if you let me, here's what i'll do.
characters: azula, katara, kiyi, mai, ursa, zuko.
notes: a gift for bean on her birthday, a little late. shameless drake lyrics.
…
i.
Campfire, cups of tea, blankets. He knows how cold she gets when the sun sets; he's felt the expanse of her palms with destructive power and felt them shiver. Love her, he thinks, is the best way to handle her with care. Let her tear you apart, but swear that no one will hurt her. He knows no one will ever hurt her more than he has. Zuko is not as weak as she thinks he is; he has more power over her than she wants to admit. And he just wants to help her, just wants to hold her underneath the gnarled roots of the trees in the forest. A mighty power, whispering childhood stories to a fragile psyche, the souls of children playing pretend in wooden masks and royal clothes. This is how he handles his sister with care.
ii.
He doesn't know. He does know. The truth is that Zuko needs more care than her, but he tries. Makes himself an armored heart to give to her so she cannot pierce it. He never knows where she keeps it, never knows if it is safe. Today is the day, he feels, this is the day I find out my heart has already been crushed to dust. But surprisingly, it isn't. He doesn't quite know how to handle Mai with care. It doesn't last. He counts the days, counts the paces between them as they march away from one another, back to back. Zuko knows she doesn't want this; she just wants him (but that isn't possible, not the way that she wants). He leaves wordlessly the first time, writes a letter the second time, lies the third time until she is gone. And it is her heart that is left in ashes.
iii.
Precious child, summer child. She stitches her dolls together with yarn and needles she should never touch. But Zuko always nurses the pricks of her fingertips with melodramatic kisses and excessive bandage. Love her, his heart tells him, full of guilt; love her like you should have loved Azula. "But I do love Azula," he says to himself defensively when Kiyi is curled into his lap and breathing softly, "I love Azula." Zuko is defeated. There is no going back now, not with an Agni Kai between them and her arms tangled behind her back and her misshapen haircut to highlight her distress. He doesn't want her to see, doesn't want her to think he loves her less. Always hiding, always wondering if Azula would ever bring her bloody fingers back for him to kiss (but Kiyi does, so he cares for her, instead).
iv.
Zuko is terrified. And he wants to put that feeling behind him, wants to deny it any truth. Unfortunately, she always seemed to exist in an unholy suspension of life and death, just out of reach. He doesn't know her and she has forgotten him and seeing her live as someone else is like knowing she is dead. Zuko doesn't want to take that away from her, because it is only selfish to want her to remember him, to seek to soothe the wounds of rejection with his mother's love. He doesn't know how to care for her; she never really showed him how to care for himself, either. But when she remembers, Spirits, when she remembers, it is enough love to keep his world turning.
v.
He's thankful. He doesn't feel like fire, not anymore. Zuko feels endless, like the sky, so clear and honest and unable to hide anything. He's in love with her and it has always been so clear. Her fingers have always slipped themselves between the mosaic pieces of his resolve, pried him apart until she could examine him. It's the only reason that it makes sense to him; it makes perfect sense to open himself up to trap the lightning within him, cram the pieces back together and hope they stick. Anything to save her. Anything to take care of her, even when the scar stretches tight and the nightmarish static pulls through his bones at night. All he has to do is look into her eyes, because he knows. He loves Katara more than he loves himself.