1. Worthy

_**Author's Note:**__ I may have written smut... It's Zutara. Obviously. But it's also PaintedLady/Zuko. Based on artwork by the lovely beanaroony. Enjoy..._

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**Worthy**

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"Kiss me," he said, though it was more of a plea than an order, and his eyes were darker than night. Her own narrowed in concentration, focused on the color of his skin, the feel of his chest expanding under her touch, the vibrant pump of blood pulsing so close under that pale surface. If she concentrated hard enough, she could smell sweat glistening on his skin, and she licked her lips.

Once again, his voice brought her back to reality. "Kiss me. _Please_." He squirmed, trying and failing to look fierce. Instead, his eyes flickered down her figure and to her face again. He was weakened in his desire, maybe weak enough to let her through his shell. And he certainly would bend to her will.

And she smiled, coldly, cruelly. "Maybe. If you're good."

He. Zuko, of the Fire Nation. Tough and resourceful in a fight, but when their lips touched for the first time, he couldn't decide whether to hold back or push harder, to roll her over and take charge or to pull away.

But she was the Painted Lady, and though men had tried before to conquer her, she was the untamable, the force to decide the fate of many. And she would certainly decide the Fire Prince's fate, at least for this night.

She straddled him and kissed again, this time allowing him to reach out with his tongue to touch hers, ever so lightly. But when he lunged upward, trying to push his lips onto hers more securely, she froze his hands to the ground behind him. "Not so fast," she murmured, pressing her cheek to his and snaking her tongue out against his ear. He practically _purred _at her touch, so she pulled back again. "You have yet to prove yourself."

"How... how?" He choked on thin air, and he looked lost, as though she'd tossed him into the lake - _her_ lake - and left him to drown. "How can I prove myself?"

"You'll see. If you really want me to show you."

"Of course I do."

"Then pay attention." Her hands touched his chest, and he gasped, although she couldn't be sure whether it's from pleasure or from the cold of her hands. He whimpered when she pinches his chest. The scrape of her nails on his abdomen brought forth a full-fledged moan.

When she held her hands just millimeters from his hip bone and gazed slowly downward to his desire and then back up, she watched his throat flutter out of nerve. "Interesting," she muttered, although she was beginning to feel it too: the pressure in her chest and stomach, and the pulsing somewhere below that. She may have been able control him, but could she control _herself_? She wasn't sure.

Maybe she would try to find out.

Her fingertips brushed against the fabric of his pants, just enough to elicit a groan. Finding what she was looking for, she ran a single finger along his length. This time, he bucked, seeking to escape the sensation and also to find its source.

She smiled again, eyes narrowed, and pressed minutely with the pad of her thumb.

He came apart, finally breaking free of the icy restraints on his wrists. Fell to the ground, thrashed as though electrified. A hand fisted into the cloth of her cloak as he tensed, again, again.

And when he finally was still, she whispered into his ear, "Your turn."


	2. Cascade

_**Author's Note:**__ Apparently, this is now a series of Zutara smut drabbles. Hopefully, you'll enjoy this one too. _

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**Cascade**

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He was halfway through his bath when he heard the bushes rustling behind him, and he didn't need to turn around to know who it was. It was the exact same person it had been for nearly a week, every time he went down to the river for a bath. And while most people probably would have called the young waterbender on her behavior, Zuko didn't particularly care. If she wanted to watch so badly, then he'd let her.

Besides, he had a much better idea.

Resisting a sly grin, he reached into the water. Knowing he had her full attention, he began heating the liquid until it dissolved into the air, creating a thin film of steam as the river became warm. And as he ran his fingers down his torso and along his hip bones, he thought about all the things he would do with her if he had the chance.

A rush of blood sent his head spinning; he inhaled sharply, listening to the stream. It smelled like her, with the water and the spicy scent of leaves around him. This place was alive. This place was her kin, and she should be here with him. Not that he'd admit such a thought to himself.

Filled with his desire, he moved in tempo with the current around him, pushed and pulled with rhythm of the river. He focused on a spot at the core of his consciousness and pressed down, his thumb sending a ripple of pleasure up his spine.

