#zuko steams

...where Firelord Zuko has run out of patience watching you pick tea leaves all day in his shirt and steams while making out with you. literally steaming.

TW: suggestive themes, hot and heavy making out, licking, intense use of heat/steam, yearning/mutual pining, fluff, big domestic awkward firelord man who tries to blame everything on a stain.

“I’m sorry. It was an accident–”

That's what you said, flustered and cheeks red, with your fingers uselessly pressed at the spreading stain that rapidly seeped through white linen. His white linen. The shirt that had looked too good on you, that you had decided to pick from the chair this morning without asking, determining it was suitable enough to wear while helping him pick tea leaves. He didn’t say anything then.

He totally should have said something then.

Because now that very shirt of his sat translucent across your skin, across your collar bones where the tea had completely soaked through.

Zuko had said nothing.

That had been a mistake. The silence. Because now there was nothing standing between him and the thoughts that had been boiling in his mind every moment he'd looked at you.

He was never a patient man, especially during his hot-headed days when he was younger, with that temper trying to capture the Avatar. He had been told enough times, by enough people, constantly throughout his life, to know that it had settled into a fact about him.

Zuko is not patient enough. Zuko does not wait for instructions. Zuko does not think things through.

And now.

As a man, the new firelord, he had learnt about the importance of patience. The importance of waiting for the right moment for the right things to savour certain things in life correctly without the need for rushing, like tea. With his new-found duties as Firelord, he had learned quickly how to wait for the right moment to speak up in courtrooms. The proper ways of greeting to treat esteemed guests of all other nations when apologising for the atrocities his nation had caused. All of the proper requirements needed of him to become a better firelord for the nations.

But he seemed to have missed one important part when it came to learning patience. It didn’t exist when it came to you, but not in the way you might think. He wouldn’t snap at you, or yell at you – it wasn’t anything like that. In fact, he always made sure to adjust his tone to be softer when he was near you. It had to do more with testing his patience of touching you.

And yet.

He had managed it perfectly today. Somehow. The entire afternoon with the afternoon light beaming the bright gold heavy and beautiful through the Jasmine Dragon’s garden, with the aroma of earth and sweet greens that wafted the particular sweetness of white dragon tea leaves baked in the sun, perfect for plucking.

You beside him, in his shirt, with sleeves pushed up, listening to him so well. He could tell by the way your head tilted that you were listening closely to the tips that his uncle had taught him – about which stems to take and which to leave, about which leaves were right now or not. Then despite your efforts, you’d get it wrong sometimes and look to him for him help, and he’d correct you with his hand placed over yours, guiding it carefully without letting himself hold it longer than he needed to.

He had been very careful today.

He’d let you help with the high branches, too. Not because he needed you to, but because watching you stretch up onto your tippy toes, which lifted up your blouse slightly higher than it needed to be, then to you huffing out his name in frustration had become a thing he was apparently willing to commit small guilty pleasures for. Zuko this is too high. Zuko I can’t reach it.

And he would come by, of course, stand behind you, not too close enough for you to feel the physical shame of his thoughts pent up and reach over you with one arm. The rest of him stayed very, very still. He would look down and see the crown of your hair, your long [colour] hair beautifully decorated with braids and adorned with ornaments he had given you. From how close you two were, he could smell your hair – the sweet scent that he wished he could bury himself in for the next few weeks. He stood there long enough to also notice that you weren’t stepping away.

He thought about that a lot. He’d been thinking about it when he made tea.

The Jasmine Dragon was closed now, long gone with all the bustling customers and his uncle, who had trusted him with the restocking shift today. You sat at the counter and watched him and he’d been more aware of it than he’d like to be. Too aware of you in his shirt with your fingers tangling in and out of your hair, loose and feet dangling from the stool under you. You were relaxed, unlike him.

Stop it, he scolded himself mentally. He smoothly moved over to you with the freshly brewed pot in hand, gaze fixated on the pot.

