oOoOo
Jet watched as Li struck two spark rocks together, aiming for the little pile of tinder under the kettle. As if Jet didn't already fucking know. He wanted to feel insulted, or maybe to laugh at how ridiculous a gesture it was, but he didn't have the energy left for either. Li went about his usual ritual of making tea, tipping the leaves from a little pouch he pulled out of his sleeve, eyes fixed on what he was doing. He went through the motions like nothing had changed, every extra step another lie. Spark rocks for the fire and for the lantern on the floor beside them, long minutes of heavy silence as they waited for the water to boil, a towel wrapped around the kettle's handle, as if he couldn't have cooled it with a thought. As if he was just a nice kid from the coast who missed his tea-loving uncle and this was just his way of calming down, not the desperate grab for more time that Jet suspected.
He'd watched Li do this a hundred times and never known. A few weeks ago, he would've found it charming, the kind of endearing little quirk that made Li so damn hard to resist. Now he did know, and Li was still charming, and Jet hadn't a clue what to do about that. He just felt numb and tired, distantly aware of how absurd a display this was but unable to summon the will to even roll his eyes. He was about to have tea in the middle of the night with a Firebender he'd spent the summer fucking. His entire life was absurd.
He took the cup Li handed him but didn't move to drink it. He held it by its cooler rim, watching Li through the curls of jasmine steam. Li's eyes were a deep gold in the lantern light, his cup cradled in both his hands and his bottom lip caught between his teeth. He looked pathetically, painfully lost, but Jet only clenched his jaw tighter. He didn't care that Li was terrible at this, couldn't give less of a shit if it was hard. If Li couldn't find a way to choke out the truth, Jet sure as hell wasn't going to help him along.
The fire beneath the kettle had dimmed to hot coals, and Li watched them smolder and fade, his brow deeply furrowed. "I wanted to tell you," he said at last, in a voice thick with more than awkwardness.
"So?" Jet mumbled, pretending at indifference even as his chest grew tight. "You didn't."
"I know," said Li. "I know, I'm…" He looked down at his cup, his reflection wavering in the pale, amber liquid. "I'm sorry. I didn't know what you would do."
Jet had nothing to say to that. He wondered if the porcelain would shatter in his grip, but he didn't put it down. He needed to hold onto something, and the cup was all he had.
Li rubbed the lip of his own cup with one thumb. The tea rippled, and Jet could hear the soft creak of friction. "You shouldn't have found out that way," Li said in his low, rasping whisper. "But I'm glad you know."
Jet snorted. "Right."
"I am. I don't want to lie to you anymore, Jet. I want you to trust me. I want it so-" His voice broke and he bowed his head, one hand coming up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "I'm sorry. This isn't easy for me."
"And it is for me?"
Li flinched at that, but it didn't make Jet feel any better. If anything, he felt worse. A cold, hollow dread settled into his gut as he waited for Li to go on; watched as Li raised the cup to his lips, trembling so badly that dark drops of tea spattered the floor.
"I want to tell you the rest," he said. "Tell you everything."
Jet thought of all those long nights spent staring at hammocks and rafters, listening to the soft sounds of breathing as he wound back through months of lies and willful ignorance. In the hours just before dawn, it had all seemed perfectly, mercilessly clear.
Li came from money, that much Jet was sure of. And class, as well — the son of an admiral, maybe, or a governor. Probably he'd been an officer himself, happy to go along until they'd sent him on a mission he was still too green to stomach. He'd deserted, maybe fetched his Uncle from retirement in the colonies, then blended in with the tide of refugees as it flowed toward Ba Sing Se. It all made sense. Looking back, it was obvious. Jet had just been too horny and too stupid to notice.
"So do it," said Jet. "Tell me."
Li rubbed a hand over his face, his fingertips lingering on his scar. "It's worse than you think it is," he whispered, with a certainty that raised gooseflesh on the back of Jet's neck.
Maybe not so green, then. Jet couldn't keep from wondering what they'd made Li do, how far they'd pushed him before he'd finally cracked — how many villages burned, how many women raped, how many hard-lucked thieves turned out into the woods again with one less hand to steal with. "I doubt it," he said, though the last of his cockiness was gone.
Li twisted his hands together around the cup, pressing them down against his knees so hard they trembled from the effort. "Just…promise me something," he whispered. "Promise me you'll wait until I'm done before you leave."
The air was so thick with anxiety Jet imagined he could smell it, acrid and sour and suffocating. He shouldn't have come. He didn't want to hear whatever it was Li would say. Their eyes met, Li's gaze already pleading for forgiveness, and Jet realized that up until that moment, despite everything he knew and all that had happened, he'd still believed in the goodness of this boy. And once he'd answered, once he'd given Li permission to confess the worst of his sins, even that would be taken away from him.
"Please," Li whispered. "Just listen. That's all I'm asking."
Jet closed his eyes. He'd been right, after all — the Li he'd known, his Li, had died under the lake. This conversation was little more than a funeral.
"Fine," he said dully. "Talk."
Li set his empty cup down on the floor, then wound his fingers into a tight knot in his lap. "I don't know how to say this," he murmured. "So I guess…I guess I'll just say it." He took several long, deep breaths, his efforts to calm himself only sharpening Jet's own impatience.
"I was born in the Fire Nation," said Li. "In the capital city. And I'm a prince. The prince. Or…well, at least I was."
Jet's chest squeezed tighter, his heart thudding against his ribs. "What are you saying?" he whispered. Because what he'd heard didn't make any sense.
"My mother's name was Ursa. My father…" Li stopped to take another breath, like a diver about to plunge beneath the surface. "My father's name is Ozai. Fire Lord Ozai."
Jet's first impulse was denial. No, he thought, wanting to shout it, to scream it as he threw his tea across the room. He didn't have to sit here and listen to this. "You're lying," he rasped. "You think I'm an idiot?"
"Why would I lie about this?" Li asked, soft and a little sad.
Jet felt dizzy, like the building had collapsed around him; like he was falling backwards. He stared down at his tea and tried to concentrate, tried to force what Li was saying to seem real.
