Zutara Shared Denim P. 2

Katara started at Zuko’s sudden harsh tone, but the firebender wasn’t watching her.  His golden eyes drilled into the stone at his feet, dark memories torturing his mind.  The scar on the left side of his face tingled with the power of it all.  He could remember it all so vividly.  Fire blazing in his father’s palm, a maniacal gleam in amber eyes as he watched his son burn, glass breaking against walls, the incomprehensible screaming of a drunkard, his mother’s pleas…  And then Katara’s voice, not in the past, but in the present, splitting through his turbulent thoughts like cool ocean water breaking against a rocky shore.

“I… I’m sorry…” she stuttered quietly, looking away.  “I didn’t mean to put words into your mouth.  It’s just that… I just wanted to make you feel better.”

“No, don’t apologize,” Zuko quickly insisted, his voice weak.  “It’s not your fault.  And I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that.  I’m sorry.”

“So then…  Tell me about you.”

Zuko looked up, startled by her sudden demand.  Katara just stared at him, her expectant smile making her eyes glitter silvery in the sunset.  Her soft chocolate curls held a golden sheen at the edges.  She smiled a little brighter, silently amused by his incredulous look.

“Zuko?”

“W-well, um…”  He tried to think of an intriguing topic, but nothing really came to mind.  Not that nothing interesting happened to him, but everything interesting that happened to him was more disturbing than Katara should know.  She had everything so perfect and easy… he didn’t want to be the one to have to destroy her hopeful view of the world.  He knew what people were capable of.  His scar tingled…  “Why would you want to know?” he whispered darkly to himself, but Katara thought he was talking to her.

“Well, I… you said I should stop pretending to know about you, so…”  She paused, a little hurt by his cold tone.  “I figured if you told me a little bit about yourself…”  Her voice lowered to an embarrassed whisper.  “… I wouldn’t have to pretend anymore.  But… if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s okay too…”  Katara stood, brushing off her jeans.  “I, um, guess I’ll see you later, then…”  She turned to hurry away.

“Katara, wait.”  Zuko stood.  Katara paused, her blush a deep magenta in the orange sunset.  She avoided his gaze, but waited for him to speak.  Once again, Zuko found his tongue catching over the words.  “U-um, well, I, uh…  I like sword fighting.  I pretty much taught myself, but Uncle says I’m naturally good, so… yeah…”  Katara turned to him, her eyes bright with gentle, coaxing curiosity.  She sat back down, but Zuko was too busy stuttering to notice.  Random things, anything, that she might find remotely interesting…  He tried to avoid all the dramatic, depressing stuff and give her petty details about himself, but he was having a hard time doing that.  Finally, the waterbender grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him down onto the wall next to her.  That seemed to knock the next few sentences out of him.

“I wanted a pet when I was six.  A bunnydog…  Yeah, that’s right.  I wanted a bunnydog because my sister was no fun to play with.  She was always mean…”  Whoops, too personal.  Too close to the dark stuff he was trying to get around.  “I never got one, though, because my dad-”  Crap!  Again…  “Um… he’s allergic.  Yeah, that’s it…  I’ve never had any friends.  When I moved here, I guess I was too mean for anyone to want to be friends with anyway…  I guess I scared them all off.  Even after my uncle said I was improving, everyone avoided me.  But I just… well, I have trouble making friends.  I never did get out much when I was younger, being rich and important and always having intimidating bodyguards following me everywhere.  I guess it’s nicer now, being alone.  Well, not alone, but… well, with more privacy.”  He paused.

Katara took the initiative.  “So… you like being normal more than being rich and popular?”

He was on the borderline now, but what could he do besides answer the question?  “Yeah…”  Vague.  Be vague.  She’d be horrified, alienated, if she knew what really happened.  She’d think I was from a dysfunctional family.  Then she’d pity me, or worse, be afraid of me…

“It is nice…” Katara whispered happily.  She’d been a regular celebrity back in the city at the South Pole, but now that she lived here in Ba Sing Se, things were so different.  Sure, people knew who she was, but they didn’t follow her around with cameras and a billion questions anymore.  Everything was so much simpler.  “No more paparazzi and prying fans…  Everything’s so much quieter.  You get a chance to have a real life, you know?”  She looked to Zuko.

