Rough Draft, "Merits" Part 25
Ugh, formatting-free, but here's the first 9-10 pages of "Merits" 25... about as much as was written several weeks ago. >_<;;; I've tried to fine-tune it a bit.
Still need to figure out how to tie in a few other ends, but I'm hesitant to leave this chapter with a fairly important 'revelation' about Jet's character... (Some of you have already figured it out, but I'd be spelling it out in this chap more or less... but I'd rather leave the end of the chapter on a Zutara note... Hmmmm.... Grrrr....) I haven't written the end of the chapter out yet, with Jet in it, but I'm considering it...
Author: moor / beyondthemoor on LJ
Title: Merits
Part : Twenty five
Genre: Romance/humour/vamp/Modern AU
Fandom: Avatar: TLA
Pairing: Zutara, Jetara
Length: 3600 words, approx...
Rating: M
Disclaimer : “Avatar: The Last Airbender” and all related rights belong to their original creators… I am not among their ranks.
AN: In response to hyperoo' s vampire/Zutara challenge, I present…
________________________________________
Part Twenty five
She. Smelled. Terrible.
Katara wrinkled her nose and looked around the room for the hundredth time. She could see every detail in the wood panels of the bookcase, down to their grain, could read the titles of the novels within it, could count the threads of the sheets she’d slept so soundly in, much to her surprise. She could smell the faint traces of Zuko on those same sheets, and on herself.
And it wasn’t just her sight and smell that had sharpened; Katara remembered, now, how she’d thrown Zuko off herself effortlessly hours earlier. She could have really hurt him if she’d gone after him a second time. (She stowed that knowledge away for later in case he tried anything when her back was turned.) She looked at her hand. All the little hair-width scars that had criss-crossed her hands from the rough work she’d done as a young teenager to earn money had disappeared. In fact, she felt fantastic, like she’d never been sick a day in her life.
But it was her sense of smell now that made her stomach roil slightly. She really, really needed a bath. Who knew that getting into some kind of accident at her apartment and ending up having almost-sex with her co-worker and then sleeping for 12 hours straight could leave a girl so less-than-fresh?
Overcoming the uncomfortable feeling she was snooping, Katara got up and started looking around Zuko’s bedroom for a shelf or drawer where her ‘host’ might keep his towels. She saw his hanging on the door of his closet… but she wasn’t comfortable or bold (or desperate) enough yet to resort to them.
Maybe there’s a linen closet outside, by the bathroom? She wondered hopefully, and, after grabbing Zuko’s robe from the end of the bed to cover herself, she peeked outside the room into the hallway.
Now where is the bathroom?...
(BREAK)
He heard her first cautious steps when she woke and explored his room; then as she padded down the hall in her bare feet, quietly opening each door she passed.
She paused outside his door.
At the last moment, he closed his eyes and pretended to still be asleep.
Katara knocked lightly and peeked her head through the door a crack.
“… Zuko?” she whispered uncomfortably.
“Mmph?”
“Where do you keep your spare towels? And your bathroom? Please,” she added as an afterthought. She was trying not to look at him, he noticed, instead choosing to study the floor and when she opened the door a bit more saw she’d wrapped his robe around herself and tied it securely with what looked like a knot of nautical proportions. The detailed, hand-woven area rug that led to the spare bed he was pretending to sleep on seemed too enthralling to allow simple, boring him to distract her attention.
Yep, she thinks the worst of me right now, part of his consciousness piped up cheerfully. If she had a chastity belt, she’d be bolting it on…
Without a word, he pushed his covers back-almost chuckling when Katara turned 180 degrees around to wait in the hall and give him his privacy-and grabbed a pair of jeans and sweater he’d collected earlier when he’d snuck back into his own room while his guest slept on.
Yet the feeling he had from her, as much as she tried to bury them under the coat of nonchalance she wore, was that she didn’t find him repulsive… It was rather of trying to deny, or avoid confronting her feelings of attraction to him. He knew, since he could still feel enough of his own life-blood in hers and could still sense her conflicting urges as they pulsed through her. The way her blood-pressure had spiked when he’d pulled his blankets back had stirred him, too, he couldn’t deny it.
