When they made camp that evening, Li asked, out of the blue, "Do you guys want to hear about an asshole with terrible sideburns?"

Jet blinked at the non-sequitur, but nodded. Thus begun The Adventures of Ponytail-Boy and Admiral Sideburns.

Three sentences in, Jet concluded that Li was an appalling storyteller. He couldn't find it in himself to care.

"And the…" Smellerbee frowned at the marks gouged in the soft mud, "Prince… the Prince's honour was restored."

Li smiled at her and the words in the mud while she hugged him around the waist. Her reading was coming along incredibly quickly. He'd have to get some scrolls or something for her to practise with at the next town.

Jet frowned at the letters in the ground. "Why does every sentence contain the word honour? I think I'd be able to spell that word by now."

Li stared at him for a long moment.

"Inside joke."

"Li, Admiral Sideburns is starting to freak me out a little."

"Don't worry about it." Li poked absently at the fire. He'd been telling them these stories every night for over a week now, and was far less disturbed by them than he really should have been. "Uncle refused to leave my side whenever he was nearby, after the first time he tried to lure me on his ship with tea."

"Still…"

"Oh, and he's dead now as well."

"You didn't think to lead with that?!"

Li sat down on a log and planned out his next sentence. He probably shouldn't use the word honour, there were plenty of more useful words that Smellerbee needed to know better, but he kinda wanted to keep using it just to bother Jet.

Unconsciously, he held Smellerbee in his lap while he planned, one hand around her waist, chin resting on her bushy hair.

(Half-faded memories of actually being an older brother to Az- You burned her, remember?)

He shifted in his seat, tightening his hold on Smellerbee.

Memories of being someone's big brother sprang to the forefront of his thoughts. It was weird and dumb that he missed something he'd never really had. She'd outstripped him the first time she sparked; she'd never needed him.

He looked around their little camp - thin sleeping bags and dirt-smeared clothes; food caught fresh in the forest only to be burned on their campfire. The Caldera had feather beds and silk robes and the finest chefs in the Fire Nation.

He'd never known the warmth of a person sitting shoulder to shoulder with while they ate; of someone waking him during his nightmares and waiting for the sunrise with him; of a sparring match where he knew the other would stop if he asked.

(Except below the decks of a rusty tin can, but the ginseng dragon was long gone.) He had what he had, and couldn't wish for anything different.

He'd become used to having people around him caring about him. That was a strange thought, that he could trust that the people around him wanted him to be happy. His free hand joined the other around Smellerbee's waist.

(He had burned her to make space, hadn't he?)

(Well, no, but close enough. The space was there; he might as well fill it.)

"I think I used to do this kind of stuff with my little sister," Li said without being asked. "I'm not too sure because we would have been very young, but I know that my cousin used to do that stuff with me and I always wanted to be like him."

Jet grinned at him from across camp. "You have a little sister?"

"Had," Li corrected himself as much as he corrected Jet. "She's not my sister anymore, so…" (Jet flinched, minutely and inexplicably.)

"We didn't exactly get along anyway," Li ignored Jet's reaction. "She took after our father – she was his favourite. In hindsight, that probably wasn't much better than being the disposable heir."

Jet had that strange look he always got when Li talked about his family.

(He probably didn't like that Li used to have other loyalties, despite his assurances that he belonged to Jet now. It probably wouldn't be beyond him to lie about not caring about Li's old loyalties to make Li feel better – he often seemed to hide the truth when he thought it was in Li's best interest.

It was a little worrying, that Jet didn't trust that they were gone from his heart. He didn't want Jet to think he was still loyal to his (ex-)father, especially if he found out exactly who he was.

Li had burned them right in front of him, and reassured him that they were dead to him every time they came up in conversation – he wasn't sure what else he could do to convince him.

He didn't dare bring it up, in case he sounded too defensive.)

"What was she like?" Smellerbee asked him from his knee.

"Scary," he replied easily. "Powerful – she was bending from her crib. The first time she managed to bend properly she killed my sparrowkeet – I think it was an accident that time, but father was pleased with her so…" He let his chin rest fully on top of Smellerbee's head. "I can't blame her for it; I can't imagine how I would have turned out if he'd paid closer attention to me. Getting kicked out was probably the best thing that ever happened to me."

"No offence," Jet said, tone carefully casual, "But your dad is kinda the worst."

"You have no idea. And he's not my dad anymore, remember."