He'd let the prince of the Fire Nation share his bed. Not just a Firebender but the iron heart of the war machine. "I should kill you," said Jet. His own voice sounded small and far away.
"You said you'd listen," Li murmured, and the most absurd thing of all was that Jet felt a twinge of sympathy. Li was looking at him again, and Jet raised his eyes to look back. The soft, green tunic Li wore had been made for someone larger, its frayed sleeves too low on his shoulders. His hair was long and mussed by restless sleep, half-covering his face. He looked young and skinny and nervous. Not like a prince at all.
"Yeah," said Jet. "Yeah, I guess I did."
Li poured them both more tea, though Jet hadn't drunk any of his, the well-bred manners newly flush with meaning. Then Li raised the cup to just beneath his chin, breathing in the steam. "So you're…you're probably wondering why I'm here," he said. "It's…complicated. But I'll try to explain.
"I guess it started three years ago. That's when…" He stopped, frowning as he struggled to find the right words. "I went to a war meeting. I shouldn't have been there…Uncle told me not to go, but I didn't listen. And I spoke out of turn, about the forty-first division. The general wanted to sacrifice all those men, and I…" He paused to swallow, his face as pale as Jet had ever seen it. "It doesn't matter. I'd disrespected my father. So he banished me."
"What?" said Jet, jolted for a moment out of stunned silence.
"He banished me," Li said again — slower, like he thought Jet had simply misheard him. "He said I couldn't return until I'd found and captured the Avatar. Regained my honor. And I haven't…I haven't been back since then. But Uncle came with me. To help. He made sure I had a ship and a crew. And we…well, we looked. We looked for a really long time.
"Last winter, I finally found him. The Avatar, I mean. At the South Pole, with those Water Tribe friends of his. The ones you know. And then…" He sighed and drank a little of the tea. "A lot's happened since then."
Jet listened with his mouth clamped shut, struggling to follow as Li described the last year in halting, fragmented sentences, the timeline a mess of corrections and details in all the wrong places. Looking back in the weeks that followed, Jet doubted Li had meant to say so much, but once he'd begun the words spilled out of him, too wildly improbable for Jet to dismiss.
Li had chased the Avatar to the Northern Water Tribe, been labeled a traitor and hunted across the Earth Kingdom, forced into hiding among its people. He'd stolen an ostrich horse and saved a family; he'd starved on the plains and baked in the desert; he'd escaped his sister, but in doing so lost the Avatar as well. It seemed an impossible story — all honor and destiny and royalty in disguise, the kind of thing you made up to entertain children — but Jet couldn't hold onto his doubt for long. No one would invent something so strange and convoluted, and Li wasn't that good of a liar besides.
Jet wasn't sure how long he sat there listening — hours, certainly, his tea untouched in his hand. Eventually the lantern sputtered out, but it was nearly dawn by then, and neither of them moved to re-light it. Jet wasn't sure he could have. He felt like he was frozen in place, bound to keep his promise whether he wanted to or not.
As Li spoke his voice grew a little stronger, his tone smooth and sure. More like himself, though Jet cringed at that even as he thought it. It wasn't until Li reached Full Moon Bay that he faltered once again. He sipped his cold tea and looked up into Jet's eyes, his own wide and shining. "Then I met you," he murmured. "And I…well." He flushed, lowering his gaze to the dregs in his cup . "You know what happened after that."
Jet knew. He remembered how Li had looked on the deck of the ferry, grim despite the sea and sunlight. He remembered his slow, steady push inside Li's borders — the afternoons at Pao's teashop; an alliance with Mushi that won his first invitation to dinner; all the looks and smiles and touches he just barely got away with. He remembered the first kiss, hidden from view by a shelf of canisters, Li's hand against his chest.
He'd been the one to tell Li about the princess — that she'd killed the Avatar and taken control of the city. They'd been sitting around the kitchen table, Jet and Li and Smellerbee and Longshot and Jin, who'd wormed her way into their little group by then. Li had crumpled at the news, folded in on himself and sat in numb silence while the rest of them scrambled to come up with some kind of plan. Jet hadn't paid it much mind at the time, content to let him grieve in his own way. He'd thought Li was just sensitive. He'd thought he understood.
It took a moment for him to realize Li was speaking again. "I know it's a lot. But it's the truth," he said. "You…you can ask me anything you want."
Jet nearly laughed aloud at the idea of asking questions. Where would he even start, when he was struggling so desperately to make sense of what he'd heard? How could he press for more details, when the ones he had already were so raw? How could connect that winding narrative with the boy who knelt in front of him? "Li…" he began, without knowing what he would say next.
Li's cautious hint of a smile disappeared. "That…isn't my name," he said, meeting Jet's eyes again.
"What?"
"My name. It's not Li. It's…" He swallowed, loud enough for Jet to hear, but didn't look away. "It's Zuko."
Something snapped inside Jet's chest, then, a red-hot wave of humiliated fury boiling up from the bottom of his gut. He put the cup down, hands curling into fists in his lap and fingernails cutting into his palms. Jet wanted to hit him, his body rigid with the effort of staying seated. But he didn't. He wasn't sure he'd be able to stop once he'd started.
But Jet wanted him to hurt. "Your scar," he said, grinding out the words. "How did you get it?" He doubted it was important, but he didn't care just then. All that mattered was that Li — Shit, he thought, not Li, not even that had been true — never spoke of it. He could tell from the look on the other boy's face that he'd guessed right, his barb finding its mark.
"I insulted a general," he said quietly. "There were…consequences."
"That's not an answer," Jet spat.
He could see the other boy's jaw clench, hands tightly gripping his thighs. It took him a long time to answer, and when he did his voice was oddly stiff, his expression more closed than Jet had ever seen it. "When you insult the Fire Lord's general in his war room, you insult the Fire Lord himself," he said. "He challenged me to an Agni Kai. A duel. I wouldn't fight him. So he punished me."
