Interplay
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"So," Jet says, spreading his palms and quirking those infuriating brows at her; "what can I do for you, princess?"
"You can help dispose of the body when he dies, peasant," Azula snaps, golden irises flashing dangerously. "We can slug it out over who has to do what, if you want to."
[sharing an apartment means that they inevitably come into contact with one another; the interplay of three very different personalities]
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"Hey peasant," Azula mutters, "Jet. Are you there?"
He looks at her seriously for a long moment – this is unusual, for her to speak to him unprompted and without malice. "Yeah," he exhales shortly, filing the unfathomable look in her eyes away for later.
"Then do something for me." She curls her legs under her on the sofa. "Tell me that this isn't a tragedy. Do it."
How could he possibly say no? He swallows the lump in his throat.
"I swear," Jet whispers, voice cracking in the stifling atmosphere of the apartment. "I swear – I swear this isn't a tragedy."
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Zuko's gone completely loony, everyone can see that. He cries in his room, he doesn't bother washing his hair for weeks on end, and hurls fireballs at anyone who opens his door (accidental discovery courtesy of one of Jet's one night stands). The other two leave him alone as long as they can before very reluctantly wading into the situation: it's only when the rimming of his eyes is a stark red and the stench of unwashed male rolls off him in visible waves that either of them bothers paying attention to him.
Their hands (or rather noses) are forced by circumstance, and they need to figure out a way to force him into taking a bath, god dammit, before they start dropping from the smell. In addition, they need to do this before Zuko himself falls over dead as a doornail from the strain, because he's only been eating junk food sporadically. They've been lucky thus far because college kids everywhere are on summer break, but the first day of the new semester is cresting the horizon and they don't have a plan. No more term break, no more crashing at a friend's house to escape the reality of Zuko's condition. No more out of sight, out of mind.
It's just Mission: make Zuko get his shit together, on a deadline. You know what? They sure as hell didn't sign up for this; the only thing they agreed on was to split the rent. And that remains the only thing they've ever agreed on.
This inability refusal to cooperate is why they're currently stuck in a stalemate over their next best course of action, arms akimbo outside the resolutely shut door of Zuko's room, tempers flaring. Jet's frowning impressively at the wooden surface like it contains some secret clue, chewing as always on that stalk of wheat. Azula is torn between fighting back the urge to kick the door down and the urge to kick Jet in the back. Maybe she needs something to chew on; all this exasperated gnashing is going to wear down the lovely enamel of her teeth.
"If Katara were still here this would be so much easier," Azula mutters.
A fucking water bender, that's what they need. A water bender can get Zuko clean without killing him, knock some sense into him without killing him - well, at least, without killing him instantly. Sure, Azula has her fire and lightning and they're handy when it comes to impressing smarmy adults and beating the shit out of people, but those aren't going to be any help when it comes to being soothing. The little Freedom Fighter's hook swords are useless too, except for jerking the lunatic around by the collar without touching him. Seriously, it's so gross to touch someone who hasn't showered for weeks; what is worse is they can't even spray deodorant into his room for fear the entire place will combust. Death by monster fireball is so not appealing.
Curse Zuko and this ill-timed meltdown of his.
"This wouldn't even be happening if she were here, princess dumbass," Jet says, though she always swears she can't hear him over the chewing sounds he's making with that stalk of whatever in his mouth. Him and his fucking peasant habits – seriously. Why does she even put up with this guy? Because he's helping us split the rent, but you already know that.
Her mood sours even further, and she forgets about controlling herself when she speaks – there's only the peasant to hear it, anyway. "Maybe we should build a moat around his room, y'know? Then he'd have no choice but to swim out. It would get the job done just fine. Hell, he should be dead by now, how could he not have drowned in that sea of dead flowers yet?" Azula kicks at nothing petulantly, scuffing her toes on the dirty coarse linen that lines the sofa. "Sheesh," she sneers, "I bet he preserved that entire collection of flowers with the salt from his tears."
"Relax, lady," Jet says, plopping himself down on the cushions next to her. "Moats, huh. Given the weird attraction to water, he'd probably try to drown himself instead, wouldn't he?"
He even needs to be held back when it rains, giving them a hell of a time as they struggle against angry teenage fire bender nerves to keep him confined; to keep him indoors and keep his face out of a muddy puddle. No more corpses, thank you very much. All that bullshit earlier this month with Ursa and that creepy ass reanimated corpse messenger business has kept their hands full, especially when it comes to keeping the while situation under wraps from Ozai and Iroh, those nosy old geezers. No one from the school board or social services needs to know what exactly is going on. Although, it's not as if Azula will have any problems lying if they do decide to ask questions – all they have to do is be convincing.
