hello yes im back a year later w/ more of this damn show bc i rewatched it all last week and got sucked right back in

this is based vaguely on suzukiblu's incredible war children au on livejournal that i read a while ago and then re-read after i watched this damn series again, so jet thinks that zuko is a war child, like him, both earth kingdom and fire nation, and didn't see iroh heat up his tea, etc. (it's not necessary to understanding this but it'll be a lot clearer if you do-plus it's just rlly good and def worth a read)

It's late and dark out when Jet slips in through the back window of the tea shop.

He lands quietly, years of tiptoeing around in trees have made him light on his feet, and steps quietly into the back room, where the storage and the sink and Li are, right now.

He pauses. Takes a moment to just look. Li washes the tea cups and tiny plates and utensils with a single minded concentration and a delicate way of handling them that Jet wouldn't have thought he possessed—the delicacy, that is, because Li had that focus the night they raided the kitchen on the ferry, and had that focus when he used his swords, and had that focus when he always searched Jet's expression for something Jet wasn't sure of.

And so Jet takes a moment to just look, because soapy suds drip down his wrists every time he pulls his hands from the water, and he brushes over the smooth ceramic of the cups carefully, like if he pushes even a little too hard they'll break and crumble in his hands. Jet knows that feeling, the feeling of being too much, too rough, unable to touch things without ruining them.

Focus smooths out Li's face, too. The scowl is gone, lips pressed together in concentration as he works. From the angle he's watching, the scar isn't visible, and Li looks incredibly young, like a sixteen year old is supposed to look, instead of the young wary refugee he is most of the time.

The scar isn't visible from this angle, but that isn't necessarily a good thing. Jet doesn't like the scar, not at all, because it's proof that Li got burned and probably a result of the reason he got sent away (and he's mentioned something about a father before, Fire Nation, a father he takes after so much because he has eyes that nearly glow in the dark they're so damn golden and dark hair and pale skin that scream Fire so damn much Jet doesn't know how he's made it this far; he's mentioned a father who is a firebender and who was probably the one hurt him, burned him, shaped him).

Jet doesn't like it, but he respects it. He respects and acknowledges what Li has been through—it's what drew Jet in in the first place, the way it stood out so vividly against his skin and said: I've been burned but I haven't been broken, because Li had that Recently Starved look he saw in kids living on the streets, and was on his way to Ba Sing Se, the refuge for refugees, but he was still standing tall, and his eyes were still so fierce.

So he respects the scar the same way he respects Li, because it's a part of who he is and what got him here, and maybe Jet thinks it's little bit beautiful in a horrible way, because Li is sorta beautiful in a quiet way that he obviously doesn't realize (that he probably could not believe, either way, because he always has that look on his face, the one kids who've been told that they're monsters or unlovable or hated most of their lives—and believe it—always wear).

He takes a step forward, to get a better angle maybe, he doesn't know, and sees the exact moment that Li realizes he's there. He doesn't turn around, but his shoulders draw up tight like wire.

"So," he says, "you've escalated to breaking and entering."

Jet steps up to lean again the counter, "Your uncle let me in."

Li raises an eyebrow, but still doesn't look at him, "Through the window?"

Jet shrugs, "Said it would be easier."

Li snorts, but doesn't say anything else.

Jet peers into the sink—there's still a lot of dishes Li has to wash, and it's almost 10. Curfew is soon, probably, and although Li lives pretty nearby, Jet doesn't think it would be fair if he got chewed out for finishing up his work.

"You need any help with that?" he asks.

"No."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

Jet frowns, "At least let me dry them or something."

"I was gonna dry them all afterwards."

"That'll take way too long," Jet reasons, "C'mon, let me do something."

Li sighs in that long-suffering way of his, like he's praying to some spirit to either recuse him or end him, and says "Fine. But be careful, don't scratch the cups or anything or Uncle will kill me."

Jet grins vaguely, picking up the towel resting at the edge of the counter and starting on the first tea cup air-drying next to the sink.

Jet glances up every once in a while, to see if Li's relaxed at all, to see if he'll catch him in his focus. He doesn't. Li's still tense in that subtle way Jet sees everywhere in this damn city.

He hasn't looked up once—if anything, it seems like he's turning his head further away, like he's, like he's trying to hide the scar as much as possible. Before he realized Jet and Bee and Longshot weren't planning on leaving anytime soon, he had looked them head on, but he doesn't, anymore.

"You don't gotta hide it, y'know," Jet says, and doesn't know if he should regret it when Li tenses up further.

"What?" he asks, but Jet knows that he knows exactly what.

Jet gestures vaguely at the other boy's head with a teacup. "You don't gotta hide it. You don't gotta hide any part of you—like I said before, you don't have to be ashamed of it, even if everyone else tells you you should be."

