Words were tricky; they looked sharp and charcoal-dry, stale and scratched into yellowed pages that still had imprints from the printing press warping them, smelling like chalky dust and glue. Mako had held books a few times in his life, always secretly gutted and replaced with things he could understand: either re-laced with lines of code for pickups and drop-offs, or hollowed out and stuffed with brown paper bags that smelled of incense. He never had use for words.
Arak and a handful of other Triads thought otherwise. Bolin sat at the kitchen table, leaning against Arak's arm as the older man wrote lines of nonsense on a familiar brown paper bag. At his side, a long pipe burned with silky black tar stuffed in its maw.
He wrote lines of childish poetry - owlcat and dog fight, mother and father love baby - and slid the bag to Bolin along with the pencil. As Bolin copied his words, Arak inhaled his smoke and rested his head on the table to let the high wash over him.
Bolin took to words the same as he took to anything, with eager, gap-toothed smiles and rough hands. He whispered the words out loud as he laid them down with shaky lines, a handling that Arak slowly began to mimic as opium gummed up his bones.
Mako sat at a low table in the other room of Arak's apartment, leaning against a thin pillow, partially listening to the men around him discuss the renovation of a nightclub. He kept leaning back against the wall to look through the open doorway into the kitchen, watching Arak slump on the table as his mind grew heavy with smoke. All the while Bolin's back curved, as if the new knowledge in his head was making it impossible to hold up, until he rested it against the table.
"Mako. Hey, Mako."
He jerked his head and found Sang staring at him.
"Yeah?"
"C'mon, let's talk on the balcony," Sang said, standing and cupping his hand under Mako's arm, forcing him to his feet.
Mako was accustomed to shoves, knocks to the back of the head and rough fingers around his shirt collars guiding him. It didn't mean that he had to like it, so he elbowed Sang's leg, effectively shoving him away. He knew where the damn balcony was.
He pushed open the folding door and stepped out into the cool, autumn air. The apartment was only on the sixth floor of a ten story building just on the edge of the Eastern Water Tribe, hidden far enough from the heart of the borough where the Red Monsoons dwelled. It still dripped with a culture Mako had seen only glimpses of: animal skins on stretchers fitted in windows, women shaking out furs on balconies, people wearing sleeveless shirts in the middle of fall.
It was cold there, with the wind whistling through the streets and blue streaking down buildings like frozen drips of ice. The sun shined brilliantly across it all, flat lays of light all pale against the frigid colors the people of the Water Tribe brought with them, like a winter morning after snowfall. Mako could say he liked it.
"What do you want?" Mako asked, leaning against the building as Sang stood opposite him at the balcony railing.
Sang brought a cigarette to his lips, and the wind picked up the candy red fabric of his coat, flapping around his lean, black-decked frame, looking like a candle flame flickering violently against a breeze. While Mako struggled to stuff all the loose, baggy fabric of his coat against his body to keep the wind from taking it, Sang turned his back with a smooth twist of his heels. He curved his spine over his cigarette to light it, then placed his hands in his pockets, completely stilling in the wind.
Mako wondered how he did it, how he was able to stop fighting and stay calm even as the wind kept pouring down the street.
"Got a job for you," he said, voice warped by the cigarette. "Down at the docks. The pay's better than anything you've ever got and everybody seems to think you're a smart kid."
"What do I have to do?"
"Keep lookout for cops, count cash, the usual stuff," Sang said, looking out at the city.
"Then what makes the pay better?"
Sang shrugged. "It's a drug pick up. I figured, since you run deliveries, you'd be fine with it."
"Aren't those - I dunno - dangerous or something?"
The older members, young guys with muscle and webs of scars marring old stretches of ink laced in their skin, ones that could crush their fist into the hood of a Satomobile with ease ran the deliveries. They were strong, able to cut down cops and lift crates on their shoulders. The muscle guys, not the kids.
"How old are you?" Sang asked.
"Twelve."
He nodded, tapping his cigarette. "Everybody says you're a good bender. You might not be a lightningbender but everybody says you can hold your own."
Mako nodded, looking away to stare down at the street below. Blue flags stretched from the window sills they were tied to, snapping on the breeze.
