[S1, Pohuai Stronghold]

Zuko wasn't in his room.

Looking around the room turned up a note in the stationary drawer with a single sentence on it.

'Gone whoring.'

"Dammit, Fire Prince!"

He hated it when Zuko disappeared. Really disappeared, leaving Jet no idea where he was because despite all rumors to the contrary they were not actually joined at the hip all hours of the day.

Not for lack of effort, but he was only a single person and it took at least three Zuko-wranglers for any kind of real containment.

It was why Jet and Iroh together still only managed it about half the time.

x

[Zuko Blue Spiriting through Pohuai, but using a stray archer as a shield, who is then shot]

Zuko felt a muscle in his cheek twitch as the boy in his hold slumped against him. There was a sour taste in his mouth.

This was the Fire Nation that Jet hated. The Fire Nation that said victory at any cost, the Fire Nation that would sacrifice an entire regiment as bait, the Fire Nation that would shoot through allies to get at the enemies on the other side of them.

That was the Fire Nation that Zuko hated, too.

Zuko knew he was making a horrible decision even as he made it. But still.

He couldn't leave the archer here. His allies had just shot him. Zuko knew what his father considered appropriate punishment for failure. He didn't hold much hope for Zhao being any better.

Change in plans, he decided, hauling the young archer over his back.

Oh? So there actually was one? asked a voice in the back of his head that sounded uncomfortably like Jet. A plan. You had one?

It's a work in progress, he thought back. His mind was ominously silent after that.

Just as well.

Jet passed his time by standing at Zuko's desk and brooding. He noticed there were a number of papers scattered across it. Navigation charts, expense reports, and, pushed to the far back corner of the desk, a stack of papers. He picked up the topmost sheet.

It was a list.

Kuzon – Shu Jing

Kuzon – Byakko

Kuzon – Onsenzakura

Li – Byakko

Li – Caldera

Chen – Momiji no Sato

Jet stared at the list, trying to make some kind of sense of it all. And then it slotted into place in his mind, all at once, and his breath caught.

It was a casualty list. There was only one explanation. The 41st.

He grabbed for a chair to hold him upright as his legs wobbled. Pages and pages and pages of names. Hand-written, every one. Had Zuko memorized the name and province of every single soldier from the 41st?

That was— it was downright masochistic. (That was impossible! An entire division of soldiers!) What the fuck, Fire Prince? Jet didn't even have any words.

(But he had names. Pages and pages of names, oh, Zuko.)

x

Jet's heart stopped when he caught sight of Zuko—staggering, limping, late, bloodied—and skipped two full beats before kicking back in with a terrible thump against his ribs.

And then he was running.

Jet stared down at the unconscious half-grown boy on the floor. "I can't believe you stole a Yuyan archer."

"Forcibly conscripted," Zuko corrected stubbornly.

"Stole."

Exhausted and worn right down to the quick, Zuko gave in with a sigh. "Fine. I stole a Yuyan archer."

"…Can I ask why you decided to steal a Yuyan archer?"

Zuko looked up, and the weariness in his eyes nearly cut Jet's legs out from under him. "They shot him," the prince answered, terrible and solemn, accepting and broken at the same time. "They shot through him to try to hit me."

If it were possible, Jet would spare him this pain, too. Dreams tearing at the seams, ideals torn and tattered. Disillusionment hurt like a bitch, he knew. But Jet didn't have a cure for a broken heart, especially when it was Zuko's own people who had broken it.

He hadn't been able to save Zuko's heart when his father broke it, either. Over and over again.

Jet stared at their forcibly conscripted Yuyan. "So. What's your name?"

The boy mimed pulling back the string of a bow and loosing it, then held his hand to his eyes in the universal sign of 'looking at something far away'.

"Longshot?" he and Zuko both said at the same time.

The boy nodded.

"Well, that's thematically appropriate," Jet muttered, and didn't even grumble when Zuko cuffed him on the back of the head.

"Hey, Fire Prince, bit of a problem."

"What is it?"

"We have a stowaway."

And Zuko blinked at him, because they had so many damn unregistered personnel on this ship that it wasn't immediately clear who or what he was talking about. Jet sighed. "An unknown stowaway," he clarified.

[Unknown stowaway is Smellerbee, obvs.]

X

[S1, Post Pohuai Stronghold]

Oh, this was just what Jet needed after anxiously waiting up all night for Zuko and watching him walk in half-dead and exhausted. Zhao.

"Take me to the prince."

"Sure. How many limbs are you willing to dislocate?"

"I won't tolerate threats."

"I'm not threatening you. Warning, maybe." If Zuko didn't want to be found, Zhao wouldn't find him.

"There can't possibly be many places on this tiny floating wreck for him to hide."

You wouldn't like to bet on that, would you? While Jet knew logically that Ty Lee technically took up less space than Zuko, he also knew the rules of spaces and places tended to get a bit… Squidgy, when pitted against the Fire prince's determination.

"Do you make it a habit to enter young men's cabins unescorted and uninvited? Admiral?"

"The Avatar broke out of Pohuai Stronghold?"

