laden with giggles and his heart didn’t try to beat out of his chest to get to hers when she hugged him.

Suki saw it but didn’t tell the others. She was an elite warrior trained for years in the art of stealth. Aang was the White Dragon and White Lotus tile all in one, but he had a terrible poker face.

Five years marked the start of a new quartet and the shedding of all things old to welcome all things new. They knew Aang loved the festival of the anniversary of the war that they ended, but something was different this time.

Sokka’s instincts saw it coming. Zuko’s hearing picked up on it, too.

Toph won him a prize—a plate of pastries trying to be fruit cakes. Aang greedily ate them and said that he loved them.

His shoulders shook and said that he missed them.

His lip trembled and said that they scared him.

Suki touched between his shoulders and guided him towards something called ‘volleyball’. It was a three-on-three game.

None of them realized until they picked teams that Aang was no longer with them.

It was a three-on-three game.

There were seven in their family.

Mai cursed and cut the net before it could become a fire hazard, and she was barely fast enough to save the netting from turning to kindling when Zuko pulled his hair and charred the sand.

They found him an hour later by following the echoing huffs of Appa’s soft sounds.

Appa held him like he had to chase and pin him down, but Aang held him back like he could never hold on tight enough.

…

Hawky was a master navigator and a tool of military purpose.

Hawky was also distracted when he stopped in the Fire Nation Palace on his way to Aang’s room.

Hawky had never seen a turtleduck before. He was domestic and curious even though the mother turtleduck chased him off like he was a massive predator.

And that was exactly how Sokka found his old bird—soaked and waddling for his life.

There was a message in his pack.

Toph threw open her door to find whoever was about to die from such a fast heartbeat just as Sokka ran past, grabbed her, and sprinted them to the others.

Toph would have fought him if she wasn’t so confused.

Sokka didn’t cry that hard even at that time of year when some girl name Yue had to go away.

…

Hey, Gyatso!

I guess it’s been a hundred years, huh? That’s so weird to think about.

I’ve been meditating just like you taught me. Well, I think I’m doing it right. It’s hard to tell, anymore. I sit in front of the mirror to correct my stance, but it hasn’t felt right in a long time. It’s okay, though! I’ll figure something out. I’m sure there’s a prayer statue in one of the temples that’s still in one piece. I could always check in the mountains, too, but I don’t I can’t I’ll try to check the temples again, first.

A good friend told me yo the Air No all of the Guru Pathik said you’re not really gone, and I believe him.

It’s cold today. It rained, before, so new plants should be growing soon. You would really like it here.

Do you I I miss you. I try not to, but Guru Pathik said to let my emotions flow. He’s gone with you, though. It’s been two years, now.

I wish he He left befor Could you give him a hug from me when you see him?

I hope you don’t miss me, Gyatso. Missing people hurts a lot. I really hope you’re happy, Gyatso. I really, really do.

Please, please, please, don’t miss me.

I miss loved love you!

…

Hey, Gyatso

I have more family, now! You’d really like them. Katara could beat you at Pai Sho, for sure. I tried to show them how you swirled the gooey center of the fruit pies, but I don’t think I did it quite right. It’s hard to tell. I tried it a few times in the mirror, but, when I remember you doing it, I can’t see your hands anymore.

I’m trying, though! I’m trying!

Toph helped rebuild the statues in the temple. I don’t really know how, though. Mai and Zuko convinced me to stay with them and teach the schools how to host a dance while the others left on Appa.

The statues look great. They look almost life-like.

It’s been a hundred years, huh? I try not to That’s so weird to think about.

I can’t thi I don’t kno Please don’t miss me, Gyatso. I’ll write to you more so you don’t miss me. I promise. It’ll be okay. 

I can’t s Please, please, please, don’t miss me, okay? Please?

I loved y

My fathe

I loved you, Gy

I 

…

Wet scars like blood splatters littered the letters by the dozens and made Aang’s handwriting nearly illegible.

Katara couldn’t make herself read any more.

She was the last one to break.

Sokka had been the first.

The second she sat next to where their family cocooned him on the bed, he hugged her like she was the only thing keeping him from falling.

She had seen her brother cry before.

But Katara had never seen Sokka weep.

Missing fathers and fathers missing were scars that never quite closed.

Katara choked on years lost and years alone, and she barely felt their family huddle around them, blanketing them, protecting them from what they couldn’t see.

Sokka’s hand left his grip on her to search for someone who wasn’t there. Katara beat him to it, though. Her empty hands pawed her brother’s back and were only mildly tamed by Suki’s tighter hug.

Aang...

The worst part was the helplessness. It wasn’t like they could bring back the dead.

The second worst part was the guilt. He had been alone even when he was right with them.

The third worst part was admitting that they couldn’t heal him. He needed something stronger than stitches to mend his heart.

Sokka tensed and tried to get up with that bullheaded air of setting his mind on something, but he only collapsed further into Katara’s arms. Zuko held them tighter and hushed the both of them. He tried to distract them with a strategy or a plan of what to do.

“...What can we do, Zuko?”

Zuko shut his mouth. Suki held them tighter. Toph sniffled and fisted Sokka’s and Katara’s shirts.

In the too-far-off distance, Appa groaned a series of soft sounds.

They all paused. They all broke.

Suki was the last to start weeping.

…

Clumps. The beast was easy enough to track.

Appa recognized Mai well enough to remember Aang being happy—trusting her—when he hung upside-down from her shoulders and laughed that happy sound that made Appa’s world of no bison feel full of new life.

He let her pass but not without groaning a hurried list of what she had to do to help his buddy.

Mai patted Appa’s nose.

Aang was a pathetic bundle of orange in the far corner of the cave. He was a mountain breaking apart, but his tumbling boulders didn’t make a single sound. His words were cut. His voice was obsolete. He pressed himself into the wall like he might get to something better if only he could come out of the other side.

Mai was a shark fin cutting through still water, and she sunk to a seat right beside him. The ground was cold and damp, but he burned so hot that she could feel the licks of his fever from here.

Her sitting down was the placing of a needle onto a spinning record, and his sounds of sorrow finally broke free of him. They bubbled in his throat like blood threatening to drown him, and he coughed when the instinct to survive overrode his waning will to keep breathing.