"You're a lightningbender, right, Sang?" he asked.
"Yeah."
"How'd you learn?"
The wind calmed for a moment, lifting the blue flags high in soft waves frozen in time, the world slowing to a stop.
"My brother taught me," he said, tone flat and offering nothing more.
Sang took a long drag on his cigarette, blowing the smoke forcefully from his nose.
"You got a brother, right?" Sang asked, and the world caught up with itself again.
"Yes. Bolin."
"Yeah, right, Bolin," he repeated, nodding, but Mako knew Sang had no idea who his brother was. "Well. The money would do him some good, huh?"
"Yeah…I guess so," Mako said. He picked up the end of his father's scarf, running the tattered fabric through his fingers. The color was wearing and the stains were sinking in, faint splotches he could only see if he cared to look. "Alright, sure. I'll work the docks."
"Good man," Sang said. He finished his cigarette and tossed the butt over his shoulder, and Mako watched it fall from the gaps in the balcony, down into the street to be swallowed by the blue sea of flags.
Dawn was quiet, the silent, waking stretch of the ocean rolling across the harbors like a yawn. The world unfurled and rolled over at six in the morning, the city lying on its back with eyes crusted shut with sleep, and while it was docile in clean white sheets, Mako walked the streets with his chin tipped up. He could see the fingertips of the sun smear pink and orange across glass and metal, the air brisk and sharp.
The men at the docks worked with no shame in the still lingering shadows of night, talking loudly, dipping handkerchiefs into rounds of gummy opium to fold and tuck into their pockets with light laughter - don't tell Zolt. Morning belonged to criminals with dimpled cheeks and sticky fingers.
Mako was only told to count yuans. A man handed him a burlap sack stuffed with them, banded sloppily and crinkled like the curled leaves of red cabbage, peeled pointless and bitter. He took the sack, gripped in one hand and looked down at the dewy wet asphalt where he guessed he was meant to work.
The crates at the docks, some metal and rusted, others ash dry wood, towered like skyscrapers all around him. He caught a pair of men sitting at the top of a stack, sharing a cigarette, their faces and shoulders painted warm with sunlight.
He found his own tower of rust and climbed, the sun against his skin like warm hands smoothing his hair, rubbing his back, time to wake up, Mako.
He saw the officers file in from the street, impossible to miss as the sunlight dipped lower and the metal of their uniforms sparked like the shifts of waves on the bay. Others saw them first and sounded the call before water and earth were stolen from the sea and ground to fight for the morning again.
Mako tried to stuff the yuans back into the sack, climb down the other side of the crates unseen, but an officer drenched in saltwater slung a wire cable around his wrist like a rabid dog's teeth biting into his skin. The sack fell with a quiet, papery thud as Mako fell to his knees on the ground.
Slippery wet hands replaced the cable for a moment before jagged, crude metal bound both his wrists before him. A cable was attached to the junction between his hands and he trailed behind the officer in his light-dappled uniform to the cruisers.
"He can ride in the front," one of the officers said, as Mako watched as the men he had arrived with were shoved into the back of the cruiser.
The drenched officer opened the cruiser door and fitted his hands under Mako's arms.
"Hey, wait - what are you doing -!" Mako shouted, kicking once and just missing the officer's gut.
He was dropped instantly to his feet and he stumbled. He heard an officer behind him snort with a short laugh, while the one that had tried to lift him glared.
"Young man, I was escorting you into the vehicle," he said. "Now let me help you again."
He moved to pick him up once more and Mako darted away.
"I don't need your help, I can do it myself," he seethed, and placing his bound hands on the passenger's seat cushion, he pushed himself up to get his feet on the lip of the doorframe. He felt stupid, wiggling his way into a sitting position, but it was better than being lifted by a dirty cop.
Sitting on the bench in a hallway deep in the police station, Mako saw an officer playing with a scrap of metal, crushing it in her fist and laying it out as thin as possible over and over again. He felt the same as the scrap: forced between some guiding hands and pressured into thinness. His hands stilled dangled between his knees despite the release of the cuffs, trying to keep his shoulders together to collapse himself into the small space he was given in the station.