He poured the tea and handed it to you correctly, perfectly routine and correct, he thought. All that was left to do was for him to sit down at the appropriate distance from you, with appropriate thoughts, to finally end the night off with some warm, relaxing tea.

That was until the tea was now on his shirt. On you. Blooming a dark throughout the white linen that had been the beginning of his demise since the moment it touched your skin.

“It was an accident–”

“I know. It’s just a shirt.” The words blurted out before his own thoughts did. He was already looking at the stain, or that’s what he told himself anyway. “It’s fine, are you burnt?”

“But this is your shirt, it was freshly washed and I–”

“Are you burnt?” He repeated, firmer this time.

Your mouth remained agape, feeling your face burn hot you cleared your throat and looked down at yourself, at the dark stain that bloomed against the pure white shirt — and he followed your gaze. He shouldn’t have done that.

“I’m fine, no burns,” you muttered, fingers still patting uselessly to your collar bones, the warmth meeting the tips of your fingers as the tea still spread across the thin fabric. “Thank you.”

Only then did he let out a loud exhale. He leaned against the counter, palms spread across the cool marble counter, practically trying to absorb the cold into his own hands.

He was always warm, in the literal sense. His entire body had run hot his entire life. That was the thing about firebenders, an embarrassing niche that happens constantly to their bodies that they can never fully really control.

Fire was an element known for its heat, infamous for the catastrophes it could unleash if not controlled properly. This sole thing was etched and lived throughout every living breathing cell in firebenders, even worse for Zuko, considering his powerful, pure lineage of royal firebenders.

But lately, he had noticed his heating problems had gotten worse. He wasn’t becoming sick, not from a fever or a cold, he had made sure of that. He had pestered Katara at least 3 times last week to “heal” him just to make sure. And sure enough, after every single healing session, it would end the same.

She would quickly shoo him out, suggesting the heat came from a different source, and that he should look inside him a little bit more – not necssarily the life changing kind of inwards, the literal sense. He didn’t know what she was talking about because every time he looked inwards all he saw was the reflection of his face on his plated armour.

That was until lately, he finally noticed the pattern. Every time it had gotten worse you were near. Whenever you laughed, or when you would call his name or even looked at him for a moment too long that he had allowed himself to – that was when he could feel his cells vibrate together violently like they were about to break.

And now, he definitely feel it. It wasn’t in his imagination anymore.

No.

He finally tore his gaze away from the counter and looked up at you. Met with your wide eyes and fluttering lashes filled with embarrassment and cheeks flushed with pink – soft lips slightly open from the murmured apologies and thank you’s that he didn’t deserve to hear from you. He had seen this look before.

In his own imagination, late at night, when he had less control over what he had allowed himself to think about. Specifically, when his palm would brush against the hard surface of something found on top of his pants.

“I’ll come over to check just to make sure,” he said, low, almost like he was trapped in his own thoughts as he moved. He had crossed the kitchen now.

“You don’t have to, I’m fine Zuko–”

“I know. I still want to see for myself.” He lifted two fingers to your chin and tilted your face up gently. And you let him.

He was never rough with you, especially in such moments like this. He swallowed thickly as he stared at the line of your throat. Your plush skin exposed where the thin dribbles of tea had dried warm in light golden stains against your skin. His eyes tracked down to your collarbone, the place where most of the damage had been done visibly. The tea of despair had definitely spread across his shirt, but that was the thing he cared about the least.

He was looking at the slight pinkish hue of your skin left by a sudden splash of heat on you that bothered him more than he’d like. He was familiar with burns; he knew this was harmless, like a very soft sunburn that would probably heal in a couple of hours with some ointment. But despite all reason, it really, really bothered him.

His other hand moved over to the counter behind you. His large arms flexed to bracket you inside him. It wasn’t trapping you – he made sure he told himself that clearly – it was just to take a closer look. He could feel how you had gone still. Not out of fear. He knew the differences of that well.

