Unwelcome Home by Emachinescat
An Avatar: The Last Airbender Fan-Fiction
Summary:"Though he won't realize it until later, it isn't deference to his father that brings him to his knees. No, as he stands before the Firelord, his father, his last memory of whom was shrieking pain and curdling fire, baking skin and charred flesh, humiliation and agony and a quest that would dominate the banished prince's next three years, Zuko's knees tremble, and they give out. He bows, nose to the ground, before his father, and amidst the swirling terror in his mind, he hates himself for being so weak. This is his father, who has accepted him back home. This is everything Zuko has been dreaming of – he should be happy! Why isn't he happy?"
Zuko's return home doesn't go at all the way he expected. Coming home is all he's ever wanted - so why is he so terrified?
A/N: This was actually the first Whumptober fic I wrote this year, my first ever Avatar fic. I really enjoyed the process of dipping my toes into this fandom, and what better way to do so than with Zuko's trauma?
I hope you enjoy!
Unwelcome Home
Prince Zuko stands before the door that will lead him to his father. It feels as if his entire life has been building up to this moment; even the years before the banishment – those elusive, half-formed specters that he once pretended had happened to someone else – were preparation for this reunion. After all, Uncle likes waxing philosophical about how everything happens for a reason, how everything is connected.
Uncle. Zuko's chest tightens. Squeezing his eyes shut for a fraction of a second, Zuko allows himself to mourn, then opens his eyes to the present and reminds himself, If Uncle hadn't betrayed me, he would be standing by my side during the most important moment of my life instead of wasting away in a prison cell. He did this to himself. Stubborn old man.
Zuko's heart quickens, a lump forms in his throat. He fights the urge to cough; he remembers audiences with his father well enough to avoid showing anything that could be perceived as weakness. His father values strength and power, just as the Fire Nation does. Zuko knows that in the past he's been weak – speaking out of turn, arguing against his father's plans, struggling to match Azula's natural talent at firebending – but he has grown over the past three years. He's stronger now than he has ever been, and even though the Avatar isn't dead by his own hand (Zuko has serious doubts about whether the Avatar is dead at all), Azula has assured him he will be welcomed home with honor.
Honor.
Zuko squares his shoulders, straightens his spine, lifts his chin. Soon, he will fall before his father, head bowed low in supplication, but for now, he projects his strength, his determination, his will, his power – everything that his father saw and loved in Azula and lamented the lack of in his son.
The doors open silently, and the picture painted behind them is like a window back in time. Zuko isn't sure what he'd expected; after all, the Fire Lord has been far too busy with the war and matters of state to redecorate, but even still, the prince's heart stutters at how exactly the same the throne room is. With the first step over the threshold, Zuko's tenuous grip on his confidence wavers as memories of the last time he stood in this chamber creep their way up his spine in an uncomfortable chill and send minute tremors all the way down to the tips of his fingers. He is a child again, thirteen years old, though this time he does not brazenly enter a war meeting he has no place in, but fearfully tiptoes toward his father, the man he has ached to be reunited with for so long.
The Fire Lord is too far away for Zuko to clearly see his expression. He wonders wildly if his father is as anxious as he is to be reunited with his son. Is he nervous? Is his pulse racing, his stomach twisting, his breath catching in his chest? Zuko scolds himself even as he propels himself forward: Of course his father isn't nervous. Why should he be?
Agni, why am I nervous? Zuko doesn't even realize how terrified he is until the question flits across his mind like a moth wasp. It's like fighting through quicksand to take a single step; his instincts scream at him to run, danger, danger! He curses himself, furious that his mind and body are not aligning with what he knows he should be feeling. He's imagined this reunion so often over the past three years that he knows the very heartbeat of what it should be – his father proud, his honor returned, peace within himself and within his family for the first time since he was a child.
But now, moments away from having the dream that kept him alive during his banishment within his grasp, peace is more elusive than it has ever been. Sweat beads across his forehead, trickles down his face and pools in the uneven ridges of his scar. Zuko resists the urge to swipe it away. The room is suddenly sweltering, though not from the flames.
