Chapter Text
On a late spring evening, the cherry blossoms had just begun their late-season bloom. A delicate almond-vanilla breeze swirled through the open windows of the Firelord’s dining chambers. Zuko found himself trapped in another dinner with one of his advisors, lecturing him on the question of betrothal and heirs. Aang watched sympathetically and respectfully, a smirk he could barely hide curling the left corner of his mouth throughout the whole ordeal.
As soon as they got rid of him, Zuko slumped against the door he shut behind him and breathed in the solitude and reprieve of the company of his best friend. “Is something amusing to you?” he asked, annoyance written all over his quirked eyebrow.
“Just...” he looked at him in this commiserating and pained way that said more than he was allowed to. “You,” he gestured to where his advisor Li Jun had disappeared through the doors, “this.” A naked smile that Zuko wished he could say was so handsome lingered on Aang's lips.
“I’m amusing to you?” shaking his head gently in disbelief as he said it. That’s the last thing he wanted to be, as a 26-year-old still trying to prove he was worth his title. It’s the last thing he wanted to be to Aang.
Aang could hear the music of their familiar, unarticulated dance in the soft coyness of Zuko’s question. But, after imagining Zuko wed to the daughter of a high house of the Fire Nation for the last 3 hours, he didn’t want to dance tonight. For whatever reason and with a flicker of resignation in his big, stormy eyes, Aang said, “Yes, you are.”
“That’s not a very proper way to speak about your Firelord.” He was trying to kid, but a complicated slurry of his own self-abasement and his surprise at Aang’s sudden directness crept in.
“Then tell me how you’d like me to speak about you, Zuko,” his cadence quickened impatiently beyond the unhurried clip of their usual light conversation.
Zuko couldn’t decipher the blank, placated look that replaced the levity on Aang’s face as he spoke. Aang was asking him for something: a reaction, a look to know he wasn’t alone in this cursed, precarious longing. But, as much as the dull ache in his chest begged Zuko to give it to him, he couldn’t. He just looked at him, hoping his long exhale and gentle shake of his head could say every illicit thing he'd resolved never to utter aloud. In the wordless exchange, Zuko could feel the weight of his crown piece sitting ominously against his scalp.
“I should get to bed. We have another long day of meetings tomorrow.” He sighed, rising to his feet to leave, placing a hand on Zuko’s shoulder before he passed through the doors.
Even palaces settled, and the creaking of the floorboards in the residential wing under his feet froze him in place. He held his breath and hoped the guards he’d skirted past by air-bending himself from one balcony to another didn’t come searching for the source of the noise.
Whatever insanity carried him here was too determined to let him go back. It was the same strange magic that he’d unleashed between them earlier that evening. In the tormented silence, something in him broke. They’d evaded the inevitable for one day too many.
Once he knew he wasn’t being followed, he slipped out a window and searched for the balcony of Zuko’s bedroom. The creamy smell of sweet cherry blossom in late-season bloom settled over him. Late was certainly better than never.
When he parted the curtains, Zuko was sitting cross-legged on a cushion with a cup of jasmine tea cradled in his palm. His bare chest framed by the deep maroon of his silk robe. He was less surprised than Aang expected him to be.
Standing up and dropping the porcelain cup to the low table beside him, he said, “Aang, what are you doing? You shouldn’t be here,” it was weak, the hollowness of his conviction echoed loudly. And, it wasn’t even true. Aang had accompanied him for tea many times in his personal chambers, and at much later hours than this. It was the air between them that had changed. The two of them alone together felt fresh with impropriety.
A few assertive steps closed the distance between them, the ashy scent of Zuko’s skin so close flooded Aang with hunger. In this certain tilt of moonlight, he could pretend he didn’t see the faint blue of his tattoos as his fingers set to the unfamiliar task of untying Zuko's top knot. Their broken breaths mingled expectantly in the small space between them. Blackish-brown waves tumbled around Zuko's shoulders, tugging a sigh from Aang’s parted lips.
“Aang, you shouldn't...” Zuko’s eyelashes fluttered enchantingly in the dark, needy fragment of nightfall that surrounded them. "be..."
“I know,” Aang's hands settled into the curve in Zuko's waist like lightning finding its conduit. “I’m not here,” the lock in their gaze clicking into place with bewildering finality. “I had such a long day. I need a full night of rest, in my own bed.” The words feathered over Zuko’s jaw, twisting them both in the precariousness of the moment.
Aang's fingers found the end of the tie keeping Zuko’s robes closed- he tugged lightly and searched Zuko’s eyes for permission. It was foolish not to give it now, what the signs of their bodies pleading plainly between them. With a light twist of his hand, the dark red of Zuko's robe shrugged open. Aang stepped back to see him bared in his fullness, bracing himself with a deep breath against the jagged waves of desire coursing through him. Zuko reached forward to fist one hand into the front of Aang's zhen sash, the other curling behind the base of his neck.
“And tomorrow, Avatar Aang,” he wet his lips with a slow swipe of his tongue, Aang's eyes memorizing every detail, “in our morning council meeting, you’ll tell me how you slept?”
"Of course, your highness," he managed before closing the distance to shatter the unseen barrier that had stood between them for years.
Tomorrow, they’d meet again as the Avatar and the Firelord. But tonight, in the grasp of this bewitching hour- this beautiful shadow of night fraught with maddening denial and desire- they could believe for a moment they were just two lovers; tangled in the simple, saccharine act of giving their bodies to one another.