Jet never stared at his scar but couldn't help but do so now, thinking of bone-thin prisoners with words burned into their cheeks, forever branded with the details of their crimes. This scar wasn't the kind of thing you ever stopped noticing, but in that moment it stood out more fiercely than ever, the whirl of deep, red creases finally seen for what it was: another brand, wordless but no less eloquent for it.
The other boy sat with his eyes screwed shut, drawing slow, deep breaths through his nose. Eventually his shoulders fell, the cords of muscle in his neck no longer drawn quite so taut. He spoke as he opened his eyes again, the words cracked but clear. "Anything else?"
Jet didn't understand why things were happening this way. Everything he knew told him it was impossible — that even if the other boy's story was true, the fact that he was sitting in this apartment, sharing this conversation, didn't make any sense. He should have gone back to the Fire Nation. That's what any sane person would have done. But he'd willingly stayed behind in a city that didn't want him, fought his countrymen, pleaded for a chance to tear open his own, old wounds and spill his history out onto the floor.
"Why are you still here?" Jet rasped.
"I told you. You asked me to stay. So I stayed."
"Bullshit."
"It's true. I-"
"Bullshit!" Jet barked, furious again. He didn't want to have to think about this, but the pieces slid together on their own. "You think I'm stupid? I know you wanted to go back to the Fire Nation, you practically begged me to let you! I thought you were just crazy then, but I guess it all makes sense now, huh? You'd go back and be some big fucking hero, stop the invasion and hand over the Avatar all in one go."
"Jet, that's not-"
"Don't tell me that isn't what you wanted to do! I know it was!" He was shouting now, too loud to be safe. "Don't lie to me!"
The other boy rubbed at his eyes. "I changed my mind," he murmured.
"You're telling me that squatting here in this fucking hole, following me around like some kind of stray dog…that's better than being a prince again? Better than making up with dear old Daddy Fire Lord?" He hated himself for saying these things, but he couldn't stop. "No. No, I'm not buying it. You're not that fucking stupid."
"Only two people care what I do anymore. Both of them told me to stay in Ba Sing Se." The way he said it wasn't sentimental — there was no softness in his tone, no hopeful glance up at Jet. He spoke as if stating plain fact. And that was worse, really.
But Jet couldn't afford to be weak. "That's not good enough," he said. His throat felt raw and dry, so he picked up his neglected tea and knocked it back in one gulp. He'd come here for a reason. He had responsibilities. "Look…Jin told me you wanted to help. That you had some kind of plan to take back the city. So fine. I came to listen." He put the cup down and glowered until the other boy met his eyes. "But I'm not gonna trust you to watch my back if you don't give a shit about this. About what we're fighting for. You've gotta want it so bad you'll die for it, or you don't belong here."
"I never said I didn't care. I just-" He shook his head. "This is really confusing for me."
"Fuck you," Jet snapped, more from impatience than malice. "Figure it out."
The thing about Li — about Zuko, fuck this was going to be hard — was how seriously he took everything. Told to "figure it out," he knelt quietly and did exactly that, forehead lined with concentration and eyes staring through the wall at something Jet couldn't see: the intangible, distant key to the puzzle turning over in his mind.
"When I was a kid, they told me the Fire Nation was the greatest civilization in history," he said. The words were slow and deliberate, as if his thoughts were still half-formed, only coming together in the moment he spoke them aloud. "They told me the war was just a way to share that greatness with the rest of the world. We weren't conquering it, we were just…bringing it up to our level. Teaching the other nations how to be as great as ours." He paused, his frown deepening. "I've been away from home a long time. More than three years. I've seen a lot of things.
"Uncle used to tell me about the Southern Water Tribe. He said a hundred years ago, they had a whole city, almost as big as the one in the north. But it's not like that anymore. It's just a tiny little village, all old women and children. The men are gone. The benders are gone, except the Avatar's friend. And I know the Fire Nation did that. I'm not stupid, either.
"Living here in the city with you…with everyone…I don't want that to happen again. Not here. All these people, they're just trying to live. And they have their own civilization, you know? They have trains and universities and art and music. Or they did. We burned the university down. We destroyed the trains. How is that sharing our greatness? We tore their walls down and took their lives from them. Now they can't even eat." His voice broke. He scrubbed at both his eyes again, took a shuddering breath and then went on. "We shouldn't be here. We shouldn't be doing this. It's wrong, Jet, I know it's wrong, I just…they're my people, but I can't let this happen. I can't just sit here while the world falls apart. I have to do something."
He bowed his head, his face buried in his hands. "You have to understand…I thought the Avatar was dead. And then Azula left, just…she never even tried to find me. No more wanted posters. No search parties. The Avatar was a better prize, I guess. I've had a lot of time to think about it, and it…it seems pretty obvious my father never cared if I came home or not. He just wanted me out of the way. So now I am."
Jet watched him try to shake it off, wiping his face with his sleeve and digging his knuckles into his eyes. "At least here I can do something that matters," he said. "You showed me that. Showed me how to help people instead of just…" He sighed, raising his hands in a helpless gesture before letting them fall again. "I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say."
Jet looked down at the empty teacup. He didn't know what to say, either, his thoughts a quiet litany of weakness. He stayed. He wanted to stay. He saved me. He made me tea.
"I need to think," said Jet. It was too much all at once. He got to his feet, stiff from having sat in the same position for so long, and walked to the window. He didn't look back — he wasn't sure he could force himself to leave if he did.
oOo
Zuko wrapped the cups and kettle in soft rags and tucked them into a stack, the spark rocks nestled inside. He folded the spare clothes and the tarp he'd been using as a blanket and set them on the rug, his map and extra shoes beside them. But that was as much as he dared. Any more and he'd actually have packed, which felt presumptuous and far too hopeful.
Zuko knelt beside the neat row of his belongings, facing the open window, and waited. Hardly anyone lived in this building anymore, but he could hear those who did going about their morning routine. Two women chatted beside the well in the courtyard, an iron pulley squealing as it turned. Children laughed and chased each other along the second-floor walkway, their bare feet slapping against worn wooden boards, making the floor vibrate as they ran by. Some ways away a hog chicken crowed.
