Fic: Naked Time

[lierdumoa]

Title: Naked Time
Fandom: Avatar
Pairing: Mai/Zuko
Rating: NC-17
Summary: The evolution of a relationship. 1,675 wds.
A/N: Thanks to permetaform for the line edit and goluxexmachina for the audiencing.



The first time they were naked together they were four.

Mai showed Zuko her thing and Zuko showed her his. She had to spread her legs because he couldn't see much with her just standing there and he told her that her thing was pretty and she rolled her eyes and said, "I don't know what you're talking about, Zuko," and dropped her dress back down.

Zuko grabbed her hand and pretended not to notice she was blushing and they ran back to where his mother was setting out tarts and sweet tea on a picnic blanket.

~*~

The second time they were naked together they were 18 and Zuko was being welcomed home with an extravagant party thrown in honor of his supposed victory over the avatar. Mai was lounging on a setee, looking bored. Zuko asked her to dance. She drawled out a yes and let him lead her to the ballroom floor.

Zuko was a terrible dancer. It wasn't that he lacked rhythm, but he was used to using his rhythm to destroy his enemies in close combat. Besides most Fire Nation dances involved exacting choreography and Zuko hadn't had enough time to study up.

Mai sighed loudly the third time he jabbed her with his elbow. "Why did you ask me to dance if you didn't know how? You don't make any sense, Zuko."

"I just wanted to do something with you because I like you," Zuko snapped. "Why'd you say yes if you didn't want me touching you?"

"Stop yelling. You weren't touching me, you were jabbing me." She sighed again. "And I like you too, okay, so lets just go do something else that you're not so terrible at."

She quickly slipped off the dance floor. Zuko stared after her a moment before he realized she expected him to follow her.

The ended up in an abandoned lounge area. Mai ushered him into the room, then locked and barricaded the door behind them.

"I'm glad you're home, Zuko," she said, then began undoing the stays on her gown.

Zuko opened his mouth, then closed it, for fear he might blurt out something ridiculous like, "What if I'm terrible at this too," and she'd change her mind and oh my God, those were her breasts.

The next thing he knew she was making quick work of his trousers, teeth sharp against his bottom lip, and then she was laying back along the large couch near the middle of the room and pulling him down on top of her.

"The maid's been brewing me a contraceptive tea ever since my sixteenth birthday," she told him.

Oh, he thought.

He kissed her again, carefully. She felt so delicate, even as she dug her nails punishingly into the skin of his arms. As usual, her face revealed little.

Her body had always been easier to read anyway. He looked down to where she was spreading her thighs, milk white against the dark red of the cushions, the folds of her labia a deep, purple pink.

Pretty.

"Hurry up," she said, her tone curt.

He drew a finger over her slit. Slick. Perfect as he'd always imagined she would be. He wanted to taste her. He wanted everything.

"Mai," he murmured, just to feel the word on his tongue.

She dragged her nails down his arms until his eyes snapped back up to hers. "I'm not really in the mood for foreplay." And then she was yanking him by his hips, guiding him in.

His hips jerked. Too fast, too fast. Mai pulled in a sharp breath.

"Sorry," he gasped out. "I. Sorry. I should." Me moved to pull back. "We don't have to. You don't have to. Do this."

Mai rolled her eyes again, showing no other reaction but for the painful bite of her fingers digging into Zuko's biceps. "I didn't say stop, did I?"

Zuko slid in further, slowly this time, as slow as he could stand, feeling the familiar agonizing burn of overburdened muscles and the brutality of self-restraint, carefully watching every slight twitch of her body, looking for her minute reactions.

Like fighting, he thought, one action an indicator of the next. He was good at fighting. He could do this. Please, let him be able to do this.

He pulled out, then pushed in again, slower this time, every pore in his skin ready to break out in sweat. And again. And again. He shifted angle, subtly, seeing if her hips moved with his or against, adjusting accordingly. He wouldn't screw this up.

He wouldn't.

She tensed, letting out a quiet, "Oh," then holding her breath as though she were in pain, her vagina snapping vise tight.

When the sweat finally broke across his brow it was a cold one.