He watched Triple Threats ushered in and out of rooms, a few waving to him with small smiles, others talking to officers as if they were old friends from all the arrest charges they had racked up over the years. Most officers were hostile and shoved their palms into spines to knock them forward - pick up the pace, we don't have all day.
Heels on metal announced the return of the social worker in charge of Mako, holding a manilla folder stuffed with thick bundles of paper. She instantly bent down to her knees, placing a hand on the armrest Mako sat against: trying to be friendly, trying to gain his trust, but shifting just too far off to the left to really care.
"Alright, we can't place you in an orphanage right now," she said. "They're too full. The officers are going to place you in a cell all to yourself for the night, ok? Just until a spot clears up in another orphanage or foster home. How does that sound?"
Mako glared at her and she pat his elbow.
"I know, hon, it's hard. You'll have two officers with you all day until we can get you where you need to be. And you'll get a full meal!"
He bit his tongue, remembering the taste of jook laced with wiggling maggots and reminded himself: don't say anything, and they can't get you with anything.
The woman stood up and held out her hand to Mako. He crossed his arms and stepped off of the bench, looking up at her expectantly. He watched her smile fade, the curl of her fingers as her kindness slipped through them, wasted on another child that didn't want the cruelty she called help.
"Right. Follow me, then," she said, and started walking down the hallway.
The cell was near another entrance to the station, a single room of iron bars much smaller than the cells Mako had been shoved into with other criminals. The slab of metal that was meant to serve as a bench was covered in a small blanket and pillow, converted into the world's coldest bed - even the basement of the Triple Threat Headquarters served better with bales of cotton used for transporting liquor down from the mountains as a silencer.
The social worker stayed until Mako was ushered into the cell, and he watched at the officer with her pulled a set of keys from his belt.
"Is that really necessary?" she asked.
The officer nodded, glancing down at Mako before leaning close, whispering something about firebendingbefore the tumbler clicked dully in the lock.
He sat on the blankets and looked out at the officers sitting behind the front desk, bored and flipping through paperwork, tongues curled against their lip as they struggled to improve their metalbending on pens.
He stretched out on his back on the bench, trying to find ways to pass the time, trying to remember the last time he was ever really alone - the day at the hospital when Bolin was born, running down to Dragon Flats when Mom and Dad died - and four straight years of Bolin and gangsters filled his mind.
He tried to practice his bending, tossing flames up at the ceiling and having them drop back down to burst into his palm, but the officers panicked.
"You can't do that," one of them said, hands on the bars. "No bending allowed in the cells."
"I'm not gonna escape or anything," Mako said.
"It's the rules."
Another officer took pity on him and walked up to the bars from behind the desk, holding a stack of pamphlets in his hand.
"Here, give him something to do," the second officer said. He held out the pamphlets through the bars and Mako stood up to retrieve them. "Just something to keep you busy. If you set them on fire, though, we'll have to lock you up for real."
He winked as Mako took them. Mako said nothing and walked back to the bench.
The pamphlets were all government sanctioned public education services, aimed at teaching the general public about the constant dangers facing them day to day: ways to prevent theft, the dangers of opium, the threat of sexual assault. He picked this up from scattered words he saw daily, scrawled across brown paper bags and notes tucked into his hand for work, characters like opium, whore, hit. Mako wondered who needed this information. He knew these words better than any others.
He flipped past the pamphlets, laying them out on the bench, before finding one made of red paper and black ink so thick that it raised against the surface when he ran his fingers over it.
On the front was the image of a hand, two fingers pressed together and pointing out, as a cartoonish bolt of lightning struck the top of the page.
Firebenders control a word he didn't know, a power he didn't know, but he knew Sang with his calm and the hushed reverence men dressed in fire used when they discussed lightning.
Curious, Mako opened the pamphlet, and leaned back against the wall. He poured over the crude drawings of men with top knots and pointed boots stretching their arms across like a flagstaff, wearing the pride of their element as it crackled from their skin to sear the page that turned them sharp and ugly. The text was bold, terrified of itself and danger it warned the reader against. Mako knew that it held more than frustration and confusion for him. It held answers.
He tried to piece together what he did know - fire, firebender, triad, Fire Nation - with what he didn't, struggling to fill in words full of technique and breathing.
