"You want what Father gives me so bad, Azula? You can have it. Come to my room tonight."
Even with those words heavy in the air, he half doesn't expect her to take up the challenge. Half doesn't want her to. Doesn't want her to be there, to see.
But she does.
She does.
Azula startles badly, whirls around to face him as he stalks in and slams his door shut behind him, opens her mouth—probably for an insult, or a question, or just in surprise at the ring of bruises around his throat like a necklace made of poisonous nightshade-bluebells. Whatever the reason, that's her mistake, because that's when he strikes.
Pushes her up against the wall with his fingers digging into her cheeks, her jaw, to keep it open, as he ducks down and kisses her, rough and harsh because it's the only way he knows how. The only way he's been taught.
He thrusts his tongue between her slack lips, Father's spend still in his mouth, but not for long as he lets it flow into hers, thick and cloying.
She struggles, she fights, because that's a normal response to situations like this. Tries to bite him, because that's a normal response to situations like this.
Not like Zuko's responses at all.
Never give up without a fight, he thinks, even as he doesn't let her. Father would appreciate this. He likes it when Zuko fights.
It's why he doesn't.
Fights by not-fighting and it kills him every time and he wisheswishes-wishes he could just stop but he can't. He never can. Can never stop fighting even when fighting means not-fighting.
Azula fights.
She loses.
Because Azula's prepared for a great many things in her life, but never this.
The irony of the moment is not lost on him.
For as long as he could remember, Zuko has chased his sister while she just gets further and further away. Takes things he wants—wants so bad he can taste them.
Now for once, for once in his life, Zuko has something Azula wants, something she can't have, and he doesn't want it.
When he lets her go and steps back, she makes a swipe at him, but it's weak and off-course because there are tears in her eyes clouding her vision and she's more worried about turning her head away and coughing and spitting up the bitter fluid left in her mouth. Not that there's much, Zuko had been very thorough with that kiss.
There are bruises on her cheeks from his fingers that match the bruises on his neck from Father's and Zuko laughs at that.
He's just not sure why it sounds like weeping.
When Azula is done choking and coughing, there's a small pool of watery white in the palm of her hand and on her fingers that she's managed to spit out, holding her hand away from her like it's something tainted and glaring through narrowed, glassy eyes.
Zuko steps close, ignores her going tense, makes a huff of sound that's not amusement but maybe one that could have wanted to be at some point, some other point that's not now in some other place that's not here. Grabs her wrist to pull it close and then licks her hand clean because Azula doesn't want to wipe the mess on her clothes and it's nowhere near the worst thing Father's had him do since Mother left.
In a quick flash of motion, she grabs his wrist as he goes to let go of hers. "What did you do?" Azula whispers. Then, just a breath louder but far more force, "What did you do? "
"He wanted Mother," he says in not-answer.
"Mother's gone, Dum-dum."
"Yeah," Zuko replies. "But I look like her."
And Azula goes even more tense. Her fingers, wrapped around his wrist, squeeze hard, dig her nails in and leave little pin pricks of pain and light.
Flowers bloom across his wrist the way they bloomed across his throat, the way they bloomed across her cheeks. No more bluebells, too dark for that. Shadowy-black hellelilies and bright red carnelions ready to bear fluff that floats away on a breath.
Zuko feels like he could float away on a breath. Feels like he weighs more than the entire palace. Feels his bones weighing him down. Feels like there's nothing at all holding him to the place he's standing except small fingers digging painfully into his wrist.
"It's a garden," he whispers at last. Mother's garden, where she'd grown her herbs and flowers.
A small place hidden away in a corner where Father lays him on the grass and—
There's a pond, there. It used to have turtleducks Zuko would watch. He watched them when—
It used to have turtleducks until Zuko couldn't stand the sight and sound of them anymore. The memories hurt too much. Now he just watches the turtleduckless pond. Watches the plants steadily going wild. He's memorized every single color because Father copies them onto his skin.
"What?" Azula asks, dragging him back to the here-and-now.
"What Father gave me. Gives me. His gift to me. It's a garden."
"You're lying," she accuses.
"Azula always lies," he reminds them both, because he always forgets but she never has. He reminds her anyway. "Azula always lies. Azula always gets what she wants. Azula was born lucky."
