Title: The Good, the Bad, the Stupid

Author: SCWLC

Disclaimer: I own none of this.

Rating: NC-17

Summary: Zuko and Katara have to share a tent. It makes things a little uncomfortable until an accommodation is reached. PWP.

Notes: So this is a smutty one-shot, based somewhere in an AU season three. Really AU. No real timeline on this, just that Zuko's joined the party. It's ZWP (Zutara without plot) and PWP, and rather shamelessly so. See, there's this rabbit at the Toronto Zoo that I'm pretty sure managed to crossbreed with one of their capybaras. It's huge. And it came and the giant bunny humped my leg until I agreed to write this instead of doing more on Airbender's Child. So there you have it. Blame the bunnies. This is entirely shameless, and I mean it when I say there isn't a plot.

If it weren't for the rain and the bugs, it wouldn't have happened. So at least something good had come from it.

They didn't have enough tents to go around, especially since Toph point blank refused to share her space with anyone. Actually, Zuko couldn't imagine sharing her earth tent with her, because Toph asleep in there was kind of disturbing. She liked to bury herself in the dirt while she slept and usually managed to look like a snoring, incompletely buried corpse.

Katara had shared a tent with her brother for one night and had wound up trading with Aang, which was how Zuko wound up sharing a tent with Katara. It had started out innocently enough. They were both dressed and just in there to sleep after all.

That had all changed when Katara came back from the river where she'd been practicing her bending, still dressed in nothing but her underclothes and soaking wet. Zuko had felt his eyes popping out of his head, because Katara's underwraps had started to get worn, and between the water, the wear and the white colour, he could see everything. It was an arresting sight. The moment hadn't been helped by the fact that it was extremely hot out and he'd been wearing very little himself. He couldn't be sure, but he liked to think she'd been looking him up and down as much as he'd been looking at her.

Suddenly, Zuko was aware of how nicely she was shaped, how fit she was and the fact that she was right there every night. He woke up the next morning painfully hard, from a dream of Katara leaning over him, all wet, dark skin and sensual smiles. He'd spent that day fighting off that erection, as every smile she sent his way, the sway of her hips as she walked, the sight of her bending down to check on something and a million other moments sent his mind spinning back to that morning.

He was intensely grateful when she left him alone that evening to do something somewhere else right before bed. He'd double-checked she was gone and then given in to the need that had been plaguing him all day. Frantically, he'd yanked his pants down past his hips, grabbed his swollen cock and had started pumping it hard and fast. He didn't know how long she'd be gone and he needed relief.

Too soon, it felt, he'd come and gotten cleaned up. When Katara came back, wet and looking a little oddly glazed over, Zuko had closed his eyes, hoping to block out the image. It hadn't worked, and with that, a new habit was begun. He'd wake up, thinking desperately of anything that would make the throbbing ease up – Sokka's bad jokes, his sister trying to kill him, his uncle in that self-made hot tub – whatever worked. Then he'd spend the day trying to convince himself he wasn't seconds away from dragging his tentmate behind the bushes and ravaging her. Finally, she'd go off somewhere that evening and he'd get himself off as fast as he could so that he could sleep. Then Katara would come back looking incredibly sexy, and he'd fall asleep and have dreams of the two of them entwined and moving urgently against each other.

Repeat.

It went on for quite a while. Zuko had gotten to the point that he knew how long Katara was taking at whatever she was doing when she left right before bed, so he could time things to a nicety.

That was why he was so shocked when Katara came storming in, very early, snapping, "This is stupid."

With a squawk, Zuko had managed to yank his sleeping bag over his lap, trying to cover up his suddenly painful hard-on. He'd been close, and he was all to aware of the tight pressure of his swollen sex, and Katara, half-naked herself and looking flushed and gorgeous wasn't doing him any favours. All he could think was that he had to finish the conversation fast, and then get somewhere for some privacy so he could finish. "What's stupid?" he asked. Trying not to wince at how odd his voice sounded.

"Every night, I leave you here by yourself and I go off by myself at the water," Katara told him. "We both want the same thing, so it's stupid that we're doing this separately."

She couldn't possibly mean what his libido was hoping she meant. But he still didn't know what she did mean, then. "What?"

Katara made a noise of disgust and lunged forward. Before he could even begin to anticipate what she was going to do, she'd yanked the sleeping bag out of his grasp, off his lap and had wrapped a warm hand around his erection, squeezing firmly and making Zuko's mind completely blank but for the thought that this felt really good.

Katara had been going crazy for what felt like an eternity. She had walked in on Zuko, right after one of her evening bending practices, and had found herself face to face with him in nothing but a pair of quite-brief drawers. She'd grown up with a brother, and had been travelling with two boys for months now. She knew, pretty much, how boys were put together differently from girls.

Zuko had been a whole other matter. He wasn't just fit – Aang and Sokka were fit. It was that everything was proportioned . . . right. Really really right. She'd frozen in tent entrance for a moment before pulling herself together. That night, she'd had a dream sort of like the ones she'd had about Jet. Like the ones about Jet, because while the ones about Jet had involved some kissing, some hugging and some deep, longing stares, this had been about Zuko and there had been kissing and hugging. There had also been very little in the way of clothes and some of the kissing hadn't been on the lips, but other places.

She'd woken up, very aware that he was next to her, and doubly aware of how much she wanted to try to recreate those dreams. She'd spent the day, shooting glances at him, and wondering if he'd always looked at her like that, or if this was something new.

That evening, before bed, she'd gone to the river, cooled some water almost to freezing and tried to just calm herself down before going to bed, so she could sleep. She'd come back, but hadn't gone straight in. The tent flap had been open a crack, and an odd, repetitive motion caught Katara's eye, and she peered in, instead of simply walking in. Zuko had a hand wrapped around his swollen member and was masturbating. Living in such close quarters as the South Pole, Katara had been given the explanation about what Sokka had been doing that time by her grandmother when she was eleven.