Mai closed her eyes and emptied her lungs. She touched the bare skin of his back. He flinched like she had struck him, but he didn’t duck away from her.

Mai let her presence fill his silence. Even he didn’t know what he needed, but she kept doing what seemed to be working. Her hand rode the waves of his choked sounds in long, looping circles that lasted as long as the time it took to take two breathes.

His hiccups dulled to whimpers. His sniffles quieted to shivers. He dug his nails out of his arms and scowled like he was struggling to remember.

The apex of her hand’s circle was his inhale, the bottom of the arch guided his air out. She unwound him in every way and through every layer until he released himself and uncurled enough to show some of the yellow of his robes.

Aang bobbed his head like a metronome.

Mai kept scratching long, looping circles on his back.

He huddled into himself with a ghostly small smile and a barely-there hug, and Mai would have startled if she was a weaker woman.

Aang started to hum.

His vibrato was something within him thinning and threatening to break.

When he started to sing, that thing within him frayed.

It broke when he got to the upturned chorus. It was supposed to be a happy song.

Mai hugged her knees with one arm and scratched his back with the other—keeping him alive like a broken music box from a hundred years ago that lost its key and was fighting fate from becoming obsolete.

…

Aang wore his smile like it was something he could take off.

The Blind Bandit ripped it off of him.

The Blue Spirit broke it in half.

The Kyoshi Warrior tossed it into the fire.

The Painted Lady threw its ashes away.

The Swordsman melted it down and forged it into something protective.

The Dangerous Lady kept its daggers in her sleeves and dared someone to hurt him again.

...

Toph sat across from him and didn’t let him be alone.

Zuko walked past his room to remind him that there was a way out.

Suki brought him books with pictures to show him how to feel again.

Katara was his shadow, his shield, and his favorite dancing partner, coaxing his smile to come out and play with hers.

Sokka told him jokes and laughed hard enough for both of them.

(Mai sat with him and listened to everything she didn’t need to know but everything she wanted to learn about his loss.)

...

When Aang was loved, he couldn’t talk fast enough. His past and his future lost meaning. All that mattered was his family right in front of him and the smiles that bellied their every feeling.

They were tattoos that he could never wash off, not that he would ever, ever try.

Five years of wanting were five Fall seasons of feeling lost. Five Fall seasons of searching were five Fall seasons of feeling alone.

Five friends and one love were six members of his second family.

Two brothers a foot taller and three sisters twice as strong as him meant Aang rarely won when they wrestled.

Sokka was safe and familiar as he sat on Aang’s back. Katara shoved him off. Toph laughed and took his place.

Aang walked, almost skipping—so giddy that he was going to spill over—next to them. They went slow on purpose to stretch out the precious journey home, but he didn’t mind. He told them all about his first family and everything he loved about them.

“—it, Zuko! He rode a dragon, once, too! Oh, Katara, you wouldn’t believe—“

Five years and five seasons of dead and dying things meant nothing to them. They almost lost him in the blink of an eye, and they wouldn’t look away ever again.

They were each a stretch of ink tattooed around his heart. They were stronger than stitches. They were a part of him.

They shooed him away so they could pull him closer, and their smiles were challenges to the size of his own.

...

When Aang was hugged, all he knew was love. All of his wants and needs lost meaning. Everything that mattered to him was everyone who held him, and everyone who held him were always there for him before Aang even knew that he needed them.

Their hugs were surprises like finding out the dead were alive.

They surprised him every time. He flinched, however, like he had never done before.

He was trying, though. He was trying.

Him missing family and family missing him were scars that would always be tender.

Tender was okay, though.

The secret was the gooey center.

“...Sometimes...life is like this...t-this dark tunnel,” he told his swallowed shadow, “...C’n’t see the light...but if...if you just keep going...”

His family were already in the prayer field. They looked at him with faces armed with smiles and arms loaded with hugs.

Sokka waved and said something he shouldn’t have and that, even though it made their family laugh, compelled Katara to shove him into the fountain.

The water was cold.

Sokka screamed.

Aang froze for a small century. He didn’t breathe for a longer eternity.

...And then Aang laughed.

And Aang cried.

And Aang laughed so hard that he cried.

All Aang cared about were the arms now around him, and all he knew were their soft words spoken over and over.

“We love you.”

“It’s okay.”

“Sokka, you’re a dumbass.”

“Oh, shut up.”

The muted smack of a backhand sounded too much like Mai’s for it to be anyone else’s.

Aang laughed a little harder.

He didn’t want to go home, anymore. Home was a memory. Memories couldn’t feel like this.

In their arms, he was finally where he was meant to be.

In their arms, Aang was happy.

In their arms was what home should be.

And when they held him tighter, Aang never felt more wanted in his entire life.

...

And when next Aang needed to speak with him, he found a way.

“Hey, Gyatso,” Aang said, speaking to the person in the mirror who was once a boy, then the Avatar, and now a young man trying to make himself into something that his memories would be proud of. “Did you miss me? You won’t believe this, but Katara lost to me at Pai Sho this morning. She got me back with the fruit pie, though. It even had sea prunes in it...”

Aang talked some more, and he talked fast. The breeze wound into and through the folds of his robes like it was a lounging cat curling into the warm rooms of a new home and new favorite sunny spot. He smiled something brighter than joy and welcomed the windy hugs that could always hold him just tight enough.

When Aang talked to his father, his master’s tattoos lost meaning. The tattoo Gyatso had left behind was so bright that Aang’s eyes watered if he looked thought about it too much.

He talked and talked and cried and talked until he left himself breathless.

It was a strange feeling, being breathless.

His element was suspended away from him, but nothing felt out of his reach.

A body or two (or three) threw themselves at his door.

“Twinkletoes!”

“You better not have my lipstick again! I bought you your own for a reason!”

“Hurry up, Avatar, we’re going to be late!”

Aang laughed just as the—the wall opened?

Katara lassoed his neck with her arms and threatened to kill him with a kiss that yanked him above the clouds and dropped him into free-fall.

“What...” He blinked. “...I mean I...I-I mean I don’t...” He turned a color and temperature that made Katara smile like he hadn’t seen her do in far too long of a time. “...What do I have to do to get another?”

“Ugh.” Mai rolled her eyes and pointed down the wide hall of the secret passage. “Just don’t do anything stupid. And don’t be late for the fireworks.”