"There was an accomplice. It was more that he was rescued."

"My sister," Zuko started, apropos of nothing, "always said that children who can't hold on to their toys don't deserve to keep them." His voice was measured and deliberate in a way that it so rarely was.

"I didn't know you were proficient with broadswords, Prince Zuko."

Jet caught the look tossed his way, the way he and Zuko had caught things from each other for years, and snorted. "Maybe because they're mine. I don't know if you know this, but I'm kind of famous for my dual wielding."

Zhao turned to him, eyes dropping pointedly to the shuang-gou at his waist. "Do you often keep your belongings in your charge's personal room, bodyguard?"

The room that conspicuously held only one bed.

Jet did technically have a room upon this ship. It was nice. Standard. Insulated. It was where he kept his stuff.

Most of his stuff.

Some of his stuff.

What Jet actually had upon this ship was a storage closet with a bunk.

So the catamite comments are imminent, then, surely.

Because full-time bodyguards were supposed to get energy or sleep by tapping into the vast power of the cosmos or something apparently, even when there were perfectly good beds only steps away and ha, fuck that.

If anyone got in and close enough to see him and Zuko sleeping together in the same bed, they were probably there for reasons that meant they were alright to stab anyway.

"My job is to guard his body. That's only easier the more weapons I have close at hand." Jet smiled. "Maybe you'd like a demonstration, Admiral?"

x

It was Zuko's mother who taught him about patience.

She taught him about the painful calm he had to keep to lure in wary turtle-ducks. Once burned, twice shy, she'd said.

Animals didn't care about big gestures. They didn't care about excuses, either. They cared that they'd been hurt, and their trust broken.

And the only way to fix it was slowly, carefully, one grape at a time. Not bread, love. It's bad for their insides. Grapes and corn and lettuce leaves. Tossed one at a time, with careful, small motions, closer and closer.

And starting over again when they shied away because he'd hurt them before and they couldn't trust he wouldn't again. One grape at a time. His presence at the edge of the pond with his mother at his back as they talked.

And one tired, trusting, snoring little turtle-duck in his lap, fast asleep. Zuko learned patience slowly, carefully, painfully.

He'd thought it died with her.

But in three years aboard the Wani, Zuko had also managed to tame to his hand all four of the incredibly surly komodo-rhinos allotted his ship.

Unsaid: that he'd named all four of them and got them to respond to their names.

"…I can't believe this."

"She's so sweet."

"Her name is Licorice Twist."

"That's adorable."

Zuko preened while trying to pretend like he wasn't. Jet could feel his soul leaving his body. "Bloodthirsty war-beasts," he muttered. "These things are supposed to be blood thirsty war-beasts," he ranted at apparently no one as Zuko and Smellerbee continued to coo over the terrifying blood-thirsty komodo-rhino.

x

[S1, June]

"I'm looking for a stowaway."

'Which one?' Jet almost asked. 'Stowaways everywhere, take your pick! We've got the little girl, the older girl, the Yuyan archer… Me, technically. General Iroh kind of counts, I suppose. Excuse me: Former General Iroh. He's retired.' This was, after all, technically, a military vessel. That meant no passengers, and General Iroh—Excuse me: Former General Iroh, he's retired!—was, after all, as he kept insisting, RETIRED…! Thus, no longer military.

So why was General Iroh—Excuse me: FORMER GENERAL IROH, HE'S RETIRED—giving the Spirits-damned orders on Crown Prince Zuko's—not fucking retired! Still active even in fucking exile!—ship?!

Jet was officially fucking stumped. "This ship is fifty meters from stem to stern. We barely have enough room to throw a tantrum. Where do all these stowaways keep hiding?"

The ship was, if he were being fair, and honest, appropriately sized for the crew she carried.

Technically.

It was merely every single other circumstance around her that was the problem. Like that she was literally a century old, and insultingly tiny for a war ship. But she was fast, at least. And, given a choice, Zuko would choose small and fast over large and— no, wait. That was a lie. Zuko's royal pride wouldn't allow it. But! Given a reasonable choice, Zuko would pick small and fast and nimble over hulking ceremony, Jet knew it.

The prince just… Wasn't allowed to make reasonable choices.

"Uncle," Zuko croaked, visibly mortified in the way only young relatives of old lechers could be.

"We need money," Zuko said, like it was an enormous burden.

Which, now he thought about it.

Jet eyed the gaping hole in their ship and actually started tallying. "We need repairs, we need supplies, we need—" He grimaced, because there was no easy way to bring up The Iroh Fund, the money Zuko set aside for all stupid things Iroh bought or disasters he inadvertently caused. Are we a navy vessel or a floating tea shop? I forget sometimes.

Or because Zuko was a bleeding heart and Private Chen sounded so beautiful on the tsungi horn, Nephew it really would be a shame—

"That bounty hunter probably isn't going to be jumping to pay collateral damage, either. …and by that look on your face I'm guessing you want to hire her, too."

Actually, the look on Zuko's face suggested more that he wanted to throw himself overboard and please if they'd be so kind no one fish him out.

