Pairing(s): Zhao/Zuko.
Beta: None, all mistakes my own.
Rating: R.
Genre: Angst.
Warnings: None, really, aside allusions to adult situations.
Feedback: Very welcome, please!
Word Count: 510.
Summary: It's the tea, he thinks lazily, curled around a man he will hate in the morning once more; the tea and nothing else, that's what he has to justify this madness, but until dawn, he can ignore it.
Author's Notes: Done for my drabble requests for Christmas, for Ebonlock, who requested one of my favorite pairings. Done late, 'cause real life and plot bunnies bit before I could start it. Also, look at the bright side, you got plenty of Aang/Zuko before this. winks Inspired by the character song of one of my own original characters, "Last Man Standing", Gabriel's theme. The idea just hit me while I was listening to the song.
Interregnum.
It's not the first, and certainly not the last time they reach the docks, but as they wait for the tea, Zuko feels eyes in the back of his neck and every single hair there stands on end. He's being watched, and he can't afford to go out violently as he would usually do, they've placed a cup before him, very obviously not the same tea as his uncle is already drinking. He swirls the contents of his cup, staring at it for a long moment, before taking a cautionous sip.
The tea is sweet, sweeter than he likes it, but that's not the reason why he cringes.
"What's the matter, Zuko?" The old man asks him curiously, "You seem anxious."
"I'm tired," Standing abruptly, the prince levels his uncle with cold look, "I'll retire for the night, see that no one bothers me."
Iroh watches as his nephew walks away, his posture stiff and his movements jerky. Sighing warily, he eyes Zuko's abandoned tea cup thoughtfully, but decides it's not something that he can interfere with.
The metal is cold against his skin, and he wonders if it's special, because it never seems to warm up, no matter how long he spends hanging from it. He does that all the time, always. Noticing random things around the room, things that change from last time, things that stay the same, things he can't quite name. It's cathartic, he guesses, to notice anything but the raw lust in the older man's leer, anything but that annoying feeling of being small.
He's small now, but he won't stay that way. He's going to grow and be strong and then he'll beat Zhao and humiliate him as he does him, and when the day comes, Zuko vows to be the better man.
He'll be a man.
For now, he looks at the metal that never quite warms up, letting himself be owned, since he cannot own himself, and wait for dawn. When dawn comes, his uncle will start looking for him, and he'll leave this place and search for the Avatar and then find him and show Zhao who he really is. But with dawn will also come the realization of what he's done, what he's let himself be done, over and over again, as he always does. He'll hate the docks and the ships and the soldiers and his father; he'll hate the man and his stupidly sweet tea, the tea that tells about a thousand secrets he cannot understand, the tea that bends his mind and allows it to be broken, mended, shattered and fixed. The tea that lends an opening to the unknown, where he's not a prince and he's not a captain, but he owns him and he can do with him as he pleases, because he can.
It's the tea, he thinks lazily, curled around a man he will hate in the morning once more; the tea and nothing else, that's what he has to justify this madness, but until dawn, he can ignore it.