Aang smirked something evil, and Katara couldn’t help but smile.

The firelilies only looked pretty when Aang had two dozen in one hand and her hand in his other. He kissed her knuckles, offered his arm, and escorted her down the invisible red carpet. She hid her face in his arm and trusted him to keep her from walking into anything.

He laughed.

His empire breathed a sigh of relief.

The anniversary of the new world they built was familiar, but none of them felt home until they met together on the hill.

And nothing felt right until their sickness started acting up again.

“Aang! Get back here!”

“Aw, c’mon, Sifu Hotman! Where’s your sense of fun?”

None of them realized the fireworks were over until the sky got a bit darker and it was time to go home.

Aang was tired. And when Aang was tired, he dragged his feet and spoke in slurred songs. His lyrics found every lost feeling and forgotten meaning. They were long lists of pretty names and precious things, tender to the touch and still healing.

He was tired, happy, and teary-eyed as he sang a diary-entry of their day to the breeze dancing around them.

Four seasons were six loves and two families that would never let him slip away into the season of dead and dying things.

He was their goofy little brother and their grinning parasite. He was a candle left out in the rain.

So they built a fort around him. And they hugged him like they could never hold him tight enough.

And when Aang was at peace, he didn’t say a word. Words were meaningless. They were a constraint. They only meant a certain something.

So he laughed.

And he laughed.

And he laughed.

He laughed even when his family cried, and he laughed harder when they learned to laugh with him.

Six years of found family were six years of found love.

And all six members of his family would never—never—let him Fall again.

***************************************

[the-last-cuddlebender]

(Thought inspired by the lovely @queerahim)

Katara proposed to Aang, BUT...

Aang, being a dork, had a master plan to propose, but Katara beat him to it. HOWEVER, airbenders didn’t really do material things in general, and when it came to proposals, they did it with a wordless song, via airbending, or a dance, a la the spinning airbending movements (puts new meaning to the headband dance👀).

So when Katara proposes, Aang accepts by pulling her into a dance and singing a wordless song to her (that he had been holding secret for years).

Bonus points: The song he sings becomes his ‘coming home’ song that he greets Katara with when he comes home after being ‘the world’s Avatar’ for more than one day.

Bonus bonus points: Katara proposed not with a necklace but with a ~ring~. She carved a few dozen tiny engravings of an otterpenguin lying next to another otterpenguin and rubbing heads with it/something sweet like that. The ring can spin (like it was a ball-bearing), and when it spins, the engraved pictures create an animation. Aang is both a fidgeter and an airbender, so if he isn’t manually spinning it, then he is passively airbending it. Always.

Bonus bonus bonus points: Aang leaves Bumi his ring after he passes. Bumi is confused because he isn’t an airbender and therefore can’t passively spin the ring like his dad could. But, being a big fidgeter just like his dad, Bumi manually spin it all the time, anyways. ...He also quietly cries, either internally or externally, every time he makes it spin after he discovers he’s an airbender.

[the-last-cuddlebender]

The Feeling of Fatherhood

Hakoda didn’t warn Aang about this part. He had never held a baby before. 

******************************************

A/N: Just some bestdad!Aang and bestmom!Katara content—the fluffy tender moments that parents share bonding with each other and their newborn.

Rating: G

Words: 2,386

ArchiveOfOurOwn 

******************************************

Aang stayed in the room until the healers asked him to leave. They needed the extra room to work. 

Aang didn’t give a damn. 

Katara needed to hold his hand until it turned purple. He wouldn’t leave her. 

He almost hated that Katara convinced him to go. She would be fine, she said. The look in her eyes and the wince of her jaw told him otherwise. 

She held his hand a bit tighter before she let go, and Aang almost argued. 

Once outside their room, he threw open the nearest window with a gust of airbending and called inside the blizzard that was throwing itself against his temple. He crafted a frozen chair, sloppy and lopsided in his haste, and sat in it before the healers crowding into the room could tell him to go even further away from his wife. 

The head healer rolled her eyes and almost asked him to move on principle, despite his seat being, quite literally, frozen to the ground. 

Aang sat so close to the door that he risked a concussion every time it opened. His leg wouldn’t stop bouncing, and the wind paced back and forth, pressing against the door like it might see what was happening inside. It swirled and hid in the ruffling of his robes when he heard Katara’s first cry. 

Aang’s chest caved in like it was made of glass, but something kept him anchored in place. It felt like hands on his shoulders, and it brushed his mind like Kyoshi. 

Her screams eventually died out, though the brand they seared into his mind was raw and bleeding. Aang dug his nails out of his legs and was in the room before the healers were out. 

Katara was sweaty and pale and struggling to keep her eyes open, but she was smiling a smile that Aang had never seen before. Moonlight wept through the window and colored her like an oil painting. The now slowly falling snow dappled shadows over her like beads of rain sliding down a window. 

He was at her side in the next second. She looked like she had danced through hell. 

She was the most beautiful mess Aang had ever seen.

Katara's eyes were glazed and struggled to focus before finding him, and Aang’s world had never been brighter. “Hey...Hey, there, handsome,” she said, her voice dry and cracked like old paint peeling from the side of a ship. 

Aang’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Good evening, gorgeous.” He wiped the pasty sweat from her brow and tucked the frayed bits of loose hair behind her ears. He kissed her forehead. He took a second to breathe her in and drown out the lingering scent of drying blood. He pressed his brow to hers, and he relished the small smile he drew from his wife. She leaned into his hand cupping her face, and when he stroked her cheek with his thumb, she exhaled like she hadn’t breathed since last she saw him. 

Aang’s voice got impossibly quieter. “How are you feeling?”

Katara’s words slurred the barest bit. “Better n’that you're here.”

Aang kissed her again. “I love you. I love you so, so much, Katara.”

He pressed his lips to Katara’s cheek and held there, trying to say what words couldn’t.

Katara giggled. “I love you, too. Now get over here and meet your son.”

“...Son?”

Katara turned just a bit to show the bundle in her arms. “Say hello to your father, Bumi. This is your dad.”

Aang froze.

Dad.

Aang was a dad, now.

He was a dad.

He had a son.

