I think I might as well just say that Promptbending has become the source of my crackfic addiction. You have Advocaat to thank for this one, who suggested gender swap when I bemoaned having no fic ideas. So a gender swapping we go!
Oh, and I should warn that I wrote this while severely sleep-deprived, so do let me know if you see any typos, etc.
There's Just One Problem
Zuko groaned and rolled over in the bed. His head was pounding in a dull tattoo, and he made a blind grab for the blanket to pull it up over his face, only to pause as his hand came into contact with something solid and warm. Something that felt disturbingly like a naked—
His eyes snapped open, catching a glimpse of a sweaty male chest and—and he was going to be sick. Zuko ducked over the side of the bed and retched up the contents of his stomach, still making little moans of horror as he grabbed fistfuls of dark hair to stop the strands from getting caught in the foul-smelling stuff. This was not happening. This was so not happening.
He chanced a glance over his shoulder, but the sweaty naked man was still there. All colour drained from his cheeks, and then he was back to retching. Sweet spirits, this was really happening. This was really, really happening!
Just breathe, he told himself, wiping the bile from his mouth. Breathe. There has to be a rational explanation for this.
Because there was no way in hell that he had—he had—
An arm looped around his waist. "Hey there, beautiful," a man's voice murmured near his ear. "I didn't think you'd stay till morning."
Zuko froze. His eyes widened in alarm at the feeling of that sweaty body brushing against his back, and he could feel a big meaty hand gripping his hip, and—and—
A split second later the man was flipped onto the floor and Zuko was standing over him, breathing hard. "Don't touch me!" the prince growled.
Except his voice didn't come out quite how he had expected. Instead of a low male rasp, it was more of a low female rasp. A rather familiar rasp, which had often taunted him and called him ridiculous names, ranging from 'Angry Boy' to 'Prince Pouty', and which just last night had mocked him for refusing to drink anything alcoholic and, in general, behaving like a stick-up-the-arse killjoy (translation: responsible person). That was when Zuko noticed that his black hair was a lot longer than it should be—and that there were two rather distracting mounds of flesh getting in the way of his vision. He gave one an experimental prod.
"Spirits," he breathed, grasping hold of both bouncy mounds and weighing them with his hands. "They're actually real."
The naked man sprawled on the floor let his mouth drop open. It was obvious that he was confused by the prince's behaviour. Zuko also started to get a wriggly, awful feeling in his stomach, because it was finally beginning to sink in that he was holding boobs. Real boobs. And they were stuck to his chest—his very feminine chest. He also noticed that there was a rather important part of his anatomy missing between his legs.
Zuko locked eyes with the naked man. A man who was burly and tattooed, and who looked a lot like that thick-skulled mercenary who had been flirting with a rather drunk bounty hunter last night. Naked man blinked. Zuko's stomach did the wriggly thing again.
"No," he muttered, stumbling over to the bathroom where he knew he would find a mirror. "No, no, no!"
Zuko leaned his hands against the sink and stared at his reflection. A woman with brown eyes and full, kissable lips stared back at him. A damn woman.
That was when Prince Zuko screamed.
oOo
"Uncle!"
He barged into the room with a dramatic fling of the door, standing on the threshold with his—June's—gah, whatever!—hair in a mess around his face, and wearing nothing but a hastily thrown on tunic that he wasn't even sure was hers. This didn't seem to bother his uncle, however, who set down his tea with an unnerving smile; the one that he used on old ladies when he wanted to charm them into giving him an extra cup of tea for free. Zuko barely repressed a shudder.
"Ah, June," Iroh said, standing up and walking towards Zuko with an appreciative glint in his eyes. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"
"Enough of that!" Zuko snapped. "Uncle, it's me!"
Iroh's brow creased. "Are you feeling alright, June?"
"No!" Zuko wailed, clutching at his hair. "Aren't you listening to me? I'm trying to tell you that—"
"I know what you need!" Iroh interrupted, raising his finger to the air. "A nice cup of calming jasmine tea."
"I don't need any calming tea!" Zuko yelled. "I just need you to shut up and listen to me for a moment!"
Iroh blinked. Zuko glared. Suddenly, something shifted in those amber irises, even as the old man paled and leaned forward, staring into Zuko's eyes as if searching for the other's soul.
"Nephew?" Iroh said in disbelief.
Just in that moment the bathroom door slammed open and a bare-chested boy with messy dark hair strode into the room. "What the hell is going on?" Zuko-who-was-not-Zuko demanded.
"You tell me!" Zuko retorted, pushing past his uncle and clenching his hands into fists. "I wake up this morning to find I'm naked in bed with some sweaty gross man, and I'm in your body, and—" but at this point he got quite choked up on his feelings and could only wave his hands angrily. "Just give me my body back!"
June folded her arms, popping her hip out in a very feminine gesture. "Well, I'd love to, Prince Pouty, but there's just one problem. I don't know how we got like this in the first place."
Iroh stared from one to the other, then he just shook his head. "I think I need to sit down," he observed.
Neither paid attention to this interruption. Instead, Zuko got right up in June's space, breathing so hard in his anger that if he were still able to firebend, he would have been snorting fire. Vaguely, it occurred to him that they were the same height.