“Yeah… it is nice.”  He had to agree.  Anything was nicer than an ill-tempered father with an alcohol addiction who didn’t give two cents about his son, and a cold, heartless sister who only cared about money and making it in the headlines – any way she could.  All the scandals and rumors and affairs… and the only person he could confide in was his mother, and now she was gone.  Anything had to be better than what he’d left behind.  Zuko had almost felt joy along with the relief when his father had finally sent him away.  Still, it was hard, having to leave his last memories of his mother behind, knowing they would never be honored by his father and sister.  It had almost torn him apart, the anger at injustice.  Zuko’s lips tightened into a painfully strait, wire-thin line.  No matter how much it hurt, his alternative was far better: living with an uncle who cared the world for him and wanted nothing but the best, a job that kept his mind busy, keeping him from looking back, enough free time to do the things he enjoyed and to keep his sword-play and firebending sharp, and maybe, just maybe, someone who could love him, no matter wh-

But she didn’t know the whole story.  How could she love him no matter what, with the same tolerance for any imperfection that he had for her, if she didn’t know what he really was, what he’d really escaped from?  Maybe it would feel nice to spill his soul to someone, at last, something he hadn’t even done with his uncle.  Maybe she would understand?  She was an understanding person…  But would she understand this?  One way to find out…

Zuko sucked in a deep breath.  “I wanted a bunnydog to play with, because my sister hated me.  She hated everyone who didn’t fawn over her every second, and follow her every command, and give her whatever she wanted.  She hated me a lot because I never did any of those things.  She’s more happy than even my father that I’m gone.  My father… he hated me – he hates me – too.  He always told me, from the beginning, that I was a mistake.  He told me I was weak and stupid and good for nothing.  And he drank.  A lot.  And when he got drunk he would get mad at anyone he saw.  It was normally me or mom.  Azula was always gone at some party…”  

Zuko choked on his words again, coming to the end of his story, a nightmarish ending to a nightmarish tale.  He didn’t dare look over at Katara’s face, or even if she was still sitting next to him.  It felt good to spill, even if no one was listening, though it was even better if someone was.  He’d tried never to speak of, or even think about, his past.  From the day he’d stepped off that plane into his uncle’s gracious glomp, he’d sworn to never look back.  It hurt to now, after so many months’ silence, but it was a good pain.  It was a healing pain.

“One night, my father was drunk again.  He was really mad, too, because my mom had found out he was cheating on her and had tried to confront him rationally about it earlier.  My father… he doesn’t do anything rationally.  He got drunk, and then he grabbed my mother by the hair and threw her against the wall.  I was in the room when it happened, and when I cried out, he turned on me.  He…”  Zuko’s hand moved unwittingly to his scar, his quaking fingertips brushing over the charred skin before tightening into a white-knuckled fist.  His muscles were tense, his jaw set, his teeth clenched, when he hissed, “He gave me this scar.”

A gasp from beside him told the firebender that his waterbender was still there, and still listening.  A grateful ache came into his heart at that not-so-simple kindness before he slipped back into his darkest memories.

“I’m surprised he could actually aim as well as he did while still being drunk,” he went on, his teeth still painfully gritted together.  “But somehow he managed to just burn me without making me lose my eye.  When I was down, he turned back to my mother and threw a beer bottle at her…  I-it shattered over her head, and she collapsed onto the floor.  Then he beat her senseless until she was gushing blood.  And me… I couldn’t do anything.  Anything!  I just laid on the floor and cried while I watched!”  Katara sucked in a chocked breath as a sob broke loose from her.  Zuko didn’t notice.  “The house was on fire now, because he’d been burning her too, and stray flames caught on the curtains…  The fire department came and put it out and took my mother and me to the hospital, and my father to jail.  My mother… she died of brain damage and blood loss in the hospital.  My sister was barely fazed.  Of course my father got out three years later.  That’s when he disowned me.  He was all too happy to get rid of his old life.  I’ll bet he’s already taken in some whore.  He’s definitely forgotten all about mom…”

His furious sorrow melted into shock when he heard Katara give a stifled sob into his shirt.  Somewhere during his rant she had wrapped her arms gently around his neck and buried her face in his chest.  Even more incredible was the fact that he, too, was crying.  His arms were around her waist, and his forehead rested on her shoulder.  His tears wet her shirt, and hers soaked his.  Katara hadn’t run away at all.  She’d… come closer.  Zuko tightened his grip around her waist, turning his forehead into her neck.  Katara had embraced him, not just physically, but emotionally.  She had embraced his flaws, his horrible past, and shed, not tears of pity, but tears of genuine sorrow for a pain that she somehow now shared.  Pity was sorrow felt for a pain apart from a person’s own.  But his tears were hers now, and she willingly bore them.  She embraced them.