And then the world slams into motion and before he can fully prepare – because, oh Agni, he is not ready for this – he finds himself standing, nearly quaking, before his father, and the Firelord's eyes are the same pools of hardened gold, burning and freezing at the same time, and his father is here, and those cold amber eyes drill past any scraps of confidence that remain and burrow deep within the prince's frantically pounding heart.
Though he won't realize it until later, it isn't deference to his father that brings him to his knees. No, as he stands before the Firelord, his father, his last memory of whom was shrieking pain and curdling fire, baking skin and charred flesh, humiliation and agony and a quest that would dominate the banished prince's next three years, Zuko's knees tremble, and they give out. He bows, nose to the ground, before his father, and amidst the swirling terror in his mind, he hates himself for being so weak. This is his father, who has accepted him back home. This is everything Zuko has been dreaming of – he should be happy! Why isn't he happy?
Beyond that, why is he more scared than he's ever been in his life? Zuko can't help but think back to the trials he'd faced while hunting the Avatar, even as his father rises slowly from his flaming throne – getting shot in the shoulder by the Yuyan archers, only to wake up with the Avatar looming over him; facing off against Azula in the abandoned Earth Kingdom town ( don't think about Uncle don't think about Uncle don't think– ); being thrown into an Earth Kingdom prison ( stop thinking about Uncle STOP– ); all the times he flirted so closely with death he nearly made it his mistress. And yet none of these experiences had filled him with as much dread as his approaching father does now.
It's because I failed him three years ago and I've failed him again , Zuko thinks desperately. The Avatar is not here in chains; he is not dead by my hand. I am afraid because I haven't completed my destiny. I'm afraid of my own failure.
Zuko hates being afraid.
"Prince Zuko," his father all but purrs, and at the sound of his voice – an echo of Zuko's own failure, he knows, the failure that spreads its tendrils of fear through every vein in his body even now, so close to redemption – the prince represses a shudder. Still on his knees, Zuko lifts his head to fully meet his father's eyes for the first time in three long years.
The world is static and lightning; the air itself holds its breath as Zuko searches his father's face for any sign of forgiveness, of the love, the approval, he so desperately needs. The corner of the Firelord's mouth lifts, ever so slightly, but other than that, his face is carved in stone. Zuko kneels, not daring to breathe, as he awaits judgment. A thrill of dread courses through him as he realizes how similar this is to … before. A son prostrated before his father, begging for mercy. A father, standing above him.
And then – "Welcome home, Prince Zuko."
Zuko has to grip the floor with his fingertips to stop his hands from shaking. Instead of relief flooding him at his welcome home, Zuko's heart beats faster still, his throat burns, his chest aches. His very bones are shaking.
And yet he maintains an outer calm even as his insides are ravaged by this damned, irrational fear. When his father extends a hand, not to help him rise, but inviting him to make his own way to his feet, Zuko does so. He stands inches from his father, looking slightly up where once he had to crane backwards – the prince has grown taller since he last saw the Firelord.
"Thank you, Father." How his voice remains so calm, so controlled, is beyond even Zuko. He is reminded of Uncle when he faced Azula in Ba Sing Se. When he was led away in chains, at peace outwardly while surely a great pit of fire swirled within. (No, stop, he's a traitor, stop thinking about–)
"My son," the Firelord says slowly. His eyes move up and down his son, critical and assessing and otherwise unfathomable. "It has been three years since your banishment. Three years since I was forced to teach you a painful lesson for your own good." Zuko's stomach chooses that moment to decide it would rather hang out with his lungs, and the prince swallows bile, nausea churning like a vast ocean in his gut. His head swims and tears press at the corner of his good eye and his skin crawls and why the hell can he not keep it together? He takes a deep, measured breath.
"Yes, Father," he says obediently, casting his eyes down in acknowledgment of his mistake.
