this planet's last dance
They tell him to relax. Things are over now.
'You can go home...Or you could stay for a brief vacation! It's only right that Republic City thank you for your services.'
He's a little on edge, but that could just be his 'raging workaholism" showing, according to Asami.
And if he were really honest with himself, he finds himself enjoying the Future Industries' youthful and fierce new president who makes him laugh and challenges him to races along speeding tracks. She's certainly something.
It's she who drags him to the Morning Market because 'It's a City tradition! Don't even think about wiggling out of this one, since you missed the other one last week. It's a local tradition. In the times before the City was built, villagers would come out before noon to sell their wares and catch up on the latest gossip, if you know what I mean."
Kohl dark eyes flash back at him over bird-wing shoulders. It's a little surreal to be given orders by a girl, but her hand is warm and the sun is out and the paved street under their feet is still cool. Her heeled boot click steadily as she leads him deeper into the labyrinth of food stands and hawkers and small tea shops.
"I've always known we had something like this, it's hard to miss, but I hadn't had a chance to come to the real thing until...until after the Revolution." She starts with an upbeat tone but by the end, her steps falter just like her words. She pauses to touch a jeweled necklace hanging on the displays of one of the stands and hides her face behind her hair.
"Well, if something like this can catch Ms. Sato's heart in just a few visits then I know I'll be smitten by the time I leave."
Here is a girl who has lost and gained in so many measures that the teaspoon doesn't work any longer, but her spine is made of platinum and she doesn't not bend under any weight now.
"Enjoy yourself. There's this great traditional Fire Nation snack stand not too far down, and it'll ease your homesickness." Asami says. Her smile is a little sad and she looks on past Iroh at something he can't see. She squeezes the hand she took to lead him to this point. "I have to go check to see if Korra and the Fantastic Bending Brothers are up yet. They tend to forget that after you save the world you kind of still have to be in it to maintain it."
Her grin is wry now like she thinks it should be obvious and that the former Fire Ferrets need to screw their heads onto their shoulders better. Iroh manages a chuckle and salutes her with all the mock solemnity that he can muster.
"Yes, ma'am. Good luck, ma'am."
She punches him in the shoulder and makes a face, but kisses him on the cheek anyway. Then she's gone, her hair forming a fermata curve to the staccato rhythm of the motion of her hips.
Iroh does oblige her suggestion and steps further into the market.
The smell of cooking foods and human sweat pervades the air, but there's a kind of market-spice-feeling that settles onto his skin and he likes it.
The heat of the day hasn't quite arrived yet as the morning fog that rolled in from Yue Bay lingers and lays chilled fingers on bare necks. His eyes catch on electricly colored bolts of cloth, sea-shell beads, and home-fired bowls that shimmer with glaze (and if he sees a few lopsided ones he can only suppose the little girl running around the stall is starting her own collection of pottery early).
Then he sees a flash of red, an unassuming wooden sign with painted characters.
Drifting over to catch a better glimpse of the sign, Iroh ends up waiting at the end of a decent sized line.
It is not so long that he thinks he would be unwilling to wait for what he desires. A group of girls are at the head of the line; frantic whispers and soft giggles waft his way along with the smell of fresh fire flakes. He catches words in the mid-morning air that he can only guess at, "hot" and "adorable" and "charming". Maybe the girls are referring to the spicy treats they plan to buy. Or something. A burly man standing in front of him blocks him from getting a clear view of the venders managing the stall and so Iroh engages in the futile task of counting the rocks under his feet and around his person to pass the time.
A childish shriek comes from somewhere in front of him and Iroh's head whips up to see if anyone is in trouble until he finds himself face to face to a raven haired boy with wild hair sticking up at the back of his head, which reminds Iroh of Bolin, and dark, dewy eyes looking up at him in childish wonder.
"You're really-"
"Sasuke, ask the man would he would like to order." Another voice comes from broad shoulders draped in black and windswept curls flying every which way. Iroh cannot see the man's face, so he looks back down at Sasuke scrunches up his nose and furrows his brows as he looks at Iroh expectantly.
"Uh..." Iroh glances about in search of a menu, but the lack of one hanging around makes him look down at Sasuke whose look conveys Iroh is the silliest bear goose in the pond.
"We have tea. And dango and mochi and daifuku and onigiri, things my brother makes that are super awesome and you will definitely like, and then some chopped up stuff on a stick that he makes." Sasuke waves a hand as imperiously as he can at the figure behind him working a grill. "Fire flakes can be ordered individually or you can sprinkle them on whatever you eat, but don't put it in your tea because that's gross and Uncle Iroh doesn't approve."
Iroh looks up from Sasuke to see the man who had previously been operating the grilling wipe his hands on his apron and step over. The man glances at Iroh once and then at the line behind him before smiling ruefully.
"Sorry. It's once in a blue moon that we get newcomers to our humble food stand. Why don't you just try some of our fire flakes for starters. It also seems like such a nice morning, so why not have some strawberry mochi and some jasmine tea to complement it?"
