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Sex, Drugs and loud music

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For the past three mornings, Zuko had been in a ridiculously cheerful mood.

It was giving Jee the creeps.

First morning, Zuko'd come into the the kitchen, seen Jee there and said "morning" in a really friendly voice. Jee thought he would never use this phrase to describe Zuko's manner of walking - which was typically very stompy and brisk - but there was a definite spring in his step. He was doing a bouncy walk!How strange. What was even stranger was that when Jee asked Zuko what had made him feel so down-right chipper, he'd said "Maybe I'm just in a good mood."

Zuko...in a good mood?

So this was what that looked like.

Weird.

-o-

At first Jee dismissed Zuko's ridiculously happy mood as a one-off fluke. Everyone was allowed to have their off days after all.

The weird mood evaporated during the day. Shit happened. Things went wrong. People acted like dickheads to them for being from the firenation. Zuko got grumpy again, but that was okay with Jee. There was a nice familiarity to the grumpiness. This was the Zuko Jee was used to dealing with.

But then the next morning, Zuko had that goofy smile on his face again! His walk was bouncy and he'd made pleasant conversation.

It was down right unnerving!

-o-

It got worse! On the third morning, Zuko was humming. It was beyond friggin weird. It had become a dire situation. It was obvious to Jee that the stress associated with being the firelord had finally gotten to Zuko. He'd cracked it good and proper.

Jee wasn't alone in being absolutely unnerved by this change in behaviour.

"Is he humming in there?" Toph said, with some bemusement, as she came in and sat down at the table. She was always the last one awake in the Jasmine Dragon – and this morning was no exception. At least everyone else stuck to their regular habits.

"Yes, and making us all tea unprompted." Iroh supplied with some confusion.

The humming and the tea making continued in the kitchen. Jee could just make out the tune. It sounded a bit like four seasons. For some reason that made it worse. At least if Zuko'd been humming some sort of angry-teenager-with-too-many-feelings song, (like the ObnoxiousGas's epic anthem to teenage angst if they can't accept me - they all need to go set themselves on fire!) Jee wouldn't have been so surprised. Humming a sweet, little angst-free ditty like four seasons was the weirdest thing he'd ever heard Zuko do.

"Who knew Zuko had a musical side?" Jee in complete bafflement. Zuko had hated music night on the ship and Jee had originally assumed it was mostly because he couldn't carry a tune in a bucket and he didn't want to embarrass himself.

"I did. But he normally plays the tsungi horn. He doesn't do this." Toph said, stressing the last word and gesturing vaguely towards the kitchen. She didn't quite have the right word for what was going on here.

"No, this is ….something new." Iroh said in agreement. He also didn't have the right word. But Jee did.

"This is..." Toph began.

"Creepy" Jee supplied.

Creepy was the right word for what was going on here. There was no other way to describe it. Hearing Zuko hum in the kitchen while doing something nice for all of them unprompted made Jee feel like he'd woken up in a strange parallel universe, where like...food would eat people or something else similarly bizarre. But nowhere near as bizarre as the humming, which was obviously the first warning sign of oncoming doom.

"This is very very creepy." Toph agreed.

-o-

Jee decided to get to the bottom of this. Jee had been hired because he never shied away from telling Zuko what he really thought. Telling Zuko when he was acting like a dick and needed to get over himself was literally Jee's job description. While Zuko making tea for everyone and humming wasn't very dickish per see, it did show a dramatic change in mood. Jee knew what caused crazy mood swings like that, and it was Jee's duty to interfere. He cornered Zuko, after breakfast to ask a very salient question.

"Zuko, are you on drugs?" Jee asked bluntly, because he could see no benefit in beating round the bush like this.

"What? No! Why would you even think that?" Zuko spluttered in surprise and indignation. He whirled around to face Jee. Jee subtly tried to check if his pupils were dilated. Zuko backed away and looked at Jee like Jee was the one who'd been acting weird for three days.