"Look," he growled, poking her in the chest. "I am not staying in this body. I don't care if you don't know how it happened; just fix it!"
"You fix it!" she responded, poking him right back. "It's obvious this is your fault."
"My fault?"
She gave a blasé shrug. "Hey, I was just enjoying a nice, relaxing evening with some alcohol and a man who was willing to lavish all of his attention on me. I certainly never asked to get stuck in a teenage brat's body."
Zuko's mouth twisted into a scowl. "Well, I never asked to get stuck in some—some—"
Her one good eyebrow lifted. "Some what?"
The prince, whose mind had decided to kindly remind him of what his current body looked like without clothes, could only let out another of his frustrated little growls, even as his cheeks flooded with pink. "Look, I didn't ask for this either, alright?"
June's eyes glinted with humour, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking. Zuko felt his cheeks burn even hotter. This was so unfair.
Iroh stroked his beard. "It seems like the two of you have become victims to a spirit's act of mischief. This is going to make things difficult."
"What do you mean, Uncle?" Zuko asked, turning to face the older man.
"Well, unless you can find the spirit and ask it to change you back to your original selves—which neither of you can, since only the Avatar can communicate with the spirits—I'm afraid the only way to reverse the magic is to figure out the counter spell." He shook his head. "And that could be anything."
The colour faded from Zuko's cheeks. "Are you telling me that we're stuck like this?"
Iroh held his hands out in a placating gesture. "Of course not. I'm just saying that you will either need to request the Avatar's help with the spirits or perform the specific action that was designed to break whatever spell has been placed on you." He picked up his cup of tea. "You might want to hurry as well. These things become permanent after a while."
Zuko straightened to his full height. "We don't have time to find the Avatar. We'll just have to figure out this counter spell and reverse the magic ourselves."
June tapped her foot. "And how do you plan to do that?"
He glared at her. "I don't know! All I know is that I refuse to be stuck in this body any longer, so you are going to help me figure out the counter spell, or I swear I will—"
The prince broke off as a cup of steaming tea was thrust before his nose.
"What is this?" he demanded, gazing at his uncle. "Do you think it will help us switch back?"
"Well, no," Iroh admitted with a twinkle in his eyes. "I just thought you looked like you needed it."
Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and thumb. Spirits grant him patience, or at least an uncle who wasn't so obsessed with tea.
June leaned against the wall, watching the two with an air of faint amusement. "So, what's the plan?" she asked, folding her arms across her chest. "Are we going to sit here drinking tea all morning or are we actually going to try breaking this spell? I don't have all day, you know."
"Right," Zuko said, dropping his hand back to his side and turning to face the woman currently inhabiting his body. "I think I have an idea for how we might be able to switch back."
"Keep talking."
"We've switched bodies, right?"
June heaved a sigh. "No, really? And here I thought I always wake up in the morning with a scar on my face and a man's pe—"
"I think we get the picture," Zuko said hastily, blushing to the tips of his ears. "Anyway, I figured that maybe if we run into each other hard enough, we might be able to force ourselves back into the right bodies."
She stared at him blankly, but Zuko knew it was the 'You Can't Be Serious' expression, because he made it all the time when his uncle tried to flirt with younger women. It was kind of surreal to be on the receiving end of it now.
"What?" he said defensively, folding his arms. "It might work."
June rolled her eyes. "Hate to break it to you, Pouty, but I am not going to have a head-on collision with you on the off-chance that it might jolt my consciousness back into my body. If you've heard the legends, you would know that spirit magic doesn't work that way."
"But—"
"In fact, I have a much better idea," she continued, advancing towards him.
Zuko frowned. "What's tha—ah!"
A hand gripped his tunic and tugged him in for a kiss. Zuko's eyes widened as he stared at the scarred teen pressing his mouth all up against his. That was his face. Spirits, he was kissing himself, and this was so weird, and—
June fisted a hand in his hair, and Zuko made a muffled sound as she deepened the kiss. Tongue. There was a tongue in his mouth, and it was his tongue, and this was just so, so wrong. And his hands really should not be gripping her—his?—shoulders right now. And he most definitely should not be kissing her back, or making those noises, or—
A jolt surged through him, like lightning caressing his spine that then spread out in tendrils of shocks throughout his body. He gasped into the kiss, feeling his skin tingle and hum with energy, and then it all stopped. When Zuko opened his eyes again, he had one hand gripping a fistful of dark hair and his mouth pressed against full, kissable lips. Said kissable lips then curved into a smile, and the woman pulled away from him, tugging on his bottom lip with her teeth as she did so.
"Told you my plan was better," June said in a silky taunt, her brown eyes glittering with amusement.
Zuko blinked. Then he blinked some more. Then he just opened and closed his mouth like a fish.
June patted him on the cheek. "You can thank me later."
The prince blushed and watched as June took her leave, declaring to the room at large that she'd had enough of spirit magic for one day and had a bounty to catch. Once she had shut the door behind her, Zuko let out a deep breath.
"Uncle?"
Iroh gazed at the teen. "Yes, Nephew?"
"I think I'd like some of that calming tea now."