Naïve

Aang may be 12, but it doesn't mean he's naïve.

One-shot. Aang x Katara. Slight citrus. Comedy. Angst.

Wide metallic gray eyes surveyed the scene presented to them unabashedly. Really, it was almost theatric in the way that Katara had wrapped her arms around her chest, crossing them tightly, a bright red flush on her face.

Her own expression was easy to pin: outraged. Until she saw it was just him—just Aang, just young, unthreatening little Aang, and relaxed slightly. And that really stung just a little bit more than the water whip she'd thrashed out in her mortified ire at her presumed intruder.

No matter.

Aang schooled his features into a wide-eyed, innocent gaze, and forced back a satisfied smirk as he said in his clear voice: "I'm so sorry Katara, I didn't know you were bathing here!", and she softened her stern gaze, and sank back into the water substantially calmer.

"It's alright, Aang…", she sighed, and uncrossed her arms once she was again in cool water up to her shoulders. Aang almost whimpered; the water seemed murky, but from where he stood, it was—an elated sigh—blissfully clear.

The Waterbender looked down at the water she lounged in, sending cold chills of fear up Aang's back that she'd notice it was possible to see every feature of her smooth, tan skin through it. The young Avatar began fervently hoping he could get out of this situation without her realizing anything…

When Katara glanced back up at him with a calculating gaze, her icy blue eyes gauging every breath he took carefully, he knew it was going to be hard. "Aang, didn't you say you were going to go find something to eat with Sokka?", she asked slowly.

"Yes…", he said quietly, mind racing in ten different directions of the word 'panic'.

Think, think! If I take a single step wrong, I'm going to be strung from a tree by my ears…!

"—and there were all of these berries over here!"

The girl once again eased back slightly; that was true. Berry bushes surrounded the stream on both sides. A moment seeming like an eternity passed in silence. After a beat of thought, she narrowed her eyes. "But you went off South."

Alarm bells began ringing in the Airbender's head. He and Sokka had gone to the South… and then he doubled back, telling Sokka he'd seen some Mushrooms to the North-West. With each lie, he realized, he was getting deeper and deeper in the hole he'd dug himself. But she couldn't find out—she couldn't.

She'd be angry, and she might tell Sokka! And then she'd never trust me again, and... and… Oh, what have I done, Aang moaned to himself mentally, before noticing in an act of resignation…

—Whoa! I can see her nipples from this angle!

As an agonizing few moments of silence passed by as Aang stopped formulating a plan, due to a distraction of enormous proportions, Katara felt herself blush a brighter shade of red. "Aang…", she whispered quietly, then noticed exactly where those gun-metal silver eyes were gawking.

"Aang!", she hissed furiously.

The young Airbender snapped his gaze to meet hers, and Katara almost wished he hadn't; a strange, unreadable expression played on his face, and he locked his eyes on hers for an awkward, scary minute.

Katara was floored. The expression she saw in his eyes was a dangerous one. Affectionate, yes, but overwhelmingly darkened by desire. He stared her down carefully, making sure she understood exactly what he was thinking.

Then he took a slow step forward.

"Aang—", the stunned Waterbender said quietly, eyes wide. She felt herself caught between a flurry of emotions; she loved him, yes, but not in the way he was acting… She had never thought—never dreamed he wasn't just… Aang… Innocent, naïve, young Aang!

And yet a strange, selfish part of her perversely whispered to her…

Yes! Yes, you want this, you want him, he's not just some childish little boy, you've seen that look in his eyes, you know what he wants—would you deny him and yourself? He's no child… He wants you the way a man would.

Katara swallowed dry, and stared unblinking at the boy who was staring at her with a dark, sweeping gaze, once chaste features twisted into a small smile. "Why not?", he asked softly from his spot but a few yards away.

And she felt her defenses crumble.

He was adorable now, just barely pushing out from the cuteness and innocence of his childhood, and she knew that in just a few short years he'd be deadly sexy, a flirty but serious man with strikingly handsome features. Already, he was lean and made almost entirely of hard, corded muscle.

This was what she saw as with each deliberate step he took, he seemed a bit older, a bit more hurt by the world, a bit more knowing. And Katara finally realized it all. He was no child. He hadn't been ever since he'd been ripped from the only home he'd known, not only in the iceberg for a hundred years, but since he was staring helplessly at the slaughtered monks.

He wasn't one of them from that day forward. He was never again innocent; it wasn't something you could regain once it slipped away from you.

By the time Aang had waded into the stream to his hips, eyes never leaving hers, she was entranced. When he reached her, she had stood and faced him: hands at her sides, two inches taller, and infinitely less sure. When his eyes slid carefully over her bare form, and he sighed a quiet, but euphoric "Katara…", and leaned up, pressing his hand gently on her jaw to gently guide his lips against hers, she felt a thousand thoughts pummeling her mind.

They stayed there, for an infinity consisting of a few brief seconds, before Katara opened her mouth slightly to slip over his lips slowly, letting him kiss her awkwardly but carefully, and she looked away quietly, embarrassed and ashamed.

"Aang, I can't."

The boy dropped his hands like she would burn him, and stared up at her with a raw, hurt expression.

He backed away, silently, expression screaming of betrayal, then scrambled up the bank of the stream and kicked his glider into action, rocketing off with a stinging blast of wind.

Katara stared emptily at the spot in the trees she'd first spotted him in, and the water that sluggishly flowed in the stream seemed to halt entirely, before she lifted one hand to her lips to stifle her painful sobs, but one hoarse, cracked sentence broke free before she felt herself crumple, letting the shallow stream-water support her.

"I'm sorry…"

Maybe, she realized a minute too late, maybe this is what Aang felt like. Only the water didn't hold him up from the stones on the streambed.