Li, again, doesn't say anything with his words, but he stares down at the little plate in his hands like it's the cause of all his problems. A strand of hair falls to cover his face, and Jet wants to tuck it back behind his ears.

"I already said, I don't think you want someone like me in your group." he says eventually, after he's washed and passed Jet two more plates.

"I know," Jet says, "But that doesn't mean we don't still like you."

Li just gives him this dubious look, like he doesn't quite understand what he's saying, and turns back to his task.

There's a long pause. Jet hears the bust of shop keepers packing up for the night, the slosh of the water as Li moves, the creak of the wood under Jet's feet as he shifts to lean more comfortably against the counter.

"I almost flooded a village," he says.

Li startles a bit and looks up sharply, "What?" he asks a second time.

"Back before we came here, when there were more of us, and we lived in the forest. I almost flooded a village—the one that kicked most of us out. I was really gonna do it—it woulda wiped out the Fire Nation troops stationed there, but it woulda wiped out the villagers, too." he doesn't look up to see what Li's face looks like right now, just grabs another cup, "It didn't happen, because some people stopped me, but it almost did. It's why we—" he swallows, "It's why I came here, to put all that behind me, to start over. So whatever you think you did to deserve all this," he says, finally glances up, "it can't be any worse."

Li looks at him for a long time, before he says, "You'd be surprised."

Jet looks at him for a long time before he says, "You ever killed anyone?"

Li's nose scrunches up land his mouth twists like he's offended, "No."

"I was going to." Jet says, "The village, like I said. Everyone woulda die. I woulda killed them."

There's another heavy pause, "You didn't go through with it though, right?"

Jet shrugs, "Like I said, I tried to. The only reason it didn't work is because…someone warned the villagers before we blew the dam."

Li picks up the last cup in the water, delicately, softly, "So it didn't work" he says, "And you didn't kill anyone."

Jet opens his mouth, because he was going to, he would've been a murderer, and even if some of the bastards living down there (the ones who had driven him out the woman who'd abandoned The Duke in the woods the people who kicked out Bee and Longshot and everyone else) would have deserved it, he would have been a murderer.

But Li cuts him off before he can say anything.

"I'm not saying what you did was okay—but you came here for a fresh start, right? You're trying to make up for it." Li shrugs, "That's all you can do, really. Can't go back and change things, so there's no point in dwelling on it."

Jet almost says: you seem to be dwelling on it, whatever you did, wherever you came from. You walk around like you'd rather be anywhere but here.

Instead, he says, "You sound like your uncle."

Li's nose does that scrunchy thing again, but this time just seems vaguely opposed to the idea.

"I've been spending too much time this damn tea shop, is what's happening," he says, like tea is the secret to his uncle's affinity for vague, wise-sounding advice.

Jet laughs, because it feels like the guy is warming up to him, finally, at least a little bit. And his face always looks nice when he's not glaring at something.

"Then you should go out more," he says, and Li's nose scrunches up further.

"Don't have the time, don't have the money."

Jet shrugs, "Don't have to go to any shops or restaurants or anything—we can just look around, if you want."

Li side eyes him warily, "We?"

"If you went out by yourself, you'd probably get lost."

"I would not," Li shoots back, and his eyes flare up like those goddamn fireflies, so goddamn Fire Nation it almost hurts to look at.

Jet puts his hands up, "Alright," he concedes, "But maybe I need a break too. And it won't be any fun on your own."

Li frowns for a minute, furrows his brows like he's thinking, and that's a better expression than that glare of his, too, Jet thinks.

"Fine," he says eventually, "I don't know when I'll find the time, though. Dishes always take forever."

Jet smiles, because he can't help it, because Li is young and takes after his father too much and his fingers are somehow still stained with tea and his shoulders aren't strung up like wire anymore.

"How 'bout tomorrow night?" he suggests, and looks at Li's Considering Face again, the way he absently worries his bottom lip between his teeth.

"I'll have to ask uncle about it. But," he pauses, "I guess that'll work."

Jet was sure Li's maybe-uncle would be pretty happy about the whole thing. It's so nice to see my nephew making friends, he always says when they hang around the shop, brings them tea 'on the house' and little pastries and smiles at them like he's their uncle, too. Jet likes to think they are friends, Li and them, but he doubts Li feels the same way. Jet wishes he would, wishes he would let himself have something good every once in a while.

But he'll take what he can get, and he'll take Li as what he is.

"Sounds good," he says, and ignores how much it feels like setting up a date.

Li smiles, just a little bit, one edge of his lips curling up like he hasn't smiled in a long time, like he's afraid to let it out. Jet thinks of this Recently Starved look and the scar on his face and his firebender father and his expression when he told him he wasn't alone in this, and understands.