Work Text:
Katara had survived everything the world had thrown at her. In the North Pole, she was strong in the face of sexism and bigotry, power personified. In Ba Sing Se, she commanded an entire tide, water rising high and endless. She’d stared down atrocities of all kinds, horrors: disease and dread, sorrow and war.
Surely, she deserved a life of peace and joy after all that. Surely, ten years since the war's end and more adventures than she could count, she deserved warmth and happiness.
Surely.
“Okay, okay,” Aang said, hastily rearranging the soft down Appa shed each Spring on his face once more. She groaned, pressing her cheek deeper into her hand. “What about this one?”
She took in a deep breath, inhaling slow like she did when she was on the verge of a frayed meditation session, ready to let her mind wander, before she opened her eyes. She couldn’t help but stick her tongue out, the expression of disgust morphing without her will.
“Are you actively trying to punish me?” she deadpanned, one eyebrow raising as she took in her partner’s ridiculous new look. He was grinning at her, both fists on his hips as he jut his chin out proudly. On his face, stuck on with a lick and a promise, were hideously long sideburns ala Appa with a smattering of long hairs stuck to his chin as well, hanging on for the life of them, as they swayed in the breeze and brushed the table.
“What, no? I’m trying to be irresistible! It’s working now, huh?”
“Irresistible to do what with, exactly?” she drawled. He opened his mouth to answer her, but it seemed the world had bestowed mercy upon her once more, for the hairs that were desperate to evacuate his face finally did so, falling onto the table as though in slow motion. She blinked, unimpressed, even as Aang sputtered out a “NO!” that was so overdramatic, she had to bite the inside of her cheek not to smile.
He scrabbled to grasp up the meager hairs in his fists and then, as though struck by genius, turned around, fiddling with something. She said nothing, simply waited for him to turn around and groaned once more, pressing her mouth into her palm.
“What about this one?” he asked, and his lips were hidden behind those same hairs, now attached to his upper lip at the middle and draped down his smile lines in a horrible caricature of a mustache.
“A solid 2 out of ten,” she said, and his expression didn’t even drop as he waggled his brows at her.
“That’s one point more than the last one! I’d say I’m improving,” he replied. Then, he wiggled his nose and let loose a sneeze that blew the hairs off his face and directly over Katara’s eyes, blinding her much like the sight itself had done, previously. It was a fruitless hope that that would end the entire charade. The velocity of that sneeze- oh, she was tempted to think he did it on purpose since he didn’t go careening into the window behind him. Katara inhaled, filled her lungs to the brim, before she plucked the hairs from her gaze and leveled a look at him. He was smiling innocently, clearly trying not to lose it.
“Aang, sincerely and with the spirits of Tui and La as my witness, I have never been more dry than at this very moment.”
“. . .not even when I had the braided eyebrows?” he asked, reminding her of the “hairstyle”, if it could even be called such in polite company, he’d sported first, in which he’d attached Appa’s fur to both eyebrows and braided more in until both sides were long enough to wrap around his neck like a scarf, which he had proceeded to do in earnest.
Surely, she deserved better than this. She was a good woman. She never turned her back on anyone in need. He didn’t, either. But she wished for nothing more in that moment than for him to turn his back to her so she could scrub the awful sight from her mind.
“I take it back,” she said, leaning to the side and adjusting her knees on the cushion, “that was pretty horrendous.”
“Or when we were in the Si Wong desert?”
“No, this is definitely more dry than then.”
“Well, I can’t do that to my Waterbending Master!” he said, determined. “I’ll find a style you like, Avatar’s Promise.”
“Is it a promise, my love, or is it a threat?” she asked, her pointed look punctuated by her leaning forward.
Aang tipped his head back and laughed and she took the moment to stand from her spot on the cushion at the table and made her way over to him. He, still sitting, looked up at her mirthfully, clearly having fun at her expense. She looked over the twinkle in his eyes, like a spark of sun in a sky of clouds, and the warm flush that came over his cheeks and nose when he was being silly and giddy. There was stubble coming over his head, short hairs that indicated he hadn’t shaved for a day or two, that caught the light in a fuzzy haze, obscuring his tattoo as though through mist.
Gently, she brought her hands to his face, brushing off the ridiculous sideburns he hadn’t managed to sneeze off and any stray hairs, letting them fall to the table, and he leaned into each touch. Her fingers ran over his head, rubbing her thumbs behind his ears.
“If you grow any of those styles, I will never kiss you again,” she whispered gently, laying her cheek against his arrow. His laugh rumbled through him and she felt it through her, as well. He put his palm over the backs of her hands, placing his fingers between each of hers.
“Now that is a threat.”
“No, it's a promise. The real threat is you hiding your beautiful face from me in braided moustaches,” she shot back, and she heard him sputter. Only then did she crack an eye open, lifting her cheek to look back down at him and seeing that his flush had pinked significantly.
“You think I’m beautiful?” he asked, and she finally couldn’t help the smile, nodding.
“How could I not?” she asked, and he leaned toward her as she stooped down.
"I think you're beautiful, too," he managed to breathe out before she met his mouth in a soft, tender press.
She tilted her head to connect them deeper, letting her eyes close. Unbeknownst to him, she let a hand drop to slink down his spine, groping at the table and finding the discarded sideburn hairs from earlier. When they pulled away, his eyes remained closed for a second longer in the afterglow, and she quickly pushed her lips out so she could balance the hairs atop them, moving with a swiftness only rivaled by his.
When he finally opened his eyes, lashes fluttering, he sputtered when he saw her, trying to hold down her smirk, now sporting the same style of moustache he had, earlier.
His laugh reverberated so loud, the gust of air he let loose as he did flung the hairs on her face to meet the others. Her own laughter joined into his, and she pressed against him, grinning.
She’d have him no other way.
Especially not with those awful beards.