Waiting on the light (And I never say goodnight)
Kataang Week Day 2: Domesticity
(Art by @javi_khoso on X)
Aang hissed, flinching back in pain as Katara sighed, clearly exasperated.
“Hold still, you big baby,” she commanded, dragging out the last bit of botched suture thread from the pulsing cut at his temple.
Aang rolled his eyes as he felt a warm trickle of fresh blood that Katara quickly wiped away with an alcohol wipe. The adrenaline and pain meds had worn off, and his entire body felt like a bruise. “Sorry that the giant cut on my face is actually painful, Dr. Tariuq.”
She snorted and scooted closer, the tip of her tongue poking out the side of her mouth as she gently applied a numbing ointment to the area—sweet, cool relief.
They were sitting cross-legged on the dining room table, and it was well past midnight. The hanging light fixture hovered between them, only a few inches above Aang’s head, as they sat in the pool of its amber light. Medical supplies were spread out beside Katara, bloody gauze and discarded bandage wrappers—the smell of antiseptic, Katara’s bodywash, and the residual scent of onions lingering from dinner.
Aang’s stomach grumbled. He was always famished after a fight.
“Was it Roberts again?” She had a real vendetta for Dr. Roberts. Was convinced the man was intentionally trying to leave him scarred.
Aang smirked, closing his eyes as she lifted the suture needle. The smell of her skin was soothing. Refreshing after all the sweat, blood, and cleaning bleach they poured over everything at the arena. Strands of her slightly damp hair brushed over his hand where it rested on his thigh, the curls cool and soft as she leaned closer. Crickets were chirping, and he could hear the trees swaying just outside the glass walls.
Katara grunted, unimpressed. “The UFC needs to hire better doctors.”
Aang reached out blindly, finding the bare skin of her knee and gently squeezing. “You could always come back.”
“Yeah, right, then we’d both be gone all the time.”
His hand drifted higher. “But we’d all get to be together more.”
“You better watch that hand, sir, or you might get a needle in the eye.”
Aang chuckled and dutifully drew his hand back into his lap. The cold stab of the needle, and he drew in a long breath, easing himself through the feeling of the thread dragging through his skin.
“How’s your knee feeling?”
Aang instinctively extended his leg, feeling the dull pinch like an old friend. “Feels like I blew it out a few years ago and now I know when a storm is rolling in.”
Katara laughed as the needle bit again. “Does it feel swollen?”
Aang frowned and shifted his kneecap back and forth. “Maybe a little bit,” he admitted.
“Well, you know what that means.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he griped, cracking open one eye and locating the ice pack she’d brought out for this exact purpose. He dutifully set it on his knee.
“Your rib scan showed fracturing.” The puncture of his skin and the audible drag of the thread.
“Yeah, means I’m out for at least a month.” Would be nice to have a break. To be home more.
She tugged on the thread, tightening it. The feeling of torn skin being sewn back together was always strange. He felt her weight shift, and there was the sound of snipping scissors and then the press of a gauze bandage.
“Maybe we can take a trip,” she remarked as she took his face gently between her fingers, tipping his face so she could study the bruising along his jaw. It was always like this, after a fight—Katara surveying his body for every bump and bruise. Assessing the damage, easing her worries.
It was nice to be fussed over.
The delicate brush of her hands on him sent a tremor up his spine, and he reached for her without really thinking. He wanted to feel the slight weight of her in his arms, wanted to bury his face in the fragrant fall of her hair.
She surprised him by coming willingly, sliding across the table until she was nearly in his lap. Sometimes, when the fights were harder, she got like this. Anxious and grateful he was okay, but hiding it under a veneer of medical professionalism. Her head tipped back, the blue of her eyes deep and darkening, like the depths of the ocean, pulling him under. For her, he would gladly drown.
As if sensing his dismally poetic thoughts, she smirked, amusement dancing like firelight, and she looped her arms around his neck.
Aang chuckled, but the sound was husky as he leaned towards her. “Oh yeah? He got in a few more punches than I would have liked.”
Her palm dragged across his face, pulling him down, her knees pressing into his shins. “Good thing you’re tough.”
And then they were kissing, soft and slow, deepening by degrees, like slipping into warm currents. God, he loved the taste of her. The little sounds she made—soft, inviting sighs, like she was letting some part of herself go. Like she was giving him little, precious pieces of herself.
He gathered the weight of her hair in a hand, fisting it gently between his fingers, anchoring her to him as his tongue slipped past the line of her teeth. Her nails scraped over the stubble along his jaw, and she met his heat with her own.
Every part of him ached, but it didn’t matter. He wanted her. God, he always wanted her. Wondered if he would ever have enough of this, of them.
“Dada?” came a small voice, drawing them quickly apart.
Bumi stood in the semi-darkness of the kitchen. His wild hair stood on end, and he was dragging a blanket behind him. His pajama top was no match for his chubby toddler stomach, and his belly button protruded over the top of his Pull-ups.
A sharp, but familiar, burst of affection shot through Aang’s chest. The kind of feeling that made him want to squeeze his son within an inch of his life. Cute aggression, according to Katara.
“Did you have a bad dream?” Katara asked, shifting her legs to fall over the side of the table as she held her open hands out to their son.
Bumi shook his head, rubbing at his eye and stumbling forward. “No. Hear Dada.”
Katara lifted their son in her arms, blanket dragging after him like a teddy-bear-studded tail, and then turned to settle him in Aang’s lap. The warm weight of Bumi’s body curling against his chest made his lungs burn, and Aang wrapped his arms around his son’s tiny frame.
He couldn’t describe the feeling in his chest. Not if he tried for a thousand years—like love but more. Illogical. Transcendent.
“He’s getting so big,” Katara said, a mixture of affection and sadness that he could only attribute to parenthood reflecting in her eyes. Like she was watching him grow into adulthood there in his lap. “Our little man.”
Aang bent to press a kiss against his son’s unruly hair as Bumi snuggled in close. The baby smell was gone, replaced with lavender baby wash and oatmeal body lotion that Katara slathered on him every night before bed. Bumi often ran naked and screeching through the house while his mother tried to chase him down. He felt a sharp twinge of regret that he missed it tonight. That he missed any small moment—some small new word or tiny discovery his son might have made.
Aang chuckled. “Yeah, dada won.”
Bumi reached up to grip his shirt. “Did momma kiss you owies?”
Aang and Katara exchanged an amused glance. “She sure did, buddy. Though they might need more kisses later.”
Katara hit him lightly in the arm, and Aang laughed.
Bumi pulled back to look pleadingly up at Aang, big blue-gray eyes gleaming. “I sleep in big bed? Pwease, dada?”
Aang gripped his son under his arms and lifted him so they were at eye level. “Only if mommy says you can,” he whispered, like it was a secret.
Bumi beamed, then contorted his face again before turning it on his mother. “Pweeeease, momma? Sleep in big bed?”
She lofted a brow at Aang. “I don’t know, sweet boy, is daddy sure he wants you in the big bed?”
Aang looked at his son and then back at his wife, deeply torn, before Katara laughed. “Of course you can sleep with us.” She stole her son back, burying her face in his exposed, rounded stomach, making him squeal.
There had been so many moments in his life that he’d wished he could hold onto, that he wanted to remember the feeling of forever. He’d trade every single one of them just to cling to small moments like this. Just to remember his wife’s smile and his son’s laughter with perfect clarity for as long as he lived.
“Come on, you two,” he said, throat tight. “Let's get to bed.”
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