Gonna be a little hard inventing an alibi with a backbone for this one, but Azula makes up her mind to view it as a challenge.
After the night when Ursa supposedly appeared in front of Zuko he's been strangely fixated about joining her in the other world. Apparently, Katara also speaks to him through water, but Azula decides not to take him seriously because he started saying that when he was already cracked up. He used to be so full of pent up anger, used to bear the weight of their scorn so well with that hubris and honour of his; now he's an empty shell of a human being who wants nothing but to get through the rest of his life and die as soon as possible. He's broken, and Azula feels hatred searing away at her insides whenever she glances in the direction of his room - not hatred for whatever's broken him, but hatred for the fact that his being broken has made her care, literally for the first time in forever.
Or maybe it's more like she hates how she's been forced to call a truce with Jet.
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"We should totally go check on the body. Like, you know, whether it's still in the tomb."
Say what?
First of all, it is extremely unlikely that Ursa really has risen from the dead, or that her corpse is capable of spectral projection of any sort. Second of all, Ozai is a paranoid freak who probably has spy cameras rigged all around the tomb to detect any disturbances, complete with motion sensors and black-suited security personnel deployed in the area. Third of all, Azula's antsy and needs to get out of the apartment. So they go "check on the body", as Jet puts it. Totally makes her holiday experience – now she can tell anyone who asks what she did during vacation that she dug up a corpse to invalidate a reason for her flatmate's plunge into irrationality.
At least in death, Ursa is fixed in place by the certainty of her being gone, where her absence becomes a concrete thing. No more flesh and blood legs to carry her away from her daughter, no more flesh and blood arms to embrace one child and not the other. The woman's dead and gone, she isn't able to come back, isn't able to leave again, like she has so many times before. Azula isn't going to buy into a ghost that only appears to Zuko.
It's no fun crawling along with their faces in the dirt. It's no fun crawling through the treetops either. She stops and sulks for a while. Jet leaves her behind, then doubles back to snarl at her. Not like she cares. "Get a move on, princess. I don't wanna freeze my butt off in a tree."
Oh, way to be subtle, dude. She eyes him venomously. "Need me to warm you up, peasant? You'd be the perfect human kebab."
And that's the start of a spectacular brawl, never mind the fact that they're supposed to be as stealthy and quiet as possible so as not to attract attention in the middle of a cemetery in the wee hours of the morning. The tomb kind of explodes when hit by a particularly concentrated blast of blue fire and lightning – alright, not completely, but the parts remaining upright get reduced to rubble as well when Jet skids backwards and brandishes his hook swords with a beautiful follow through. The crumble of stone and accompanying soil shower snap them back to normalcy.
They consider the damage carefully.
Now: to tell Zuko, or not to tell Zuko? That is the question. It's eerily quiet when they slip back into the house through the fire escape, which is on the other side of the flat from Zuko's rooms; they still make contingency plans in case he does happen to confront them.
"Don't hide behind any curtains, peasant. I'll skewer you and then you'll be sorry."
He snickers. "And what would you be aiming to kill, huh?"
"Now, don't get me wrong, who said anything about killing?" Azula retorts, pulling the corner of her mouth down, then up. "More like, I hope your arsehole is prepared to have a hooked sword shoved up it."
"I've never been into that," Jet furrows his brow delicately, "but anything for you, baby." Dirty rogue. She was baiting him, though. This is what happens when you arbitrarily wish for things, see?
She punches the wall nearest to her, and he laughs as he leans down to press a quick kiss to her knuckles. The bruises that form on her pale skin after that, ghostly and purplish-grey, seem an awful lot like contamination. If that isn't proof that love human contact is a fucking disease, then she doesn't know what is.
The days roll by.
Zuko finally drops out of school; Jet changes the locks so Iroh can't come in and snoop around; Azula fobs off all the well-meaning visits from classmates and schoolmates and random insignificant people whose faces she never bothered to remember. They all need a break after that, so they smoke pot for six days straight and swap the dream diaries out for hallucination diaries. Their way of bonding with Zuko, the stupid nut. He's made it pretty clear that he isn't going to ingest anything close to proper meals, clean himself up, or get his shit together, and they can't afford counselling and treatment anyway – he can go right ahead and continue deteriorating in that room. Zuko treats it as a safe place, only leaves it when he really needs to look at something different for a change or has the urge to speak to real people. Scarface is treating that room of his like it's an adequate replacement for his mother's arms, for the sense of safety they provided – a retreat into the womb, except it's also due to become a tomb (they decide it's better to keep their destruction of the other one under wraps). But nobody likes to talk about death.