But this wasn't weird and icky and her brother. It was Zuko, and Katara found herself fixated on the movements of his hands. All too soon, he tensed and liquid erupted from where he'd been stroking so fervently. "Katara," he moaned.

For one moment she thought he'd caught her, but he wasn't even looking. Which meant something.

He'd been thinking about her while he was touching himself.

Katara had felt a surge of her own and had scrambled off to the river, to deal with her own sudden need. She'd yanked at her bindings, finding them hard to deal with for the first time in years as she tugged, pinched and stroked her nipples with one hand and just went ahead to slide a finger into herself with the other. Soon she was needily stroking in and out, grinding her clit against the heel of her hand and stifling her moans as best she could.

She came back to herself finally, and cleaned up, heading back to the tent. Zuko took one look at her, and Katara thought she saw his eyes dilate.

The next morning, Zuko seemed very intent on keeping his back to her, something he kept up the whole day. She caught him masturbating again, and soon they both had a routine. She'd sneak off, leaving them both time to get off without the other there, and during the day, she'd try to push him, subtly, into admitting he was interested. She sparred with him in her underclothes, tried to touch him as much as possible and if he seemed to react to something she did, she'd do it again and again. Sokka started calling her clumsy she dropped the same armful of firewood so many times.

Eventually she had to admit, the subtle approach wasn't working. It happened one evening, she'd gone to do her thing while he did his, that she realised this was dumb. She wanted him, he wanted her, they were sharing a tent, there was absolutely no reason for her not to just have her way with him. So Katara picked herself up, marched back to their shared tent and just walked in. Zuko panicked and tried to cover up what he was doing with his sleeping bag, but Katara just ignored that and stated her case.

When he didn't seem to get that either, she stopped using words.

Zuko gasped, then groaned as Katara's hand started to slide up and down his length. He stared, momentarily hypnotised by the sight of her slender, dark hand on his pale skin. "Ah! Why . . ." he started to ask, but couldn't get the words out.

"Because I saw you that first night," Katara told him. "You were touching yourself and then you said my name." She glared at him, her grip tightening, which only made it better, as she added, "I've been dropping hints for days."

There was only one thing he could do, so he did it. Zuko kissed her. Then he was pushing her down to the tent floor, and she lost her grip on him, but it didn't matter. It didn't matter because he finally had his hands on those underwraps that had been driving him crazy, and he grinned appreciatively as he got them off her and he could finally get his mouth on her skin.

She started making the most wonderful sounds and Zuko set himself to seeing all the different noises she could make depending on what he touched and how. She whimpered when he kissed her neck and moaned when he cupped her breasts in his hands, gently squeezing. She growled at him when he stroked a single finger down through the wetness between her legs and a keening noise appeared when he slid a finger into her.

It felt amazing. Zuko felt amazing. Katara's mind was awhirl as he put his hands and mouth over every inch of her and made every nerve ending sing. He was beautiful too. That exotic pale skin that contrasted so sharply with his dark hair also contrasted prettily with her own darker flesh.

He'd slid a second, then third finger into her, making the tension inside her grow exponentially, when Katara realised that she wasn't doing anything for him. And she'd liked doing something for him. Those brief minutes when she'd had a hand on him, he'd looked so sexy as he panted and turned to putty in her hands. He was leaning close enough that she pulled him into a kiss, then slipped a hand down and recaptured his erection.

Zuko's response was immediate. He'd broken the kiss, burying his face in her shoulder as he moaned loudly. "Agni, Katara!" He started to thrust his hard-on further into her grasp, and the sight felt as good as his talented fingers.

But none of it was enough. "More, Zuko," she gasped. "Please. I . . . I want . . ." It was hard to speak around the cries that were escaping her with every twist of his digits inside her.

He understood anyway. He pushed himself up on one arm enough to look her in the eye and ask, "Are you sure?" He was flushed and his eyes were dark and he looked . . . hungry. It was the most amazing thing she'd ever seen. And she was sure.

"Yes!"

Neither was quite sure who moved first or how, but then he was inside her and they were moving against each other in a battle for dominance both were winning and both were losing. Zuko, who had been closer to the edge to begin with came first, cursing and slipping a hand down to caress Katara and bring her to climax as well. She exploded, muffling her shriek in his shoulder, bucking and jerking against him.

Then they both collapsed, side by side, and Zuko gathered enough energy to pull her against him. "We need to do that again tomorrow," he told her.

Katara smiled back. "Absolutely."

From outside the tent, they heard Sokka's voice say. "No! No you don't! No more tent-sharing with Zuko! You're sharing a tent with me from now until we get back to the South Pole!"

Katara shot a dark look at the tent flap. "No! Your feet stink, Sokka! Literally! I'm not sleeping anywhere near you!"

Sokka poked his head into the tent and snapped at her, "Fine. Put on some clothes, you can sleep with Aang."

"And leave you alone in a tent with Zuko? I don't think so."

"Everybody shut up and go to sleep!" shouted Toph from her side of the camp. "Snoozles, live with the fact that Sugar Queen and Sparky are boinking. Sparky, Sugar Queen, next time go somewhere the rest of us can't hear you!"

"Yes, Toph," Katara said obediently.

"No!" Sokka yelled. "That's bad." Which was when the earth reared up and Sokka found himself in a small earth tent by himself.

"Thank you, Toph," Zuko said, gratefully.

Then he and Katara spooned up in their tent, feeling completely relaxed, and went to sleep. Everything else would keep until morning.