He whispered the words as he read, feeling them in his mouth like pearls, trying to hear patterns and hoping his mind would catch up with the text. He taught himself firebending, after all; reading shouldn't be any more difficult than that. Besides, everybody said he was a smart kid.
But the words stayed still. They never lifted from the page anymore than the thick ink allowed, never tasting like tarred poppy seeds but like charcoal, dry and powdery on his tongue. He hated it.
He crushed the pamphlet between his hands and contained the heat there, letting a single wisp of smoke slither from the gaps in his fingers, feeling the paper slowly fall to ash. It felt like holding a ghost.
The officers thinned metal with thick skinned fingertips and light, easy smiles.
He wished the officers had handed him thick textbooks from the Beifong Metalbending Academy. He brushed the ash from his palms and thought of Bolin tasting iron in his mouth, weighing heavy in his head, molding the world to whatever he needed.
Mako ached.
He stacked the pamphlets into order, tucking them under the metal slab of his bed, and shut his eyes. He missed the comfort of another heartbeat strong against his own and thought of Bolin with nothing to hold, cold like him in some forgotten corner of the Triple Threat headquarters.
He hoped it was better than jail.
A rough hand shoved Mako awake the next morning. He rolled onto his back, feeling sleep like grease slick on his eyelids, looking up at an older officer with a rough face and bulging eyes with spidery red veins swimming pink in the whites of his eyes.
"C'mon, kid, your uncle's here to pick you up," he said.
There was a small, forgetful lift in his chest, an uncle with eyes like his father or mother finally coming to collect his nephews before the officer shoved him again for not moving quick enough. Dreams melted like thick beads of wax and pooled at his feet if he let his mind dwell too long, and they were better cleared away.
He followed the officer out of the small side entrance where his cell had been located, shadow stretching from the station and down the steps, stopping just before the cruisers lining the street. Mako winced at the sudden brightness of their metal roofs. By the traffic in the streets, he guessed he had spent 25 hours in jail, watching people move in windy shifts like loose leaf newspapers, heading off to work.
Nobu stood at the middle platform of the high steps leading to the station. He smiled a crooked grin and slapped the officer's shoulder once he drew near, then reached down to tug on Mako's collar.
"There he is, my little nephew," he said, and Mako shoved his hand away.
Nobu laughed and turned back to the officer, hand dipping into his pocket and slipping out with smooth ease. "Thanks for the favor, Zheng. Got this stuff just the way you like it."
The officer covered his hand with Nobu's, and to passersby, it looked like a fast handshake. Mako caught sight of the small packet pressed into the officer's fleshy palm, which he carefully slid into the pocket of his uniform.
One gram of opium cost 100 yuans if you knew the right people, people in jewel-colored silks and gold chains fat on their necks. A boy for a smudge of black on wax paper and Mako was unsurprised to find that this was his worth.
"Thanks, Nobu. Now get out of here before someone says anything," he said, eyes flickering over every surface, widening at people walking down the street. "Oh - and the Chief wants to try more dock raids. Cut down until that blows over."
"Got it. See y'round, Zheng."
Nobu stuffed his hands in his pockets, watching the officer walk away, comfortable on the shadow of the station.
"How was the night?" Nobu asked.
He turned on his heel and Mako followed after him, down the steps of the station and onto the street, headed back to Headquarters.
"Boring," Mako said, rolling his eyes.
When Nobu said nothing in response, Mako grew anxious - the streets were filled with the sounds of people walking on sharp heels, the air smelling of breakfast sweets lining side streets they walked past, his stomach aching not from hunger, but nerves.
"Hey, uh, Nobu," Mako said. "You forgetting something?"
"Huh? Oh! Right, right, sorry," Nobu reached a hand into his pants pocket, tugging out a stack of yuans thicker than any Mako had ever earned in one night. "There you go. Profits were cut because of the bust, of course."
"No, I mean -," Mako took the money, folded it into his jacket pocket, clasping it around his hand. "Thanks for the pay, but is Bolin ok?"
Nobu's gait slowed and the onset of panic started; Mako stopped walking completely, his body slowing to a stand still in his bones, his blood, his skin waiting for a fuse to hit him and tell him where to explode.
