ZW 2016 Day 6: Coffee
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Restless Leg Syndrome
When the Sun Warriors send Uncle a new beverage, Zuko gets a bloody nose and restless leg syndrome. Katara isn't helping.
Her head is resting on his shoulder. Zuko is frozen. His heart beats. Loudly. In his chest. In his ears. In his head. In his nose.
Oh no.
"Katara, one second."
She looks up quickly, then starts.
"Zuko, your nose is bleeding! Let me help!"
"No!" Zuko says, a little louder than is probably absolutely necessary as he shoves a finger under his nose. "I'm fine. I just need to…uh…bfinbd a nabpkind." Darting outside to the balcony, Zuko lets his nose drip into some of Uncle's flowers. They're red anyway.
How did he get here? He's pretty sure it started with the Sun Warriors. They'd sent a baby dragon to the palace for him-symbolic of peace in our time, they said-and a new tea variety for Uncle. Except that this is no hot leaf juice; this witch's brew is hot bean juice. Zuko had not found himself impressed. Uncle, on the other hand, had taken it greedily. He'd been tinkering with it all week, to varying degrees of success. No surprise there. Whatever.
The real problem started when Aang and Katara showed up (no surprise there either). As the blood slowly dries in Zuko's nose, he mutters to himself and wonders if his life would have been quieter if he had captured the Avatar instead of getting roped into being friends. Ah, hindsight.
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Aang's eyes have grown to the size of Uncle's favorite saucers. "That smell," he whimpers. "Monk Gyatso's favorite to drink with double-baked biscuits." And then Aang is on the ceiling so fast his air scooter trails behind him, Sokka is ready to down a reservoir of the stuff- "Is it anything like cactus juice? I could go for something quenchy." -and Katara is putting on her Mom hat.
"What is this stuff?" Toph hisses at him after a first (only) sip.
"It's coffee!" Aang shouts. "Isn't it great?"
Zuko finds the brew somewhat less offensive as he drinks more. Possibly because he's burned his tongue and can no longer taste it. Possibly because he's starting to feel like he slept more than two hours the night before, which he most certainly did not. His pulse thrums under his skin with an energy he hasn't felt since he was a child on Ember Island. Or when he was hit with his father's lightning, maybe.
By the next morning, Zuko had barely slept, but not for the usual reasons. His head had buzzed all night and his legs itched. Was he too young to have restless leg syndrome? Has he developed a seizing disorder?
"It's just the coffee," Aang chirps, even more annoyingly chipper than usual at the crack of dawn. "You probably drank too much. Don't worry; you'll get used to it."
"Aang, can I ask you a question?"
"Sure! You can ask me anything! Unless it's too personal, or about Katara, or about booby traps."
"Am I a bad Fire Lord?"
"What? No! Of course not! I mean, you do sometimes get advice from your dad, which isn't great, and sometimes I think you like Katara, but that wouldn't really make you a bad Fire Lord. Just a bad friend!"
As Aang rambles on, Zuko begins to think there's some whiskey in that coffee. On the upside, the crippling anxiety he woke up with has gone from the hand-wringing, nail-biting, self-loathing sort to something more ambivalent.
Who cares if he's a bad Fire Lord. He was trying to keep his burgeoning infatuation with Katara a secret until it blew over. So much for that. He can feel the blood vessels in his face thrumming, so if Aang needed confirmation, there it is (unless that's also the coffee. His eyebrow has been twitching for hours). And so goes his day, until he's sitting on the balcony with Katara. It wasn't his fault. It was the coffee. That stupid coffee.
And maybe Katara made a funny joke that wasn't completely disparaging to him. Maybe she complimented him a little and hinted that she was thinking of dating again. Maybe that she wouldn't hate being with him.
But just to be safe, he's still blaming the coffee.
A/N: I think Aang on coffee would not be dissimilar to Kenneth from 30 Rock on coffee.