Zuko’s thumb moved on slow circles on Katara’s back, gently massaging away her tears as his own faded.  Even after she’d stopped crying, though, Katara didn’t let go.  She held him tighter.

“I’m glad you told me,” she said, her voice muffled in his shirt.  “I’m honored that you would trust me with something like that.  It makes me feel… so much closer to you.”

“I’ve never spilled like that to anyone,” Zuko admitted quietly.  “Not even my uncle.  He knew the main stuff, but he never heard it from me…”

“Really?” Katara started, pulling back enough to look up at him, but still remain within his arms.

Zuko nodded.  “Yeah…  It… it felt nice.  Thank you for listening.”

Katara smiled a little, her eyes still red from crying.  “Y-you’re welcome.  I’ll listen anytime you have to talk.”

Hesitantly, Zuko chanced to wipe the tears off Katara’s cheeks with his thumb.  She blushed deeply, but didn’t protest.

“I guess I was kind of embarrassed about being poor,” he admitted.  “I just didn’t like being so… below what you’re used to, I guess…”

Katara raised an eyebrow at him.  “You thought you weren’t good enough for me?” she asked, incredulous.

“Well, I’m not!” Zuko protested before she could argue further.  “No matter how hard I try, I’ll never be worthy, or whatever.  No one will ever be worthy of you.  You’re kind and gentle and wise and responsible, and you give without wanting anything in return, and you’re brave, and… and you understand.  You’re not afraid to take someone else’s burden as your own.  In fact, you do it willingly.  Besides my uncle and my mother, I’ve never known anyone who does that until I met you.  And here you are!  Sobbing like it was your story I just told and not mine!  I’m a fool if I think anything I can do or say can make me worthy enough to deserve this, to deserve you.”

Katara stared at him, her mouth hanging open a little.  Zuko put his hand under her chin to close it, but she grabbed his hand before he could.

“You’re wrong you know,” she said quietly, her eyes dancing.  “You’re sweet, but you’re wrong.”

“I don’t think there’s anything you can do that will convince me,” Zuko said stubbornly.

“I can be quit ruthless and snobbish,” Katara argued.  “And bossy.  Sokka says so anyway, and Toph…”  She looked out over the sunset, which had faded into dimming lavender dotted with silver stars.  “It’s getting dark…” she whispered to herself, not meaning for Zuko to hear.  He did anyway.

Lighting a hand like a natural torch, the firebender stood, entwining his freed hand with Katara’s.  “I’ll walk you home.”

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The silent streets of Ba Sing Se were left undisturbed as the two teens made their way through.  Neither spoke, instead enjoying these new feelings of trust and understanding, and still marveling how different they felt from a mere hour ago.  It took a while to get back to Katara’s house, having to make their way through the lower and middle rings of the city to the upper ring.  But the more time, the better, even if it was a silent time.  It didn’t matter.  They were together.  It was a new beginning, a grand one.  Though they looked peaceful on the outside, both were buzzing with excitement on the inside.

“Well, here you are,” Zuko announced all too soon, and Katara realized that she was already at the doorstep of her house.  How did she get here so fast…

“See you tomorrow, then,” Zuko added awkwardly, releasing her hand and turning to walk back down the driveway.

“W-wait!” Katara spoke up before he could take a step.  The firebender paused.  “I, um… I just, um… I-”

Zuko ducked in and silenced her stuttering with a quick kiss, unsure if acting on impulse was the best idea, but still going for it.  Katara was too shocked to relax before the firebender pulled away, and for a long second they just stared at each other, eyes wide, both waiting in silence with their breath held for no reason.

Then Katara kissed him back.