A gasp came from the undergrowth; it seemed that Katara had realized what he was up to. He grinned to himself and pressed harder. If she was going to stay and watch, then he ought to at least give her a performance. It was only the gentlemanly thing to do, after all.

He ran familiar fingers down the center of his cock. Warm water swirled as he heated and cooled it in time with his motions. When it got too hot for him to handle, he hissed from between gritted teeth. Too much, too fast. He would start at the beginning and move more slowly.

This time, he let his hand wander downward as he thought of the waterbender. He wondered what her hands would feel like all over him, or if her lips were as soft as they looked. He doubted she had much experience with love-making - not that he minded - and in his mind he imagined how she would sound at the height of climax, trapped in the feeling of bliss that would overcome her.

Yes, there… she would make the same face she had made when her back had hit the tree at the north pole - a look of pure desperation, mingling with shock as her back hit the floor - except when he brought her to orgasm, the fear in her eyes would vanish and be replaced by longing, or lust… or maybe something else.

And that caused him to fall apart, the breath cascading from his chest like the river into a waterfall. His muscles clenched and loosened as the world briefly went dark, only to reappear in a fog of multicolored light.

And as he emerged from the blind haze of his orgasm, he heard a true gasp from behind him and turned, just in time to see Katara turn and try to sneak back through the woods before he noticed. Before she could get too far, however, he called after her, a smirk clear across his face, "So did you enjoy the show?"


	3. Sunrise

_**Author's Note:**__ Very fluffy._

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**Sunrise**

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She could still feel his breath on the back of her neck when she woke up. She could feel the waning moon give way to daybreak overhead; dawn already. Behind her, she could hear Zuko's gentle inhale and exhale. He barely made a sound as he slept, bare chest shifting underneath crimson sheets.

She had never imagined, not in all of her wildest dreams, that she would one day end up here, next to the man that had once been her greatest enemy.

Turning her face into his chest, she stretched her legs and curled them around his. "Morning, sunshine," she whispered as her lips gently curled into a smile. He was always so warm, even though the chill of autumn had already spread across the palace grounds. But when she slept next to him, she required nothing but a thin sheet for warmth.

His eyes darted open, coming quickly to wakefulness. "You're awake," he noted, surprise tempering his groggy words. He tried to stretch nonchalantly, but as she watched, his eyes flickered closed and then open as his long limbs extended. "Why are you awake."

She didn't bother responding, instead taking the time to gently brush a knot out of his hair with her fingers. His mouth molded into a thin line, frustrated and bemused, but Katara gently softened his expression by gently pressing her lips to his, just barely reaching out with her tongue to trace the outline of his teeth.

"What's this?" he said, but she wasn't listening; she was too busy giggling quietly to herself. "Katara-"

"You're cute with your bed head," she said, mussing up his hair even more. Zuko let out a startled grunt, but it was too late. His hair, which reached just past his shoulders, was now an utter nightmare.

Katara rolled over and flopped across Zuko's chest, chuckling at the look of utter bewilderment on the young Fire Lord's face. "Well? What are you going to do about it, Oh Mighty Fire Lord?"

He twisted suddenly, his hand finding her shoulder, and neatly rolled so that he straddled her waist. She shrieked, her grin widening as she tried to pull him down to her. He smirked cunningly, letting her lips meet his chin and trail along his jaw line. "You'll see," he said finally.

She shivered in anticipation, then tensed in impatience as he moved too slowly for her liking. "Well, don't keep me waiting," she whispered, and that was when he moved.

When his lips found her navel, she found herself on the losing end of negotiations, her body betraying her for long enough to release a moan. She clamped her mouth shut as he pressed a thumb to the place at her center and pressed, rocking back and forth to the rhythm of her heartbeat.

She didn't last long under his gentle expertise. And just as she felt the tide under her skin surge forward to consume her, Zuko replaced his thumb with his tongue and rode the wave.

When her body was still again, he slowly moved to nestle into her side. Her hand interlocked perfectly with his, and the heat from her face kept him warm. As she turned her face toward his chest, he rasped, "Let me know when you're ready for another round, Lady Katara."

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Once her hair was as messy as his and the sun was fully visible in the eastern sky, he smiled as he stirred for the second time. "Good morning?" he asked.

