kyoshi hold 'em
part eight: her crisis beats your crisis
Zuko was torn.
It was far too risky to attempt cheating again, because Jet was now watching him and Katara too closely to think that they might not get caught. And he had just won his pants back, much to the dismay of Ty Lee, and he was very opposed to parting with them again.
On the other hand, Katara was down to only two more articles of clothing, and - as appealing as the thought of a half-naked Katara was - he couldn't sit by and let her embarrass herself so fully, especially in front of Jet and Ty Lee.
But if he traded his Ace to her, he would lose this hand, which meant giving up his pants. Again.
"Dammit, Katara, you have got to learn how to gamble!"
"Please, Zuko!"
"There is no way we'll get away with it."
"What am I supposed to do?"
Zuko growled. "You should have thought about that before you bet your chest bindings!"
"Zuko, I am begging you. I can't take off my bindings in front of Jet! Just think - ! I won't ever be able to face him." She turned the full force of her Patented Feminine Begging Eyes on him. She even started to tear up. He refused to look at her, knowing he would crumble if he did.
"Look, if you lose this hand, I'll... here," he pulled Ty Lee's shirt out of his pile, "give you this so you're not exposed. Okay?"
"You know Jet won't allow that."
"What are you two discussing so avidly?" Jet asked suddenly, leaning over the table. Katara froze. Zuko groaned.
"We're discussing how we're going to stage a coup, take over this game, and reinstate me as the dealer," he replied sardonically, and then kicked Katara in the leg and whispered out of the side of his mouth, "Just fold."
She yelped, and turned over her hand. "And I'm folding," she said automatically. Zuko smacked his forehead with his palm, so she continued in the same stilted tone, "After I help him depose you, of course."
"You were cheating again, weren't you?"
"No," Zuko replied, horror creeping up his spine at the look of satisfaction on Jet's face.
"You were!" Ty Lee cut in eagerly. "You know what that means..."
"We weren't cheating!" Katara cried desperately.
"I think you were cheating," Sokka said, clearly hoping for some revenge. Suki smacked him on the back of the head.
"You want your sister to get naked?"
"She did it to me last night!"
Aang looked over at Katara, facing the same conundrum Zuko had been facing earlier. "Come on, you can't make her take off her clothes if she doesn't want to."
"There's no fun in a strip game if you remove the "strip" from the equation," Jet said, as though explaining it to someone stupid.
"There's also no fun in getting your nads frozen off by a pissed off waterbender," Toph countered sagely. The entire room paused to contemplate this while Katara grinned smugly. Jet opened and closed his mouth several times, before finally scowling.
"Okay, fine. Katara doesn't have to get naked if she doesn't want to. Zuko, on the other hand..."
"I was not cheating!" he shouted.
"Come on, Zuko, don't be such a sore loser," Jet drawled, smirking. Zuko turned to Katara.
"This is your fault," he hissed. "I am not a sore loser, and I am not stripping just because you're paranoid!"
"One of you has to strip," Jet said, crossing his arms. "As penalty for cheating."
"Or what?" Zuko snarled.
"Or you leave the game, and I keep your clothes. Including the ones you're wearing now."
Ty Lee was now standing and watching with an expression of joy on her face. Mai groaned and buried her face in her hands, and happened to notice something sitting beside Ty Lee's chair. A bottle of pale green liquid... She picked it up and, in the fuss going on around the table, went unnoticed as she opened it, sniffed the contents, and took a deep swig.
"Katara..." Zuko growled.
"I'm sorry, okay! I'll make it up to you!"
"How?"
"I don't know! I'll... I'll do anything! Whatever you want!"
Zuko, blushing brilliantly red and glaring fiercely at Katara, stripped.
"This..." Zuko said, glaring, "is all your fault."
Katara made a face. "Look, at least I won you back your pants."
"Sokka's pants."
"Okay, well," she rubbed the back of her neck, "they technically belong to you. So, there's that."
He continued to glare. Around them, the group was dissolving - Aang had finally had enough after Toph bet (and lost) his underwear (he did not follow Zuko's example and strip, however, instead preferring to loudly denounce the entire game and stalk out of the room), Jet was glaring at Ty Lee's pile of clothes and the position of his pants in said pile, Ty Lee herself was struggling with Mai and trying to wrench a half-empty bottle of pale green liquid from Mai's extremely drunken clutches, Suki was limping Sokka back to her room, and Toph was sitting on top of a pile of clothing and smirking brilliantly. "I," Zuko declared, blinking hard, "am drunk. And I am going to sleep."