"Uh, he was caught taking some stuff from Headquarters," Nobu said, awkwardly scratching his jaw, avoiding Mako's gaze. "Some spare change from one of the bigger guys. They tossed him out."
"They what," Mako spat.
Nobu glanced down the street, body shifting to get away. Mako could feel his hands spike with warmth so he pulled them from his pockets for fear of lighting the money. He looked up and down the street, weighing his options - he would try Arak's first, then Central City Station, hitting up all the places in between where Bolin could go.
He had no home to run to, no safe haven to keep Bolin, because as much as the Triad took care of their own, no one ever cared for one more grubby kid.
Mom and Dad had died in the street, a random hit, bloody and burnt and he stopped trying to make sense of it years ago. If they could die, anyone could, Bolin could die.
Mako started running.
Find Bolin.
The phrase ran through his mind enough times for the voice that originally sparked it became warped; he remembered his mother's voice, with all it's dry, ashen darkness crackling in her burned throat. Now, when he would pause to breathe, he realized the voice in his mind belonged to him.
Mako ran until his knees started to shake, driving pains in his chest stabbing even when he stood on a street corner, his only respite as he waiting among silk-covered legs to cross the road to run again. He could see his desperate breath curl into the air in front of him, the cold sinking into the sharp tips of his fingers and toes. His ankle twisted once and he fell to the sidewalk, palms skittering with grit under his skin. They joined the pebbles from four years ago when Mako started running for his life and never again had the time to stop.
He hopped trolleys and subway cars, stuffing yuans into the hands of cruel adults, clinging to the back of Satomobiles and drawn carts when he was shoved out on the street. His pockets hollowed out until he felt weightless and he was sure he was trailing behind the scarf around his neck.
The sun started to sink behind the buildings in Takai Park until the world was gilded, all kissed with golden fortune, save for Mako in his grey and red.
He slowed to a walk as the finely dressed adults reprimanded him, demanded to know what the rush was,are you lost, are you trying to find your way home? He pushed them away and kept his eyes locked on the passing buildings, storefronts stuffed with silk dresses and gloves, silver watches with jade-encrusted lids, a woman's voice crackling out of a gramophone - not home, not Bolin.
He spotted his reflection in the high shine of the plate glass first, before narrowing his eyes and looking into the cafe of the Teikoku Hotel. It truly was gilded, gold stamped into the walls, floors washed in the high shine of cream marble, flames held in ornate glass orbs at each table.
A shaggy headed scholar, hermitting under the table at the street front booth and sitting among a stack of books, looked up at Mako with bright green eyes.
Mako brought his palm to the glass, smudging it with the paleness of sweat and blood, his panting fogging into his sight. Bolin smiled and started talking, the sound cut off, but his hands were wild with excitement. He held up heavy, leather bound books with ribbon tassels marking the pages he had read.
Mako dragged his hand on the glass as he ran along the side of the building, to the front doors and slipping inside with a group of women dressed in short, shimmering dresses. He didn't look at the lobby; he just rushed to the cafe, elbowing legs to shove himself inside and crawling on his hands and knees as he looked for Bolin.
"Mako!"
Bolin slipped out from under the table once he saw his older brother, clutching onto a book. Mako pushed it out of his hands.
"Hey! Mako, don't -"
"You ok?" Mako asked, looking him in the eye as his hands searched his head for gashes, bumps, slinging down to his arms to check for sore spots and bruises, trying to find the markers of pain. Reading with his hands and eyes to gather the whole story of Bolin minus Mako.
"Yeah, I'm alright," Bolin said, tipping his head up when Mako's fingers dug into his soft jaw. "Your fingers are like icicles."
Bolin's pulse was steady, reliant, something Mako could time his life to. He tipped up the edges of his collar to find the uneven stitching fixed there by his own hand, all of it reading, Bolin's alive.
He sighed, the first real breath he felt since he started running again. Bolin stared up at him, mouth and eyebrows puckered with confusion.
Mako gathered him into a hug, arms tightening around his little brother's shoulders, head buried half in the scarf, half in inky black hair.
"I was really worried," Mako whispered.
