JETKO WEEK 2013
A/N: I know, this is so very late —Jetko Week is already coming to a close! I've got at least one more prompt in progress, and after that this'll just become a dumping ground for other Jetko stuff. As always, thanks for reading.
Prompt 2: Stubborn
He knows the feeling of being followed.
Zuko wets his lips. The back of his neck prickles. And he can almost feel the twin hook swords at his throat. With each breath he takes, another ghosts past rough lips about 200 feet behind him. With each step, a faint patter of footsteps is sure to fall in line with his own.
Zuko knows this feeling. But simply knowing is little comfort.
He can't shake it —that feeling on the back of his neck and at his throat. It's there, every night, as he tosses and turns under a blanket that doesn't cover his toes. And it's there, every morning, when he rubs the dark circles that stain the hollows of his eyes, lying awake to the sound of Uncle's breathing and the gentle rise of the city waking.
A madness begins to set in. He's seen it. He knows it. It stares back at him in the most subtle of ways in the mirror: the familiar way prey's eyes shift from side to side, the way their necks crane over their shoulders. Every cracking twig, every flash of brown hair in the town square, sends a rush of adrenaline coursing through his veins.
He's been the hunted. He is the hunted. And he's been the hunter, too.
He knows how to keep hidden in the shadows, he's peered out over rooftops and from behind corners. Two can play at this game.
All it takes is a dodge down an alley, a grapple up the side of the building, and he's watching from above while Jet's on the streets below, wheat-grass bobbing frantically from left to right, before disappearing in the opposite direction.
The urge to pursue, to fight, to be rid of this madness, eats at him —just for a moment. But a new life, and an uncle four blocks away subdue the impulse, and so Zuko clambers down the side of the building, takes one last long look down the road, and heads in the opposite direction.