#catch me smiling through the pain lmao just laugh through it ahahahahhhhhhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHH

[the-last-cuddlebender]

I wish you would write a fic where Aang and or Katara dies

*inhale* I knew this day would come. (I have -32% skill at writing character deaths because I am soft and squishy, but I tried...and I reluctantly appreciate the practice, especially since this got a lot longer than a fic request lmao🙃) BUT SERIOUSLY, ANON, WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME—?!

Katara was an ocean reduced to a puddle, and Aang held her close like she might drift away.

His hug was warm, his arms were home, and the soft coo that spoke her name almost made her believe that everything was going to be okay...

Rating: T

Words: 3,300 (AO3)

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Dozens of cracks tore open the cave floor like a dried log being snapped in half. The continent itself was being torn asunder, but the world falling apart wasn’t what filled Katara from toe to brim with frozen static.

The look on Aang’s face made it harder to breathe. He held her still with that unfamiliar but familiar smile of his that brought down her every defense. He cradled her face as she caught her breath and recovered from the sprint for their lives.

His voice was a gentle coo that was forever concerned, but his words were distant and fuzzy like he was speaking to her through water.

“—can, Katara. I—”

The tunnel threatened to collapse again, and Katara braced herself to the wall and coughed on the dust that greeted her stinging lungs.

“—be right behind you. Look at me. I promise. I’ll be right behind you, okay? I promise.”

Aang kissed her brow for a second too long. It didn’t feel right. He didn’t look right. He didn’t sound right.

Katara was almost too weak to speak, so her concern bled into small touches and little tugs to pull him closer. The Uprisers were not known for being kind to their captives, and Katara had been no exception. The drugs they forced down her throat were thick and sour like rancid syrup; her bending was numb and kept just beyond her ball and chain, and the living hum thrumming just beneath her skin refused to give up control of her body.

Aang, however, looked as horrible as she felt. She tried not to think about what he had to fight through to rescue her from the compound.

Aang had never struggled to breathe before. He was an airbender. The scratchy sounds from his every pant were crimes against nature.

“Aang—”

“I promise.” Aang stepped closer like he was giving himself as a gift—No, no, not a gift, something worse. His presence was warm like something safe and soothing, and it radiated in the air between them...but his winds were wilting.

Aang’s smile got a little bigger. He stroked her face again. “I’ll be right behind you. I promise. Have I ever broken a promise?”

The mountain groaned and warped beneath them like the rolling shoulders of some large beast. The imaginations of their children’s cries were in Katara’s ears, now; the force of them nearly jerked her off her feet.

Aang said something else—something reassuring that began with a soft promise and ended with a gentle whisper of her name.

The hairs on Katara’s nape stood on end, and her stomach flipped into everywhere it shouldn’t be.

Aang’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. It didn’t spark any color, either; it was just enough to dress his face in a grin. 

His smile—damn that spiritsdamned smile—

His little laugh was a sledgehammer driving into her gut, his brushing touches were claws sinking into her heart, and the little shadow in his eyes—terrified and so sad that Katara nearly cried for him—was a beast threatening to rip her apart. 

He...He wouldn’t...

Heat crawled into her face, warmth slid down her cheeks, and Aang’s unspoken words were daggers twisting into open wounds and bleeding her out.

...He couldn’t.

The whole continent shook with a mighty roar. Aang stiffened and failed to pretend to ignore it. He looked at her like he was looking through her, into her—flipping through the pages of her soul and signing them so his presence there wouldn’t be forgotten.

He couldn’t—He promised—

His image blurred. “No…” Katara’s first tears raced down her face like they might be able to stop him if only they hit the ground fast enough. “N-No...No, I am not—Dammit, Aang, I am not leaving here without you!”

Aang’s smile was a tranquilizer, and it was made all the more potent when he claimed the space between them again. Katara fisted his robes; it took her a few fumbling tries—like her fingers were stiffened from frostbite—, but her shaking hands eventually found purchase.

His hands caught her face before she could hide under his chin. “Leaving me?” He said it so casually that Katara would have smacked him if she could move. “Who said you were leaving me? You’re not leaving me. I’m just giving you a head start. I’ll catch up with you.”

“Aang, please. We have to go home. You—You know how Tenzin gets when it storms like this. He and Bumi and Kya need you so…so we have to go home...please.”

