Avatar The Last Airbender Fan Fiction ❯ White Room ❯ Chapter 1

This is my response to a fic challenge for katara_zuko community on LJ. All my demented ways to stick Zuko and Katara together in the same room.

 

White Room

 

Zuko admitted this had not been his smartest plan.

It had been simple enough. Cause a distraction for the earth-bender they'd been speaking with and grab the Avatar (after knocking him out, most likely. That boy was like a worm.) He'd get away before they'd manage to get themselves unstuck and he wouldn't have to deal with that annoying boomerang (that always managed to hit him) or the stupid water-bending girl.

But, no. The universe had other ideas.

Instead, he'd knocked out the earth-bender, causing an avalanche while he was battling the stupid water-bending girl, and now they were both stuck in a cavern, alone, with no light, and apparently no way out.

He hadn't even noticed her at first. He'd kind of hope the stupid rocks had crushed her. (She kept hitting him with that goddamn water-trick and it hurt like hell each time.)

Then again, the universe had decided it was not his lucky day, so of course he'd figured out she was there.

In the worst possible way.

He'd lit a flame to see by, just as she reached out to touch the wall, and he caught her sleeve on fire. He cursed, so did she, and suddenly the room was raining, and they were both soaking wet.

He lit a flame a second time (making sure she was perfectly out of the way) and glanced at the pile of rocks that locked them in.

The stupid water-bending girl hadn't even bothered to yell or fight with him. She just sat down and glared.

“You are such an idiot.”

He honestly had no right to disagree. It had been a stupid plan anyway. He was sinking to new lows.

He sat, but not beside her. He was smarter than that. Instead he played with the fire in his hands, bouncing it as if it were a plaything.

There was silence for a long time, before she finally broke it.

“How long until he wakes up?” she asked.

“Who?” He didn't mean to answer. He's bored anyway.

“The earth-bender. You knocked him out. How long until he wakes up?”

“I'm not a fortune teller.” He tossed the ball of fire to his opposite hand. “Though you do seem to enjoy their company.”

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “What do you mean?”

He remembered when he used her necklace to track her. “You spent a lot of time at that fortune teller's.”

She turned to him completely, a look of fear dawning. “How did you know that?”

He kind of wanted to scare her, just a little bit. He hated her anyway. She kept doing those stupid water-bending tricks. Stupid water-bender. How should he answer?

But she had already gone back to staring at the wall across from her. “So how has stalking me helped you with capturing Aang?”

The name didn't register for a minute, but he got it after a while. He was more furious that she called him a stalker. He wasn't a pervert.

Stupid water-bender.

They sit in silence for some more.

 

---

 

A few minutes turned to an hour.

“You think Sokka or Aang would be trying something,” she hissed, glaring at the rocks.

“Air-bending's useless against rocks. Wind has never moved mountains.”

She glared at him this time. Ow. It actually hurt a little bit.

“And that stupid boomerang never did much good.”

“It whacked your ugly face a few times,” she muttered.

He doesn't have an answer to that.

 

---

 

An hour turns to two…

She gave a frustrated sigh and stood quickly.

“I hope you didn't kill him.”

He stared at her, suddenly lost. “Who?”

“The goddamned earth-bender. Or did you already forget?”

Oh. Yeah. He hadn't been paying attention. “It shouldn't have killed him.”

“You are such an idiot.”

For a moment he considered burning her nice and crispy. But then it'd smell like smoke and dead and he'd always hated that smell.

She was standing over him now. He didn't look up.

“Fire takes up oxygen. For all we know we're completely cut off.”

He still didn't look. “Then stop talking.”

She shut up.

Finally.

 

----

 

After a while he figured the two idiots she traveled with should've been doing something by then, at least for her sake. She'd been quiet for… Oh god he didn't even know how long they'd been there.

Stupid water-bender.

“Stop staring at me.”

He blinked. “What?”

She glared. Was that all she ever did? No wonder they seemed to have abandoned her. “You're staring at me. Stop. You're creepy enough already.”

“I wasn't staring at you. Why on earth would I?”

She doesn't have an answer and turns to glare at something else.

He wished she'd kept her mouth shut. Now he wanted to stare at her. Because now he figured out she looked kind of pretty in the firelight.

Kind of.

 

---

 

He hadn't moved at all in the hours they'd been there, but she'd made her rounds.

And she made them again.

“Stupid boys,” she hissed. “They've got half a brain apart. That makes one altogether.”

He kind of smirked. “Maybe they don't want you anymore.”

She didn't even bother to turn to him and glare. “Maybe they hope you're in here on last breath, and they think I'm somewhere else.”

“You talk too much.”

“And you're too quiet.”

“Stupid water-bender.”

 

---

 

She was trying to rip out his throat when they finally moved the first rock. His knee was braced at her stomach and her arms were outstretched to grab his stupid face and rip it off. The fire had gone out, but they'd managed to grab each other in the dark and she was working on ripping his hair out, or maybe claw into his neck. He half-expected her to.

They got them both out and tried to capture him or something, but he got away before they really cared enough to try.

Zuko rubbed his head. He had a headache, probably from all her talking.

Stupid water-bender.