Zuko listened carefully, trying to focus on what he heard instead of what he hoped would follow. Months into the occupation, Ba Sing Se still hummed with the lives of normal people, their spirits seemingly unbroken. Within an hour, some Fire Nation corporal would come to collect the able-bodied adults and pack them into wagons, drawn by half-starved ostrich horses along the widened avenues. They'd spend the day toiling at an iron works near the edge of the outer ring, not returning until well after nightfall, yet every morning they still cheerfully went about their business. At first Zuko had wondered if they'd been brainwashed, somehow, thinking of what Ping had told him about the Dai Li and their tactics. But Ping and Jin had laughed at him when he'd explained his theory.
"They're not brainwashed," Jin had said, kindly though she still chuckled a little. "They're just making the best of things. What else can they do?"
So Zuko had made the best of things as well, and spent the time between raids just like this, drinking in the little details of this strange new home of his. It still seemed so exotic. He'd spent his boyhood in a different sort of city, tidier and not nearly so sprawling, one where the livestock stayed shut up in barns and the children walked in quiet, solemn rows. Not that he'd ever seen much of it, really. A prince wasn't allowed to roam the streets on his own, and there was only so much you could see from inside a palanquin.
It struck him, then, that he wouldn't have to keep any of this to himself from now on. He could share these fleeting thoughts about his home, about who he'd been and how he'd lived and how different things were now, with the person he most wanted to talk to. Jet knew who he was. For better or worse Jet knew everything, where he'd come from and the whole mess of exile and regret that had followed. Thinking of it, Zuko felt his heartbeat quicken, warmth spreading through his chest. He couldn't help but hope a little.
The wagon had only just rumbled away when Zuko heard it: a soft, lilting call from above, one most would mistake for birdsong. He knew the answering call — the same melody turned on its head, ending low instead of high — but he'd never got the hang of whistling. Heart pounding so hard it made him dizzy, Zuko leapt to this feet to snatch his bag and his swords from where they hung by the door. The call sounded again as he shoved the last of his things into the bag, cinched it shut and bolted toward the open window.
Jet stood at the peak of the roof, arms crossed over his chest and a stalk of dry grass between his teeth.
"All right," he said.
Zuko felt his heart would explode if it beat any harder. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this way — like anything was possible, and everything might just find a way to turn out as it should. He wanted to pull Jet into his arms and hold him close, to let the tears that prickled at the corners of his eyes fall as he breathed Jet's scent and tasted his mouth and promised never to lie to him again.
"All right," said Zuko. He could see the tension in Jet's stance, the scowl that might as well have been a wall between them. Not yet, he thought, his grip on the bag tightening. Not just yet.
oOo
Neither of them spoke as they ran, habit and instinct keeping them close on the landscape of tile and wooden beams. As they scaled the wall of the upper ring Zuko wondered — for the first time, not having thought so far before — what the others would say when they saw him again. It was a bit of a shock to realize he had no idea at all.
A few buildings short of the Jasmine Dragon, Jet slowed to a jog and then stopped, his toes at the edge of the roof. He drew the grass from his mouth and twirled it between his fingers, his arched brows knit together. He seemed to be thinking something over, so Zuko waited, quietly expectant, for him to say whatever he had to.
"I don't think they should know everything," Jet muttered finally. "Smellerbee and Longshot, yeah. Jin and Ping and maybe Xue Sheng if you have to, but not the kids. It'll just confuse them."
"I don't want to lie to anyone anymore," said Zuko, looking at Jet even though the other boy wouldn't meet his eyes. "Not about that."
Jet's jaw clenched, the grass stalk quivering as he returned it to his mouth. "Fine," he said before leaping down into the street.
Zuko was barely through the kitchen door when Jin barreled into him, almost knocking him over with the force of her enthusiasm. "Oh Li!" she cried, hugging him so tightly that the air was squeezed from his lungs. "Oh, I just…I knew he'd gone to talk to you and I'm so…AHH!" She finished with a wordless little shout that Zuko found mildly alarming.
To his surprise, when she released him she pushed past and attacked a wholly unsuspecting Jet, who had just bolted the door closed again. He looked annoyed and profoundly uncomfortable, but he bore Jin's bone-crushing hug, shifting his jaw so that the grass stalk wouldn't be caught in her high ponytail. "I'm so sorry I yelled at you," she said, muffled by his shirt. "You're not crazy, you're a good, good man and oh, you stupid boys-!"
"Enough," Jet grunted, though not unkindly, and Jin obligingly let him go so he could walk the rest of the way into the room.
Jin sidled up to Zuko again, pulling at the edge of his sleeve. "What did he say?" she hissed, one eye still on Jet as he slowly made his way across the kitchen. "What did you say?"
"It's…kind of lot…" said Zuko. He glanced at Jet as well, who'd climbed halfway up the stairs to the storage room. "Maybe I should wait…"
"Get everyone up," said Jet. He didn't shout, but his voice was loud enough to be heard in the next room. "I've got some things to tell them."
Jin looked between the two boys, her smile starting to falter. "Is everything all right?"
"Just get them up," said Jet. He sat down on the step, his hands on his knees. "No point explaining twice."
Though most of them had only been asleep for a few hours, it didn't take long to rouse the other Freedom Fighters. Smellerbee and Longshot appeared within moments, their drawn faces suggesting they'd never gone to sleep at all. They leaned against the stairway just below where Jet sat, like a kind of honor guard. The rest followed a few minutes later, most of them bleary-eyed and half-dressed. As they filed into the kitchen, every one of them looked first at Zuko, mouths open in surprise, then quickly turned back to Jet to see what he thought of this new development. But Jet remained stone-faced, and they knew better than to pester him with questions once a meeting had been called.