"Look I was just asking. If you're having problems, Uncle and I will help you. But turning to drugs isn't the way!" Jee said persuasively.

Zuko gave Jee an unnecessarily condescending look and said "Yes Jee. I have a terrible terrible opium habit that I have been keeping secret from you all these years. Now that I'm firelord I've just decided to let it all hang out, turn this tea shop into a house of ill-repute, and take drugs all the time. I'm going to introduce Kuei to catcus juice and bring a little drug-fueled crazy into the mix in the peace negotiations."

Ah, sarcasm was music to Jee's ears! This was more like the Zuko Jee knew.

Still Jee thought that being a crazy firelord wasn't the sort of thing that Zuko should be sarcastic about. All his family brought regular old crazy to the position of firelord naturally. (Drug fueled crazy would be a blessing compared to whatever was wrong with Ozai). There was a lot of regular crazy to be getting on with in the Firenation royal family. The firenation hadn't had a sane firelord in...okay Jee wasn't that great at maths, but he knew it had been a really long time. Zuko's little rant was oddly spoken with disdain considering he'd had a relative who only held conversations with pineapples.

"Well, I'm just saying that you've been sneaking out a lot, you're demonstrating really unusual behaviours...I mean, you've been acting...like... happy. What was I meant to think?" Jee said defensively.

Surely his assumption wasn't that preposterous. Zuko was a sixteen-year-old boy. By all rights, he should be doing something naughty with either sex, drugs or loud music. That's just what kids did. Jee discounted the loud music because (humming notwithstanding) Zuko had never expressed a great interest in music in general. Sex was right out. Zuko was just in a really awkward stage when it came to the ladies. Jee hoped he would grow out of it the same way he grew out of being a childish dickhead.

Right now, Zuko wasn't so good with the ladies, despite the fact that many ladies seemed to find him quite attractive. They'd drop hints which Zuko would continually fail to pick up. Those hints would just bounce right off him and fall to the floor. Indeed, if these hints were little bits of paper, they would fall around an oblivious Zuko like autumn leaves, and all gather at his feet hopefully and still Zuko would not pick them up. No, he'd probably grumble at someone (most likely Jee) "Someone really needs to clean up all these bloody hints we've got lying around on the floor. This place is a mess."

There was no way it could be sex - so that left drugs. Jee didn't think that this was jumping to conclusions. Even though it seemed like he was erroneous in his assumption, (Zuko's pupils weren't dilated, and he seemed sober enough) it was still a fair assumption to make.

"Wait, you think I have to be on drugs to be happy?" Zuko asked, giving Jee a funny look - as if he just realised the implications of what Jee said previously.

Jee hadn't meant that at all! But, now he'd pretty much said to Zuko's face that the only way he thought Zuko could be happy would be if he took up drugs. That sort of pronouncement could be the very thing that would drive him to experimentation with opium. Jee felt the metaphorical ground in this conversation get very slippery.

"I wasn't saying that at all. I was just saying..." What was he just saying? Jee tried to think of something that could justify what he was saying and drew a blank. "Oooh, wait I think I hear your Uncle calling." He finished, deciding that when all was said and done – a distracting change of conversation was really the best option here.

"No he's not." Zuko said.

"Yes he is." Jee urged.

"No he's not. Bloody hell! and you think I'm the one acting weird. Are you sure you're not on drugs?" Zuko was clearly baffled.

"I'm not on drugs!" Jee said crossly, annoyed at how this conversation had gotten turned back on him.

"Well I'm not on drugs either!" Zuko said and stomped away, clearly pissed off now.

-o-

Perhaps it wasn't drugs after all.

There must have been a better explanation for the humming in the morning.

It must be music.

Notes: So Zuko sneaks out and sees Katara during the night and is normally in a much better mood the following morning. A Happy Zuko perplexes Jee greatly. A happy Zuko is like a unicorn to Jee. He always thought they were imaginary, but now he's seen one in its natural habitat...Jee assumes there is a logical explanantion for this shift in mood... and makes logical conclusions.