“Zuko?” His name in your mouth, barely above a whisper. His jaw tightened, and the muscle in his cheek flexed out.

“Mmm?” His thumb moved along your jaw, sounded a little distracted.

His finger stole a swipe below your lips. It was harmless, he thought. He thought wrong.

He felt the cells in his body vibrating fast now out of instinct – the “heat” he had tried to get Katara to heal out of him for months now was not coming back fast. And rising fast too. He felt it rushing throughout every vein inside him all at once, the betrayal of his body that had never learned to lie in the face of you.

It was steam.

The heat curled off the back of his neck first, before wisping into the low kitchen hair in small ghosts of fog. Then it was his forearms, rising upwards fast. And then it was his hands – both – the one that held your chin and the one behind you against the counter. He could feel his beads of sweat from the nape of his neck rise through his thick locks of hair.

The steam was most evident on top of his head, puffing out smoke on top of his knot through his crown and also through his red robes that couldn’t have made the contrast any more obvious. He noted mentally that he was going to have a talk with the seamstress to make Firenation attire also steam-proof now.

He was mortifyingly aware of everything that was happening. And even more aware and horrified that he could not do anything about it. He had walked into the face of war. He had faced his father, a tyrant to all four nations. Hell, he had even stood in front of his manic sister who had shot lightning straight to his face and redirected it throughout his body without flinching. And now here he was. Steaming. Literally. Over some spilled tea.

“Zuko, you’re really warm,” you said as you observed the rising smoke radiating out of his body.

“I’m always warm,” he replied fast, too fast.

“No, I mean–” You glanced over at his forearms and then at the hand that held your face. Wisps of white clouds curled off his skin, followed by little noises of puffs that started to fill the room. Your eyebrows rose. “Zuko… you’re steaming?”

“I can see that,” he said with a slight annoyance in his expression. He tried to say it with as much dignity as a man had in this moment, which was not very much at all.

“Is that–” You pressed your lips together, deciding whether it was okay to laugh or not. He could see the amount of effort it was taking. “Is that because of me?”

“Don’t.”

“It was just a question–”

“I know what you’re doing.” He said, and then looked at you through his half-lidded eyes, met with your smile. Of course, you were smiling.

“I–”

He pressed his mouth to your throat before you could say anything else. A cheap tactic he learnt quickly when he needed to make you forget about something for a moment. It worked.

You stopped smiling.

He felt it from the way your breath shuddered in your throat as he dragged his face up and down your neck. He worked slowly, his tongue dragging upwards to follow the faint trail of tea that had dripped down your neck and collarbone – the softness of your skin beneath his jaw soothing all his senses.

Each press of his mouth against your cool skin was deliberate, making sure a satisfying steam of smoke rose from each press of his lips onto your cool neck was felt the way he wanted you to feel. He wasn’t rushing now; he knew he had the patience for this. He had waited all day through all those careful distances he had made sure to keep between you in the garden and the strict barrier of his own thoughts. He had finally found what he was waiting for, and he was not interested in rushing slightly.

The steam kept on rising. If anyone had stepped in for late-night tea right now would be have mistaken it for some sort of sauna from the amount of smoke.

“Are you sure…” You started to sound breathless, “This is the only way to clean me up?”

“Mmm,” His lips moved to the curve of where your throat met your shoulder, placing a soft kiss right at the collarbone. “I’m open to suggestions.”

“I could just–” A pause. His tongue licked the particular spot on your skin that was pinker than usual. The sensation of his warm tongue collided with the sensitive path of skin, sending a jolt down your spine. He pressed another kiss againt the spot – sounds of his displeased grumble vibrating through his lips. A small puff of steam.

“ –change into a different shirt.”

“You could.” He mumbled into you.

“That would probably be easier.”