Jet actually looked pleased – only a little, but it was genuine. Maybe he'd actually got through to him with that one.

(I'm loyal to you now, I promise.)

"Sorry," Jet smiled, "Your not-dad is the worst."

"That's more like it."

"But your sister…"

Li frowned. Jet trusted he was done with his not-father, but not his sister? "She doesn't matter anymore," he promised him.

"She doesn't sound too bad… or like her actions are her fault, I guess."

Li suspected they were having a different conversation. Li was trying to convince him he didn't care about her, and Jet was saying… something else.

"…I suppose not."

Jet leaned forward. "What's she really like? Aside from scary."

Li pushed past the bone-chilling terror that accompanied thoughts of her, to the little cherub the monster had grown from. "She's a liar," he said. "And a manipulator. Better than anyone I've ever met. Better than you, even," he added, hoping Jet would see it as a reference to her skill, and not as an insult to his own.

(Jet gave that little flinch again – too small for anyone not used to skilled actors and expert liars to see.)

"She's lucky and confident and infallible," Li continued, forcing himself past the accidental insult. "If she decides she's gonna do something, there's not much that can stop her. She's… she's not much of a person outside of trying to be scary, I think." He tried to think of an instant of her own personality, of a scrap of herself that wasn't forged by their her father, but came up empty. "She doesn't do theatre or sneaking or music. Just fighting and lying. Her father wants her to do that, and she hasn't tried to be anything else."

Jet listened with an uneasy expression, but didn't say anything in response. He looked a little pale.

"I saw her a few months ago – for the first time in three years," Li continued, just to break the stifling silence. "She tried to kill me – or capture me, maybe, but she wouldn't have minded either way, I don't think. She must have an actual mission just now, or she wouldn't have left me to the bounty hunters for this long."

Smellerbee piped up from his grip. "Would those Rhino guys have given you to her? Or do you think they were working for someone else?"

(He swallowed down the memories of the dark cell; of being helpless and trapped for hours in pain, with nothing to think of but Azula's looming approach.)

"Nah, it was her," he said like it didn't matter. He almost sounded convincing, too. But he knew she could feel how he'd tensed.

She took a careful hold of his wrists, rubbing over the mostly healed scars from his stint in prison. He wouldn't have had them if he hadn't tried to escape on his own. If he'd known he had people watching his back.

He relaxed as much as he could and took her hands in his gently, knitting their fingers together.

"I know now that you'd come," he said, quiet; just for her, "If it happened again. You wouldn't let her get me."

She squeezed his hand.

"How do I write sister?" she asked.

He shifted his grip on her, grabbed a stick to write with, and taught her about siblings.

"What if I just quit the war and did theatre?"

"I thought that was the plan?"

Li blinked, surprised as he always was that Jet cared more about his happiness than his uses as a soldier. "It is now, I guess," he said. He laid back in the long grass of that day's meditation spot. "…After I find my enemies and tell them how to kill my not-dad."

"Just let me do it. I am actually begging you." Jet was grinning too widely to be taken seriously, even though Li knew he absolutely meant it. Li realised that was the first time he'd mentioned killing Ozai.

"They're all benders," he said, instead of elaborating on exactly why Ozai needed to die.

He knew Jet's reasons to want him dead were different to his own – well, he wanted Ozai dead for the same reasons, but Li's not-father? It was strange to think of killing him just for his scar (and Jet didn't even know about that? He must be overreacting – or lying for Li's emotions again.).

Regardless, he was still somewhat reluctant to get back into the fight - it would be safer and easier to hide than to take the fight to Ozai.

(He started to hope he wouldn't find the Avatar; then he could just quit the war.)

"They might not die fighting him," he explained instead.

Jet sat straighter, incredulous. He didn't seem to have noticed Li's conflict. "And you were fighting them alone?"

"Basically." He plucked stems of grass, shredded them into neat little sections. "My crew was shit and Uncle didn't actually want me to succeed in my mission."

It should have stung, that Uncle was actively trying to stop him from capturing the Avatar, but he'd realised the minute he burned his father that going back home would be a death sentence for him. He could never be happy serving him, despite how he'd wanted to for so many years, and he'd definitely never be able to keep his mouth shut. He'd be lucky to escape with his other eye intact – be lucky to escape alive – and he'd never been particularly lucky.