Aang’s smile got a little bigger. His eyes got a little wetter. The press of his brow to hers was as gentle as he always was and like how he always made her feel.

He exhaled—the sound was familiar; the air was, too—, but this breath left him like it did in her nightmares after those days when someone walked into her clinic and didn’t walk out.

“...Tell them that I love them?”

Katara’s chest caved in like it was made of glass. Everything flushed too hot and too cold all at once. Her head was fuzzy and filled with cotton.

Aang had the audacity to smile a little more—lopsided on the left side with the shadow of a dimple that never did choose whether or not to call his face its home—and wipe his thumbs under her eyes like he could wipe away her broken heart just as easily.

Katara’s voice was watery and taut like a cable about to snap. “I’m not telling them shit.” She glared hellfire at his stupid face even as she leaned into his touch and drank the safety he cloaked her with. “You’ll tell them yourself once we get home. They’re probably hungry since it’s close to their bedtime and—”

“Katara…”

“No! We are going home—both of us—and y-you can tell them yourself! We are going to regroup and try again, but right now we are going home—!”

She tugged him, but he didn’t move. Her buckling knees nearly took her out, and some hidden part of her ripped in half and bled poison—sharp and twice as toxic as the Uprisers’ drugs—into everything that she was.

Aang’s eyes misted over like the boulders on Ember Island that sat in the sand and surf and bore a perpetual glaze from the ocean throwing itself against them.

He could not have begged her any harder if he was on his knees.

“Katara…”

No. No. She wouldn’t—she couldn’t...

Katara sucked air on her next inhale as her throat threatened to close.

She yelled at him. She screamed at him. The mountain shook some more, Aang grew all the more concerned, and the look on his face and the sag of his shoulders—defeated—made her weep all the harder.

“—expect me to care for you so little that I would leave you behind! How could you ever—how could you ever j-just expect me to—!”

He let her tire herself out. Typical airbender tactic. Her body, the drugs, and her exhaustion fought her on his behalf, and her shaking fists beat his chest in little more than muted pats.

Aang slipped past her defenses, held her face in a way that compelled her to lean into his palms, and showered her with chaste kisses that lasted for seconds at a time. Each one lasted longer and pressed deeper than the one before like he was guiding her into warm water. They were simple, they were welcoming, and they were perfect.

He tamed her like it was the most natural thing in the world, and, when he mumbled sweet words into his every kiss, she shuddered like something dead about to be blown into dust.

Katara was an ocean reduced to a puddle, and Aang held her close like she might drift away.

His hug was warm, his arms were home, and the soft coo that spoke her name almost made her believe that everything was going to be okay.

Katara choked on her next breath and buried the wet sound in the singed tatters of robes resting over his heart.

“P-Please, Aang…Please...”

Aang hugged her tighter to keep her from falling apart. “...I love you.”

Katara trembled, but the small kiss to her cheek caught the pieces of her shattered heart, and the hum of his voice calmed her storm like he was shepherding it back home. Katara’s legs buckled. She almost smiled, damn it all. She hugged his neck and rushed to tell him how much she loved him and how much she needed him to come home.

He promised. He promised.

Aang kneeled and guided Katara to her knees like he knew better than she did that she would fall flat the second he was gone. Katara scrambled to hold onto him; she clawed his back and prayed that her fingers would not be numb for long enough to keep him there.

“No, no, no, no, no, Aang, please, no, please—”

“I love you...I love you...I love you…” He kissed her some more and rubbed her back. “It’s okay, Katara.”

Katara shook her head. “N-No…’s not okay. It’s not. Aang, I don’t...I can’t…” She pressed her face to his. It was the only part of her she could move. “My…’m husband ‘nd I need you and...a-and…”

She was scared. She was so, so scared. His arms were the safest place in the world, and she needed him. She loved him. He was her husband. He was the father of their children. He was her full moon when she was at her weakest, and he was the man she was going to spend every boring, exciting, sad, happy moment of her life with.

“You...You promised...You promised, Aang…You promised…”

Aang’s hand was ghostly as it trailed up and down her back. His touch was a key and she was his safe, and he unlocked the tension out of every part of her so she could barely muster the control to hold onto him. His next kiss was longer than the rest. The hug he tugged her into was so safe that it almost tricked her into thinking that he was leaving for only a little while.

