when fire meets air

Chapter 10: Aang

What in this earth is going on?
Why is...
What the...
Dude, don't be an idiot, kiss back!

His mind was going wild, and yet when the only good, solid, rational bloody thought came into his head, it had stopped.
He opened his eyes that he had unknowingly closed and looked around for Zuko, but he was gone. He seemed to have disappeared into thin air, the very same air that he had taken away from Aang's lungs the moment he kissed him.
"Zuko?" He asked, not only questioning where he had gone but what had just occurred. He wasnt complaining, no, not in the slightest bit, but he was confused since most people dont pin someone against a wall, kiss them, and then bugger off!
"Where are you? Please come out!" He called, desperately wanting him to come back.
There was no response.
But, Aang could feel there was a slight change in the waters temperature. Where it had been cold only moments before, there was a faint trail of heat that moved out in front of him. Curious, Aang swam forward, following the warmth that he guessed lead to Zuko. He followed it in circles around the pond, until it seemed to abruptly stop on one place.
"That's weird." He said to himself as he sank below the surface of the water to see what was going on.
Much to his surprise, there was a slight hole in the rock below, and he felt a bit of a tug as water flowed down into the hole. Ignoring the slight fear that rippled within his chest, Aang submerged himself completely and sunk into the hole, hopefully following where Zuko could have disappeared. Moving the earth slightly to make the hole bigger, Aang slipped down into the water, which lead into a dark cavern with little to no light shining through the hole above. With a now elevated sense of fear flushing through him, he continued swimming, soon beginning to run out of air as his lungs screamed for his natural born element. He floated upwards, hoping that there was at least some sort of bubble in this cave, and when his head broke the surface, he was in shock.
There was a large cave that had been sitting just below the surface of the pond; the walls were dripping with condensation and there were these glowing rocks that seemed to illuminate the entire cavern, each little pebble shining like stars above his head. Where he was hoping to gain air by coming above the surface, he had his breath taken away, the sight something he had never hoped to see in his wildest dreams.
"Whoa..." he whispered in awe as he pulled himself onto a ledge in front of him.
A ledge that he only realized moments later was scorched black with an angry flame.
"Zuko?" He called out as he stood, the burned and ashy stone hurting his heels as he walked further into the cave. "Please Zuko, come out, I know you're in here." Aang continued to wander, following the smell of smoke as he moved throughout the cave, which was surprisingly large.
He rounded a corner and saw something that he wished he could have stopped.
Wished he could have helped.
Wished he could have understood.
Zuko was there, on the floor, with his hands burned badly and his torso blistering and his eyes full of water and pain and fear and, oh god, Aang's heart broke just looking at it.
"Zuko... What..." he whispered, unable to get any real words out as he walked toward him, crouching on the ground next to him as he shook, eyes wild and body burning.
"I lost control," he gasped through tears, "I lost control of the fire and i could have hurt you. It happened when..." He shook his head, wincing as he closed his hands into fists.
"You didn't though, you left. You were able to move away and... you're hurt, let me." Aang pulled the water from the lake behind them, wrapping it around his burns and working with the water to heal him and what he had done.
"I shouldn't have done that, I shouldn't have. I'm so sorry, I can't believe I let myself do that. I don't deserve this, no..." Zuko tensed up and suddenly Aang was being pushed away, the water collapsing to the ground around them.
"I dont deserve to be healed, I deserve this pain. And besides, it's just one more scar to add to my already disgusting body." He sobbed, wrapping his now partially healed hands around his quivering shoulders. Tears fell from his golden eyes, each droplet carrying the weight of his words out of his soul.
And when each year hit the ground, Aang could hear his heart break a little bit.

Heyyyyyyy,

I'm so so sorry this took me forever to write, but I saw the mass amount of people asking me to continue this and decided why not, if you guys like this so much I'm gonna try to update more!!

What is with me and writing broken boys, jeeeeeez, ah well, what can ya do. Its gonna get worse from here on out!!

Anyway, I'm back now, and for some more shameless self promo, if yall wanna check out my art insta, its maraagainstsociety and hopefully soon I will be having my first novel be published, I will keep yall updated on that too!!

So thank you for reading this, and stay tuned for more sad when uni doesn't get too stressful!!

Toodles,

Dylan