“H...Hey…” Aang’s smile grew ever larger the longer he looked at their little Bumi—Spirits, he was so small—, and it stretched ever wider even after it felt like it might tear his face in two. “H-Hey there, little guy…”

Aang crawled in bed beside Katara, careful of her like she was made of glass. He should have known better—Katara was made of steel at minimum—, but some part of him had him moving cautiously like he might scare away the moment and the peace it brought.

“Well, go on, then.” Katara’s smile shone in her eyes even though she was too exhausted to curl her lip in a grin. “Hold him.”

Hakoda didn’t warn him about this part.

Aang had never held a baby before. 

“I...What if I...I-I don’t know—”

Katara sighed and gave him a tired but happy smile. “Aang, hold your son.”

Aang’s arms trembled as he took the swaddled bundle. Katara talked softly and instructed him, adjusting his hand, telling him to support Bumi’s head.

Aang didn’t know how to describe how he felt. 

His insides were filled with clouds.

He steeled himself and tried not to shake so much as Katara guided his hand away, just a bit, so his arm was still supporting his son’s tiny weight but letting his fingers have room to crawl up the bundle of downy blanket.

Bumi’s skin was so soft, like the moonpeach blossoms in their garden. His son squirmed to Aang’s touch like he was still water that Aang had just disturbed. 

“Katara, he’s—Katara, what do I—?”

“It’s okay. It’s okay.” She laughed. “He’s just waking up a bit. He’s like you in the mornings.” She kissed Aang’s cheek and compelled him to lean his shoulder to hers. 

“You can touch him, you know. He won’t bite. He doesn’t have any teeth.”

“What if I hurt him? O-Or scare him? What if—?”

“Aang.” Katara cupped Aang’s face. “He is your son. You are his father.” She kissed between his eyes and settled her cheek on his shoulder. She ran her hand over Bumi’s head before pulling away, for the moment. “You won’t hurt him.”

Aang swallowed. His son squirmed when Katara pulled away. Bumi was looking for her. His closed eyes scrunched up, and his lip wrinkled. 

The tender life in Aang’s arms swallowed the beginnings of a whine, and Aang’s heart broke and ran over with every feeling. 

“Hey, hey, hey—shhh...” Aang didn’t know whether he was moving on instinct or impulse, but he was too focused on the groping fingers, so very small, fitfully finding their way out of the blanket. Everything about himself became second nature—even his lungs threatened to abandon their attention to keep breathing in order to focus on his son. “Shhh...It’s okay, Boom...It’s okay…”

Katara kissed Aang’s shoulder and scratched his back. Pride oozed out of her smile. 

Aang touched his finger to one of Bumi’s groping hands.

Aang’s entire world stood still.

Bumi paused mid-squirm and immediately latched on. He wasn’t letting go.

His little hand pulled back into the warmth of his blanket, and Aang was so attuned to his every movement that he let his finger be dragged closer, too.

Then Bumi stopped pulling, content with the splayed hand blanketing him. 

Aang was laughing and crying before he realized it. 

His son felt safe. With him.

Aang had to keep so many people safe—so, so many—, but they always harbored a slight doubt in their eyes. He was only human. Even he made mistakes.

Bumi trusted him like it was the most natural thing in the world. He felt safe with him. Truly and genuinely safe. 

And he didn’t even know him, yet.

Katara rubbed Aang’s back some more and moved only to kiss his cheek before settling back down, and if he wasn’t holding their newborn son, Aang would have kissed her like they wouldn’t see the morning. He settled with kissing her hair and the part of her cheek that he could reach without disturbing the spot she had nestled herself into, and his heart swelled when she grinned beneath his lips.

She leaned on him, but it felt so much more like she was keeping him up.

“Katara?”

“Hm?”

“Katara, we have a baby.”

“Mhm.”

“Katara, we have a baby.”

Katara laughed, and some of the life returned to her face. “Really? I didn’t notice. I wonder where it came from.”

“Have I told you lately how gorgeous and amazing and wonderful and phenomenal you are? Because you are. A hundred million times over.”

“Your hyperbole is eloquent as always. I hope Bumi inherits it.”

Aang shook his head and laughed. “Oh, nonono. He won’t be anything like me. I can assure you that much. That would be horrible.”

Katara looked at him, concerned and somehow able to pick up the distress in his voice even though she was struggling to stay awake. “Aang, why would you say that?”

Aang struggled to find the words. He was doing that a lot, tonight. 

The bundle in his arms was perfect. Bumi was his and Katara’s son. 

Bumi was perfect. Just like his mother.

Aang wasn’t perfect. He was as far as could be from perfect. 

Aang could only wish that he wouldn’t taint his son. Bumi was a part of Katara. The two of them were worth—more than worth—protecting. 

He could only hope that Bumi wouldn’t turn out like him. 

Guilt weighed Aang into the mattress. His arms were shaking before he realized it, but Katara’s hand rested over his where it wound under and around their son.

Their son.

Their beautiful baby boy.

Katara’s thumb rubbed up and down his knuckles. 

“Well, I hope he takes after you. I hope he has your little laugh that can brighten up a room with just a giggle. I hope his heart is as big as yours is, too.” She cuddled closer to Aang’s side. “He’s going to love you so, so much.” 

Aang didn’t know which of them Katara was talking to, but he sagged while Bumi twitched, his delicate fingers finding a fold in Aang’s robes small enough for his hand to grab onto. 

Aang’s heart soared. 

“Hey, there...Hey, there, bud.” Aang brushed the barest bit of the back of one of his fingers on his son’s tender cheek—so soft, too vulnerable. Aang didn’t know why he expected rejection. “It’s so nice to finally meet you, Bumi. My name’s Aang.” Aang hesitated. “I’m your dad.”

The words left his mouth, and Aang couldn’t stop his tears if he tried.

He said it again, just to hear it—to make sure this all wasn’t some beautiful dream. He didn’t know why he was waiting for someone to tell him that it was.

“...I’m your dad.”

Bumi smacked his lips and held the finger on his cheek. 

“I’m all yours, buddy.” He kissed his son’s head, and he kissed Katara’s, too, when he pulled back. “Always—I will always be yours. I love you more than you could ever know, and I will always be yours.”

Katara leaned over. She brushed back the few silk-thin threads of hair on Bumi’s head and kissed him.

She kissed Aang, too, first on the dying trails of tears on his cheeks and then on his lips. His smile kept her trapped for longer than her shaking muscles could keep her up, and they were both laughing when she slumped against him again. 