But for the time being, she was his ‘guest’, and would see to her needs.
“Follow me,” and he led her down the hall and around a corner.
He didn’t pay much attention to the decorating as they walked, but Katara seemed to get distracted by the simple, elegant furnishings and paintings that sparsely adorned the walls.
“Where is this one from?” she asked, stopping in front of an ink-brush picture of a lonely hinterland landscape. It stood out from the others not only due to its subject matter, but also its…
Katara looked at it more closely. There was something about it, about this particular picture...
Zuko stopped and glanced over at her steadily from his heavy-lidded eyes.
“My family travelled extensively,” he replied evasively.
“Did they ever go up to the Northern Lands? Into the Territories?” she asked eagerly, reaching a finger out towards the painting, drawn to it.
Automatically Zuko’s hand shot out and circled her wrist, stopping her fingers from connecting with the worn animal-skin parchment. Even if it was protected by glass and frame, uneasiness rippled through him at the notion of contact between the painting and the woman beside him.
“There’s nothing of interest to them there,” anymore, he said, and turned away, releasing her when she looked at him in surprise. “The bathroom’s over here, next door on your right,” he opened it and entered, not waiting for her to catch up. It led into a second room from there, and he turned on all the lights and opened a few cupboards for her. “There are towels inside on the shelves, and I’ll bring you some clothes to wear in the meantime. Use anything you need.”
Holding the robe close and closed at her neck, Katara looked around and nodded. “Thanks.”
“I’ll knock and leave clothes just inside the first door. Close this connecting door for privacy,” he said, already preparing to leave. He stopped with his hand on the doorknob, about to close the door behind him when he took a step back in again.
“This keypad by the door - you’ll see it in every room. If you need me for anything, press 1. It’ll go to my cellphone. If I’m not there and something happens, hit 9-1-1.”
He felt the surge in her blood pressure and tried not to shudder. Her feelings were so strong, calling to him. Almost literally, she was pulling at him, drawing him to her.
“What do you mean, ‘if something happens’? Where are you going?” Her eyes narrowed to slits for a second, suspiciously, but he didn’t miss the way her jaw worked a moment longer, the way she swallowed nervously and glanced away, brow furrowed, before looking back at him in challenge.
It took everything in him not to rush to her and pull her into his arms to comfort her and tell her not to worry, he’d take care of everything. But he was concerned it would scare her more if he were to do so. If you only knew, only remembered, the wistful thought surfaced briefly before disappearing again.
“I’m going to go shower in the downstairs bathroom, and then I’m going to go get breakfast. Er, lunch, probably, by now…” Zuko explained, glancing at the windows and measuring their slant of light. “Do you need anything else?”
The mortified look on her face said, ‘Yes, but I’m too embarrassed to ask’ and was promptly followed by an awkward silence.
He waited a moment longer in agony, but when she didn’t volunteer anything he growled and rubbed his hand down his face. “OK, how about I let you know when I’m going? We’ll go out together.”
“I’ll dial 1 when I’m ready,” she promised immediately, and ushered him out of the bathroom. Just as she was about to close the door on him, she glanced up, a bit hesitantly, to look him in the face.
“What?”
“… um, it may take me a while to get all this smoke out of my hair,” it wasn’t fear in her voice, or anger or frustration, but there was something behind her forced-casual tones that kept him just outside the door, listening to her trying to ask for something without saying it, that he couldn’t ignore or walk away. “Could you just stick around until I’m done? Not in here, I mean,” she suddenly reddened, “but, uh, it may take me a while. Just, if you could not go out, anywhere, until I’m completely ready?”
“I need to clean the car and toss our clothes in the wash anyway. Just leave what you have on now outside the door, and I’ll toss everything in after my shower. Take your time,” he added, and with a quick look in her eyes tried to assure her he wouldn’t make a move without her knowing it. “I said we’d go together.”
“… Thanks.”
He gave a quick grunt in answer and accepted her nod of appreciation as she closed the door gently between them.