Bolin muffled, sorry, into Mako's chest.
He tried to wrap the apology around his chest like a blanket, something to soothe him like Mom's hand palming over his hair, but found the tighter grip on Bolin's small frame made his heartbeat calm - like Mom crashing to her knees on the sidewalk, gathering Mako into a hug, whispering, I thought I lost you in the shop, don't walk off without me again, and his head pressed to her heart to hear it settle back to the thrum of bare feet against the earth.
Before Mako could smooth it over with, it's ok, just, don't let it happen again, he noticed a man in a suit walking towards them, flanked by two members of the nonbending police force.
"Bo, let's go," Mako said, pulling away and gripping onto his brother's sleeve.
"Lemme get my books."
"Bolin, now - "
He twisted out of Mako's hand, diving under the table once more to meticulously stack the pile of five books he had with him. Mako tapped his fingers and stood still as he watched the men draw near, highly aware of the staring the rest of the patrons in the restaurant gave them.
"Ready!" Bolin chirped, struggling with the heavy books in his arms.
Mako grabbed the first three books at the top of the stack even as Bolin protested; clutching them with one hand against his chest, he reclaimed his hold on Bolin's shoulder again and darted for the door.
He heard shouts behind him, stop, stop those kids!, who let them in here?, but kept running until the revolving door spat them out into the street.
It felt like stepping into another world, the way the open roads sounded fuller, stuffed with clacking heels on pavement, honking horns as Satomobiles congested the streets, running past it all down side streets. The hotel had been too fragile for them both, being no place for empty-pocketed boys with scraped palms and mops of dirty curls.
They stopped just on the border of Takai Park and the Eastern Water Tribe. Mako's grip lessened on Bolin's sleeve, pulling away to find dappled pinpricks of red where the heel of his palm had been.
He dropped the books to the ground without caution, and started unraveling the scarf around his neck.
"Hey!" Bolin shouted. "Those aren't yours, you gotta treat 'em gentle!"
Mako nodded, half listening, as he looped the scarf around both his and Bolin's shoulders, tying it off with a knot he made up with no secret slip like his father's.
"Where'd you get those, anyway?" Mako asked.
"The library," Bolin said. He fondly looked down at the pair of books in his arms, running a finger over the smooth top of pages, scratching his nail against them. "I went there when I was walking around, looking for you. Did you know they just let you take books and read 'em?"
Mako snorted with a laugh, bending down to pick up the books again. "Yeah. That's all libraries do."
"These are better than Arak's. Some of 'em got pictures and everything."
Mako nodded, humming as his response, and started walking back to the alley they had found as their home. Bolin walked with him, awkwardly bumping arms as the scarf drew them closer and closer together. The bigger they were, the harder it was for the scarf to keep them together.
For now, Mako didn't mind the sharp jabs of Bolin's elbows against his own. It was a reminder that he was alive, solid and sturdy by his side, tethered to him as Mako lead the way to Arak's apartment.
Bolin sat outside the door, scarf around his shoulders as he peered into another book. Mako took one last look at him before stepping inside the apartment, trying to remind himself that there wasn't much trouble a ten year old could get into in a hallway. It was better than the alley, at any rate.
The ceiling of the apartment was ghosted over with smoke; heady, thin, with the smell of the city park. Earthy and dry with the stench of the city, sweet like rotting fruit and wet newspaper.
Arak sat back on his sofa with another man, thin arms slung around each other's shoulders as they melted into the cushions, their gazes locked on the ceiling. Arak took a hit from the pipe Mako had seen him sucking on more and more, and he passed it to his friend, watching as the man smoked and Arak lazily dragged his thumb around the shell of the man's ear.
"Hey," Mako said, and Arak jumped, smacking his hand into the man's head.
"Oops, sorry, babe," Arak said to the man, before looking back at Mako with his eyes struggling to stay open. "Hey, kid, you there?"
Mako nodded, wondering how thick Arak thought the smoke was. "Yeah. Is Sang here?"
"Uh huh. Somewhere."
"Thanks."
Mako saw Arak kiss the man's temple and rub his fingers through his hair as he left.