"I'll help," Katara said, leaping up, desperate to repay him for earlier. He gave her a look, which she ignored, instead opting to pull one of his arms over her shoulder to make sure he didn't have any trouble walking (he didn't, but he also didn't seem to care very much). "I'm kinda tipsy myself," she added, as an excuse for her actions. No one at the table noticed.
"What was Ty Lee's magic hangover cure?" Zuko mused, halfway down the hallway and looking around absently as though it was going to float by.
"She drank lots of water," Katara muttered, vaguely aware that Zuko was leaning heavier and heavier onto her side, but not really comprehending what that might mean.
"Water," Zuko repeated, and then abruptly pushed off of her and wandered in a different direction. "I'm gonna get water."
Katara rushed over and grasped his arm, guiding him back toward his room. "No, Zuko, you need to go to bed. I think you're about to pass out."
"I don't pass out," he replied coolly, which she knew to be a bald-faced lie. "And I need water. Stop it." He wavered dangerously, and blinked again. "Never mind," he muttered, "don't stop." She nodded, and began to lead him back in the correct direction.
"C'mon Zuko, let's get you safely to bed. I'll leave lots of water at your bedside for the morning, okay?"
"Won't be much good then," he said, but didn't fight her anymore.
"Okay, I'll make sure that Iroh makes that hangover tea from this morning." She paused; had that really only been this morning?
"You'd better," he mumbled, and Katara had to marvel at his relative lucidity. He had drunk enough alcohol to kill a rampaging komodo rhino, but he was still making sense and barely even slurring. If she didn't know any better, she would say that he wasn't any more drunk than she was.
Unfortunately, she did know better.
Also unfortunately, he was still shirtless. And leaning heavily against her. And his arm was still around her shoulders, and she was holding onto his wrist and maybe he was shifting his hand so that he was holding hers and she couldn't think straight - And then they reached his room, and her heart was hammering.
"Here we are!" she cried, too quickly. He mumbled a vague "mm-hmm" and made no move to open the door, so she kicked it open with her foot and guided him in. "Okay, Zuko, here's your bed." He slumped down onto the bed in a sitting position and looked at her oddly.
"You look really pretty," he said quietly, and made a vague hand motion. "All... sparkly," he continued. She laughed nervously.
"Probably the light..." she replied, trying to laugh it off and not burst into hormonal flames.
"Mmm," he responded, and then she made a huge mistake: she met his eyes.
They were hazy from drunkeness, but extremely intense. He stared back, searching her face for something, but she was already gone. Without stopping to think - or stop herself because this is Zuko and he's drunk and oh no - she leaned forward and kissed him. He opened his mouth to deepen the kiss, her heart was pounding in her chest, and she ran a hand through his hair -
And then he passed out.
Suki was beginning to get tired of this let's-keep-Sokka-out-of-his-room game that Jet was playing. It was all very noble and sweet that he was trying to give his crew a place to sleep, but she had it on very good authority that Smellerbee and the Duke had moved to Katara's room (because of something Master Pakku had said? She wasn't sure), and Longshot was quite capable of finding someplace to sleep on his own. Besides, as nice as it was to have an excuse to share a room with Sokka, the fact that all of his clothes were divided between his friends meant that it was up to her - as the loving girlfriend - to find clothing for him.
Which led her here.
"Jet?" she called, knocking hard on the door, silently praying that he was asleep. There was a yelp, and then a copious amount of shuffling. "Can... Can I come in and get clothes for Sokka?" she asked uncertainly.
"Uh, hang on!" he shouted. Suki pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration, and tried to ignore the creeping realization that there were only a handful of reasons Jet would be sounding so harried at this hour. "Yeah, come in."
She opened the door, stepping over a pile of knives and unfamiliar clothing. Jet was sitting upright on the bed, clutching the blanket around his waist, eyes wide and breathing hard. "Did I interrupt something?"
"No, why?" he replied, too quickly. Suki nodded slowly.
"Right. I'm just getting some clothes for Sokka."
"Yeah, check the wardrobe," Jet said vaguely, and then suddenly began to panic, "Wait, no, don't - !" But it was too late. Jet groaned as Suki opened the wardrobe, and found herself looking down at a barely-clad Mai, whose normally immaculate appearance was completely mussed, her hands (still gloved, although the black fingernail polish was chipped) covering her face and knees drawn up to her chest. She appeared to be wearing Jet's shirt, and nothing else.