"You owe me."

"That wasn't me, that was Nyla. Besides, I don't have any money." And with those words barely off her tongue, she turned to the bartender and raised her glass. "Drinks are on me!"

"Then Nyla can pay the debt."

"Nyla doesn't have any money, either."

"Nyla isn't paying for drinks. The Fire Nation sees physical labor the same as coin."

The bounty hunter crossed her arms in a way that fluffed up her sweater kitten-puppies. Every male in the vicinity of their table looked. Jet looked. Zuko did not.

"What, don't want to set out immediately after whatever plan you have to convince me?"

"One day isn't going to matter either way." There was a Significant Pause that made tension crackle in the air. "And you're not going to be in any condition to count to one before noon tomorrow at the earliest."

Jet could have heard a pin drop in the sudden silence of the tavern, but he was honestly more concerned about Where was Prince Zuko and who had replaced him? Because the teenager sitting at the table couldn't possibly be him.

One day isn't going to matter either way hadn't been acceptable when he'd been relearning how to fucking walk after his father mutilated his face.

One day isn't going to matter either way hadn't been good enough when he'd been forcing himself to relearn firebending after his father mutilated his face with fire.

One day isn't going to matter either way hadn't been acceptable when he'd ordered the ship into the storm just weeks ago. (And obviously he'd learned from that, Jet didn't doubt him, honestly he didn't. But.)

What.

"You alright, Fire Prince? Feels like you're burning up."

Zuko shook off his hand. "I'm fine. Firebenders can't get drunk—"

"Firebenders can't get drunk? Why did I not know this? How did I not know this?"

"I don't like the taste of alcohol." He grimaced. "Tonight was an exception. We needed the money."

"And Iroh?"

"Jet, you know my uncle." Unfortunately. "At what point do you think he'd pick sake over tea?"

He laughed so hard he staggered, leaned against Zuko until he got his breath back, and continued shoulder-to-shoulder with the prince. "So, what? You just… Burn it off too quick?"

"Basically? But more, it… stokes the inner flame? It makes it brighter and hotter, and it's… dangerous. Fire is passion. If I get angry right now..." He didn't elaborate any further than that. He really didn't have to. "I should spar until I work it off, or meditate. Maybe." Zuko had a difficult enough time maintaining the peace for meditating normally, without being an emotional drunk.

"…are you sure you're not drunk?"

Zuko gave him a look he could read even in the dark, stepped away, and deliberately walked heel-to-toe for the next fifty paces without a single wobble as they returned to the ship.

A feat Jet didn't trust himself to accomplish right at this moment because fuck the transition between solid land and all things boat. He wasn't drunk, either, dammit.

Right, meditating normally without being an emotional drunk, or the firebending non-drunk equivalent.

Firebenders, honestly.

Fire princes, especially. And Zuko most of all. Jet nodded decisively at the conclusion of that thought.

Unlike his prince—apparently—Jet could get drunk.

Was drunk. A little.

Maybe.

At least, it was the best explanation he could come up with for why there didn't seem to be a single reason not to bridge the distance between them and press his lips to Zuko's. And also his body back against the steel wall of the ship with a clang.

It was a surprise when he wasn't immediately met with a flaming fist for his trespass, because hoo, boy, if anything in the history of ever counted as a trespass, this was it.

And that surprise didn't have anything on the one when Zuko actually kissed him back.

What the fuck, Fire Prince? What the fuck?

Well, that was… Not even remotely on the list of expectations, honestly. Punching, yes. Stabbing, yes. Fire, maybe. Kissing back? No.

Definitely no.

He pulled away only long enough to gasp out, "You gonna burn for me, Fire Prince?" Because yes he absolutely was that stupid and no Jet didn't regret a single second of this.

Zuko's next breath came out on a puff of steam, body temperature hot and rising.

The steel around Zuko's spread hands glowed bright orange-red. It was almost like firebending, getting Zuko like this, and Jet abruptly understood the rush benders must feel. All that power giving way to every move he made was an incredibly intoxicating feeling.

Also, note: stabbing? Terrible thing to think about right now. Terrible.

Fire, though? Somehow not. He'd wonder what was wrong with his brain but he already knew the answer. (The answer, surprising absolutely no one, would be Zuko. Zuko was the entirety of what's wrong with his brain.)

But for all the terrible inconveniently-timed associations and drunkenness and not-drunkenness-sure-whatever-you-say-Fire-Prince, Jet still wasn't totally hopeless. (Only minorly hopeless.)

So he wasn't going to even ask about penetration at the moment, the Fire Nation had a whole entire Thing about who did what to who. Jet couldn't even remember enough about his own culture to figure out if the Earth Kingdom had similar stupid restrictions and that was an existential crisis he could just save to examine some other day when he didn't have the prince of the Fire Nation hot and wanting in front of him.

So there was really only one question left.

"My thighs or yours?" Jet asked.

He grinned as Zuko swore a blue streak that'd have made Captain Jee blush and ended with a very heartfelt, "Fuck."

Jet couldn't agree more.

X