(don't ask me what this is bc i? have no idea)

(aka i was talking w a friend about how zuko has def called iroh dad at least once and then i was like hm,,,,,,,what if it was the other way around,,,,,,,,)

(unnecessary pre-series zuko & iroh angst for the win)

you came back from the war, and you had a dead father and a dead son and a missing sister-in-law and a brother on the throne that was supposed to be yours, though you could not find it in yourself to care about that last one very much. you weren't in any state to rule either way.

(you had left most of your heart behind in ba sing se, with your son who would never open his eyes again.)

you had looked at your brother, and realized that you did not know him anymore. you had look at your niece and your nephew, and realized you barely knew them at all. you had looked at your niece and seen far too much of ozai, with her knife sharp smiles and plotting eyes. you had looked at your nephew and seen far too much of you, all small and pale and grieving—his mother was gone, your son was gone, and you were both of you startlingly alone.

you had looked at this boy and thought, so so selfishly: here is your chance to make things right, here is your chance to help where you failed before.

(now, you aren't sure you've made much of a difference at all—you know. you know you've looked away far too many times. you know you've seen the bruises and burns that couldn't all be explained away by training and aid nothing, you took zuko's story about falling out of the tree in the garden as a liable excuse for his broken arm, you filled him with tea and stories about your conquests when he came to you with red-rimmed eyes and singed hair instead of asking the reason he was there to begin with.

you knew you couldn't do anything. selfishly, you thought it might be best not to give the boy false hope of you saving the day, being the hero. he was too good, too small and determined and kind for the world you both lived in, but you couldn't do a thing about it. so, selfishly, you looked away. and it all came to a head in the end, in that meeting and then the arena, and, selfishly, you looked away then too.

you had looked away and then looked at him, swaddled in so many bandages you thought they might swallow him up, and decided you wouldn't look away again.)

you came back from the war without your son, and, so so selfishly, found solace in another one.

and it's an accident, it's entirely an accident, but zuko is tired and hunched over the table with his head propped up in one hand, complaining, sounding so so much like lu ten in his early teen devil years, back when he would go on about his studies or girls or something else that couldn't be dealt with in the middle of the night. and so it's an accident when you blow on your cup of tea and lose yourself in the memory and say, "eat—complaints won't do you any good right now, lu ten, save them for the morning."

you freeze. zuko freezes. the candles lighting the table flicker. the silence is heavy.

you open your mouth to say something, anything. words catch in your throat at the way his eyebrows are furrowed, not in anger, but in hurt. in surprise, in defeat, in grim realization. the way his shoulders are drawn up tight like they're held together by thin thin wire. the way he doesn't say anything. the way his eyes are wide and locked on the table.

it would be better, you think, if he would get angry like he does so often. but instead, all he does is bite his lip and blink a few times and then say, too quietly, "i'm not hungry anymore."

you want to grab his arm and say i'm sorry, say i didn't mean to, say it's not like that, you're no replacement, you're so much more than that.

you cannot move.

he won't look you in the eye when he stands, won't look you in the eye when he walks, a little too quickly, out of the room and down the corridor. you hear the sound of the door to his own room slamming shut, and it makes you flinch.

you want to stand and follow and tell him there is no one like lu ten, just like there is no one like him, that you love lu ten and you love him too, and there is no way to compare them, no way you would compare them, no way you could. you want to tell him i'm sorry, because he is still so young and you hit the one year mark last week, he's been stuck on this ship for a year now because his father has hurt him and banished him and he cannot accept that and you are the one person he has left and now he thinks he is just a replacement to you.

he is so much more than that, he means so much more to you than that. you don't know if he would believe you if you told him. he takes these things to heart.

you cannot move. you cannot make yourself move. his silence keeps you motionless. you breathe, deeply, put your cup on the table, and close your eyes.

you'll talk to him in the morning, you think. when he's had time to cool down and rest and you've had time to swallow your guilt and your self-reproach and figure out what exactly you can say.

you don't hear a sound from zuko's room all night.

(you sleep late. he gets up early. you never do find time to have that talk.)