Lake Laogai was so good. Even though I already saw it twice on Youtube.
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Zuko is growing insane. If he was a nervous wreck before, he is truly in need of an asylum now. Every sound, every whisper, every shadow is Jet watching him.
He keeps the stalk of grass in his belt, and Iroh has noticed he has a nervous habit of stroking it. But Zuko can't help that, for the grass stalk is Jet, too.
Jet is a part of him; an invisible, despised part, yet he is there none the less.
Sometimes he wonders at his fixation with the freedom fighter. He hates him, Zuko is sure of that, but nothing else. He curses the haunting pestilence in every way he can, and then there are times when he feels those eyes on him and relishes it.
His uncle does not know what is wrong with him. Zuko cannot tell him, for no words can make him know of the otherwordly feeling that he is being watched.
Then again, Zuko doesn't much understand. All he knows is that Jet is following him and it makes him feel like...
Zuko gives up on sorting out his thoughts. With each attempt he only sinks deeper into confusion.
If only Jet was gone.
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After a while, Zuko no longer feels that unwanted prescence, and gradually relaxes. Yet the grass remains with him.
One day, he sees Jet's companions from the refugee ship. What were their names? Smellerbee and Longshot. They are each clad in a simple white cloak and their eyes are red. The girl sniffs and clutches the boy in a straw hat.
Jet is not with them.
Zuko's hand leaps instinctively to the grass, and he stares after the mourning freedom fighters in horror as he realizes what has happened.
Jet is dead.
Now Zuko knows why the past few days have been spent in ease.
The freedom fighters disappear in the streets of Ba Sing Se, the unpenetrable city. Some hidden nerve within him is wrenched painfully, and he shuts his eyes as some foreign substance (not tears, that damp weakness) seeps from them.
He is not crying. He does not care. He does not regret that he wanted Jet gone, he does not acknowledge what it was he truly felt for his watcher.
Zuko hated him, he tells himself. Now he is glad to be rid of the undesired stalker.
But there is just one, small, entirely unimportant question Zuko cannot help but ask.
In his last gasping breaths, did Jet think of him?
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Yep. Jet's dead. He and Zuko will never make out. cries
I was going to make it longer and disregard the canon, but then I realized I did not want to make the same mistake with all my other multichaptered fics. So, Jet dies.