I own nothing, get nothing.
Author's Note: I'm not an exclusive Zutarian, but if you're gonna do it, go all the way, right? Not that they do.
Also Zuko + Hormones equals ZOMGFUNNEEZ. Although it's not quite hilarious yet. Maybe soon, once the wooing starts. This is more Zuko Takes Everything So Seriously!Ohdear.
It's also AU, supposing that maybe that Zuko somehow has an attack of teh guilt when he visits Iroh in the prison he is surely stuck in right now at this very moment, and breaks him out. Also maybe after he realizes that The Greatest Love of All is Inside of Him and he really doesn't need daddy to tell him he's worthy. Then they join the Gaang. Wishful thinking and pretty darned lazy on my part, I know. And, d'oh! I don't know where the Earth King is. He's probably gone to visit distant relatives. Poor relatives. Poor Bosco.
IlIlIlIlIlIlIlI
It started slowly, a few twinges here and there, met at first with furious resistance. But those days there was simply nothing he could do about it. He wanted her. She woke with a look on her face that broke him every day, because what he saw was not for him. But he wanted it anyway. He wanted to see those eyes looking at him in ways that his head maddeningly told him were both impossible and the way things should be. His self control was hanging by a thread, his concentration shot. Every damned thing he did was done in distraction.
He watched her, and in equal parts he hoped and dreaded that she felt his eyes on her, because it was the only way that he had to tell her. He could never speak those words. His pride would not let him, and part of him still said that she was beneath him. And dear flaming Agni, did he want her beneath him. He woke at night in a cold sweat, parts of his anatomy painfully swollen and demanding. He would not give them satisfaction.
So, he'd taken to sleeping on his side and waking early. To meditate with the rising sun, he said. And he did meditate. Sometimes he was able to banish her from his fevered brain with fire and breath, letting his anger and isolation burn away his desire. Sometimes he succumbed to the images of her fastening long limbs around him, kissing him with her plump pink mouth, her long dark hair wavy and unbound, her tan skin against his pale, doing... things to him. Things he did not want to admit he wanted. Those days were harder to forgive himself for.
The brother, he knew. He suspected, at the very least. He sulked too much, frowned in his direction too often. And the Avatar, who still had trouble controlling his fire, despite Iroh's gentle and expert instruction, he wanted her too. The Avatar also had the damnable (fortunate) position of having her heart. She smiled fondly and rubbed his head, healed his (frequent) burns and soothed his childish hurts in ways that were distantly and painfully familiar. How he knew them, he wouldn't say. Not even in words formed in secret, in his head. They were gone, burned up before they had a chance to express their need.
His Uncle knew as well. Zuko didn't notice that he knew, of course. But why else the gentle squeezes on the shoulder, the careful distractions employed? Iroh taught Sokka to play Pai Sho, and delighted in Aang's stories of the monks of the Air Temples; of King Bumi and firebending friends long gone. And together Iroh, Sokka and Aang were expert at crafting impromptu songs that sent Toph into either fits of giggles or rage. He himself found nothing funny about being the subject of one of Sokka's "haikus", if one was inclined to compare them to anything resembling poetry.
