Pardon My Manners

Mom of 4, technical writer, part-time adjunct of poli sci, full-time fan girl

[pardonmymannerssir]

Katara x Aang

Mature

2/2 Complete

I wrote a little fanfic for my friend Javi (@javi-khoso on Twitter) for her birthday! Set in the Kataang Dr AU I’ve been working on (I don’t mind, save my life again). Cover art by @aisatsaa .

AO3 Link

Summary:

“I…I don’t know how to say this.”

She watched his thumb sweep over her knuckles. Once. Twice. The familiar lines of his tattoos, the flex of his tendons, and the roughness of his palms.

Say it. Just say it.

“I’m pregnant.”

The words hung in the air, caught in amber, thudding against the peaceful silence of a house that had become their home. She felt as though she’d dropped something priceless, fragile, and it was up to him to catch it before it came crashing to the floor.

[pardonmymannerssir]

I don’t mind, save my life again

Katara x Aang

Mature

Chapter 8 of 10

Art by @javi_khoso on Twitter

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During the day, she probably would have just let herself in, but she rang the doorbell, hovering on the front steps, feeling like a stranger. As the sound echoed, she turned to look up at the moon. Slivered, like a narrowed eye. Watching, as always, and she resisted the urge to flip off that Cheshire Smile.

The door creaked open.

“Katara?” He didn’t sound like he’d been sleeping, and his brow was creased with concern. “I was just about to call you. Are you—”

Without meaning to, she was already stepping into his space. The bright familiarity of his face like the sun after an endless night. The first touch of warmth since she’d sat in her car, desperately trying to do what she knew she needed to. But she wasn’t strong enough. Maybe she never would be.

A coward. I’m such a coward.

[ampala-yeah]

doodles from chapter 2 of @pardonmymannerssir’s fic, ‘i don’t mind, save my life again’ 🩺

[aphoticfirefly]

one day soon I'll hold you like the sun holds the moon for kataang week day 8! based off of this fic by the loveliest @pardonmymannerssir

[aang-katara]

finally posting this kataang commission i got from @aisatsaa a while ago 💙🧡 i genuinely don’t know why it took me this long to share it on here but here we go!! i love this piece so much

[pardonmymannerssir]

I don’t mind, save my life again

Aang/Katara

Mature

Chapter 7

Art by @javi_khoso on x

Hindsight was 20/20, as the saying went, but Katara knew Jet was a bad idea from the very beginning.

They’d met in this very same arena. She’d stood in this very room, the air sharp with the smell of old sweat and antiseptic, as he’d swaggered through the black metal doors. He’d been intense. Focused. Charming, too— in an aggressive, borderline arrogant kind of way. The kind of man who was used to and expected female attention.

The déjà vu made her stomach churn as she shifted her weight, trying not to attract the attention of the UFC officials gathered on the other side of the room. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, focusing on her memories of that morning at Aang’s house.

[pardonmymannerssir]

Waiting on the light (And I never say goodnight)

Kataang Week Day 2: Domesticity

Doctor AU

AO3 link

(Art by @javi_khoso on X)

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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.

“Nah, Phan this time.”

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.

“You did good tonight.”

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.”

“Stubborn, you mean.”

“Mm, that too.”

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.

“Dada win?”

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.”

[aisatsaa]

Day 1: Soulmates

«Excuse me, I think you may have dropped your book»

[pardonmymannerssir]

I’m awake in you and you’re asleep in me

(AO3 link)

Kataang week Day 1: Soulmates

This drabble is set in my Katanga Dr. AU. I hope you enjoy.

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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 didn’t. 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 well—had kept him afloat when he’d felt like drowning. Gave him strength when he felt like he had nothing left. When he’d 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 he’d tried to embody his whole life. To live as much in the present as possible and find joy in the small things.

Still, he’d 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, he’d 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 didn’t think he’d 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 he’d been living under for the past two weeks had all but evaporated, and for several long seconds he’d been almost sure they’d met somewhere before. Her movements felt familiar to him, like he could predict the way she’d push her glasses up, or brush her braid off her shoulder.

A silly, romantic notion that he’d brushed aside but couldn’t quite outrun.

Every time he saw her, that feeling of familiarity remained. Intensified. He’d never been so caught up in someone before. He dreamed about her. Flashes of things that didn’t make sense, but felt like memories. It wasn’t till he’d 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.

“You are vibrating, Aang,” 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.

“I am sorry, Rinpoche. The kids at school were making fun of me.”

Gyatso’s eyes remained closed, but a smirk tugged at his thin, wrinkled lips. “Did they compare your conically shaped head to an egg again? Or did they perhaps admire the way it sometimes blindingly reflects sunlight?”

Aang crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s not funny.”

“It is a little funny.”

Aang grunted, and Gyatso chuckled, peeling one eyelid open. The old man set his hand, warm and dry, on the top of Aang’s 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.

“Close your eyes,” Gyatso instructed, voice quiet, almost inaudible against the noise of the traffic.

Aang obeyed, drawing in a deep breath.