Zuko stayed near the door to the alley, feeling more awkward that he would have expected. Normally he'd have taken his place next to Jet, but that didn't seem like such a good idea just now, so he stood and fidgeted and wished everyone would stop staring at him. Jin, at least, stayed close, her hand on his elbow. When Ping emerged from the main room, crisply dressed in dark robes and impeccably groomed as always, he glided over to stand on Zuko's other side. Unlike Jin, he didn't say anything. But Zuko thought he might have seen the barest shadow of a smile.
Jin stood up on her tiptoes, lips moving as she counted. "That's everyone," she said. Jet nodded and raised one hand. The room quieted in an instant.
"Looks like I have an introduction to make," said Jet. He extended the hand toward Zuko, all eyes following his gesture.
"But that's Li!" Zuko recognized Roo's overloud whisper, rising up from somewhere near the stove. "I already know Li!" A few of the younger kids laughed nervously, but a sharp look from Jet cut them short.
"His name's Zuko," Jet said with deliberate care. "He's a Firebender. But he…" Jet's voice faltered, but no one broke the silence of his pause. "He's given up a lot to be here." Zuko felt a little jolt as their eyes connected. "You wanna explain or should I?"
Zuko swallowed, shrinking under the weight of so many gazes. "Go ahead."
The room held itself perfectly still as Jet spoke, as if afraid a whisper or cough might stop him from finishing. As strange as it had been to tell Jet about his life, it was even stranger to hear it summarized for the benefit of others. The speech was short and unsentimental, but it painted a far more flattering picture than Zuko would have expected: of an exiled prince who would fight his own people in the name of justice, who had given up his throne to help save an Earth Kingdom city.
"So that's how it is," said Jet, sounding flat and tired of listening to himself. "If you don't like it, you can leave."
He pushed himself up again and walked down the stairs. "Meeting's over," he said, already halfway to the main room. "Go eat your breakfast."
Longshot and Smellerbee followed him out of sight. Everyone else turned as one to look at Zuko. He took a nervous step back, nearly tripping over Jin's foot. He had no idea what he was supposed to do or what, if anything, he could say. He'd lied to all these people for months, and now they knew exactly how much he had hidden.
"Zuko?" Behind him, Jin spoke the word slowly, as if seeing how it tasted. He turned and saw she was smiling at him. Only a little hesitant, she reached up to clasp his shoulders, holding him at arm's length. "I'll try to remember, all right? But it might take a little while."
"Okay," said Zuko, unsure as to why she wasn't yelling at him.
She smiled even wider, got up on her toes to kiss him lightly on the cheek, then turned to lift an apron down from the row of hooks on the wall. "I feel a little silly asking a prince to chop onions," she said, handing it to him. "But these kids aren't going to feed themselves."
"But…" Zuko looked dumbly at the apron in his hand. "Aren't you…I thought you'd be angry or-"
"I'm just glad I have my cook back." said Jin, already rummaging around in the bins beneath the counter. "Jet kept wandering off while the porridge boiled over and Xue Sheng burns everything."
"I do not," Xue Sheng said petulantly, having emerged from hiding. He didn't much like Jet's meetings, and tended to hover just inside the pantry whenever Jin let him get away with it.
"I bet you do it on purpose so I won't ask you to help," said Jin slyly. Xue Sheng pinkened and muttered under his breath, pulling a ledger from the depths of one sleeve and quickly disappearing behind it.
Zuko tied the apron behind his back and took three shriveled onions from Jin. He could still feel everyone staring at him, but at least now he had something to take his mind off it. His back was to the room, but he could hear low muttering and the scrape of chairs as people settled down to wait for their meal.
He'd finished with the onions and was peeling a wizened clove of garlic when he heard his name again — still strange, after so many months of answering to "Li." He turned to see that Xiao Si Wang had come over, her chin high and her hands on her hips. He was pretty sure that Roo was hiding behind her, though it was hard to tell — all he could really see were two small hands bunched up in Wang's tunic and an extra pair of legs.
"Roo's afraid of you," said Wang. "Can you tell her she's being stupid?"
"You're being stupid," said Zuko. He moved over a bit, making room in front of the counter. "Come on. You can peel garlic."
He left the garlic in a small pile and carried the pot of last night's rice over to the sink. Ping, who hadn't moved from his spot in front of the door, shifted to a slightly more detectable smile and pumped water while Zuko held the pot in place, then helped him to carry it back and lift it up onto the burner.
Roo and Wang were both standing at the counter, now, peeled cloves stacking up between them. Zuko crouched down to open the stove's iron door and shovel more coal into the remains of yesterday's fire. Then, still feeling like he was getting away with something he shouldn't, he held out one hand and gave the flames a push.
"You're really a Firebender," said Wang, her show of confidence faltering a little. She watched him as he closed the door and straightened, Roo peeking out from behind her.
"Yeah," said Zuko. He pulled the garlic toward him and started to mince it with a large, chipped knife.
"But Firebenders are the bad guys," said Roo, almost a question. "That's why we're fighting them."
He scraped everything into the pot, taking his time so he'd have a chance to think. "We're fighting the Dai Li, too," he said. "They're Earthbenders."
"I guess."
"People are people," he said. "Some of them are bad. But not all of them."
"Not you."
"No. No, not me."
Roo thought this over, then shrugged, as if rolling the worry off her shoulders. "Can you do any tricks?" she asked.
"Well…I can't do most of them inside but…" He thought for a moment as he stirred the simmering porridge. "There is one thing, I guess. Here." He let the spoon lean against the side of the pot and held his hands in front of him, the palms a short distance apart.
He wasn't completely out of practice — he'd spent many hours in the last two weeks in private meditation, mismatched stubs of candles waxing and waning with his breath — but it still took him a moment to conjure a perfect little drop of flame. He felt the currents of his chi move along his arms, through his fingers and into the air between them, concentrating in that one, flickering point. Slowly it began to trace a path through the air, moving faster and faster until it blurred into a ring of fire.
Roo frowned as it evaporated. "That's it?"
"What do you mean, 'that's it?'" Zuko spluttered. "That's really hard to do!"
"It was…nice," said Wang diplomatically. Xue Sheng snickered from behind his ledger.