Slowly, his father's hand reaches up, reaches out, those alabaster fingers fast approaching Zuko's face. Fresh, animal terror grips him; he freezes like an beast caught in the sights of a crossbow. Only his heart continues moving, beating its frenzied tattoo onto his rib cage. For one frantic moment, Zuko wonders if he's dying.
And then warm fingers – almost uncomfortably hot – touch his face, venture slowly to his scar, and linger there. Zuko's heart stops, then resumes its frenetic tempo, and behind his back, his hands shake with the force of an earthquake as his father inspects the damage. The prince feels hot tears of embarrassment pounding on the back of his eyes but beats them back with pure strength of will.
"It's healed well," his father says.
If it had been anyone other than his father, Zuko would have laughed outright. Instead, he swallows, and somehow he finds voice enough to intone, "Yes, Father."
The touch lingers, the tips of his father's fingers lightly tracing the wrinkled edges of the scar, and Zuko strives with everything in him to detect any affection, perhaps even regret, in it, but it's like his father's gaze – stern and cool and speculating, somehow. The longer his father's touch remains, the more the shaking on the inside tries to escape and Zuko clamps his hands together behind his back to still them. To Zuko's terror-seized mind, he almost thinks he sees a look of grim satisfaction on his father's face. But no – surely – Zuko knows his father loves him, takes no pleasure in what his son forced him to do. The Firelord had told him this himself, after the Agni Kai and right before the banishment.
His father draws his hand away, but Zuko can still feel the impressions of his fingers, their warmth. And, somehow, their chill.
Miraculously, he makes it through the rest of the meeting without throwing up or shaking into a million pieces. He's briefly distracted by the news that Azula has credited him for killing the Avatar, and as soon as the meeting has started, it's ended, though to Zuko it also lasted a hundred years.
His legs don't start shaking again until the throne room doors close behind him. By this point, the panic within him has taken on a life of its own, bending his body to its will as skillfully and dangerously as Azula bends fire. He chokes on air, glances furtively around to make sure no one is watching – thank Agni, he's alone – and he stumbles, half blind from fear and building tears, down the hallway, around the corner, and into an empty tea room.
He doesn't even make it to the cushions before he collapses, sobbing, curling in on himself and hating himself for his weakness, his scar still burning with the remnants of fire from three years ago, and from the memory of his father's newer, gentler touch.
Amidst the empty tea pots and tea cups and kettles, a graveyard of leaves and herbs and spices, a sick, fallen monument to the Jasmine Dragon, Zuko allows his despair to consume him, and he – for the first time since leaving Ba Sing Se – thinks about Uncle Iroh.
And this time, when he struggles to understand why seeing his father again was not the happy, peaceful reunion he'd always hoped for, a tiny voice that sounded a lot like Uncle's echoes in his head: It is not your failure you fear, but your father himself.
"I'm not afraid of him," Zuko chokes aloud, scrubbing his face with the back of his hand furiously. "He's my father. He – he loves me. He wants me back."
And yet – and yet.
Perhaps a father who strikes such fear in the heart of his child, who has hurt him so deeply, is not a father who deserves your love.
The thought, still shrouded in Uncle's voice, hits so suddenly and violently that Zuko sways where he sits.
No, he argues. He is my father. The face he imagines now, however, is not his father's, and Zuko wraps his arms around his torso, trembling so hard his teeth chatter. Don't think about–
Finally, he staggers to his feet, stumbles out the door, and slips through the darkest, most obscure passageways to his room. Later, he decides, he'll confront Azula about her lies. But for now, he is exhausted, he is confused, and he can't stop shaking.
He falls asleep almost as soon as his head hits the pillow. He dreams of Uncle, and he dreams of the Avatar.
A/N: Thanks so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed; a lot of the symptoms of the panic attack are drawn from personal experience. I just feel like there's no way Zuko could come face to face with his father without all this trauma bubbling back to the surface, even if he doesn't understand it.
Tomorrow's another Avatar fic (for the prompt "head trauma") - so if you want some Zuko whump and Team Avatar bonding, stay tuned!
Thanks again for reading, and I'd love to know your thoughts!
~Emachinescat ^..^