And she smiled in return. "Good morning," she agreed.


	4. Expectations

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**Expectations**

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Zuko used to dream about this - only occasionally, and only at the very last moments before he awoke - but they were dreams nonetheless, and good ones at that. But in those waking stupors he found himself in, he'd never imagined that they would actually happen.

Not like this, at least.

First of all, she didn't smell like he expected. He thought she might smell like the fire lilies she put on the table for dinner, or maybe the plum wine they'd had to drink just a little while ago. But when he put his nose to her hair, she smelled like the sea, and when her clothes fell in a rumpled pile on the floor, she smelled of sand and burnt firewood.

And when her hands found his chest, trailing across his back and shoulders with nails like carved wood, his hands tightened on her hair and back, pulling her closer in response. He knew her to be soft, with hands like cushions on his flesh, but he'd wondered if perhaps he would see the other side, the side that fought with claws carved out of ice. But he could not find it in himself to reconcile the Katara he had known with this new girl, this girl with raindrop tears and strands of fire in her hair.

Then again, with alcohol on his breath and her lips on his jaw, on his throat, on his clavicle, maybe it didn't matter what he expected.

She moved back up his ear just as his hands found the back of her shirt. "Relax a little. I wouldn't be here if I didn't want this, too."

Zuko could feel his desire growing, intensifying with every shift of her hips against his. It would be so easy to let go, to stop holding back. He growled, deep down in his throat. She startled then grinned, a single hand snaking down his ribcage and his abdomen. When she got to his hip, his pelvis jolted upward of its own accord. Her grin catlike, his breath coming in ragged pieces.

He murmured her name against the twilight sky as she extorted another groan from between clenched teeth. "I told you to relax," she said, running a hand along his chest, slick with sweat.

"Not as… easy as it sounds," he replied as Katara's lips made contact with his skin once more, unexpectedly. Her hands found his hips again; she didn't hesitate to dig her nails in - not quite viciously, but certainly providing more than enough stimulation.

He squirmed as she teased him with her tongue, until his arrival left him panting and shaking. Katara stayed with him, hands running down his sides until he was finally still again.

He laid back, suddenly chilly, and she settled into his side. "Well? What did you think?"

"It just… wasn't what I had expected." Her face clenched into a familiar pout, but before she could begin an angry outburst, he met her lips with his own. "It was much better."


	5. Home

_**Author's Note**: Not quite as smutty as the others in the series, but I honestly think you'll truly love this. It was a real treat to write, so hopefully you'll enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it._

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**Home**

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He rested with a hand laid over her chest, an arm draped over her hair curling through his fingers. She smelled of damp earth and terror, the smell of too many aching nights spent lying awake, wondering what will happen next. He inhaled her there in the dawn light.

If he could move, the things he would do to her, just to remind her that she is still alive. The things they could do together.

Her mouth opened the slightest bit, breathing the pale mist of morning. He watched the blue light accumulate on her brow, condense into dew across her hair and become a part of her. He shivered, but she remained unperturbed. Perhaps a result of her waterbending heritage, perhaps a result of her inner strength.

Either way, it coaxed him to lean over the slightest bit and touch his lips to her bare shoulder.

Katara breathed deeply in and then out. Eyelashes fluttered like a bird's wings, trapped against the claws of a cat, and blue eyes stared wide in panic. "Zuko?" she exclaimed, startling him to full awareness. But as she realized that he was there - he was there, beside her, safe after all this time - she gasped wordlessly and laid her head across his chest and wept.

"Katara..." he started, but she pressed a finger across his lips without glancing up. This moment meant too much, since she knew in this moment that _he was okay_. Even if he was bruised, scarred, bloody, confused - he was okay, he was there. He was home, home in her arms. Right where he belonged.

Her fingers tracked small pathways through his hair, leaving dirt and dried blood in their wake. He wanted her to look up and tell him that she was okay, too, but... but this was her moment. He would get his later, no doubt. Even if he would have to feign oblivion, pretend like nothing was wrong until she began speaking of her own accord. That was what always happened with her; he would admit without restraint what was wrong, but she was like ice, with so many layers to melt through. And all he could do at time was hug her and hug her until she finally became soft and cried to him.