They didn’t talk for the rest of the night. Words weren’t needed. 

In that moment, their very souls were peeled raw and exposed, and Aang and Katara tenderly wove into themselves the newest joy to claim a place in their hearts. 

At some point, Bumi was in Katara’s arms again, holding onto and bonding with his mother.

Aang sat behind them. He laid at enough of an angle that Katara didn’t have to keep herself up, and he molded himself like armor around his family. He pressed his cheek to Katara’s temple and bent his knees up to sit like castle walls keeping his two treasures safe. One of Aang’s arms wound around Katara’s, and he rested his hand over hers so they were both cradling their son. 

The wind, content and curious, pushed and pulled the warm feeling in the room like it was trying to stretch out the moment and make it last forever. Aang painted the back of Katara’s hand with his thumb and drew the lapping currents of air. The wind dripped tiny breezes like happy tears, welcoming into the world the new life that had air braided as deeply and as tightly into the strings in its soul as in Aang’s. 

Aang’s other hand laid on his son. His fingers reached under Bumi’s chin and brushed the barest tip of his pointer finger to his son’s cheek.

Whenever his heart threatened to spill over, Aang gave Katara tender kisses to her hair, cheek, and wherever else he could reach. He eventually rested his chin on her shoulder, and he grinned impossibly wider when Katara leaned her head to his and relaxed. She took down every one of her barriers and put herself and Bumi in Aang’s care, trusting him unconditionally. 

Something like pride filled Aang’s chest and made him feel bigger and stronger than he was. 

Bumi, one hand already clutched to Katara, squirmed fitfully, almost looking like he might be afraid. His tiny arm blindly grasped into the void and reached into an emptiness that made his face scrunch up all the more.

But then Aang pointed out his little finger to catch Bumi’s hand when it flailed past. 

And Bumi recognized his father’s touch and latched onto Aang without question.

Calm that came from safety settled over Bumi’s tender features. 

Katara smiled and rolled her head back. She nuzzled the curve of Aang’s jaw. Her voice was small and lost volume with every word, but it was right near his ear. It was bellied by her smile and something else that Aang couldn’t quite place even though it had every one of his senses latching onto it and his inner fire threatening to roar. 

“Look at you, Mister Dad. I knew my Forever Boy would be an amazing father.”

Aang held her closer—her and their son. The two halves of his heart teetered on sleep, and Aang swore on his honor, his past lives, and everything that he was or ever would be that he would keep them safe. 

Katara relaxed against his chest. 

Bumi held his finger a little tighter.

Aang felt like he could move a mountain. 

******************************************

Rushed to finish this fic because I’ve had a hell of a rough week and needed a fluff-aid-kit. (apologies for any choppiness🙏)

[the-last-cuddlebender]

Kataang Pilot!AU

(This prompt was really fun. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it, Anon!)

Words: 1,659

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Katara met him when they were in flight school. Well, ‘met’ might be too strong a word.

She was walking down the hall and contemplating fluid dynamics when she passed him—the boy with tattoos a shade of blue that put the sky to shame and with a smile so bright that she had to squint to behold it. His laugh was a vapor trail that made her giddy like nothing else had done before. He gesticulated so animatedly that he nearly cut off the heads of a dozen passers-by.

Katara tried, once, to talk to him. It was the only test in flight school that she failed. She was too quiet; the world was too loud. It didn’t exactly help that some boy named Haru had pulled the tattooed boy into a headlock that devolved into a wrestling match just as she got his attention.

He tried, twice, to talk to her. He was more than successful both times.

The first time, he spotted her from across the courtyard and damn near teleported to her.

His name was Aang. He wasn’t that tall.

He was the kindest soul she’d ever met.

When he left the school, he took most of her with him, and Katara had been searching for what he stole ever since.

...

Not too long after he left her puzzled, empty, and longing, Katara had to leave, as well. But it wasn’t for an advanced program like he flew off to.

Gran-Gran had a heart attack. It wasn’t pretty. Katara was the glue and the salve cooing her brother and her father to cope and recover. They helped her just as much, and she vowed to visit them more.

(Gran-Gran told her that she saw death, called him a bitch, and reminded him to tell her daughter-in-law that Kya had to wait another ten years for her company.)

...

Katara was only a little behind and only had to retake a few classes when she returned to flight school a year and a half later, but it wasn’t the end of the world.

Graduating was easy, but choosing an employer? That was hard. Katara was an ace—the top of her class. They even put her photo in the hall of notable students.

...She was reminded of Aang and what he stole from her every time she saw his portrait pinned next to hers.

...

It was a requirement to serve as a co-pilot for the first few years after schooling. It was like a continued education after medical school when an MD truly learned what it meant to be a practitioner, but turning from co-captain to captain felt like it was taking twice as long.

Sometimes, it took students twelve years to become a captain. Sometimes, it took them two years.

It took Aang eight months.

Katara was entering her ninth month when she was transferred to his airline.

He spotted her from across the terminal like he had been waiting and looking for her. He vanished and reappeared at her side, and if only he had a puff of smoke, she would have thought him a magician.

He shook her hand and talked at Mach speed. His smile alone nearly blew her away, but his hand holding hers kept her on her feet.

“—it was you! They all said you dropped out, but I knew you wouldn’t! And then I saw your plaque when I visited on a favor-call from Roku, and I couldn’t believe—!”

He paused. Katara’s world stood still. Her world also looked kindof splotchy and dotted with black.

That was weird…

Oh wait.

Breathing.

Breathing was a thing she had to do.

Unfortunately, Katara was too late in her revelation. Her heart broke when his eyes softened like that and his concern boiled over into panic. She was thinking about how nice it sounded when he said her name even as she fell back and fainted.

He caught her, of course.

Luckily, Mai and Lu Ten were willing to exchange their schedules to save either Katara or Aang from being fired.

(He had refused to leave her. It was incredibly foolish. Top in the industry or not, their superiors would only take so much from even him.)

It wasn’t exactly a first date, but he bought her food from the cafeteria and bought her one of those super-fuzzy travel blankets to keep her warm. They talked over pizza that was so greasy that they had to dab it with napkins, and they laughed over coffee that was far too bitter to be called ‘edible’.

They shared secrets over hot cocoa and talked like they knew each other forever.

