The terrible thing about firebenders—

…

One, of the incredibly very many terrible things about firebenders, was their horrible tendency to rise at the asscrack of dawn, every single day, without fail, and completely without mercy for any poor bastards who were hungover and who had gotten to sleep only hours before.

Poor bastards like, say, Jet, just for completely random example.

"Would you like some calming tea?" Iroh offered, far too fucking cheerful for hungover-in-the-morning.

"I would like a sharp blow to the back of the head with a heavy object," Jet corrected. He held out his hand. "But I'll take the tea."

Zuko was so quiet and self-contained, Jet wondered for a bit if he'd actually managed to fuck the snooty right out of their prince. That'd be worrying.

Incredibly satisfying and unspeakably useful, but worrying.

Running his fingers across Zuko's bare scalp was heart-stoppingly intimate in a way he'd never had to think about before.

Having sex changed everything and nothing. Somehow being between Zuko's legs wasn't very high on the list of intimacies they'd shared.

But feeling Zuko's fire respond to his touch had been.

That had been— Fuck. Just... just— fuck.

What had he been thinking? Zuko was a prince. Zuko was Fire Nation. Zuko was the epitome of Fire Nation. He was— Was...

Zuko was fire. He'd still been every inch fire— Every. Burning. Inch. —in Jet's hands, and far from putting him off, it had only made him want it more. Hot hot hot but he'd never once been worried about getting burned because that hadn't even seemed like an option with Zuko.

Zuko wasn't the razing fire that scorched fields, he was the campfire that drew everyone to its light. Sometimes he flared and threw sparks, but he was the safety in the night that warded against dangerous things. He was the hearth without which there was no home.

Fuck, Jet was in love with the prince of the Fire Nation.

x

[S1, The Deserter]

Zuko reached over with casual violence and socked the misbehaving komodo-rhino on the nose. "Behave," he warned, and everyone in the caravan stared as the beast snorted and listened. The prince pointed to the back of the formation. "Trade places."

"But, sir—"

"Trade. Places. That beast will be right back to scuffling in a minute. They don't like each other."

With as quiet a shuffling as several-ton animals could manage, the formation rearranged itself. Jet felt Zuko relax as the komodo-rhinos settled into a placid lumber.

Quietly, for his ears only, Zuko said, "Licorice Twist and Cinnamon Twist are sisters. They don't get along and will always jostle if they're next to each other." This declaration was followed with a deep sigh. " Children. " The komodo-rhino under their legs snorted its –her?—opinion, and Zuko socked her in the shoulder, too. "Don't you start."

Jet decided it was in his best interests to develop a fascination with the clouds overhead so his shaking didn't give him away. A spar once the prince realized he was being laughed at would slow them down further and he didn't think Zuko would appreciate it any more than the scuffling rhinos. "Ninja~" he sing-song whispered, and that was more than enough to get him an elbow to the stomach.

x

[S1 Ship Explosion]

Zuko groaned. Or—thought he groaned. His hearing seemed to be, as Jet—or the rest of the Wani's crew except maybe Uncle—would say, fucked.

Oh, he hurt. He hurt very much. And he promised to not do whatever it was again as soon as it stopped hurting, Uncle, he was so sorry.

Something brushed at the throbbing mass of agony in the space his face usually occupied and no, he didn't even want to think about that right now. He really, really didn't. He reached up to the brushing thing and, well, squashed it—accidentally!—to his chest. It rumbled. A very familiar rumble, too.

"Br-r-r-r-r?" It was three-quarters physical but he still heard a little bit, over the ringing and headache.

"Sushi—ah!" Talking. Talking was a mistake.

His fingers rumbled again, lower and more consistent. Purring. Sushimi's purring. Zuko ran his fingers over her head and just let himself float.

"I had it, Jet."

"You— what? "

"The fire. The explosion. I had it. It came for me and I—" had it.

"How are you feeling, my nephew?"

With a stark self-assessment, Zuko concluded, "Hurts worse than a broken wrist, less than when I got my burn."

Jet couldn't hide his grimace. "I hate when you rate new injuries you've gotten on a scale of other injuries you've gotten."

Confused gold eyes blinked at him. "Is there some other system you'd prefer I rate them on?"

"Fluffy bunny-cats," he joked.

Zuko snorted. "Fine, then. I rate this one as 'that time I tickled Sushimi's belly with my foot.'"

And still he managed to make Jet wince because ow, he'd seen the blood from that little spat and it'd been enough to impress Iroh into forcing Zuko to take the morning off training and treat the wounds because 'animal claws and mouths cause infections easily'.

Zuko's wounds had been treated, Sushimi had been given a bath, Sushimi had escaped her bath, Sushimi had been caught. Helmsman Kyo had been put on bed rest, lieutenant Jee had had the hallways mopped up, and no one had been happy.

That morning on the Wani had been very exciting for everyone involved.

It had not been very productive.

x

[S1]

There was a wandering spirit aboard Admiral Zhao's Taikai. All of the crew knew it, in a general sense. But only about thirty of them, including a new, looked-over cook, knew what it really meant.