It all feels so frivolous. Zuko will hobble out and stand in the hallway and squint at his face in the mirror. Azula will be watching TV and Jet will be poking her in the side with his toes until she slips him a little electric shock.
"I look like death warmed over," he says appreciatively, running shrivelled fingers over the sunken hollow of his cheeks, letting out a shaky laugh. Jet lets his jaw drop sardonically, and Azula takes the opportunity to yank that piece of grass from between his slack lips before turning to Zuko.
"You can take your gallows humour and shove it up your arse," she deadpans, shoving popcorn into Jet's mouth before he can complain about her stealing his chew toy. Zuko says nothing, just smiles wanly and crawls back into his room with the value pack of titbits they'd just purchased from the store. Motherfucker.
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Eventually she stops bothering to be angry all the time; it's so much easier to get through her days when she's being apathetic instead. There is no one left to be angry with, she realises. Except for the peasant.
Azula sits next to him on the ratty sofa, both of them malcontent teenagers with overly expressive features.
The silence feels an awful lot like tentative peace.
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The apartment is a total mess, and it's all Jet's fault. Well, maybe partially hers, but still mostly his. He returns from a short weekend trip back home to see his country bumpkin folks and he actually brings back a couple of live chickens. Azula stops and stares at him, without any snarky comments for once about his face or the wheat stalk chewing or the musky odour that envelops him after long hours travelling on a train. Which is pretty new. He raises the chickens like a truce when the expected barrage of disdainful remarks doesn't arrive, and that's how they end up surrounded by blood and feathers in a once-pristine kitchenette, narrow space and narrowed eyes spattered in gore. Unfortunate, really, but it wasn't originally going to get this messy.
"So," Jet says, spreading his palms and quirking those infuriating brows at her; "what can I do for you, princess?"
"You can help dispose of the body when he dies, peasant," Azula snaps, golden irises flashing dangerously. "We can slug it out over who has to do what, if you want to."
"And in the meantime?" he growls, tipping her chin upwards abruptly, familiar smirk etching itself onto his features as she pulls out a sneer. You don't try and kiss girls when you have a stalk of wheat dangling out of your bloody mouth. And his mouth is literally bloody, the chicken having dealt him a nasty scratch on the lips while it was trying to climb into his hair and nest or something. Then he'd nicked it with the kitchen knife and watched, spellbound, as the arc of blood burst forth and liberally bespattered them, hot and viscous lifeblood draining out of the bird. Any hope of making a clean kill was then lost, because there really was no point to burning off its head and neck when it was bleeding out from a side wound like nobody's business. With the number of times he'd wiped his mouth with the back of his hand in frustration, the crusting around his lips is now an ugly mix of his blood and the bird's.
When she kisses him, she makes sure to bite down on his lower lip, taste the fresh blood over the old. He bites down on her lips too, and the metallic tang mixes in both their mouths, feeding the rawness and honest brutality of the embrace.
All they're waiting for now, none too patiently is for Zuko to get a move on and off himself already. But in the meantime, she supposes, since they can't burst into that room and help Zuko kill himself, the next best alternative is to go kill some time with her other flatmate.
Azula has no idea where the fuck this life of hers is going anymore, but here and now, joined at the hip with Jet, she feels anchored, and she feels secured to something; amongst all the white skin and brown skin and flashes of red hot desire. He moves inside of her – warm, stretching, filling – and she knows where he's going and where he's taking her, because there is only one end point in sexual intercourse.
She falls asleep by his side, and though he does think about getting up and leaving for his own room and a proper bed, he stays. By her, on the sofa, scavenged comforter pulled up over their bare skin.
There's another day to get through tomorrow.
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A/N:
Okay so I haven't actually watched the entire Avatar: The Last Airbender series, which I do not happen to own - my shoddy understanding of their personalities is drawn from the wiki, youtube snatches, and reading other fics. And then I twisted them even more for the purposes of the story, so I apologize if they're pretty unrecognisable. They're all this huge jumbled mess of ophelia, laertes, and hamlet, I don't know either.
Thanks for reading ;A;
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