"It was lame," said Roo. She rolled her eyes and carried the knives and cutting board over to the sink. "You're right, Wang. Totally not scary."
"It took me years to learn how to do that!"
"It took you a month to learn how to cook an egg," Jin teased, grinning as she set a stack of bowls down near the stove.
Zuko had almost forgotten they had an audience, dozens of kids crowded around the kitchen table. He was reminded by a sudden snort of disgust, followed by the sound of a chair abruptly pushed back. Zuko glanced over his should to see Gen stalk away into the main room.
The mood broken, Jin sighed and picked up the wooden spoon. "It'll take some of them longer," she said as the stirred the porridge. "Don't let it get to you."
"Sure," said Zuko. He didn't want to say anything else right now, not so soon and not in front of the kids. But he thought of Jet, who'd left the room as well, for reasons that weren't at all mysterious. And he tried very hard, though with little success, not to let that get to him either.
oOo
Zuko and Jin were nearly finished with the dishes when Jet came back into the kitchen, flanked by Longshot and Smellerbee. A few of the bolder Freedom Fighters had stayed after breakfast to pepper Zuko with questions, mostly about how big of a fireball he could make, but one gesture from Jet was enough to flush them out. Ping and Xue Sheng looked up from their work — updating the map of the palace grounds, the ink still wet where Xue Sheng had drawn a new guardhouse — but neither moved to stand.
"We've got a lot of planning to do," said Jet. He pulled out a chair and sank into it, slumped with legs extended under the table. "So let's plan."
Zuko's hands were shaking a little as he dried them, sneaking glances at Jet from the corner of his eye. Smellerbee and Longshot were in the chairs on either side of him, not that Zuko could have sat there anyway. After a few moment's anxious debate he went and sat at the far end of the table from them, Jin staying close so that he ended up between her and Ping. He looked straight at Jet but Jet's eyes were on the map-covered table, focused on some arbitrary point, and stayed there as he spoke.
"You have something in mind?" Jet asked, not bothering to specify who he was talking to. They all knew.
"Um…sort of…" said Zuko. He licked his lips, which seemed reluctant to form words properly. "I had some ideas. I don't know if they'll work."
"That's more than what we have now," said Jin. She reached over to squeeze his fingers under the table. He knew she meant well, but mostly it reminded him of how things had been before, and the rougher, larger hands he hadn't touched in so long.
"Well," he began. "There aren't very many of us-"
"Us who?" said Jet. He didn't look up, but Zuko could see the tension in his neck.
"Us, the Freedom Fighters," said Zuko, no hesitation in his voice this time. He'd made his decision. "We have what, forty soldiers?"
"Forty-two, now that Gen's back on his feet," said Jin.
"Right. And seven benders including me. The runners can help carry messages but they can't fight. So that's one of us for every hundred of them in the city."
"Worse than that," said Ping. "Since the Eastern Gate, they've pulled in reinforcements from Full Moon Bay and the rest of Yue Liang province. At least a thousand men. Maybe more."
Zuko nodded. "Right. See, that's what I mean. We can't fight them like we're an army, there just aren't enough of us. We can't take back the city street-by-street. We're better off with coordinated raids — small and fast, in and out before they realize what's happening."
"To what end?" Ping rumbled. "They've doubled their guard on the armories and warehouses. We won't manage something like that night in the tank yards again. They're expecting it."
"I know," said Zuko. "That's because we're just terrorists to them. Dumb kids who get lucky sometimes. Good at sneaking around and making life hard for them, but not a real threat. They have us outnumbered, and they have the Dai Li helping them."
"Who won't be affected by the eclipse," said Xue Sheng. "Which everyone seems to keep forgetting."
But Zuko wasn't to be deterred. He'd had time to think this through, however much the details still escaped him. But he couldn't help glancing over at Jet again. Jet was the one who took these vague ideas and pinned them down to something workable. Usually while they lay on their backs in the store room, tucked up against each other as they whispered about troop movements in the dark.
Jet didn't look up. Zuko swallowed and tried to pretend Jin's soft fingers on the back of his hand were enough. "Ping," he said, "the Dai Li take their orders from the Fire Nation, right?"
If the question made Ping uncomfortable, it didn't show on his face. "Princess Azula had Long Feng and those loyal to him jailed before she left the city," he said. "My most recent intelligence puts Captain Quan as their highest-ranking officer. He answers directly to General Zha, who leads the occupying forces."
"All right. So." Zuko paused to gather his thoughts. He wasn't quite used to this yet — speaking so freely about what he knew, and dominating so much of the discussion. Jet usually did most of the talking at meetings like these. "The Fire Nation military is all about rank. Most Firebenders this far out on the front are officers. Non-benders are just foot soldiers. Expendable. And they know it. They're trained right from the start to follow orders and not ask questions. A smart soldier's that much more likely to kill you when your back is turned."
"It's an army, in other words," Xue Sheng said dryly.
"Right. So they're disciplined but they can't think on their feet. They don't know what to do with themselves when something goes wrong."
Ping nodded, looking thoughtful. "Remember the mill?" he said. "They had us far outnumbered, but Xiao Si Wang killed their corporal early in the battle. His men retreated almost immediately."
"Exactly," said Zuko, grinning a little now. "There's a lot of Fire Nation here but most of them aren't officers, just regular enlisted men. Once the corporal was dead, they didn't have any idea what to do on their own, so they fell back to wait for new orders."
"What're you saying we should do?" said Jet.
"Cut off the army's head," said Zuko. "We'll position ourselves just before the eclipse, then take out as many officers as we can while their bending's gone. If we do enough damage, knock out enough of the chain of command…I think we can force them to retreat." His eyes never moved from Jet as he spoke, searching for any hint of a reaction. "I think we can make them leave the city."
"We'd still have to find some way to hold it," said Xue Sheng. "The government's completely collapsed — half the bureaucrats fled after the walls came down, and the rest are dead, imprisoned or in hiding. And we still won't have an army."