Suki stared. Mai peeked out from behind her fingers.
"If you'll look over there by the door, I've got some knives," she said in near-whisper. "If you could just get me one..."
Suki continued to stare. And then she turned to Jet. And then back to Mai. And then back to Jet. She opened and closed her mouth several times before finally landing on something coherent to say. "On Sokka's bed?"
Mai winced, and crawled out of the wardrobe, apparently intent on getting one of her knives and ending this situation in the quickest way possible (although whether her plan was to kill herself or Suki and Jet, Suki didn't think she'd ever know). Suki stopped her, however, by throwing out a foot. Mai fell back against the door to the wardrobe and refused to look any higher than floor-level.
"On. Sokka's. Bed." Suki repeated.
Jet made a face. "Look, I was drunk, she was drunk. It's a miracle we even made it to the bed."
"Get out," Suki said, stepping back and pointing to the door.
"Hey," Jet protested, "I'm naked!"
"I don't care!" she shouted, "Get out of here!"
Jet leaped out of the bed and tried to wrap the blanket around himself, but Suki grabbed the other end of it obstinately, so he finally - face crimson either from embarrassment or anger - snatched up a pair of pants (that appeared to be Mai's) and pulled them on hastily, before following Mai out of the room. They had only been gone for a few seconds when Suki realized her error and opened the door again.
"Wait!"
"What?" Jet snapped. Mai crossed her arms and leaned against the opposite wall.
"You need to clean up in here!"
"No," Mai said firmly.
"I'm with Gloomy over here," Jet drawled, mimicking her pose (and ignoring her glare). "You kicked us out."
"Well, now I'm un-kicking you out. Get in here and clean up the mess you made."
"Which is it? Are we kicked out or not?"
"You're not kicked out at the moment but will be once you're done in here."
"Not much incentive to clean up the room then, huh?"
Suki shot Jet a glare that could freeze the Fire Nation. "Clean up this mess. Or I'll tell Sokka what you did yesterday."
Jet leaned forward slightly, trying to call her bluff. "I'm not afraid of Sokka."
She laughed outright at this. "You know he's a better fighter than you now. He could kill you with one hand. And will, if he finds out."
"Wait," Mai said, looking from Suki to Jet, "What did Jet do yesterday that he doesn't want Sokka to know about?"
"Nothing," Jet replied tersely, and, glowering at Suki, returned to Sokka's room to clean up.
"You gonna help him?" Suki asked, gesturing at Mai.
"Why should I? He's the one who made the mess."
"You, ah, helped." Suki crossed her arms, trying firmly to avoid thinking about what that entailed. The full realization of what she had stumbled upon was finally sinking in. Maybe Katara could do something with her healing water and scrub the memory from her brain...
Mai colored slightly. "I was drunk. And... you have no proof that I actually did anything with him."
Suki raised an eyebrow. Mai tilted her chin forward, as though daring Suki to disagree.
"I have some memories that prove exactly what you did last night," Jet called from inside the room. Mai and Suki both winced. Annoyed and disgusted as she was, Suki couldn't help but feel sympathetic toward Mai. Waking up next to Jet wasn't quite the worst thing that could happen - she could have woken up next to, say, Kuei - but it was close.
And the poor girl hadn't even had the luck to escape before he woke up. At least some of Suki's more damning mistakes had been easy enough to run from and feign ignorance about.
"You know what? Mai, it's all right. You don't have to help him clean up."
"Hey!"
"Thank you, Suki," Mai said in a low voice, turning her head so that her hair covered her eyes. "Can I just..." she made a gesture to indicate a rapid escape from the situation. Suki was about to agree, when Jet popped his head out the door, arms full of sheets.
"No, you can't," he hissed, glaring. "I need help with laundry, and considering half of whatever's on these sheets is yours..."
"You're lucky all of my knives are in there," she growled. Jet made a face.
"Oh, no, poor Mai is helpless," he said in an over-dramatic voice, and then thrust the sheets into Mai's arms, "Make yourself useful and clean these. I'll tidy up the room. Deal?"
"No. You do the laundry, I'll do the room."
"And give you uninhibited access to your knives? Hell no. Besides, you've already got the sheets." He stuck his tongue out at Mai and placed his hands on his hips. She made an obscene hand gesture at him.
"I already did that," he replied testily.
She then gave up all pretext of peace, dropped the sheets, and, letting out a howl of both embarrassment and fury, kicked Jet directly in the balls.