“Feel my hand on your head, feel the energy that passes between us.”

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.

“Do you feel it?”

“I-I think so?” He wasn’t sure what he was meant to be feeling exactly. Connection but…more.

“Life 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.”

The outside noise was fading away against the gentle insistence of Gyatso’s words.

“Sometimes, our energies intertwine with others. Grow close. Connected. This connection can follow us into our next lives.”

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.

“You mean… we knew each other before?”

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.

“Maybe. 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.”

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. “Some lessons take time to learn, my boy. You cannot rush them, only carry their seeds with you till they are ready to take root.”

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 Katara’s cheek, felt the softness and living warmth of her, and closed his eyes. He didn’t have to try or search or even really focus—the 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.

I am not alone.

[vampzberry]

Collab with @/MadanMatz on X!!!

[peacefulsoaring]

FAVORITE KATAANG FICS (in no particular order):

KATARA and AANG's Instagram accounts based on State of Nature by the amazing @pardonmymannerssir, a college AU. (click here to read on ao3, rating: explicit, minors dni)

disclaimer: since this is ongoing, i took some small creative liberties and this is my interpretation. not indicative of the future chapters/ending.

[pardonmymannerssir]

State of Nature

Chapter 3

Katara x Aang

College AU

Mature

(Artwork by @javi_khoso on X)

His lips found the curve of her neck, his mouth drawing suction, and she arched against the rush of sensation. He pressed a knee forward, between her legs, providing her with a point of friction that she ground against immediately, chasing some kind of relief. An ache she was certain that only he could soothe.

She felt clumsy, inexperienced, but somehow safe in the circle of his arms, like whatever happened, he’d be there to catch her.

His mouth dragged down her chest, and his hand withdrew from under her shirt to tug down the square neckline he’d been eyeing earlier. The cut felt almost salacious on her figure, but she’d chosen it today specifically for him. It had been years since she’d dressed for male attention, and she was drunk on her success.

[sycamoreseventeen]

Ch 16 of paradigm

I return to you with a humble offering

Okay, i slink back to you 2+ months later with the fruit of muuuuch labor. I am really sorry about the wait. Those of you that left comments in my inbox, on the fic, etc., I appreciate you and your enthusiasm for this story more than words can say. I don’t deserve you!!!

Despite not deserving you, though, I am still going to beg pathetically that you leave a kudos or a comment here or on ao3 so that i can be fed lol. This was maybe one of the hardest chapters I’ve ever written—it simply would not cooperate—and it was the periodic comments or kudos or just general positivity and support that made ch 16 exist at all. I don’t want to say i was ready to give up, but i will say i was questioning certain lifestyle/hobby choices. When i was doubting myself and the direction of the story, it seemed like that was when a comment would pop on ao3 asking for the new chapter. This story probably wouldn’t exist without reader support.

Thank you! I hope you enjoy!!

[pardonmymannerssir]

I don’t mind, save my life again

Chapter 6

Katara/Aang

Mature

(Art by @javi_khoso on Twitter)

Aang’s mouth turned down at the corners, and he nodded, looking thoughtful for a moment. When he finally spoke, his words were halting, hesitant. “I’ve been thinking these past few days…and I’m afraid that all I do is make your life harder, Katara. When you’ve made mine so much better.”

Her chest constricted, and for a moment she couldn’t catch her breath, couldn’t find her thoughts as they scattered. Fortunately, her heart knew what to say.

“Aang,” she breathed. “You–you’re everything to me.”

[pardonmymannerssir]

YAY new fic! 😍Thank you!! Selfish question… will the doctor AU continue to get updated? 😅 That cliffhanger and the Ch. 6 snippet you posted on twitter has been driving me crazy hahaha

Yup!!! It’s next on the list! Fear not!

[pardonmymannerssir]

State of Nature

Katara x Aang

Mature

College AU

Part 1 of (it’s anyone’s guess tbh)

(Art by @javi_khoso on Twitter)

“What would you know about girlfriends?” she accused when he reached her side with ease. Stupid long legs. Stupid handsome face. “Your longest relationship is with your track cleats.”

His elbow nudged against hers as they walked, and she moved to the side, nearly stumbling in her heels to avoid the contact. “Careful,” he said, voice dropping an octave. “Or I might think you’re jealous.”

Katara scoffed, wishing desperately he’d just leave her alone. “I am jealous.” She stopped just outside the gate to glare up at him, hands on her hips. “Of everyone who isn’t having this conversation with you.”

OR

Aang and Katara are Political Science majors at Stanford, and Katara is determined to survive junior year using a foolproof strategy: focus on the LSATs, manage her dorm, and absolutely do not fall back in love with the boy who broke her heart.

[azulya]

Aang and Katara picnic date..

Because Aang it's a certified lover boy who gaved up Cosmic universal power over his devoted love for Katara; and I was infatuated with his puppy love when I first watched ATLA.

Aang made me have a thing for "good boys with pretty faces" 😍 and then my obssesion with blushing shy guys scalated into something else but I won't get into it, don't jugdge me.. 😅