"The Dai Li may yet be convinced," said Ping, "were the winds to turn in our favor. If we can summon the strength to retake our land, they may decided it's in their best interest to help us."
"So many ifs," said Xue Sheng. "I don't like it."
"Do you have a better idea?" asked Jin. "We're Freedom Fighters, right? This is what we're here to do. And it's not like there's an eclipse every week — we might not get another chance."
"Agreed," Ping rumbled. "Given the resources available, this appears to be the best course to take. Desperate, perhaps, but not hopeless."
Across the table, Jet sat with his head lowered and his fingers steepled in front of him, listening to them hash out tentative specifics. Xue Sheng unearthed a blank scrap of parchment and took notes as they broke the Freedom Fighters down into teams, one for each of the Earth Benders. Jin knew all their names and faces almost as well as Jet did, while Ping and Zuko were familiar with how they worked together in a fight. Between them the teams formed quickly, though Zuko's name was conspicuously absent from the list.
"Put him with us," said Jet, meaning himself, Smellerbee, Longshot, Ping and Xiao Si Wang. He didn't offer an explanation, and Zuko's heartbeat quickened as Xue Sheng dipped his brush into the ink.
"Spelling?" Xue Sheng asked, brush poised above the parchment.
"The characters for…'resurrection' and 'rule,'" said Zuko, feeling his cheeks grow warm. They'd written it as "ancestors' robber" on the wanted posters. He wasn't sure which was more apt as things were now.
If Jet thought the choice of characters ironic, he gave no indication. A look passed between him and his friends, but that was all.
The rest of the afternoon was spent on details of other kinds. Ping had made a list of all known Fire Nation officers — a tightly-rolled parchment he kept in his sleeve — and Xue Sheng marked each of their usual positions in red on his largest map of the city. The hours slid easily by as they worked, Jin sometimes getting up to make them tea, Xue Sheng disappearing once to fetch more ink, Zuko trying his best to remember all he knew about General Zha and the other high-ranking officers. Jet spoke very little, interrupting them only to ask the occasional question or correct some small mistake. Smellerbee and Longshot didn't say anything at all.
Outside, the sun set and the alleyway darkened. Jin cooked a simple dinner of barley soup, and carried steaming bowls of it on trays into the main room, where the others were still waiting for them to finish. Moonlight was streaming through the gaps in the shutters when Xue Sheng at last set down his brush.
Zuko stayed seated as the others moved around him. Jin kissed the top of his head, then went to help Xue Sheng roll up his maps. They slipped into the main room, Smellerbee and Longshot following after the former whispered something into Jet's ear. Ping collected his Earthbenders and went upstairs, to the room they shared at the end of the hall. Jet didn't look up. Zuko watched him and waited.
The kitchen had been empty for some time — ten minutes, at least, though Zuko found it hard to tell with his heart beating so fast — before either of them spoke. Zuko wanted Jet to be the one to break the silence, but once enough time had passed he found he couldn't stand it anymore. In the end, the question was painfully straightforward: "What now?"
"It's late," said Jet quietly. "I'm tired."
They both were. Tired enough that Zuko's resolve began to crumble, the reasons why he shouldn't do what he wanted to — why he wasn't sitting next to Jet, why they weren't already tangled together in bed — all slipping away from him.
Jet's eyes stayed on the tabletop as Zuko got up, his footsteps measured and slow as he walked behind the empty chairs, allowing all the time in the world for Jet to move away. He didn't, and soon Zuko stood behind him. When he rested a hand on Jet's shoulder, fingertips along his collarbone, he expected to feel cords of tension under his palm. Instead Jet's shoulders fell just slightly, a soft breath escaping his lips.
Zuko didn't want to move. Couldn't move, for fear of doing something he shouldn't. He could smell Jet's skin, see the regular throb of Jet's pulse on his neck. Zuko wanted to dip his head down, to kiss that warm flutter and slide his hand inside Jet's tunic. He wanted it so badly that for a long, dizzying moment he couldn't think of anything else, could only stand there with his hand on the other boy, real and solid and achingly close.
"Jet," he murmured.
The tension returned, then, muscles drawn taut beneath his hand. Jet stood, and Zuko let his arm drop to his side.
"You can have the room," said Jet, his voice hoarse. He didn't turn, shoulders hunched so that his face was hidden from view. He walked out of the kitchen, and it took all the strength of Zuko's will not to try and stop him.
oOo
Zuko barely remembered the day the walls had fallen. Too much had happened too quickly for him to absorb it, his entire life thrown into disarray over the space of a few hours. He'd lost his uncle in the morning; he'd lost the Avatar that afternoon, stolen from him by his sister, which had at least been fitting. That day, it had been hard for him to see much of anything beyond the sudden emptiness in his chest.
But he remembered Jet. As the others rushed to gather news and scavenge what they'd need to turn a teashop into a home, Jet had found reasons to stay behind. Sometimes he'd gotten up from the kitchen table for a little while, to see what they had to work with in the pantry or explore the store rooms upstairs. He'd closed the large serving window along one wall of the kitchen, a few nails making the change permanent. Then he'd disappeared into the main room with a ball of twine and an armful of canvas tarps. Zuko had stared at the tabletop and listened to him push furniture around, whistling cheerfully as he worked.
The rest of the time, Jet had sat beside Zuko at the table. Not saying much of anything, not asking questions — just rubbing Zuko's back with one hand, the other sometimes reaching over to gently ruffle his hair. When the others had returned Jet hadn't pulled away, his hand still moving in slow, soothing circles as they plotted the course of the resistance.
Zuko had been only half-aware of this, his new friends moving around him in a sort of soft blur, as if he'd been watching them through clouded glass. Then Jet had returned from the last of his short errands and pulled Zuko up out of his chair.
"You look like you could use some sleep," he'd said, smiling as he lead Zuko up the narrow stairway. "It's been a pretty rough day."
Zuko hadn't asked where he'd found the bed, or how he'd gotten it into the tiny storage room. Just then, he hadn't had the energy to care. He wasn't tired so much as tired of thinking, exhausted by the weight of sudden change. Maybe sleep would quiet his mind for a while.