Aang thought he was being sly when he loaded his straw with a paper wad and blew it at her.

He smiled like a kid on Christmas.

Katara felt like she was one, too.

The g-forces she experienced when he smiled—at her—made her so lightheaded that she whispered a thankful prayer to whoever was pulling her life’s strings that she was seated when she first witnessed the miracle so close and in its entirety.

They fell asleep back-to-back (though it was more like side-to-side) in the terminal—just another ‘couple’ bending under the stress of a connecting flight.

...

“You seem eager to be out of here.” Katara settled into her co-pilot’s chair as her captain fussed over the little details that Katara’s classmates had made fun of her for caring about.

“Ba Sing Se has never been...Well, let’s just say that it’s not like how I was raised.”

“But the South is?”

“Of course! Middle of nowhere, lots of high places, room to run and frolic as I please—”

Katara couldn’t hide her laugh. “Frolic?”

“Have you never frolicked?”

“When I was a girl, maybe.”

“You should try it sometime. It’s not like it gets any less fun with age.”

“Is that an invitation?”

“...Maybe.” Aang scratched his face, didn’t meet her eyes, and flushed a color even brighter than the emergency exit sign. “Or it could...be a date?”

“To go frolicking?”

“Of course.”

It was quiet until it wasn’t. A giggle slipped past Katara’s defenses. She hugged her middle and laughed so hard that she cried, and she nearly laughed herself into a coma when Aang bent over, too. His laugh sounded like how good memories felt, and Katara never wanted to hear more of something in her entire life.

She couldn’t feel her seat beneath her—just the feeling of her hand on his arm and the soft bumping of his head against hers.

Katara was falling, and she was falling hard.

But, for some reason, she wasn’t scared of hitting the ground.

If she didn’t know any better, she might have thought that she was flying.

...

Sokka, having heard the hint of interest in Katara’s voice when she recounted her tale with her dreamy tattooed captain, made immediate plans and cashed-in on more than a few favors to get himself onto her new schedule. He didn't trust Aang, not at first. No one could be that happy.

“—and gentlemen, in the event that you have not been in an automobile since 1942, we’re gonna show you how to fasten a seatbelt, so watch closely—”

Sokka, while a phenomenal flight attendant, was walking a razor’s edge onto Katara’s last nerve.

But Aang and her brother got along famously.

Katara should have expected nothing less.

This was Aang she was talking about.

Her boyfriend could befriend the devil himself.

The thought made Katara’s world get fuzzy and black-splotchy again. Luckily, Aang was laughing too hard with Sokka to notice her holding tight to the wall.

Breathing.

Breathing was a thing she had to do.

Aang’s vapor-trail-laugh gave her the cardinal directions and guided her towards which way was up. His arm curled around her waist like the seatbelts that had kept them anchored when they hit turbulence two months ago and dropped 400 feet.

Katara didn’t notice when next she blushed so hard that her vision went black-splotchy again.

But Aang, without pausing his conversation, was already tugging her closer so she all but pressed right against his heart.

His laugh died out. His chest slowly expanded.

Breathing.

Katara smiled.

Breathing was a thing she still had to do.

...

When Katara finally got her wings, Aang couldn’t have been more proud.

Sokka puffed his chest. “This is Katara, my flying sister.”

“Sokka, please…”

“Yeah, Sokka.” Aang was a grinning shadow touching her shoulder and a reminder to smile brushing her side. “Katara isn’t your ‘flying sister’.”

“Thank you, Aang—”

Aang hugged her from behind and held her so tightly that he curled over and started to eclipse her. “Katara is my flying girlfriend~”

Aang rubbed his cheek to hers. Katara grumbled and fought fate to keep angry as long as she could. “You both are insufferable.” She kissed Aang’s cheek like she was swatting a mosquito, but it only made him giggle and hold her tighter.

Sokka pretended to gag and uttered ‘Oogies’ like a mantra.

Katara blushed, lost her slippery grip on the smile fighting to make itself seen, and looked at her father just as the shutter on Hakoda’s camera went off.

...Aang carried the photo on his person like it was a medical device so vital that he would die if he was ever without it.

“Do you have to keep it there?” Katara pulled one switch and then two, and she side-eyed her smirking First Officer.

Aang ignored her and adjusted the photo pinned to the gauges in front of him. His smile got a little bigger, his eyes a little softer. He looked down at the clouds below them and then up at the heavens beyond. “...The stars sure are beautiful, tonight.”

His hand found hers—they were at an altitude that required little more than autopilot, but it was still breaking regulation.

Katara gently squeezed his fingers. “Yeah. They are.”

...

All of their nights melted into a routine that felt like the same night played over and over.

Katara wouldn’t have had it any other way.

She didn’t mind when Aang put up a fuss just because he could and because he liked to get her flustered. She didn’t even mind when he cocooned himself in the blankets and pouted in a silent demand for five more minutes.

He was only playing. He could be plenty serious if he wanted.

Like the time he crabbed the plane onto an icy runway in an emergency landing. Or like the time he dove into the belly of the plane to give CPR to an elderly passenger.

His seriousness could only go so far, though. He truly was a child at heart. There was nothing wrong with that, of course. Something forever young could never grow brittle and die.

Like the way he blushed every time she reached for his hand. Or like the little hitch to his voice that took over his words whenever she hugged him.

He could hardly speak when he asked her to marry him.

Katara wasn’t that much better off, but neither of them had needed words for the longest time. They sat side-by-side in the nose of the plane and ‘spoke’ in the silence for hours on end.

Kisses were quiet, anyways.

Well, not entirely.

Aang laughed, absolutely giddy, every time, no matter how much or how often they did.

Katara’s laugh drifted in his vapor trail as a gentle hum that made his smile impossibly bigger.

Then, and only then, did it feel like she had finally gotten back what he had stolen—all those years ago—from her.

...

His voice was a song, and his love bled into every worded lyric. They were the warm purrs of an engine that would never fail, and they made Katara’s stomach fall and bounce heaven-ward like her wheels had just left the ground.

When she danced with him, every step felt like lift-off. Every turn gave her g-forces that had her sinking into him to keep from being blown away.

The wedding was over, their guests were gone, but every star and galaxy crowded the sky to witness their love for each other.

This was her captain and co-pilot—her husband and best friend for life.