"I. Am I hurting you?" He tried desperately to tamp down the edge of panic. "Mai? I'm sorry. We can stop. Are you—"

"I'm coming ... Zuko," she hissed out between gritted teeth and Zuko was so shocked that his hips stuttered to a halt for a moment. He picked up his rhythm again quickly, and soon Mai was letting out fast, hitching breaths, sweat beading on her upper lip, the tiniest of shivers visible in the movement of her breasts.

She went slack beneath him. Zuko wondered if he should pull away. He would. If she wanted. The urge to ejaculate was weighing on him but he had endured worse. Much worse.

And she was so beautiful, so graceful. He would do anything for her.

"Mai," he said again.

"Come. I want to feel you come," she said.

He didn't deserve her. He knew that. He wasn't an idiot.

Zuko probably looked like an idiot, though, with the loud animalistic moans he couldn't hold back anymore and the veins popping out along his temples. She tensed underneath him a second time, and for a moment he was certain she had changed her mind, that she really was going to tell him to stop this time, slip out from under him, neatly rearrange her skirts and snort, soft and cruel as he wilted with humiliation.

His dread only made it all the more shocking when she instead slid her hands up from his arms to dig her fingers into the back of his neck and lever herself up, her forehead against his. She twisted the short hairs at his nape until tears sprang to his eyes and gasped, almost soundlessly, his name and he felt—

He felt her, this time recognizing her orgasm for what it was. He felt her lips against his, soft, soft as flower petals even as she clenched around him and mercilessly wrung him out. They came apart together, trembling barely at all, but feeling as though the world were quaking apart around them.

Zuko collapsed on top of her.

Eventually she did tell him to get off of her, in her usual bored monotone, but he couldn't help the small swell of pride that she let him lie there for several long minutes as she waited for her breathing to slow.

"So, you've been with lots of girls?" she asked, sitting up, her face revealing nothing.

"No, you're my first."

"... oh." She paused briefly before speaking again. "You're my third."

"Oh." The flare of jealousy was thick and dark, like bile in the back of his throat. He turned his face away.

"You were good," she said.

"And how were they?" He couldn't help the bitterness in his tone.

"They were ... experienced. They'd both been with other girls before. It was ... nice."

Zuko got a twisting feeling in his gut that might have rage or anguish. It wasn't fair. It was never fair, was it?

She touched his arm. "Zuko."

He didn't want to look. He didn't, but he couldn't help himself. How could he ever help himself? She was so beautiful. He turned his head back.

He more saw than heard her next words, soft and sure in the curve of her lips. "You were better than them," she said. Like it was obvious. Like she hadn't just told Zuko the sky was green.

She rolled her eyes at his disbelieving look. "I came twice, in case you didn't notice."

"I. And they couldn't—?"

"Don't start fishing for compliments."

She looked away, this time. She was blushing. She reached for her dress. Zuko put out an arm to stop her.

"Wait, I. Can I? I want to go down on you. I've never—"

"Still think I'm pretty, Zuko?"

"Yes," he says, cringing inwardly at the pathetic, gushing tone in his voice. "Wait, you remember that?"

"Of course I remember." She was blushing even harder now, but a smile was encroaching on her mouth, a barely discernable curve at the corners of her lips.

Zuko reached for her. She stopped him with a small shake of her head.

"Not right now. I'm sore."

He flushed and drew away from her, sick with guilt. "I'm sorry."

She reached over and grabbed his chin firmly with her slender fingers, forcing him to look her in the eye. "I'm not."

~*~

The third time was five hours later, in Zuko's bedroom. He didn't bother counting after that.

~*~

Later, when he left the Fire Nation, flying off on a journey to fulfill his destiny and finding himself to be an outsider, a unwanted burden once more, he remembered each moment with Mai, as clear and distinct in his mind as if they had only just happened, and the ache in his chest grew so strong it was hard to stand.

He'd endured worse.

He grinned and bore it. Or scowled, really. Zuko wasn't one for grinning.

The avatar's friends gave him no sympathy. In fact, they mocked him at every opportunity. At times, Zuko honestly couldn't believe he'd actually given up having sex with his girlfriend only to have to put up with these brats.

He said as much to them during one particularly drawn out bout of ribbing, which rather unexpectedly shut all of them right the hell up.