Zuko waited outside the door until he heard the sounds of the shower alternately sluicing off Katara’s body or pounding the tile walls as she moved out of the steady pressure. It was only when he remembered he had to go take his own shower that he pulled his forehead back from her door, where he’d been resting it, trying to calm himself, and let his hands unclench and drop from their iron grip on the frame.
His own shower was very cold.
(BREAK)
“… troops are either sleeping or recovering, regular watch has been established around the perimeter of the compound, Suki’s coming around in the sick bay, and as far as we can see Long Feng’s little army have pulled back to their stronghold to regroup and are staying quiet,” the voice over the secure-transmission line informed Toph as she sat in her private study with her feet on her desk.
“Keep an eye on Long Feng and let us know if we have any chance of getting our spies out of his camp alive,” Toph instructed. “I don’t like going forward with no intel, but we’re gonna need every hand we can get ready if they spring an assault on the main house.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Good job, out.”
At the coffee table before her, Aang and Sokka sat huddled quietly over their lunches, exhaustion etched into the lines of their faces, both refusing her orders to go get some rest until they’d heard the latest status reports.
“So we know she’s alive, we know she’s with Zuko, but why you won’t give us Zuko’s address?”
Not for the first time that day, Toph let her head roll back against her oversize chair and stared blindly at the ceiling.
“Because I think Long Feng’s watching us all. The moment he sees us move, he’s going to have a dozen tails on us and he’ll follow us directly to where Zuko and Katara are. We’ll be delivering them right into his hands. We don’t have enough people ready yet to protect them from that kind of onslaught.”
“But you’re sure she’s alive and ok?”
“Yes, she’s just fine. She called me when I was in the sick bay working on healing Suki’s fractures. I got the message when I left. She was coherent and everything,” though the coherence and hesitation were questionable, but Toph wasn’t about to admit that to the men in her midst.
“How do we know Long Feng doesn’t already know where Zuko lives?”
“Stop. Just stop,” Sokka looked beseechingly at Aang for his latest outburst. “Please, just stop.”
Realising what his insensitive words had implied, Aang paled. “Sokka, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Toph, could you call when you hear anything from her again? Please?”
“Sure. Door’s open, go shower & get some rest,” she waved her hand in the direction of the master bedroom and heard him drag himself out of his chair and through the doors to her room, pulling it softly shut behind him.
Toph shifted her feet on her desk slightly, and continued staring at the ceiling.
“I’m really sorry, Toph.”
“Don’t worry, Zuko’s a man of his word. She’s fine. I’ll see if I can set up a conference call with them so we can work out how to keep her safe. Now go to bed.”
When he left and she was alone, Toph faintly detected the sounds of Sokka’s feet shuffling back from the bathroom and then him collapsing into her bed. She knew he could use a bit of comfort, but her thoughts were confusing, and she didn’t like uncertainty. She’d no doubt end up kicking him in her angsting and tossing. A few more minutes to herself wouldn’t be a bad thing, to try and calm her most troubling thoughts.
Mostly, how had Zuko brought Katara ‘back’ when Toph had felt her friend’s life-force leave her?
Because she knew it had; Katara had… passed. Of that she was dead certain. When the young witch had felt Katara’s last breath leave her lungs, as she could detect the passing of life with people she was so emotionally attached to, she thought her own breath had ceased. It had bewildered, then terrified her as the full meaning of that absence had sunk in. A piece of her own self felt like it had been eclipsed or shorn off, an indispensable part of her own being broken loose.
But then, hours later she’d felt a surge of energy, and her best friend’s breath and heartbeat had started again.
And then the call, the hesitant, attempting-to-be-reassuring-yet-failing call to let her know she was ‘fine’. Which was a total lie. Even over the phone she’d been able to tell that much.
But… What had happened?
Toph had a bad feeling about what she was starting to think had transpired, and how it had probably involved Zuko Sozin’s vampiric intervention.
(BREAK)
Zuko hated grocery shopping.
Katara loved it.
Zuko hated shoe shopping.
Katara loved it.
Zuko hated ‘bargain’ shopping.
Katara loved it.
Zuko REALLY hated ‘pharmacy’ shopping down aisles full of feminine hygiene products.