The only other places in the apartment left to check were the kitchen (no, when did Sang ever eat anything but cigarettes), the bathroom (no, the door was open), and the gambling room (no, just a handful of opium-laced fingers clutching mahjong tiles and sweaty yuans; Sang would never).
He found him outside on the balcony, cherry red coat just visible in the gaps between the folding screen that shaded the glass door. Mako stepped out to join him, amazed that he wanted to stay out in the cold night as the wind tore in strong gusts between the streets. Sang never moved from his position of leaning against the railing, looking down on the city as his cigarette twitched in his mouth, long stem of ash begging to drop.
"Hey, looks like you got out of the cooler ok," he said.
Mako nodded. "Yeah. Got out yesterday."
"Huh. Then why didn't you come around sooner?"
"You don't really care," Mako said, meaning to be flippant; but the longer he watched Sang stare out at the city with a look of disinterest, he realized that he was right.
Sang smiled, and the ash fell from his cigarette. "Yeah, I don't. Alright, so, what brings you to me now?"
"I want more jobs," Mako said. "I want more jobs like the last one."
Sang pulled his cigarette from his mouth, tongue licking his teeth as he stared down at Mako under his pinched brow. The curious look melted away fast as he brought the cigarette back to his lips with a quick shrug, turning back to the city again.
"Alright. I can hook you up with a new one for next week. Fuzzy on the details right now but I can tell you about it later."
"You sure?" Mako asked. "I mean, I'll be around, so."
"Yeah, yeah," Sang waved him off, already lost to the city again. "You're not goin' anywhere, I know."
The alley blocked the wind well enough for Mako to consider a fire, the first one since early last spring that barely lasted with the wet cardboard kindling they managed to find. He had retied the scarf around both their necks again, leaning his head against Bolin's as his brother curved over the book he had in his lap. He lazily listened to Bolin whisper the words as he tried to read them, cupping his hands into a sea of text and drinking in half as the rest slipped through the gaps in his fingers: the monkey was…born? born from a rock. An' he…these ones say earth, fire, water, and air.
Mako nodded, looking down at the four characters Bolin pointed to, watching as he tapped his finger against them. "Is the monkey the Avatar or something?" he asked.
"I dunno. I dunno that word yet."
Mako hummed and shut his eyes, burying his face into Bolin's hair, drowning out the sound of his struggle. His stomach felt as hollow as his pockets; his palm resting against the dip in his bones like the feel of slimey silk, filled only with holes lined with unraveled threads like dead hair.
"Bo?"
"Yeah?"
"We don't have any food tonight."
"Oh."
Bolin's silence was heavy, weighing down on Mako's shoulders and he pressed his face deeper into the tangle of black curls. Bolin's fingers flicked the corner of a page back and forth.
"I can start a fire, if you want?" Mako said. He lifted his hand and pressed his fingers to Bolin's cheek, feeling the chill set in there. "You feel cold."
"Ok."
They searched the alley for garbage, anything that could be stuffed into a trashcan and lit. The cans rattled as they brushed against them, a tinny scratch of metal on metal echoing against the curve of their stomachs.
"Hey Bo, I think it was trash day last night." Mako said, voice sounding bigger as he leaned over the lid of a can.
"Oh. Then, what're we gonna do?"
Mako turned around, hands on his hips, as he scanned the alley again. The usual spattering of garbage still clinged to the ground, but like a layer of leaves in autumn, the undersides were wet and disintegrating.
He watched Bolin trot over to their camp and flip through his books again, bored already of the fruitless search. The dry slaps of pages falling against his thumb in thick chunks, crisp and light and thin.
"Bo," Mako said, drawing out his name, holding it cautiously. "Which book do you not like?"
"Uh…um, this one," Bolin said, finger jabbing into the largest book he had. His nose wrinkled. "I can't read it. It's boring."
Mako picked it up and looked at the spine, running his finger over the title indented into the cloth binding.The Life of…Someone. Their name came with a title that began with an A, something Mako knew from the spelling of his own name. He pointed to the words following the title.
"What's this one?" he asked.
Bolin narrowed his eyes. "Um. S-saved? I think?"
The Life of Aah-Someone: the Saved of the World didn't have a nice ring to it. Mako opened the book and walked to a trash can, and started ripping pages from the bindings.
