Who Knows
✮i'll probably be a waste of your time, but who knows. ✮ Also known as the ATLA College!AU pt.2
summary☞ zuko had never been the object of anyone's attention, not until you at least. to make a long story short, things were good until they weren't, and he is far too honorable to try and tell you what you want, even if it means losing you. prequel to the CollegeAU! absolute pining final boss! Zuko, mentions of oral (f receiving), insecure!zuko, a bit of angst because Zuko just loves reader so much.
an: i was so excited for this au, i already started writing part 2. hope you guys enjoy.
It was unbearably hot in Zuko's room. You'd expected it to be fancier with all the daddy's money you thought he had stashed away, but it was rather barren all things considered. A small fan droned on in the corner of the room, not that it did much to combat that staunch August heat and the feeling of his massive body laid on top of yours. Maybe it was the heat, maybe it was the physical manifestation of whatever had been going on between the two of you, but it was as if you had melted together. Underneath your fingertips were his bare, hot skin, and you could feel further beneath it, the push and pull of his muscles with the slightest of movements. It was times like this you wondered if your boyfriend...situationship...friend? was even human.
He could be rather mechanical. You had always figured it was just one of his charms, polite to a fault and a bit unfeeling. Never cold, if there was one thing to be understood about Zuko, there was nothing cold about him. Even when you were both strangers, he had this warmth in his eyes, something in-between passion, curiosity, and a hunger. A hunger for what, you don't exactly know. You were never one to push, and that wouldn't be your business unless he made it your business. But still, you expected him to open up by now. It's been months of screwing around and months of him skirting around even being seen with you in public.
At this point, you were starting to doubt this was ever going to be anything serious. Honestly, you had no idea what he wanted. There were moments where he was so different, fragile almost. Like one wrong word and he would just shatter in the palm of your hands. He was so unsure. He was so...odd. Like his warmth was a natural quality of his that was never practiced, like the attempt at apathy was nothing more than a thin veneer covering whatever was underneath, scared that it would bubble from the surface and spill his guts out.
Even now, with Zuko literally balls deep in your pussy, there was somehow that separation. He was there. He was everywhere. His calloused hands splayed across the expanse of your hips, holding you firm in place with every jerk and spasm caused by the ridges of his cock drilling into you. Though he initially had tied his hair back, after a few rounds of his fucking his tongue into you and your hands undecidedly pushing him closer than further, more than a few stray pieces were currently buried into the side of your neck where he hid. He tried to be quiet, but he couldn't will his mouth shut, and now he panted into you, the occasional whimper escaping in between quiet groans of expletives.
And it wasn't the first time he got like this. The first time you two had sex he requested for the lights to be off, scared you wouldn't like what you saw, scared of having to face you when it was over, so embarrassed he almost talked himself out of what he'd practically prayed for. He did it then, his hands nervously placed on your hips, eyes screwed shut and his head tilted back. If there was one thing he got better at, it was quieting himself. Back then he was a wreck, so much filling his head, his brain couldn't figure out what was meant to be kept a thought. If he was being honest, he was a bit embarrassed now because while balls deep in your pussy, something struck him violently in his chest and he wanted to cry.
He thought he could hide it with his mean thrusts and his bruising grip bringing your hips to meet him. He couldn't manage the words, but if he could find them, he would only be able to plead with you to fuck back on him, to fuck him as hard as he fucked you, to give him some sort of sign that you liked him just as much as he liked you. He started to lose his own breath. "Fuck...o-oh fuck." And when your hand came to meet his hair, he shuddered.
"Zuko, are you ok?" God this was pathetic. He was so pathetic. Your hand cradled the back of his head, thumb tracing the short hairs at the nape of his neck. "Can you look at me...please?"
He shook his head, the small movement punctuated by a growl from the depths of his throat. If he looked at you, he would say something stupid, like I love you or will you marry me (never mind the fact that he had barely even known you a year). Despite himself, he managed a defeated chuckle.
"You're gonna laugh at me." He didn't need to look at your face to see you frown.
"Why would I do that?" And when he reluctantly lifted his face after a breath or two, taking in the sight of your damp face and the image of the skin that laid beneath the t-shirt, his t-shirt, that you had still been wearing because he was in so much of a rush to fuck you he couldn't be bothered to strip you completely, you swear the ice melted, even if just a bit. "Hi, handsome."
He couldn't help but smile like some love-sick fool. Probably because he was nothing more than a love-sick fool. His hips stalled, time froze, everything went still except for the stray hairs blown around by the fan and his fingers tracing tiny hearts on your skin. "Hi, angel." The way you looked up at him now kept him hard inside you. If it wouldn't cheapen the moment, he'd reach over to grab his phone and take a picture and keep it in a folder with all the other pictures of you on his phone. It was practically all he had in his camera roll. Never the both of you, just you.
"I didn't mean to interrupt your flow, I think I just wanted a kiss." There it went again. That thing in his stomach, that abyss that expands with each passing day and each breath you take, growing exponentially, infinitely until one of these days he slips up and lets it out.
"Who would I be to deny you." He bent until he was practically on top of you, his neck craning down to meet your lips while his hands travelled up your back to press you up and into him. You sighed, something of relief and satisfaction, your hands cupping his cheeks, holding him nearly as much as he held you. It was slow and intentional, at certain moments still, as though the pleasure was entirely derived from just being in each other's presence. He breathed into you, almost greedy, but not devouring. Exploratory was a better word, even though it was territory he had already charted, but it wasn't the novelty that excited him. It was the familiarity. The comfort. A warmth beyond the literal sense, a sort of fullness.