"Sure." Iroh says.
A large hand nudges Sasuke who hops off what must be a wooden stool because his head floats just under the line of the counter now as he stalks off to gather and package food and a grab cup of tea.
"Long time no see, Iroh. I hear you're a General now."
Iroh stands rooted to the spot, his eyes take in the sight of a familiar stranger whose smile is suddenly too much like young summer mornings and whose efficiency with the blade reminds Iroh of...
"So you're Uncle Iroh?"
"Not exactly. Iroh was actually my great uncle that I'm named after. It's a bit of a running gag at home that he was always a tea fanatic, and I am a bit of one too."
"Running gag? It's only in every other joke anyone ever makes when someone drinks tea on a ship."
Asami laughs and Shisui flashes her a winsome smile which makes her laugh even harder. Shisui is leaning the legs of his chair into a precarious angle and munching on stawberry mochi like all its a normal morning for him. Friends from far away and long ago visiting after a civil revolution and dropping in for tea and snacks and bringing the president of a huge industrial corporation along with must not be as rare for him as it is for Iroh.
Itachi is sitting next to Sasuke impassively and he looks much the same as Iroh remembers except his hair is longer and the angles that have always made up Itachi are as sharper than ever, although his eyes don't seem quite as flinty. Life in Republic City agrees with him.
"Here, I have a question of my own." Asami declares. "Why are you in Republic City?"
"I'm here for all the pretty girls." Shisui says the same time Sasuke shrugs and Itachi takes a sip of tea.
Iroh rolls his eyes. It's a habit he thought he broke himself of because it's impolite and it does not set a good example for his men, but Shisui's antics, which don't seem to have changed a bit since they were small and running around the Palace under the watchful eye of Fire Nation sentry men, always seem to bring out the most childish bits of him.
It's only later when Iroh steps into the house and heads into the kitchen for few more bottles of water for Sasuke who is demanding lessons in self defense from Asami and firebending lessons from Iroh down at a small park a few streets down that he realizes how much things have changed.
It's a been a while since he's been home to sit in tall daises and dress in too rich clothing to listen and watch for what his mother deals with every day. Treaties and deals and acquisitions along with rough shoves with power and money are things he likes to forget when he's at sea.
From the angle he stands at, Iroh can barely see anything except for the press bodies, two dark figures; flashes of pale skin and red lips make him feel like he's intruding (oh, he knows it too and it's not a good feeling), but he is again rooted to the spot by too many new revelations in a single day.
A sigh.
"Do you think we should have told him?"
Itachi's voice is deep and his words are clipped, nearly apathetic. Iroh remembers smaller hands and brighter eyes and a grin like a ripple of water through the turtle duck pond at home.
"No." Shisui's voice is lust-strained but certain. "It wouldn't have mattered anyway. What's done is done. We're here and Uchiha hasn't reached out to snap our necks just yet."
"He would not tell."
Shisui's soft laughter, fond and too much in love, resounds in the quiet spaces of the small house that they have bought and into the space where Iroh should not be standing.
"Do you want to finish what we started?"
It's a tangle of dark hair and shuddering groans now. As one body bends into the counter and another body curves over with an arm slung around thin shoulders, a whispered string of words slip though.
It's a fight now, all clicking of teeth. A gasp is muffled by cloth and skin and sunlight pouring in through the window placed above the sink; it's so private that Iroh has to step away. It's too much sometimes, the way that he sees so much love in a time that he doesn't really have any to call his own. The kisses that should be too familiar causing a flush. The lingering contact and the eyes that whisper good-bye like this is the last and the first and evermore.
It's a little ridiculous, how much he wants something like that.
Iroh ends up buying tomatoes, because that's what the vendor has and he can only hope that there's enough juice in them to satisfy Sasuke, ever picky eater that he is. A noon-tide haze is descending upon the City, like a lover's cloak draped in rich reds and deep folds shimmering across a skyline.
Asami holds the red vegetable in her hand and grins. This time her lips curve like a blade across her face; it could cut him but instead Iroh walks forward and they lean against each other for a moment as Sasuke devours what looks like a little heart in his hands. The red insides gleam and the yellow seeds spilling onto the ground, slipping between unscarred fingers, like something new has been planted.
'Look,' they said, 'something will grow here and you should at least see some of the progress we're going to make. Stay a while. Enjoy yourself.'
A/N: A lot inspired by conincident and Quillslinger. ;_; They're so good, go check them! After the latest chapter of Naruto I just want to give Itachi a giant hug and ALL THE FEELS FOR SHISUI. That guy. Let me just pluck out my own eye and then smile at you disarmingly while talking about my own death. What? Obviously the only way to prevent disasterously sad things is to force the remaining Uchiha to run a tiny tea stand stall thing in Republic City. And write bad run-ons of awkward imagery. Title from Snow Patrol's What if This Storm Ends? So many replays.