But, if he was honest with himself, there was nothing to fear, nothing to worry about. Even if the world was falling down around him, he had her beside him to lift it back upon his shoulders. That was all he could ask for, really. All that mattered.

Instead of interrupting her moment, he ran his palms along her sides, all the way down to her hips, and then back up again. She started, pulling her head up in confusion, only to see a sleepy smile on his mouth, eyes staring into the trees, at the slow rising sun, anywhere but her.

"What are you thinking?" she said softly, rising up only to sink into his sink. Her breath languished on his throat as he breathed in and out, in and out. It was hard enough to breathe even without her near him, and now...

He hummed in response, feeling the aching pain settle in his lungs. Too much blood, too much heartache. More suffering. "...I'm so lucky."

"Yes, you are," she started off, a scolding note in her voice, but she stopped herself. "...we both are. To be alive."

Closing his eyes, he moved an arm closer to her. "Yeah, but... I meant..." He paused. "My father said that I was lucky to be born, and I think he's right."

At the words 'my father', her eyes darted like startled rabbits, and by the end, her hand was on her cheek, a finger stroking the bottom edge of his scar as if she could bring life back into it. "Don't say things like that. You know he's wrong. You _know_ that."

"...but I mean it in a good way." His voice moved slowly, like a river, and it sounded like waves on the beach of Ember Island. "If I wasn't born, I wouldn't have you here with me... so I guess I'm lucky."

She didn't kiss him long or deep - his physical integrity could not cope with that - but she pressed her cheek against his and lay there like that until Zuko thought she'd fallen asleep. But when he felt rather than saw her blush and tasted his smile with the bare corner of his tongue, she said, "Then I guess I'm lucky, too."


	6. Thunder

_**Author's Note**: This one's a little more angsty. Season Two Zutara. Enjoy._

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**Thunder**

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He catapulted himself into the maelstrom, giving himself over to the wind, the rain, the lightning. This was what he had asked for, and this was what he had received. Except, it tasted bittersweet on his tongue as he reached for the distant life, the distant harmony.

She was most beautiful in the darkness, he decided, not because he couldn't see her clearly, but because he could see her more clearly than ever before. Her cheekbones outlined in the gasps of lightning, her glittering blue irises. She was still a waterbender, but she electrified him.

It was thrilling to hold her so close. Thrilling and terrifying.

She let out a gasp against his hand as he found her core. He narrowed his eyes and pressed, pressed hard, because he'd never been so intertwined with a woman like this. And she was a woman, he decided. She had to be, since she had been the one to come to him.

Even as enemies, even as strangers, there was something between them, a friction, a chemical reaction. Where she went, he would follow, just as thunder follows lightning. The two of them are inevitable.

This time, she was the one to strike, like the lightning he'd sought just hours before. _You've never held back before_, he thought as he groaned at the movement beneath his hips. The friction of cloud upon cloud is what creates lightning, and the crashing of two opposing forces creates thunder. This was the story of Zuko and Katara - friction, crashing, forces coming together and creating harmony.

Around them, the rain fell in sheets, but he didn't mind.

She found her nerve in the form of a kiss, followed by several more of the same, centered on his throat. He rumbled like the sky, trembling from the cold and the contact and the fear that this would be the last time he could see her like this, that this would be the last time she would be anything other than the enemy. Against his raw heartbreak she sang, and against her he arrived - a sobbing mess of emotion and confusion.

As he felt his limbs go limp on the saturated rock, she slid out from beneath him, pulling her wrappings back around her. At this moment, he was nothing. Not enemy, not friend, not lover, not stranger. He was simply Zuko, and that terrified him more than anything else.

The rain had stopped falling so heavily around them, and he weakly sat up, ignoring the feeling of drenched cloth as he pulled himself back together. They had done this together, he realized, and now things would not be as they were before. This he knew. She would never be the Avatar's waterbender to him, just as he would never be the banished Fire prince to her.

He should thank her. He should apologize to her, for everything. But by the time he turned around, to say something, she had gone - nothing more than a brief flash of light, a sliver of frictions thrown in relief against the rumbling clouds.