“I did promise. And I am promising.” She felt his smile when he kissed her neck and talked right into her ear. “I’ll be right behind you, okay? Just keep walking east, and Appa will find you. Keep your eyes ahead of you. You can get lost if you look back.”

Katara hesitated, frozen, for a second that lasted an eternity.

...She didn’t want to say goodbye. 

“Don’t...Don’t go…Please, don’t go. I’m begging you, Aang, please…” She fought the numbness trapping her within the cage of her body, but her efforts to hold him tighter did nothing but make her arms shake. “I love you...I love you so much, and I can’t...P-Please don’t go…”

Aang pulled away; Katara flinched like a bandage was being torn off and scrambled to keep him close, but she might as well have tried finding purchase on wet glass. 

He cupped the curve of her jaw, and his fingers wove into the stray hairs that curled under her ear. She leaned into him. She didn’t bother trying to hide her desperation. Her next plea was the whine of a dying machine, and her shaking hand held his wrist to brand his warmth into her. She closed her eyes and prayed to be anywhere else.

She could tell him how much she loved him until the universe itself buckled and collapsed and still not have said how much her heart bled for him.

He was the daydream that made all of her nightmares worth it.

...He was her best friend.

Defeated grey eyes like ashes left in the wake of a fire looked at her like he was seeing her for the first time.

Then he smiled. And Katara’s heart went to war.

Because the way he looked at her made everything bright and warm and perfect even though his eyes were kissing her goodbye.

“I’ll be right behind you, Katara,” he said. His quiet voice—always gentle and forever concerned—was strong and reassuring, but he swallowed so heavily that she saw his throat bob. His touched his forehead to hers and drowned her in all things safe and familiar and home. “I promise.”

Katara made a sound like a whimper. Her world turned crooked, and her grip on his robes was the only thing keeping her above water.

He was supposed to teach Bumi how to fly a skybison. He was supposed to help Sokka prank Toph the day after next for her birthday. He was supposed to teach Tenzin how to airbend. He was supposed to teach Kya how to dance so she wouldn’t be so nervous in front of other people.

He promised—He promised...

Aang kissed both her cheeks and twice between her eyes.

“I love you.”

And then...nothing.

The warmth was gone—just a gust of air in his wake. He didn’t let her see him leave.

There was a wall where he once was, sealing the cave shut.

Katara was suddenly drowning, and she fought to find her air. “No!” She dragged herself forward and fell flat twice before touching the cold barrier. She shook like a building about to collapse. She clawed the stone as she spiraled into something worse than darkness. “No! Aang, you promised!” Her numb limbs got a little number, and her soul burned like it was peeled raw. She screamed so loud that it threatened to make her throat bleed. “Aang, you promised! Aang, please! Please! Aang, you promised!”

The mountain growled and threatened to crush her, but Katara yelled at it, too. She yelled at the Spirits and the Avatars and her stupid, stupid best friend.

The sounds from beyond and below the stone wall would haunt her forever. Katara clawed the door he had slammed in her face even though she could just barely find the strength to keep conscious.

He promised. He promised, damn it all. He promised—

Sokka and Suki found Katara mere minutes before the mountain collapsed. Her fingers were bloody. Her voice was gone. She was crying more than breathing.

Sokka cursed as he dragged her, weakly kicking and mutely screaming, out of the cave while Suki tried to keep Appa still. 

Katara scrambled and fought—frantic—but her world was spinning out of control. She couldn’t muster more than a desperate squirm and a heartbroken whine that Suki had to look away from.

“Let me go! He promised!” Katara screamed, but her voice was a leaky stream of air from a broken pipe that was barely louder than the rain. Her words were full of holes and made the back of her tongue her taste like iron and salt. “Sokka, he needs me! Please, they’re going to kill him!” She looked up at her big brother. Her world was being ripped apart, but Sokka wouldn’t look at her. “Please, Sokka! Please! I can’t lose him again! I can’t...I can’t—!”

Her big brother set his jaw and said nothing, but his grip shook the barest bit.

A broken sound—a long keen like a wounded wolf’s howl—dragged itself out of Katara. She wanted to fight, but even her body was letting her lose him.

Lose him.

She was losing him.

“Sokka, I...I promised...I promised...”

Lightning flashed white-hot scars across the blackened sky and cracked Katara’s eardrums like a whip against her back.