His name was Aang. He was very tall and quite proud of it, though he made himself eye-level with every person he met.

He was a simple monk and a dirty thief.

But Katara finally had back what was hers.

What was hers was named Aang.

He was the kindest soul she’d ever met.

He kept her grounded even though her feet never touched the earth when she was with him.

He was the part of her that she loved most.

His kisses were g-forces.

His ‘I love you’s were free-falling.

His hugs were the wings that handed her the sky.

His smiles were the spirit that held her aloft.

His name was Aang.

He was hers.

He was the kindest soul she’d ever met.

And Katara would remind him of how much she loved him even long after they were both tied to the earth.

*********************************

.

.

If you spotted that reference to Tao philosophy, I give you a cookie🍪☺️

[the-last-cuddlebender]

Aang Sleepwalksfights

Sometimes, when he sleeps, Aang speaks to his past lives. Sometimes, when he sleeps, Aang’s past lives speak to him.

Katara doesn’t tell him that he walks around and talks in a dozen different voices. He sometimes argues, quite literally, with himself for most of the night. She’s too entertained by his eyes shifting between grey, gold, green, and blue like he’s shuffling through a dozen different faces. He phases through just as many mannerisms, and those are all the more entertaining.

Apparently, neither Aang nor his past lives know that Aang does this. Katara likes to keep it that way.

But then, one night, their rag-tag family is laying around the fire, awoken by the angry voices from generations passed, and Katara can’t believe she didn’t think sooner to talk back to Aang or his past lives when they spoke to ‘the image of Katara’.

They all try their damndest not to laugh as Wang Fire and Avatar Yangchen debate the finer qualities of a proper therapy session and lament how so very hard it is to find a good therapist these days.

Suki almost pops a lung when Sapphire Fire and Avatar Kyoshi team up to tell Avatar Kuruk and Bonzu Pippinpaddleopsicopolis’ half-burned-faced and half-grown-(suspiciously white and smelling of hay)-mustached grandson that they are, in fact, very wrong in telling Aang that the best way to a lover’s heart is to act aloof.

They all nearly blow their cover when The Boulder, though shorter and angrier, tells Avatar Roku that he has no balls, shouts back at his piss-poor insult that he’s a wimp for being spanked by a volcano, and demands that the old man square up.

(They tell Aang that he tumbled and fell in his sleep to explain away the bruises.)

[the-last-cuddlebender]

Idea:

Zuko and Aang are afraid of needles and dread the day the ATLA universe develops vaccines.

The Gaang has to form a hunting party (headed by Sokka) to catch the young Firelord and Avatar because the two of them whole-heartedly refuse to comply with modern medicine (because they are both terrified of needles for their own reasons).

Sokka lays traps to catch them. He almost gets Aang, but Zuko was once an Avatar-hunter as well. Plus, he knows Sokka.

Katara goes on the offensive. Aang and Zuko are equally terrified but manage to put their last brain cells together and escape.

Toph promised Katara not to break them, but there’s no fun in playing nice so she tries to bribe them instead. They say no, but Toph gives them stuff anyways because she has better things to do.

In the end, they both collapse from exhaustion and laugh it off as they watch the sunset, happy to have survived the day.

Zuko: That was…*pant pant*...that was close.

Aang: I’ll say...I can’t remember ever being this out of breath…*pant pant*...I’m an airbender for the Spirits’ sakes…

Zuko: I don’t think I can move.

Aang: I know I can’t.

Zuko: At least the sunset is pretty.

Aang: *looks at sunset and sighs happily...but then looks at Zuko and sees him emptying the syringe that he didn’t feel had been inserted into his arm*

Aang: ...Et tu, Zuko?

Zuko: Sorry. *he gives himself a shot as well* There, now we’re even. And it wasn’t even that bad, now was it?

Aang: *happy lil nugget* ...Thanks, Zuko.

(Zuko was never afraid of needles. He just didn’t want his bud to feel alone in his fear, since he knew too well what that felt like, and he didn’t want him to be held down and forced to do it like the rest of the Gaang wanted, because he also knew what that felt like).

[the-last-cuddlebender]

To heal my heart of the beautifully painful widower!Aang fics I’ve read today, I humbly offer some littleshit!Aang Kataang fluff in these trying times:

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Katara palmed his face and tried to push him away. Aang laughed, held her tighter, and slipped past her defenses. His kiss was a tranquilizer and a compulsion to hug his neck. He silenced her grumbling with more tender touches, but she made sure to berate him between breaths.

“You’re ridiculous.” He kissed her. “And dumb.” He kissed her again. “And insufferable.” His grin was infectious, childish, and one of the most precious things in her world, and the little giggle hidden behind it threatened to break her resolve. “And infuriating beyond all measure.”

Aang practically purred. “Hm, tell me more about how much I annoy you.”

She smacked his shoulder, but his face lit up like she kissed him. “Why do I love you again?”

He pressed his forehead to hers and made his loving look her entire world. “I’m still trying to figure it out. I don’t deserve you.” He kissed her blush and the edges of the smile she was vainly fighting. “You’re kind.” He kissed her. “And caring.” He kissed her again. “And always there for me.”

Katara huffed, refusing to surrender, and spun around in his arms. She pretended to ignore him and picked up the cup of tea she had been drinking.

He accepted her challenge with gusto, and he (un)fortunately knew how to take her down with precision. He held her waist and tugged her back against his chest. He was warm and smelled like old leather—the kind that had been passed down from one generation to another and was still reliable after years of use and abuse.

Katara grumbled into her mug when he hummed their song and started to sway them. He kissed her shoulder, but he didn’t stay there for long. His stupid grin got bigger and bigger as he trailed up her neck, over her jaw, onto her hair, and then against her cheek. Katara didn’t realize that he had eased her mug from her hands until she heard the dull thump of porcelain on wood.

She grumbled some more and louder, and his joy braided into his hum like the purr of an engine she was feeding. His hands were familiar and where they were supposed to be when he laced his fingers with hers. He took his time showing them his love, too.

His ‘I love you’s were unspoken and annoying, but they tugged out her white flag. She slumped to make her opinion clear, even as she swayed with him, and he accepted her surrender with a smile pressed against her cheek.

“...Don’t think that this gets you out of trouble.”