Bolin watched, eyes a little wide, as Mako's hands pulled thick slabs of paper, ripping up threaded binding like strings of veins torn and bleeding ink. His silence thinned and he turned back to his books; Mako knew Bolin had no intention of returning them.
More jobs meant more danger and more danger meant more fire, whether Mako could help it or not.
He stared at the blackened brick wall before him, sinking his palms towards the ground with a deep breath, thinking of another alley in Dragonflats that he nearly razed with another trash can fire long ago. His father wasn't there to put out the flames anymore so Mako lifted his hands, curled them into fists, and sent another series of punches at the wall.
Over the dull roar of the flames and the faint sounds of night time filtering in from the streets, he could still hear Bolin pouring over the last of the books he got the other day; the monkey met the Ahh…met the…and she was better at…earth, fire, water, and air and…I think that word is Avatar?
The fire felt good burning from his palms, small bursts of flames burning at their brightest, spitting across the bricks and fizzling away into the blue dark. His stomach felt drum tight against his bones, already empty from the rice he managed to score from his last job with Sang. Everything in him burned up quicker now, his food, his energy, but even through the fatigue his flames lasted. He had stopped questioning what he burned when he used them now.
"Mako! Hey, Mako!" Bolin sang. "C'mere, look at what I did!"
Mako stopped, catching his breath and rubbing the sweat from his face with his father's scarf. He leaned over Bolin, looking down at the blank open pages of the book he was reading from. Scrawled all across it were charcoal scratches of Bolin's name and copied words from the book that Mako couldn't read.
"Great," Mako said, rubbing his hand into Bolin's hair. "You do all of these by yourself?"
"Uh huh. Mako, write your name! I wanna write it too."
He tore a corner off a page, knicking the edge of a paragraph and taking the words with it. Bolin held it out to Mako along with the last nub of charcoal he had left.
Mako looked at the paper, and decided to fit his name under the words to keep it free from the print. He scrawled across the bottom and handed the paper back to Bolin.
Bolin's eyes narrowed, head tipping to the side, and Mako imagined all the words tattooed into his head following the motion to weigh it down, ticking like uncooked rice.
"Mako, I can't read it," Bolin said.
He frowned, and took the scrap of paper back to look it over again. His hand was shaky, marks blurring down the page as his hand had smudged his name.
"Just keep practicing your name," Mako said, curling the scrap into his fist. "It's more important to know."
"Alright, Mako," Bolin sighed, looking down at the last chips of charcoal in his palm.
Mako walked back to the wall, uncurling his hand to look down at the crumpled paper there. He unfurled it, thumbs accidentally dragging over the charcoal until his name couldn't be read at all, just a hazy blur of grey like smoke breathed into a page.
"Mako, come look!"
He turned and let the paper flare in his hand, consumed by flame, edges black and turning paper into embers that drifted from his palm as he walked to Bolin.
Bolin pointed to the ground, where, carved in a shaky hand an inch deep into the stones, were the characters of his name. Mako could just see it in the dark from the light of the fire in his hand. Mako smiled.
"Hey, good job," he said, and rather than rub his hand over Bolin's head, he gently pushed his hair back. He remembered his mother doing the same thing and hoped that this was how he was supposed to act. "That was smart of you. Saves up paper 'n' stuff."
"Yeah, and I get to practice bending," Bolin said, leaning his head into Mako's side. "I wish you could write your name with mine."
"Maybe when I'm an earthbender."
Bolin laughed, high and bright against the dark as Mako overturned the ashes in his hand, letting them scatter across the alley.
"Alright, keep up the good work," he said, patting his hand against Bolin's cheek, and Bolin laughed again as Mako walked away.
Mako returned to the scorched wall, feeling his calloused, dried skin scratch as he brushed the ashes from his hands. He fell into position, tensing his bones until he could see his tendons shifting under his skin and the ache in his body ignited again. Mind dusted clear save for sharp, dry heat spilling from his mind, down into his hands.
Over the constant firing of flame against brick, Mako could hear Bolin writing across the earth, whispering his name with quiet pride.
"Bo…..lin. Bo-lin. Bolin."