He couldn't get enough of you. He pulled you even closer, your thighs enclosing his, his hips slowly thrusting into yours. And it was painfully slow. As slow as the sweat streaming down both of your bodies, slow as your breath, slower than time itself. He just didn't know what to do with himself. A confidence overtook which he had never experienced before. You felt him smirk against your mouth as the tips of his fingers danced along the hem of your shirt before dipping underneath the cotton.
You decided you liked this version of him that was so rarely afforded to you. The hotter Zuko. The less ashamed Zuko. And your reactions conveyed it, the gasps you let out whenever he teasingly flicked your hardened nipple and massaged your tits like they were stress toys. His hips pistoned with determination now, it was his way of saying that even when face to face, even when equal, he would always be more than willing to carry your weight.
"Am I doing good? Do you feel good? God, you feel so fucking good." You could feel him throb inside you, with every inch he pulled in, it's like he found a way to bury himself even deeper. You found that he absolutely took your breath away. You let a laugh out, and it tumbled out to the sound of twinkling stars. Pure magic.
"S-so good. So fucking perfect." He almost missed it amidst the sound of slapping skin and squelching coming from between the two of you. If he were to look down, he would be entranced by the sight of your juices mixing together, eager to romanticize it into some proof that you were absolutely made for each other. In the act of trying to ground yourself, you had wrapped his hair around your fingers. He groaned at the sight and the pain. He'd put a ring right there. "Pull it harder.", it was barely a whisper before he tried again, "Please, pull it harder." And who would you be to deny him.
He was running on fumes now, perfectly intoxicated by the taste of you that still lingered on his tongue and the feeling of you everywhere. Even when he closed his eyes, you were still there, skin glistening, mouth agape, eyes blissfully closed as you just took it. He would be more than willing to give it to you forever, to be whatever you needed. And of course, he felt fulfilled the more you squeezed around him, practically choking his dick, like even when unconscious to what it did on its own volition, your body didn't want him to leave. "I'm close - fuck- so close." Your voice grew high at the end, out of control and desperate as the coil in your stomach grew tighter and tighter.
Your moans are a broken mess as you cum and in the moment of clarity, it hits you how long you'd been at this. Slightly beyond Zuko's head you can see the setting sun, fallen from where it stood when you began, falling apart in dozens of colors across the once clear sky, waiting to be put back together tomorrow morning. At some point you slouched into him, still spasming, your breath hitching, his hips stuttering into yours as though they were stuck in some loop. Your head falls into Zuko's neck, for a change, your heated breath fanning across the top of his collarbones. He freezes again while looking at your exhausted body. It begins to feel like you're lying on stone.
"I'll go grab you a towel-", he starts, nervously pulling out and trying to roll off his bed despite the fuzz between his eyes and the haze in his eyes. Your tired hand reaches out for his wrist, and he lets you take it, basking in the feeling of your soft skin against his before it fully fades.
"Why do you always do this? It's like every time we have a moment, you freeze. You're running." He fakes an expression of incredulity.
"What are you talking about?" Through your weariness, you manage a look of stoned exasperation. A dry laugh forces its way through you.
"I don't want a fucking towel, Zuko. It's never just a towel with you; it always snowballs into you finding some excuse to leave. Do you have somewhere more important to be? Some other girl you're fucking?" He swallows the anger that rises within at the sheer thought of leaving you to be with anyone else. In hindsight, perhaps it would've been better if he did, if he acted like he felt something. "You know, I just don't get you. You're a real nice guy, but half the time, it doesn't seem like you're here. I mean, why can't you just lay here with me. You never do. God, we've been at this for months, and you never have."
He starts to feel it again, but it's a bit different than before. A bit sharper. You drop his wrist but maintain eye contact, which is more uncompromising anyway. "I don't think I understand why you're upset." It's like he's worlds away, and even scarier, it only takes him a moment to get that far. There's a clinical quality to his voice, something unreal about the way he blinks, something unnatural about the way his chest rises and falls, like he has to remind it too. In all honesty, none of this was like him. He feels like he's taking everything one at a time, trying so hard to just be.
You roll your eyes, mumbling that it's nothing. He hates it. Zuko doesn't do "nothing", that's why it's so hard with you. He can't do anything halfway. He finds it incredibly difficult to just fuck you and waste your time with cheap dates and gross food for the sake of taking it slow. He's just stuck. That's the only way he can think to explain it. Stuck in between wanting to be around you and wanting to be with you in a way that's meaningful to him, skipping past you going back to your stupid dorm and leading separate lives outside of when you text that you want him to come over. Why can't you just live together? Skip the towels and the separate beds. God, he'd live in your fucking skin, if he could.
Maybe that's why the two of you didn't work. You thought the wall he put up was because he didn't like you, which couldn't be further from the truth. He did it for you, because if he didn't there would be nothing stopping him from foregoing all the formalities and the bullshit and waiting to just be with you. Deeper than the superficial way it happened all around him, the relationships whose oxygen to their flame was the circumstances around them. Deeper than boyfriend and girlfriend situationship thing or whatever the hell the two of you had. Something spiritual. Something eternal. Something that can never be swallowed down, something that never goes away.
"I really like you, you know." Your expression softens.
"You don't act like it." He exhales all the confidence he breathed in from you earlier.
"I don't know if you'd want me to act like it." You cock your head at that, staring up at him inquisitively. "I don't know how to be what you want me to be."
