Zuko didn't go back to the lieutenant for several nights. He nursed his bruises instead, pressing fingertips to the aches in his forearms while he meditated. The pain helped him focus - flames on steel, ringing and clashing, (stay close to me!) the shift in balance and shock of contact - even as breathing. Every breath stretched the muscles over his ribs where he'd been carried, slid shoulderblades where he'd hit the ground and rolled. He listened to the draughts that whispered through the ship. He held bamboo leaves in his cupped hands, scorched them - and remembered the smell of a young boy's fear as a ladder burned.

When he let himself in to the lieutenant's cabin, unannounced and unasked, he waved a hand and smothered every flame in the room. He didn't want to see the look on the man's face; the still-new respect, the faint residual awe.

He had never expected pleasantness, on either side, from this. He had never asked for anything. All he demanded was silence.

Light from around the doorseal was hardly enough to navigate by. Zuko's hand found the edge of the bunk. A larger, broader hand found his. (The man was old enough for a wife and children. He was old enough to be Zuko's - ) he pulled back the sheet, straddled him, and shaped teeth over his throat.

Every man on this ship was in awe of him. His uncle was fond, cautious, and ultimately manipulative. The Admiral was wrong.

Rough hands spanned hips. Zuko ignored the fading bruises, the old aches becoming less important as - something sparked, breathing stuttered - and he saw green leaves and morning sunlight and a boy curled up small and the candle on the floor beside the bunk flared brightly. The lieutenant stared up at him, pupils wide.

His hand lifted and the room was dark again. Unsteadily he stood, staggered. Recovered. He slipped back into his robe, tied the sash neatly, and left.

Closing the door he heard a short, voiced sound. He ignored it.

Of all of them, none of them saw him as an equal. Only..
do you think we could have been friends, too?
Only the most impossible.