He'd lain down on the bed in all his clothes. Jet had watched from the doorway, outlined by the faint glow of the kitchen lamps.
"I'd like to come in," Jet had said, with none of his usual swagger. "If that's all right with you."
Zuko hadn't known what he wanted from Jet that night. He had never been with anyone like this before, still wasn't sure what to make of this strange boy who'd taken such an interest in him. But he'd found that he didn't need to think Jet's question over. That answer had felt obvious, even then.
"Yes," he'd said.
Jet had closed the door, shutting out all but the faintest sliver of light. The floorboards had creaked as he walked over to the bed, buckles clinking softly as he undid the fastenings of his armor. Zuko had felt the bed move as Jet lay down beside him, then warm, strong arms had wound around his ribs. Jet had kissed his forehead, pulled him close.
"We'll find a way through this," Jet had whispered. "Okay? We'll figure something out."
Jet had held him as he cried, his face pushed up against Jet's chest, fingers twisted into folds of rough fabric. He'd wept for all he'd lost and all he'd given up without realizing; for the life he would never have again. Tears had streamed from his eyes and soaked through the front of Jet's shirt, his shoulders quaking silently. Jet must have wondered what was wrong, but he hadn't asked. He'd only stroked Zuko's hair and said, "We'll find a way, baby," and held him that much tighter.
He'd wanted to tell Jet everything then — to explain why he was acting this way, describe the hole the Avatar's death had torn in his heart. Instead he'd sought Jet's mouth with his own, used his lips and hands and tongue to tell a different kind of truth. One he'd struggled against in the weeks since Full Moon Bay, resisting the temptation to put down roots, to tie himself to a place where he didn't belong.
That night, he'd clung to Jet with all the strength of a drowning man.
Now, Zuko lay on his back in their bed, breathing through his nose to catch what remained of Jet's scent on the pillow. He thought of Jet's shoulder beneath his palm, but this time Jet turned his head, looked up at Zuko with wide, hazel eyes full of desire, parted his lips easily when Zuko leaned in to kiss him. He imagined Jet saying his name, his real name, the way he'd once said "Li" — like it was all he wanted in the world. It didn't seem so distant anymore.
He remembered how it had been that first night, so much more than stolen moments of awkward groping had prepared him for. He closed his eyes and saw Jet straddle his waist; saw him pull off his shirt to reveal a lean torso, the pale lines of old scars crisscrossing his chest. Zuko imagined himself reaching up, his hands sliding along Jet's sides, feeling his ribs move beneath his skin as he breathed. When Jet bent down to kiss him again, he shifted to push the bulges in their pants together, one hand cupping Zuko's ass to pull him close, his mouth hungry and wet and everywhere at once.
Zuko whispered Jet's name, his hands sliding beneath his waistband, imagining the fingers that curled around him weren't his own.
oOo
Jet told himself he was just being realistic. He hadn't slept the night through since before the Eastern Gate, and he couldn't afford to be this exhausted when there was so much work to be done. He'd get himself killed if he went on like this — or worse, someone else. Smellerbee had been right: he was the leader, at least in name. He owed it to his men to be awake and alert when he lead them into battle.
He'd hoped that sharing a cot with Smellerbee and Longshot would be enough — he'd spent years in their company, after all, and they alone had chosen to follow when he'd left his old life behind him. They were the closest thing he had to family. But it hadn't been enough, and he'd run through all the other tricks he knew. He'd counted the slow, deep breathes of his friends; he'd made himself tea from valerian root in the middle of the night; he'd exercised until he could barely stand, his limbs trembling with fatigue as he collapsed into bed. None had brought him more than a few, fitful hours. He'd become intimate with every detail of the hammocks above him.
The situation wasn't sustainable. He told himself that sentimentality wasn't what lead him into the kitchen that night, up the stairs to the first of the three store rooms. He hadn't slept since Li had gone. He was desperate. This was the only thing he had left to try.
Slowly, careful not to make even the slightest noise, Jet sat against the wall of the narrow hallway, just beside the store room door. The wood was thin and flimsy, not meant for much of anything beyond keeping the room's contents out of sight. Through it he could hear soft breathing. Zuko, he thought. His name is Zuko, now.
He couldn't go in, but he could sit and listen for a while. Maybe that would be enough. He closed his eyes, felt his own breathing slow to match the other boy's. He didn't fight it. Just a little while wouldn't hurt.
But as he listened, the rhythm began to change. The breaths quickened and lost their depth, hitching in a way that made Jet's mouth go dry. He could hear fabric rustle, then the unmistakable rasp of skin against skin. He had heard all these things before. He knew exactly what they meant, exactly what Zuko's face would look like if he could see it — eyes closed and lips parted, brow creased as if in pain.
Zuko gasped his name, a broken whisper that sent all the blood in his body rushing toward his groin. He knew he should go but he couldn't move. He felt lightheaded. Zuko's breaths were ragged, more small, pleading words emerging from its rasp. "Jet," he whispered, the "t" lost in in the breath that followed. "Yes."
As Jet unlaced his trousers he told himself he was just being practical. He'd never be able to sleep like this. He may as well take care of it.
He kept himself as quiet as he could, mouth wide open to hide the sound of his breathing, synching the movements of his hands with the ones he could hear inside the room. Perhaps, if he hadn't been so tired, if it hadn't been so long since he'd had any kind of release, he would have felt some guilt at this. As it was, he felt only relief. And a slow, spreading warmth that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with this boy and his soft voice and how even after everything, even now, the name he whispered was Jet's own.
Neither of them lasted long.
Once he'd tucked himself away again and wiped his hands on his pants, Jet knew he'd stayed far past what was wise. But it was already so late, and he was tired. Zuko drifted off as he listened, breaths deep and slow, and he felt his eyelids grow heavy. It couldn't hurt to stay for just a little while longer. He stifled a yawn and tipped his head back, resting it on the wall. Just a little while.
oOoOo