"You earned that," Suki said.
"Toph?" Katara mused, and then shook her head, continuing to pace. "No, definitely not. Ty Lee? Ha, no. Mai - yeah, right? Oh!" she pumped her fist in the air, finally hitting upon who she wanted, "Suki! Suki will help!" In a rush, narrowly managing to avoid tripping over her two squatters (the Duke and Smellerbee, both glaring at her and grumbling about not wanting to get up), she burst out of her door and fled for Suki's room, but caught herself just in time, remembering that her brother was also sleeping there and Sokka was the absolute last person who should know this.
She cried out as she came to an abrupt stop mid-stride, and then groaned, wondering what she was supposed to do now. And then salvation came, in the form of Suki's door suddenly opening, and her brother being shoved out of it by an unknown force. He appeared to be half asleep as he stumbled down the hallway.
"Sokka?"
He mumbled something that might have been a hello, or possibly a violent curseword.
"What's going on? Why did you get kicked out of Suki's room?"
He shrugged noncommittally and shuffled past her. Katara paused for a single moment, contemplating what this might mean, and then shook her head and decided to just run with it. After last night, she didn't have an overabundance of options. She burst through Suki's door and cried, in one breath, "SukiIkissedZuko!"
And then she noticed the half-dressed Mai in the middle of the room. Beside her, a pair of pants in her outstretched hand, Suki stared.
"So? Mai slept with Jet. I think her crisis beats your crisis."
"Suki!" Mai hissed, turning red, but Suki shrugged.
"I have not been up long enough to deal with this drama," she said in a deadpan voice. "Let me get some coffee or really strong tea into my system, and I'll be able to help the two of you panic, okay?" She shook her head and threw the pants at Mai, then stalked out of the room.
Katara, meanwhile, was flabbergasted. "You slept with Jet?" she said, gaping. Mai made a face.
"And you kissed Zuko. Shut up or I'll tell Ty Lee and then everyone will know."
"You wouldn't."
"Oh?"
"No, because then I'd tell Ty Lee that you slept with Jet." She crossed her arms over her chest, desperate to win this competition. Mai glared, Katara glared, and the silence stretched between them.
"So," Mai said, drawing the syllable out. "You kissed Zuko. Was it everything you expected?" she asked sardonically, possibly jealous or possibly looking to embarrass someone else as ferociously as she had been embarrassed.
In truth, the answer was no - she had been tipsy, he had been drunk, and he had passed out before the kiss could get anywhere - but she would be damned if she was going to tell Mai that. "Yes, it was, in fact," she replied, tilting her chin up. "It was amazing. The best kiss in the entire world. Fireworks went off."
Mai snorted. "Fireworks? I don't remember any of those."
"Well, they were there. You just... missed them."
Mai raised an eyebrow, clearly amused. In spite of herself, Katara was starting to find the situation funny herself. "So, let me get this straight," she drawled, crossing her arms and shifting her weight, "you kissed Zuko, and a bunch of magical invisible fireworks suddenly went off?"
"Yes. They were very pretty. You should have seen them."
"Right."
There was a pause. Finally, Katara caved. "Okay, he passed out before anything could happen, but I was the one who kissed him, and now he's gonna wake up and..."
Mai rolled her eyes and began tugging Suki's pants on, "Look, Zuko respects confidence. You kissed him. Own it."
Katara tilted her head. "What?"
Mai heaved a sigh, as though this was a massive effort on her part, "Own. It. Don't make any apologies for doing so. You wanted to kiss him, right?" She didn't wait for an answer, probably expecting that Katara would reply with a meek denial, and simply plunged ahead. "So just tell him that. If I know Zuko - and I do - he's probably been waiting for you to do that. Don't screw things up by freaking out and acting like it was an accident or a mistake."
Katara nodded slowly. It made sense, and if anyone could coach her on dealing with Zuko in a more-than-friends capacity, it was certainly Mai. She felt like she should probably return the favor. "Right. And, um, Jet..." Mai winced. "Look, he's not one of those people you can just ignore and he'll go away. Kick him in the balls if you have to. Make it clear that it was a mistake, and you don't want to repeat it."
Mai smirked. "I already did that, actually."
"You kicked him in the balls?"
She nodded. "He deserved it."
"Then your problem is pretty much dealt with," Katara said, shrugging. "Boys don't much like girls who kick them in sensitive places."
Mai, against everything that Katara knew about her, burst out laughing.