Rating: Teen

Genre: Supernatural/Suspense

Summary: A strange disease has hit Ba Sing Se. A strange disease has hit Lee. (Jetko epidemic AU)

The apartment Lee's staying in smells like rot.

Jet's nervous at the open window, wanting both to leave this diseased place and slip in to tend to Lee. He can see Mushi in the kitchen, bent over a pot of something, worry creasing his face. That settles it for him. He slips into the window and, taking off his boots, pads over to Mushi to touch him on the shoulder.

Mushi smiles when he looks up. "Jet. It's been a long time; Li will be happy to see you. He's just in his room. Would you mind helping me take in the soup? There should be enough for all three of us..." It's a lot for him to say all at once. Jet can tell he's covering up his nervousness - Lee must be in bad shape. The thought of it turns his stomach.

"Of course," he says. Lee's sick and Jet owes it to him to help.

They take the soup and duck into Lee's bedroom, with its single occupied bedroll on the floor. Lee looks...bad. The fungus that's thrown Ba Sing Se into quarantine and chaos climbs up his arm, stark red against his white skin, blending into his scar as it reaches his face. His eyes are open but tired and unfocused. Jet puts the soup pot down, slowly, with Mushi and the bowls just behind him.

"Hey, Lee," Jet whispers. His voice is too hoarse for anything more.

"Jet?" Lee whispers back, his voice hoarse with sickness and fatigue rather than tears. "It's...it's good to see you."

"It's good to see you too," Jet says, desperately ignoring the bright gold of his eyes beneath the red threads of the disease. "Uh...how you feeling?"

Immediately he wants to kick himself. Why would he do that? Asking a sick person how they're feeling. But Lee just smiles. "I'm alright. Tired, but alright. It's one of my good days."

One of his good days. He was bedridden, with red fungus crawling all over his face, and this was a good day.

They talked more, about everything and nothing - or rather, Jet talked and Lee listened half-heartedly. Jet didn't hold it against him. He was sick, after all. When it came time to go, Jet went out the way he'd came, through the window. It wasn't worth it to try to avoid the Dai Li's patrols in the streets.

Three days later, though, Jet would wish he hadn't gone at all.

Nearly midnight on the last day of the month is when I post this. What else is new.