And this he decided - he could never let himself forget this, or her. _You must never forget who you are_.

Where she went, he would follow.


	7. Holy

_**Author's Note**: This isn't exactly... explicit. I like it that way. In honor of Easter._

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**Holy**

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It started with a simpler observation - that she was limping, that she could barely support her own weight, even. The Avatar and his friends must have walked quite a bit recently, something he knew for a fact that they were unused to.

After all, what's the point of walking when you have a ten-ton flying bison to carry you?

At any rate, the waterbender - _Katara_ - was limping around camp as she cooked, cleaned, kept the her brother and the Avatar occupied, and tended to Toph's injuries (the ones he had caused). And there _he _was, sitting on the edge of camp, and he didn't know whether he was supposed to help out or wait for dinner or _what_.

He tried out her name in his head as he watched. _Katara_ - like water, like rain. Two hard sounds and yet he couldn't imagine anything softer against his lips. And so it suited her perfectly, and even as she ached, clear laughter filled the air.

Unconsciously, he found himself next to her as she began filling dishes upon dishes with food.

The softness disappeared instantaneously. "What do _you_ want?" she snapped, turning away. He couldn't tell whether she had been serious with her threat, but she was certain in her fury. He deserved it. He deserved anything she threw at him.

"Just wanted to see if I could help." Zuko flattened his lips and self-consciously smoothed over his hair. "Is there..."

"...something you can do? Sure, here." Brisk, she handed him several dishes and gestured at the food. Apparently, she would not reject help that was offered.

They laid out food in silence, and then the waterbender called out for the others. Dinner, and yet Zuko took his meal separately - the Avatar's circle was knit too tight for him, and he'd always been a loner anyway.

Once the others had cleared out to get some sleep, it was still her and him and a pile of dirty dishes, and he couldn't help but be sorry that he had added another plate, another set of clothes to the ones she had to look after. Again he found himself wordlessly by her side, elbow-deep in steaming water.

That was when she fell over, clutching her head.

"I'm fine," she insisted, struggling back to her feet, but Zuko had already set down the plate he'd been working on and dragged over a small kitchen stool for her. "No, really. Let's just-"

He frowned in annoyance, because clearly she was _not_ fine. "You've been limping around all day," he gratingly reminded her, trying to figure out whether he could touch her shoulder without losing a limb. "Let me help you."

"And how are you planning on doing that?" she snapped back, conceding to him the seat and lowering herself until she was seated. "I'm a waterbender; I can heal my own injuries."

She did have a point. "Then why haven't you?" he asked, meeting her eyes. She looked away. "You spend all day taking care of everyone else. Why not yourself?"

Katara looked furious, then anxious. "I... I don't need to be taken care of. Not like they do."

Zuko decided that there was something off about a world in which a woman could waste away taking care of everyone around her. "Take off your shoes."

"What?"

"Trust me."

Trusting Zuko was the last thing Katara intended to do, _ever_, but something about the look in his eyes gave her reason enough to pull down her boot, unlacing as she went, until finally her bare toes touched the ground beneath them.

He knelt beside her, closing his eyes briefly, before he sat in a lotus position and took one of her feet into his hands. She gasped, startled, as he pressed his thumbs methodically, slowly, into the arch.

So much tension in her feet, Zuko noticed, in every part. He had walked a million miles, but so had she. And her muscles weren't like his; her feet, like he imagined the rest of her to be, were slender and lean, moving like poetry when she walked.

If the curling of her toes meant anything, then she enjoyed this well enough.

He switched to the other foot, this time adding the slightest bit of heat to his fingers. She liked that; in fact, the addition brought out a slight moan, which she quickly stifled. And when Zuko glanced up at her in surprise, she shot him another glare. He bit his lip to avoid smirking.

Taking a handful of water from the basin nearby, Zuko splashed a bit onto her feet. If this was going to be a foot-washing, there should at least be some semblance of washing. And, in fact, the water made her feet even easier to press into.

He kept his eyes on his work. He didn't see her blush and turn away; he didn't see her wonder if maybe, just maybe, she had been wrong.

That night, she left the dishes undone.


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