Katara’s element called to her in every sheet of rain flooding the ground in inches of water, but she was trapped behind dirty glass, helpless to the drug humming with laugher just beneath her skin.

She kicked Sokka where it hurt, but even when Katara fought free, she couldn’t pick herself up off the ground.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair.

Appa paced and pawed the mountain. He softly groaned, his eyes searching.

He...He promised.

Katara fought to move her head enough to face the cave entrance. She panted, too confined, too enclosed, like she was being compressed into her own skin.

Aang...

Her other half was missing.

He was in danger.

He was alone.

She needed to get him back—she had to. Everything would be okay if she just got him back.

She always brought him back.

She tried to picture his smile, but the memory didn’t carry the warmth that he did.

The broken sound dragged itself out of Katara again, and, this time, it broke her apart and dragged her pieces with it.

“No....No, no, no...Please, n-no...Please...”

Mud and rain touched her tongue, and Katara didn’t know who or what to curse anymore when still her element wouldn’t come to her. It mocked her like a million devils and burned her with just as many hateful glares when she dug into what wasn’t there and dragged herself forward a few inches.

...Suki gathered her into a submission hold and scooped her into the saddle.

The shredded parts of Katara that had held on to something like hope were torn off and left to bleed out.

“No...” Katara clawed Suki, the saddle, and anything else she could reach. “No—N-No...” 

Aang—He needed her. He needed help. 

When next the mountain roared, what was left of Katara’s heart tore into pieces as fine as ashes. 

Aang...She heard him.

He was hurt. 

He needed her.

He was stupid.

He was alone.

He was scared.

He was her best friend, and she wasn’t going to leave him. 

She promised. 

Appa whuffled a concerned sound when Suki pinned Katara prone in the saddle to halt her next escape attempt, but the ground giving way gave him no choice but to fly.

There was a last crumble of stone like a god falling out of the sky.

There was a plume of dust and dirt that stole the space in Katara’s lungs.

And then...nothing.

The mountain—The mountain was gone, swallowed into the ocean with the rest of the peninsula.

It was gone.

He was gone.

But he...he...

Suki tried to console her even as she fought back her own tears. Sokka sat beside her and squeezed her hand so hard that she couldn’t feel her fingers.

Katara’s limbs were filled with lead, and she slowly sank, like through quicksand, into something cold and dark that reminded her of nightmares and flirts with death. She was at the bottom of the ocean, and she was being crushed alive.

Her ears rang, her insides became more slush than bone, and the wind howled and beat them like it was mourning its last master.

Breathing was no longer a passive function, and Katara had to remember her children just to convince herself to fill her lungs again.

Her children.

Their children.

The emptiness was a pit in her chest that sat on her with the weight of a mountain, and it was swallowing Katara whole.

“You…” Katara hiccupped and pressed herself into the waterlogged saddle like she might be able to hide there. Her voice was the crunch of glass underfoot, and the whole of her shook like she was freezing to death. “You p-promised…”

The hole in her chest where her heart once was tightened its inky-black chains around her. Her insides rang hollow, and ice crept in frozen webs just beneath her skin. She was numb. She was floating—She was falling—, but Katara kept fighting anyways.

Her only moment of peace came when Suki chi-blocked her.

Unconsciousness was a blessing, and Katara welcomed it like she was sprinting towards it.

This was all just a nightmare. It had to be.

She would wake up, roll over so she was buried even deeper in his arms, and smile as he mumbled a sleepy ‘I love you’ and lazily kissed her hair.

Because Aang promised.

“I guess this means we’ll always be together.”

...And she thought Aang would never break a promise.

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...🥺

aka the “Katara: the Last Airbender” AU that I have equal parts love and hate for. Aang dies protecting the world—and, more importantly, Katara and his family—when Tenzin is a baby, so Katara has to teach Tenzin airbending from what she learned/remembers from Aang. Being his sparring partner made her the best—and now only—resource for airbending, but she knew more than most people realized. She knew Aang better than anyone. His every facet was a mirror and a duplicate embossed into her own. She gave Aang his own Kataango but with airbending, after all, and learning his way of interacting with the world made her connection with him all the deeper. (Sokka was the better storyteller, though, and Katara could only hope that he could tell the three lights of her life about their father without summoning tears at the mere mention of their good times like she did.)

Btw If you heard a loud crack, that was my heart breaking🙃

I HOPE YOU’RE HAPPY, ANON