A/N So it turns out I didn't have this written already. I'll be busy after school tomorrow, so I might not get to post, but I'll try. Hope you like this chapter, and I'm sure Aang isn't trying to encourage alcoholism in any way. Have a nice day!

"Momo! Food! Not flute! Not shoe! Not mouth guard! Not rubber duckie! Food!"

"Avatar, it's not going to work," said Zuko tiredly. "Lemurs just don't know how to play fetch… Uncle, what are you doing?"

Aang looked around to see the elderly general waving his hand in the air and hopping up and down. Iroh turned at the sound of his nephew's voice.

"I'm trying to reach those nuts," he explained, pointing at a tree. But I can't."

Zuko rolled his eyes. "Uncle, it's not going to work," he said, not appearing to notice the repetition. "There's no way anyone could reach that. You'd have to be ten times your size to…"

A sudden gust of wind that would have been a terrible plot device had there not been an Air Bender there showered nuts down into the two cages.

"Ouch!" Zuko exclaimed as one of the nuts hit him on the head. The others, gleefully gathering up the food and popping it into their mouths, ignored him.

"Do you know a song for this occasion, young Aang?" asked Iroh. Zuko groaned.

"Uncle, don't encourage the kid. He's insane. At this rate, he'll never stop singing."

As usual, he was ignored.

Aang frowned in concentration. "Erm, how about…

"Cheese, cheese, just a speck of…

"No, no, that's not quite right." He lapsed into a contemplative silence, one that Zuko found extremely refreshing, and Iroh found interesting.

"Nope," he said finally. "Can't think of anything that has to do with food or nuts. Sorry. But I did come up with this!"

"Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall!

Ninety-nine bottles of beer!

You take one down

Pass it around

Ninety-eight bottles of beer on the wall!

Ninety-eight bottles of beer on the wall!

Ninety-eight bottles of beer!

You take one down

Pass it around

Ninety-seven bottles of beer on the wall!"

"Stop! Stop! We get it. People get drunk. Really, really drunk. You don't need to sing the whole song through, unless there's an unusual conclusion," Zuko told him. "And if there is… don't sing it anyways. We get it."

Aang frowned. "I don't know if there's any conclusion. I've actually never known anyone to get past sixty. The monks didn't really endorse that kind of song, so they usually stopped us before we got too far."

"What monks?" snapped Zuko, before he thought better of his curiosity.

"The monks of the Air Temple. They raised me."

"Well, that explains a lot," muttered the Fire Bender.

"Hey! You're the serious, boring one!"

"I am not boring."

"You are so!"

"Am not!"

"Are so!"

"Am not!"

"Are so!"

"Am not!"

"You're serious enough to cover for the entire Fire Nation!"

"Well, you're insane enough to cover for all the Air Nomads!"

"Serious!"

"Insane!"

"Serious!"

"In- oh, this is childish."

Aang grinned. "See? Now you're not quite as boring as you were before." Zuko groaned.

"I'm doomed to spend my entire life with imbecilic madmen!"

"What's imbecilic mean?" Aang asked Iroh.

"Like an imbecile," the old general explained.

The Avatar nodded. "Oh." He frowned. "What's an imbecile?"

Iroh refrained from rolling his eyes. Aang was smart, but he was used to Fire Nation children having a larger vocabulary, at least, when it came to insults, that is.

"You said it, you explain it," he told Zuko maturely.

Zuko glared at him. "No."

"Please?" asked Aang.

"No."

"Pretty please?"

"Pleases aren't pretty."

"That would probably because please isn't a noun."

As usual, Zuko scowled, although the sides of his mouth seemed to be twitching slightly, Iroh noticed.

"How's this," suggested Aang. "I'll sing 'Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall' until you tell me."

Zuko snorted. "And how long will you be able to keep that up?" he retorted.

"Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall," Aang answered.

Ninety-nine bottles of beer!

You take one down.

Pass it around.

Ninety-eight bottles of beer on the wall!"

Iroh decided to take another nap.

When Iroh awoke, his nephew and the Avatar didn't seem to have gotten much further on resolving their conflict.

"Sixteen bottles of beer on the wall!

Sixteen bottles of beer!

You take one down.

Pass it around.

Fifteen bottles of beer on the wall!"

Zuko was wearing his usual scowl as he looked at the boy, but his lips seemed unusually pursed. Was he… humming?

"You take one down.

Pass it around.

Fourteen bottles of beer on the wall," the Fire Bender sang softly. Aang either decided that it was best to continue with his song pretending to be oblivious, or didn't notice Zuko singing along. Either way, he didn't react.

Zuko kicked himself. Really. Pretending to be on good terms with the Avatar was one thing, but joining in his imbecilic sing-alongs was quite another. He didn't even like the song, Aan- the Avatar was just trying to annoy him. Which wouldn't work. But not because he liked it. Or him. He hated the kid and the song.

He was just singing along because it was stuck in his head, which was entirely Aan-the Avatar's fault. He was not enjoying the song; he did not like the Avatar in the slightest. They were enemies. He had to capture the Avatar to restore his honor, his way of life. He did not find the boy remotely entertaining. He was insanely friendly, but that was not a good quality. Friendly annoying little kid was not the same thing as friend. Zuko didn't have any friends. Not that he wanted any, of course.

Still, he might as well try to shut the kid up and tell him what the word meant. If he even remembered what the question was… but it wouldn't do to have Aang… the Avatar… think that he could get what he wanted from Zuko by singing that annoying song about drunken idiots. 'Fools killing themselves,' as Azula had once put it.

He smiled slightly at the idea of thinking about his sister and his fri- the Avatar in the same context. Aang would have liked her, he would like anyone, but it would have been entertaining to see Azula's reaction to him.

Wait… had he just referred to him as Aang? He was the Avatar, not to be thought of as a person, merely an obstacle.

"Hey, Zuko?" asked Aang, suddenly breaking off from his song.

"Hm?" replied the prince, preoccupied.

"What's an imbecile?"

"A stupid person, wh… Oh." He flushed slightly, realizing that he had just told the Avatar exactly what he had wanted to know.

Aang giggled happily. "You j-ust told me, you j-ust told me," he singsonged.

Zuko glared at him. "Shut up," he snapped, and was hit in the face by a boot.

"Ow… that stupid lemur! I'll kill it!"

"Aww, come on," Aang teased. "Momo was just trying to feed you."

"I'm not hungry. And even if I was, I'd have to have been pretty starving to eat an old boot!"

Momo hopped up onto Aang's shoulder and chattered happily. Zuko threw a boot at him, but missed, and the lemur picked it up and bit it. Spitting out the piece, he continued his chatter, shaking his tiny fists at Zuko while Aang stroked him absentmindedly.

"Oh, I don't know, Nephew," chortled Iroh. "I've heard you say you were hungry enough to eat a boot before."

"Yeah, well, I'm not now. So drop it."

Momo dropped the boot.

Aang stared at them both. "Hey, Zuko!"

"What?"

"You just trained Momo!"

Zuko stared at the Air Bender and his pet lemur. "What? I did not!"

"Yeah, you did! You said 'drop it', and he dropped the boot."

"Coincidence," said Zuko airily, although he was really quite pleased with himself.

Aang handed Momo the boot. "Drop it," he ordered, mimicking Zuko's voice.

Momo dropped it.

"See?" he demanded. "He could never do that before. You trained him, Zuko!"

Zuko smiled.