"So you took on a bunch of benders alone?" Jet asked again, his naturally ridiculous eyebrows arched higher than usual. "You just chased them across the Earth Kingdom to get smacked around every other week."

That… was more accurate than Li would ever admit.

"I almost won sometimes," Li said, indignant. "I kinda want to fight him one last time just to see how I'd do."

"…Li, no."

"If I ever meet your not-dad," Jet said, casual and conversational, as they trekked up a mountain, "I'm gonna kick him in the nuts."

"Please don't; he will literally kill you."

"Might be worth it."

"Fuck."

The vicious curse was reverent as a prayer. Li broke his meditation posture, flopping back on the grass with a grin.

Jet looked over, trying to pretend he'd at least been trying to meditate. So far, he hadn't been able to do anything more than enjoy the calm.

"What?" he asked. Over the last week, Li had been just as irritating as on the first day, dragging Jet out of bed for an hour or so of sunrise and peace. He couldn't complain, not when the activity managed to soothe him, not when Li would talk to him at the end of each session, opening more and more as the days went by. This was the first time Li had actually interrupted meditation, however.

Li smiled, soft and calm and peaceful. "My not-dad can eat shit," he said, his gentle tone at odds with the harsh words.

"I thought this was old news," Jet smirked. It was almost mad how much Li cursed his not-dad, now that he'd broken the seal. Mad how much he talked at all, if Jet was honest, now that he trusted them. "Is there something he's done that I don't know about?"

"Oh, plenty," Li said. "But I realised I don't have to do things he wants me to do. Aside from the obvious, I mean. So many things are open to me now." He stretched his arms to the sky, then dropped them to splay on the ground.

Jet laid back next to him, their shoulders brushing. "Any details you can spare?"

(Even after all this time, even in Li's happy place, Jet knew better than to ask direct questions when asking to ask a question was a possibility.)

"I have come to the decision," Li said, "That I am very gay."

Jet blinked, but he didn't seem angry at him so things were already going well. "I didn't know that was something you could choose?" Jet asked.

"I don't need an heir." Li grinned, turning over onto his stomach, bracing himself on his folded arms. "Not anymore. I tried to pretend to myself that I liked girls, because I had to marry one," which remained kinda ew to think about but mostly just sad. He didn't want to marry someone he didn't love, even for the good of the Fire Nation. (Plus, it would be a shame for whatever girl he ended up with, he supposed.)

"I just don't see the appeal?" he continued. "Like they're nice and all and I liked making jokes about being dual wielding," Jet snorted at his waggling eyebrow, "but… it doesn't compare."

(Broad shoulders and deep voices and hard muscle. Someone protective and tall and strong.

Someday.)

"I get what you mean," Jet said, words slowed by thought. "I don't care either way. Romance and stuff is useful for manipulating people," Li bit his tongue to keep himself from asking; Jet's expression was enough to ward him away, "But beyond that? I don't really get it."

"You don't…" Li sat up, brow furrowed, crossing his legs under him. Jet didn't fancy people at all?

Well, if a person could fancy both, then why not fancy neither? "So you don't wanna marry anyone?" he asked. Just to clarify.

"Nah, I got my kids," Jet said. "Don't need a woman or anything."

Li heard that wrong. He snickered, "Maybe don't phrase it like that."

"Li!" Jet smacked him on the arm, gentle in that way he always was with him. Like he might break if he hit him too hard. Or like he might fly into a panic.

Li hated that he wasn't wrong.

(He wasn't delicate, he was just… well, he wasn't delicate.)

He glanced at Jet, who kept watching Li with that scandalised expression, his slick composure broken by genuine surprise.

Jet staunchly refused to laugh with him at his awful horrible mean joke (even though he really wanted to). He shushed Li, who just flopped back down on the ground, snickers turning to giggles. A shove on the shoulder just made him roll over to his back again, laughter coming like it was being shoved out of his lungs.

He wouldn't stop.

It took Jet a moment to recognise that he was actively trying to get Li to stop laughing. It had become too common for him to fear its end.

He still didn't laugh, but couldn't hold back a smile.

A/N here is your regularly scheduled reminder that I keep forgetting to post here bc no comments and that there is roughly 25k more of this series posted on ao3. My name is FoiblePNoteworthy there as well and its called Guilt (The Jet adopts Zuko AU). I have other writing over there including a comedy about Zuko convincing the gaang he is his own twin, and a 20k fic about platonic soulmates.