“Probably would be.” He pulled back just enough to look at you again, at how close both of your faces were. You looked at him through your [colour] lashes, glossy-eyed, completely rounded and dark with that look he loved – long gone, replacing the embarrassment just moments ago. “Do you want to change your shirt?” He asked softly.

You looked back at him for a moment.

“No,” you replied simply.

That was enough for him to become completely undone. He surged upwards suddenly, forehead dropping to yours as he smothered you with kisses. Sloppy wet kisses that steamed off of him softly between your smothered faces. Too warm, too close, but just enough for him and the heat that had been undone inside of him. He didn’t pull back.

“I’ve been–” He stopped.

“I know.” you answered for him. Like you had already taken the words out of his mind.

His hand moved slowly from the counter and placed it on your waist carefully. The heat of his palm bled through the thin, damp linen. The fabric was soft, slightly damp than it was this morning from the atmosphere but still clung onto the place where his hands had steamed against it. You made a very small sound that did things to his patience that he didn’t have time to stop right now.

“You did this all on purpose,” he muttered against your temple. His other hand brushed a stray strand of hair across, placing it behind your ear.

“I spilled the tea by accident–”

“I’m not talking about the tea.”

You froze.

“...Wearing this shirt was an accident too.”

He exhaled. It was warm against the side of your face, visible and slightly steamed softly against your cheek.

He felt you shiver, he smiled away from your sight, hoping you wouldn’t see it. His hand moved from your ear to the locks of your messy sun-kissed hair – moving in and out in a comforting way that he knew you liked by the way you tilted your head back into his touch. You had him wrapped around his finger, and he had you wrapped in his heat.

“Sure, whatever you say,” he taunts.

“It was.”

“So you’re saying that this morning. You picked up my shirt,” he said low, “wore it in front of me, and spent all day in my garden in it.”

You pouted and tipped your chin up slightly. “I didn’t have anything else to wear.”

He looked at you for a long moment, an eyebrow raised. He wasn’t buying it.

“You have,” he said slowly, “your own clothes that I remember you bringing into the room here. Specifically to wear today. Didn’t you call it the 'tea-picking-maximum-focus outfit’ or something too?”

The corner of your mouth twitched.

“Zuko.”

“What.” he blinked at you a couple of times.

“Are you going to kiss me, or are you going to keep asking me about my outfit choices?”

The steam rose off his shoulders in large puffs, slow and visible curls filling the room with newfound smoke that would have set off an alarm. His ears immediately went red. He was absolutely sure of it; hell, he could even feel it from the way his ears were burning with embarrassment now.

He was sure that he had gotten better at making moves or social cues ever since his adolescence, that he had finally escaped the awkwardness of not knowing when to make the right moves. Apparently, that was another thing that was never going to change about him.

He kissed you.

Not gentle. It was the first time he had been rough with you. The kiss was in no way gentle or carefully controlled, like he had been practising all day, being near you. The sensation between your lips was warm – a collision of desperation up against each other, searing at its surface, being overwhelmingly hot – and when he exhaled to take a breath against them, the steam curled between you. You made another sound, a softer one, into his mouth that made his hand tighten around your waist even more.

He was always larger than you. He had consciously noted this every time he had hugged you in his arms, the moment you stepped down and arrived at the docks of the Fire Nation. But now, remembering this fact with you being folded into him felt completely different.

He felt his body swallow you, his chest pounding, heat off his skin and through his clothes onto his shirt. It would be better, he softly bit the bottom of your lip, if there was nothing here at all. He didn’t say that out loud. The hand in your hair tightened, squeezing your head a little tighter than before.

“I’m going to need more than an apology,” he mumbled into your lips, each word pronounced with a puff of smoke escaping his mouth.

The hand that rested on your waist slowly removed itself. You let out an embarrassing sound as you squirmed slightly from the missing warmth. He slowly moved his arm across to reach the rope on his robe, his good eye gazing straight through you.

“Well?” His fingers still on the rope. “You started this, don’t leave now.”

———