And Zuko was lucky to be born.
Not lucky enough to die, though.
Grandfather had. Died, that is. Pale purple wolf's glove, maybe. Had Grandfather had heart issues before he died?
Grandfather is dead and Zuko isn't and Mother is gone and Zuko is here.
He's here and Azula thinks he's lying so Zuko shrugs his robes from his shoulders to show he isn't. His body is colorful, like a garden.
Green, winding up his legs in great swathes like poison kudzu-ivy. Yellow spots like sun-daisies peeking between. Large, purple-black blooms of belladonna-tulips on his knees. Small black-star berries dotting his calves.
Other times, most nights, the white-pink of the white jade flower trickling down his thighs.
"You do look like Mother," Azula mumbles, voice low and rough and mean. "You're just like her. Weak. Pathetic. Is that why Mother loved you best?" she hisses, vicious as a feral owl-cat.
"Father says he loves me now," he rasps, feels Azula's nails sink even deeper, like she's trying to dig out his bones. "Do you think Uncle loved Lu Ten like this?" Azula's breath makes a hitch as it catches in her throat like a fish hooked by the gills and dragged flopping onto dry land. "Is this how Mother wanted to love me, too?" Flop, gasp, goes Azula's fish-breathing. "I don't think I like love, Lala. But you hate me, right? You hate me?" Tears slip down his face and he can't stop his shaking.
Azula wraps an arm around his neck and pulls him down until he can hide his face in her shoulder. "Course I do, stupid Zuzu. Always hated you, Dum-dum. Just like Mother."
He laughs weakly into the pale column of Azula's throat. Clutches hard at her as her fingers squeeze rhythmic rings of pain/light against his wrist because Azula is his little sister and she hates him.
Her arm slips down around his shoulders and Zuko can't help the small, wounded sound he makes. Because he's small, and wounded.
She opens her mouth to ask and he turns before she can. There are stripes across his back, weeping red. "Father's trying to turn me into a fire lily."
It was Mother's favorite flower. Is it Father's, too? Turning Zuko into one last flower to decorate Ursa's gift-garden?
Zuko prefers the white jade. He prefers nightshade-bluebells. He prefers belladonna-tulips. He prefers wolf's glove.
'Such pretty petals,' Mother whispers from memory as she teaches him how to grind and dry the flowers and mix powders.
"Such pretty petals," Zuko echoes her, whispers the words into his sister's neck as he clings to her.
'Such potent poison.'
Mother knew herbs and poisons. Mother's favorite flower was the fire lily.
Such pretty…
Zuko knows how to tend every flower and herb in the garden. How to dry them and mix them. Mother taught him well.
Such potent…
Father's trying to turn him into a fire lily. Mother's favorite flower.
All Zuko's favorite flowers are poisonous. He learned them all from Mother.
"You'd make a terrible flower," Azula says against his hair.
And Zuko laughs again. Because Azula always lies. He'll bloom for sure, then, bright fire-red in the garden left for him, given to him. Bright and vivid and— "Such a pretty poison."
Post-Burn Epilogue
He wakes up in the dark, face burned and burning. And still, in the dark, there are pin pricks of light.
Fingers on his wrist, with nails digging in.
"Lala?"
"Mm," she hums. There's a sense of shifting movement. "Looks like Dad doesn't love you after all."
He laughs. It sounds like weeping again. "Yeah," he rasps, eventually. "What are you doing here, Lala?"
Because he— he's banished. Cast out because he's failed again.
"They say there was a fire, during the Agni Kai."
His heart trips over itself and stutters in his chest. "Fire?"
"Mm," she hums again. "It was terrible. We lost whole pavilions. Mother's garden, too. I heard it burned all the way down to ash." 'Just like you,' she leaves unsaid. "Unsalvageable," she says instead.
And Zuko— Zuko laughs again, as Azula gets up to leave. He laughs and laughs.
This time, it doesn't sound like weeping.
"Happy banishment, brother dear."
Lying in his blankets, burned and burning, face branded vivid bright red like the petals of a fire lily blooming outward, Zuko smiles. "What potent petals," he whispers to the empty air. What a pretty poison.