Only those thirty had, after all, been living with this particular spirit the past year.

[Omake: "Zhao, the Moon Slayer. Zhao, the Invincible !"

"Zhao, the fucking obnoxious," Jet whispered.

Zuko choked next to him, but he did it quietly.]

x

[S1, pre North Pole]

Fathers were entirely different creatures to uncles. After all, Father was uncle to Lu Ten, but he never raised a hand against him—never dared even raise his voice against Lu Ten. (And Grandfather, Father's father, had said 'You must learn the pain of losing a firstborn' .) So Zuko knew it wasn't just his father. (It wasn't just him . Father messed up sometimes, too. Guessed wrong. But somehow it still wound up falling in on Zuko specifically. That's what he got, he supposed, for using up all his luck with just being born.)

He'd managed to work out what uncles were like. And Uncle was safe— as his uncle.

He had no idea what Uncle would be like as a father, but Zuko didn't exactly have a good record with them.

(He didn't know what Uncle would be like as a father because he'd never been around Lu Ten and Uncle together enough to find out. He'd never seen Lu Ten make uncle angry, let alone furious.)

x

[S1, On Zhao's ship]

Zuko might very well have trusted his father more than his uncle right now, through no faults of either of their own.

(Well, except Ozai. It was always his fault, as far as Jet was concerned, and there was basically no blame at this point that he wasn't willing to lay at his feet.)

But Zuko knew exactly where the lines were with his father. His sister was less clear, but not unclear. And he knew excruciatingly, exactly how much it hurt to cross those lines.

He didn't know that about Iroh. He didn't know where any of Iroh's lines were, and he had no idea what possible punishment he might incur by tripping over them, entirely unaware. The unknown was always so much worse than the known, and that meant that, even with what Ozai had done, Iroh was the bigger threat.

If nothing else at all, Iroh was the bigger—or at least more immediate—threat solely because he was there. He was there and present and very much within touching distance when Zuko wanted nothing less than touch right now and Ozai was at least an ocean separate. Gave him that much distance and time.

Too, Zuko didn't understand Iroh. He'd trusted Ursa because he'd gotten an object lesson in ' what moms are like' that had cemented itself by crossing species boundaries. He'd never gotten a lesson on ' what uncles are like, ' but if it was anything like what fathers and grandfathers were like, Jet didn't blame him one damn bit. His grandfather had ordered him dead and his father had been willing, if they believed Azula (and spirits help him, but Jet did believe Azula. If he believed nothing else she ever said in her life, he believed her that far) and Iroh's son was dead.

Iroh's son being dead hadn't even made Azulon hesitate on the life of another. And Iroh was a father.

He didn't understand. And above all, he did not trust. Jet didn't blame him one bit.

He did pity him, though. Just a little.

x

"It's strange that the moon and ocean would choose such fragile mortal forms."

"Being fearsome-formed did not save the dragons."

x

[S1, North Pole]

Nothing in his life had prepared Zuko for the first time he'd wound up in freezing arctic waters. It was so overwhelming a sensation that it didn't even register as 'cold', it was just pure pain. Like jumping into knives.

For one terrifying moment, his chest had seized in a painful, wrenching spasm that clawed at his lungs and nearly stilled his heart behind his ribs.

He'd gotten better since then.

The cold at the poles bit. It bit and scratched and dug into the marrow of his bones. It had teeth and claws and fangs.

But Zuko had those things, too. And more, Zuko had fire.

x

[S1 NP Finale]

"Do you have a plan for dealing with the enraged spirit monster?!"

Oh, Zuko's silence was worrying. It worried him very much.

"You won't like it."

I already don't like it. "Tell me anyway."

"...we pray."

Oh, spirits, they were going to die. "…Do you have a back-up plan? "

"…Yes."

"Great! What's the back-up plan?"

Zuko's determined expression turned Jet's spine to water before he ever spoke. "I'm going to give it a target."

Like he did, when Zuko lost his temper. Rile him up even more and then give him something to throw all that anger at.

Oh, shit.

"Zuko?"

"Working on it."

"Could you work a little faster?"

" Trying. "

He was going to say something else when fire flickered in the corner of his vision. Jet turned to look, and swallowed hard as his mouth went dry.

In the still air above Zuko's head, above his phoenix-tail, wavered a single, floating flame. " Hinotama, " Jet rasped out. Ghost fire. It had, once upon a time, been the mark of the Fire Lord and heirs, until something-something-history and they'd switched to using the crown hair pieces still in use today. Apparently curtains of flame coming from the floor were more impressive.

Jet couldn't say he agreed.

Zuko— no. That didn't fit right.

Crown Prince Zuko, heir to the Dragon Throne, looked up at the might of the ocean spirit, and called its name. "La."

Jet shivered. To call a spirit's name was to call its attention to you. And while he'd always been a little irreverent with Agni, he had a scar on his hand and a ball of trauma he carried with him from His chosen that he felt entitled him to a little leeway and irreverence. It was another thing entirely when the ocean spirit was there with them in the physical world and stopping and turning toward them oh fuck they were going to die this was a terrible idea.