Katara ignored him standing frigidly behind her, emasculated in a certain aspect, as she hummed and hawed over which painkillers and tampons to buy. (She had no idea when she’d be able to get back to her apartment, so she might as well stock up, she figured.)
“Is there anything I can get you from any other aisles?” he finally asked, still looking anywhere but at The Stuff on the shelves in front of them.
For a moment, her subconscious eagerly piped up, “The rubbers are at the far end of this aisle, if you wanna pick up where we left off this morning.” But she kept her subconscious subdued and just shook her head. “I think I’m good, but is it ok if we take a quick look around in case I forgot anything?”
Resisting the urge to drag her bodily from the pharmacy, Zuko forced himself to nod (though tightly) and helped carry all her shopping bags out while she carried her recent finds to the counter for purchase…
(Break)
“What did you want for supper?”
“We just bought food. I’ll make supper.”
“… are you sure?”
“What, you think I can’t cook?”
“No! No, I just thought you’d want to rest after all that shopping, and-.”
“I don’t need to rest, I rested all morning, and I’m not letting all this food go to waste!”
“Ok! Ok! Fine, we’re going straight home.”
“You mean you’re taking me back to my apartment. Because I need to go back to work tomorrow, you know, and so do you, and we aren’t taking off more sick time because it’s wrong to make others take on our workload. So back to my apartment now, please.”
“…”
It was going to be a long, loud, argumentative drive back to his home. He could feel it in his bones. And in hers, though fainter than he would have heard it had it still been that morning.
Somewhat pained, Zuko finished loading the bags into the trunk and entered the now-warm car that idled, Katara already buckled into ‘her’ seat, the front passenger. A glance at her determined face resigned him to what he had to do.
“What’s Toph’s phone number?”
(BREAK)
Some time later…
“Your mail has been forwarded here for the next while-.”
WHAM.
“Your belongings and personal effects are being salvaged from the apartment, and the restoration crews will be there by next week-.”
BANG.
“You can return to work next week; Bumi’s allowed us both some ‘stress leave’ due to the accident. By the way, he said he hopes we ‘reconcile our differences’ and are ready to decorate our office for some kind of ‘end of term theme party’…”
CRUNCH-CRACK.
“… And Toph said your property management company is looking into the gas leak, and bythewayshethinksyoushouldstayhereuntilyoucanmovebackin.”
FOOM!
“Do you need any help with dinner?” asked Zuko tentatively as Katara hurled another stainless steel pan viciously on the stove to simmer. On the next burner over, the frying pan exploded with a burst of flame as she turned to it to flambé… something. He couldn’t remember what they’d bought that afternoon anymore. After the murderous slicing Katara had inflicted on it with his chef’s blades, and then her blunt dumping of the contents of the chopping board into different pots for boiling, steaming or frying, he was beginning to get the impression she hadn’t taken any of his updates as ‘good news’.
“What, do you think I’m incompetent in the kitchen?” she snapped, brandishing a cleaver Ratatouille-style in front of him.
“No, but hostile and dangerous are close contenders,” came to mind, but he knew better than to admit fear out loud around a caged animal.
“Call if you need me.”
“Right, dial 1 on the keypad,” she muttered sarcastically to herself, and went back to stirring the frying pan with a pair of extra-long chopsticks.
(BREAK)
Some time later still…
“… Does it taste ok?”
Zuko glanced up at the chef from his place at the table, and nodded. He felt like walking on eggshells around her, she was so temperamental that evening. Was she always like this? “Yeah, tastes fine.” He ducked his head down before remembering his manners and adding, “thank you.”
That wasn’t the correct answer.
A slender, dark brown eyebrow arched over a blue eye. “Fine?”
Zuko vowed that night to somehow, someway, get Toph’s direct number from Katara’s cellphone directory. Going through Aang wasn’t working. And he could really use Toph-scale reinforcements to deal with the ‘Sugar Queen’…
Zuko racked his mind to find a way to salvage the situation. “Uh, would you like some,” calming, “jasmine tea?” he asked desperately, already moving to the cupboard.
The barrage paused.
“Yes, please…”
Uncle, someday, somehow, I will repay you for your guidance, the vampire vowed silently in gratitude.
(BREAK)