He spun her around without pulling them apart, and too soon he had her snared in that stupid grin again. “I don’t ever want to get out of what I have with you,” he drawled, guiding her into their dance.

Katara hid under his chin so he couldn’t see her smile. “Oh, shut up.”

He pretended to sound thoughtful, and Katara rolled her eyes and didn’t try to fight the compulsion to hug his neck when he once again held her around her middle. He spoke against her temple and mumbled in a voice as warm and annoying as he was. “Y'know, Katara, there's a very easy way to make me do that~”

“You’re in danger of losing kissing privileges again,” she said through a sigh. She didn’t mean to sound as content as she did, but she was too tired to do anything about it. “I hope you know that.”

His laugh was happy thunder against her ear. “Me? Be in danger with you?” He pulled away—just a bit—and kissed around her lips like a playful tigershark before she could conjure the thought to stop him. “I thought you would never ask~”

Katara’s sigh was exhausted and annoyed with his antics, but her smile was playful and encouraging of what made him Aang. “Why do I tolerate you again?”

“Because you like me.”

Katara shouldn’t have turned the color that she did, but she was defenseless when he pressed his forehead to hers and made his love for her her entire world.

“...I don’t deserve you,” he said.

Righteous fury yanked him into a kiss that stunned his smile off his face. Katara ducked under his chin and held him tight before he could completely recover.

“Don’t you ever say that like you mean it,” she mumbled into his robe. “Besides, I’m always right, and I won’t tolerate you implying that I’m wrong for agreeing to marry your butt.”

Aang laughed a sound that put church bells and sunny afternoons to shame.

“So does that mean you like me?”

“...Maybe.” She pulled away enough to make herself his entire world. “It depends.”

Aang shouldn’t have been as excited as he was, but he couldn’t help himself. He fought the urge to shuffle in place, and he contained his flood of feelings to mild pecks on her cheeks. “Oh? Depends on what?”

“How well you can convince me.”

“Do I get to still be in trouble?”

“You’re always in trouble.”

“Oh, thank the Spirits,” he said, sounding so relieved that Katara couldn’t help but laugh. He kissed her some more, slowly but intently like he was finding his way across a map. He savored her annoyance and the ‘I love you’s hidden behind it, and Aang couldn’t think of a time or a place that he’d rather be as he restarted his campaign to leave her as weak as she made him.

[the-last-cuddlebender]

Okay but listen

Modern!AU Kataang

Beekeeper!Aang

Aang loves every one of his little bubbly bumble bees

He sells honey and honeycomb and beeswax at the little farmers market under the bridge in the city. It’s held right against the grassy bed of the canal, and the bridge is huge and gives them plenty of shade. It’s like an amphitheater in under there

His stall is 2 aisles across from Katara’s, but they clearly see each other through the gap that was made for the walkway in the aisles between them. 

Sokka runs a food truck and leaves the TV on so the mini-plaza that they made can always watch the game (the “Icedodgers” are Sokka’s favorite team)

Aang’s literally the sweetest thing there

Katara got stung by the love bug and hasn’t recovered.

He was so calm and nice that he rarely ever got stung by his bees, not even those that accidentally followed him to market (he hushed them like little kids, put them in a little net carrier, and took them back home)

He was a quiet man, but he was always moving, even if it was just the slightest bit--the bouncing of his leg, the tapping of his finger, or the little fiddle with a fold of his shirt. If he talked, though, he was anything but quiet...but he was always kind

He was always—always—moving. Always buzzing with energy.

He was graceful but also clumsy. It was a...unique combination. It didn’t hurt him one bit, though. He bounced off like it had meant nothing. (he was literally like the lil bees he so loved...he claimed to have a favorite named Appa)

Katara grows moonpeaches and sells them in the market, but, one year, her trees aren’t doing too hot.

She has a little cry about it after she hits her breaking point, and Aang is helping her in an instant

Long story short, she asks to rent some of his bees to help her trees (that her mother had planted) so that her business doesn’t go under (renting bees in a real thing btw my neighbors do it with their blueberry farm)

Aang does her one better and gives her a full hive, but he has to teach her how to handle and care for them, of course. 

Katara was by no means weak, but even she couldn’t help herself if she was swarmed. 

She hit her head pretty bad when she gets spooked and falls back, but she didn’t want to go to the hospital. The last time she went there with someone, she was the only one to come out. 

Aang helps her get better

Katara has to take some medicine, but a spoonful of sugar isn’t around (honey works just as well, though)

The first time she calls him “honey”, it’s an accident

The second time she doesn’t know she did it until she sees his smile

The third time it’s to wave him down when he’s a little lost trying to find the restaurant she had chosen to have their first date (he had spun in a graceful little circle but also bumped into a pole--clumsy but graceful as always)

The first time he calls her “sweetie”, it’s right before their first kiss

The second doesn’t have a limit, because he called her by the nickname every moment after

...Their businesses both boom in the next season

Because no one had seen moonpeaches so big

And no one had tried honey made from the pollen from moonpeaches. It was almost pinkish in the right light

Kindof like a blush

Like whenever he called her sweetie

Or whenever she called him honey

The end?

[the-last-cuddlebender]

The Swamp

Katara went back to the swamp—maybe even lived there for a while—after Aang dies just so she could see him again, even though he was just a vision. (“The swamp shows us people we’ve lost. People we loved.”)

Every time she she follows after him, he leads her to pretty flowers or a particularly serene pool.

But he’s always facing away from her.

After a while, he leads her to the edge of the swamp like he was asking her to go home and be happy.

Then he stops appearing altogether, so Katara has no reason to stay anymore.

She leaves with a heavy heart, but, when she looks back at the swamp one last time, she sees him again. And this time, he’s facing her. And Sokka is right beside him with his arm slung over Aang’s shoulder as they both smile and wave at her. Katara swears they mouth ‘I love you, sis’ and ‘I love you, sweetie’, but then she blinks, and they’re gone.

She keeps a bit of swamp water from one of the pools Aang’s vision had led her to. She keeps it in the same vial as the spirit water from the North Pole. Every now and again, she’ll bend it like a coin between her fingers and smile when she sees a pair of shadows at the edge of her vision. Sometimes they’re roughhousing, sometimes they just sit with her.

Sometimes she can’t see them, but she senses them right behind her and swears she feels their hands on her shoulders.