Iām awake in you and youāre asleep in me
Kataang week Day 1: Soulmates
This drabble is set in my Katanga Dr. AU. I hope you enjoy.
Aang sometimes struggled to understand what he believed in.
He sometimes struggled to dissect the complicated intertwining facets of his upbringing and really examine what felt right and what didnāt. What he wanted to keep and what he needed to let go of.
Personal enlightenment, individual responsibility, and internal reflection were easy enough to retain. The world would be a better place if people followed the monks in that particular regard, he was sure. It was a philosophy that had always served Aang wellāhad kept him afloat when heād felt like drowning. Gave him strength when he felt like he had nothing left. When heād wondered what it was all for.
There was something to the idea of living for the moment. For finding meaning in the trajectory of a falling leaf and the brilliance of a sunset. It was something heād tried to embody his whole life. To live as much in the present as possible and find joy in the small things.
Still, heād been lonely as hell. Lonely his whole life, it felt like. Never quite part of anything. One foot in a world made of incense and Tibetan chanting, and the other firmly in the wild irreverence of Western life, the two forever at odds inside of him.
In contrast, heād summarily rejected the belief that he was some kind of chosen savior for his people. Or that enlightenment could transcend existence. Or that by removing oneself as much as possible from the world, you could somehow be more connected to it. Rebirth had been a general, yeah, no, probably not for most of his adult life.
But that had been before he met Katara.
He didnāt think heād ever forget the first moment he saw her. Frowning and wary as she entered the exam room at the clinic, dark hair gleaming, glasses slipping down her nose. The near-constant pain heād been living under for the past two weeks had all but evaporated, and for several long seconds heād been almost sure theyād met somewhere before. Her movements felt familiar to him, like he could predict the way sheād push her glasses up, or brush her braid off her shoulder.
A silly, romantic notion that heād brushed aside but couldnāt quite outrun.
Every time he saw her, that feeling of familiarity remained. Intensified. Heād never been so caught up in someone before. He dreamed about her. Flashes of things that didnāt make sense, but felt like memories. It wasnāt till heād kissed her that first night in his bed, practically dying from restraint, that he considered the possibility. That an old memory had been jogged loose, tying his past to his present in a way that felt like destiny.
The sun was setting against the crumbling warehouse behind the temple, and Gyatso took a deep breath, eyes closed, expression blissful. Aang could smell rotting sewage, hear the endless whooshing of passing cars, and angry shouting from the park across the street. Someone was probably about to get into a fight. The older boys were always getting into fights.
āYou are vibrating, Aang,ā the old man said mildly.
Aang sighed, trying to let go of his annoyance, to set it free in the wind like Gyatso was always telling him to.
āI am sorry, Rinpoche. The kids at school were making fun of me.ā
Gyatsoās eyes remained closed, but a smirk tugged at his thin, wrinkled lips. āDid they compare your conically shaped head to an egg again? Or did they perhaps admire the way it sometimes blindingly reflects sunlight?ā
Aang crossed his arms over his chest. āItās not funny.ā
āIt is a little funny.ā
Aang grunted, and Gyatso chuckled, peeling one eyelid open. The old man set his hand, warm and dry, on the top of Aangās head, and muttered a chant softly under his breath. Some of the tension leaked from Aang, shoulders drooping as the sting of the playground insults dulled.
āClose your eyes,ā Gyatso instructed, voice quiet, almost inaudible against the noise of the traffic.
Aang obeyed, drawing in a deep breath.
āFeel my hand on your head, feel the energy that passes between us.ā
Aang concentrated on the gentle touch, on the place where the skin of his scalp met ancient calluses. Felt the frisson there, like communication, like some quiet, unseen part of them was talking.
āI-I think so?ā He wasnāt sure what he was meant to be feeling exactly. Connection butā¦more.
āLife is energy, Aang. Existence is the flame of a candle. When we die, another is lit. Not the same candle, not the same flame, but an echo. Light carried forward against the dark.ā
The outside noise was fading away against the gentle insistence of Gyatsoās words.
āSometimes, our energies intertwine with others. Grow close. Connected. This connection can follow us into our next lives.ā
Aang took a breath, and it felt like his lungs had been expanded. Like there was more air in them than there ever had been before.
He could feel it. Could swear he felt it. A resonance. A kind of recognition between the flame inside Gyatso and the one burning inside his own chest.
The old monk removed his hand, the tether broken, and Aang opened his eyes, wondering.
āYou meanā¦ we knew each other before?ā
Gyatso shrugged in that way he always had, as if the secrets of the universe were entirely beyond him as opposed to at the tips of his wizened fingers.
āMaybe. Maybe not. All I know for certain is when I held you as a tiny crying babe, my soul felt as though it had found a familiar friend.ā
Aang nodded, considering, trying to understand what it was Gyatso wanted him to learn. Something to do with the school kids and his frustration. Something to do with who he was and who he was meant to be.
Gyatso laughed as Aang struggled, patting him gently on the shoulder. āSome lessons take time to learn, my boy. You cannot rush them, only carry their seeds with you till they are ready to take root.ā
With Katara lying in his bed, her hand tucked under her cheek, breathing slowly and evenly, he felt the seeds of that moment stir. The lesson held new resonance, maybe beyond even what Gyatso had intended, but maybe not.
He touched Kataraās cheek, felt the softness and living warmth of her, and closed his eyes. He didnāt have to try or search or even really focusāthe familiarity of her rose to meet him like she had been waiting for him all along. A familiar flame in the dark, energy intertwined.
The sheer relief of it made his eyes burn.
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