When it turned toward them fully, quashed them under the weight of its attention like a viperhawk with a cricketmouse under its claws, Zuko went down to his knees and then down further into full dogeza, forehead pressed to the freezing ice.

Jet preferred the back-up plan. He really, really did. Even angering the spirit sounded better than waiting, than hoping.

Hoping had never gotten him anything. Movement, doing, had. Anything to put more distance between them and one of the primal spirits of the world. Anything to get Zuko up off his knees.

His palm burned, his scar glowed golden in the strange half-twilight, Agni's acknowledgment of his oath.

Tui was Agni's sister but what did that mean, really? Azula was Zuko's sister and that'd never stopped her from trying to kill him.

Jet trembled before the might of the ocean spirit but he didn't dare move from in front of his prince. If that thing took Zuko, it was going through him first. He couldn't do anything but depend on the mercy of the great ocean spirit.

Zuko'd never had much luck with mercy.

The ocean wasn't known for its temperance.

But Jet had been a little bit luckier. He'd found Zuko, after all. If that bit of luck could do anything, he was willing to risk it.

x

[La goes away.]

Everyone waited tensely for the break in the silence and what it would bring. Zuko looked out over the waiting fleet and Jet watched over him.

There was a decision to be made here.

His Fire Prince didn't shake, but Jet could see the frantic stutter of his pulse at his throat and the million possibilities dancing in his eyes.

The ships waited—wouldn't dare not wait after that display. The Dragon Throne alive and well and in their midst and no claim of banishment would make them go against the hinotama Zuko had used to prove his birthright to the spirits.

The hinotama that still burned above his head.

Until Zuko got off the wall, they wouldn't resume the attack. If they resumed the attack, there was every chance of the spirit monster coming back and dragging every single one of them to a watery grave.

There was no worse grave, to the Fire Nation.

The Avatar was behind them. And there was nothing they could do to get him.

In a way, choosing to face La had been an easier choice. Jet would never— never —take it for granted, but it was easier to make a choice when you knew that one of the options meant you wouldn't live to experience the fallout. But no matter which way Zuko went here, now, he'd have to live with the consequences of his decision.

They all would.

But he was Zuko. And he made the same call he'd made when Longshot's life depended on him. The same when it was embarrassing but Chibi needed him.

The same that had earned him his banishment.

"My people mean more."

And with that decision—open defiance of the Fire Lord's orders for this fleet—the Avatar had just stopped mattering. Capturing the Avatar could lift a banishment.

Treason wasn't so lenient.

It was the decision and willingness to make it that made him a good prince. And it was the one that would have him irrevocably removed as prince.

x

Captain-provisionary-Admiral Jee: "What about you two?"

"Consider us Shanghaied."

Jet, grinning. "We were overdue for a mutiny anyway."

"What do you mean, my uncle wasn't on the ship? I told him to stay on the ship!"

This seemed like an absolutely terrible time to remind Zuko of all the times and places Iroh had told him to stay and behave before he'd turned around and gone off on an adventure.

x

"How you holding up, Fire Prince?"

Golden eyes cut to him before looking away.

Looking away pointedly. "Have to find another nickname for me."

The cold slinking through his veins had nothing to do with the ice floes around them. "Over my. Dead. Body," Jet said, with a smile that felt distinctly more predatory than anything else.

Zuko looked out over the ocean, swallowed hard. "I just committed high treason."

There was certainly no denying that. No reason to deny it, either. "Saved a hell of a lot of lives, though."

Zuko's official offense, on paper, was cowardice. 'Banishment for dishonorable cowardice unfit for the Dragon Throne.' To be exact. What he'd just done in the north, that wasn't just a decision made, it'd been a point made, too.

Jet hoped the Fire Lord choked on it, when the fleet made it back. When you punish someone for being loyal, what else can you expect but treason?

But he didn't say it and Zuko didn't respond. That was fine, though, they had time enough to lance out all the poison.

"I'm so tired ."

Hmm, I wonder why… "Then rest."

"I am resting," Zuko lied blatantly from where he was leaned against his shoulder.

"So do you actually understand the meaning of the word 'rest', or is it just like an academic curiosity to you?"

"I rested just three years ago?" Zuko tried, and yeah, no.

" Zuko. A coma , a severe injury healing coma isn't rest , that's not what that word means! "

Zuko almost smiled at that. But he only hummed and Jet blew harshly in his ear.

"Sleep," he ordered, mostly hopelessly but he had to try .

"You're just as tired," Zuko argued, because he wouldn't be Zuko unless he argued with perfectly reasonable suggestions to his health and safety.

" I didn't fight the fucking ocean. Sleep , Spirit Prince. You've earned it. I've got first watch."

He only got a fuzzy murr in response and without bothering to move or lay down or anything, Zuko finally gave in and went to sleep, right there on Jet's shoulder.

They were on a river trawler, being powered by nothing more than one cranky firebender. Alright, imperial firebender . But still. Even crankier for it. In the middle of the arctic ocean. Weeks away from any kind of dry land.

They had the time to spare for talking out their issues.