[S2, Song]
There was an ostrich-horse, and a ravine. The ostrich-horse was in the ravine. And it was injured. An injured ostrich-horse in a ravine.
Also in the ravine: a sabretooth moose-lion. A sabretooth moose-lion that seemed very interested in one wounded ostrich-horse.
He already knew how this was going to go.
Jet watched Zuko watching the tense scene down below, and hummed the cavalry reinforcement call.
The prince glared at him.
"What, like I'm wrong?"
That he only got a sigh in answer was very telling.
Zuko drawing his swords was even more telling.
It had been something of an open secret back on the Wani that One Did Not Simply Get Hurt Around Prince Zuko And Expect To Have A Quiet Evening. There was lecturing, there was fussing, there was surly glaring at the stupid private and his stupid concussion and why didn't you move when you saw two firebenders sparring?!
Less openly said but no less secret: that Prince Zuko would mother-hen just about anyone and anything that stood still long enough for him to cluck at them.
x
[Song showing Zuko her scars, Emotional whiplash I'M SORRY]
Zuko staggered past, bleeding to death from wounds Jet couldn't see, and he immediately went to the healer. " What did you do? "
"What?"
"He saved your fucking ostrich-horse and now he's— I don't know what you did, but—"
The rest of his rant died as ash on his tongue as the young woman reached down and pulled up the leg of her pants to show the winding, climbing burn crawling up her leg. Up and up under the fabric—
There was an implication there, one that Zuko, with his intimate knowledge of burns, could not have possibly missed.
Jet turned away and covered his mouth with his hand to keep from gagging. Agni above and Guanyin below.
"Sorry," he choked out, fleeing.
He found Zuko out behind the barn, swinging his dao with blind desperation.
Zuko loved his nation and its people. Fiercely. Desperately. But he did not love them blindly . He had, once. Once upon a time, before he met a small Earth Kingdom boy, before he'd entered a war council, before he'd seen the remains of the Air Temples, before he'd spent almost three years at sea in Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom ports.
He hadn't had the option to be that blind little prince in a long, long time.
" Why? " he wept, choking and panting but without tears. 'My nation, my people, why?'
Jet didn't have any answers for him. Zuko didn't have the mercy of denial. Had not had that mercy since Jet had thrown himself at him at eight years old, with tears on his face and accusations on his lips that Zuko had done nothing to deny.
Zuko had sacrificed his body and his honor for his people, time and again. Jet couldn't imagine how much it burned when those people acted so completely without honor of their own.
[Jet and Zuko getting ready to leave. MORE WHIPLASH.]
"My ostrich-horse likes him better than me."
"You know, the last one to get into an argument with Li over who owns that ostrich-horse was a sabretooth moose-lion. And the moose-lion didn't win, either."
x
[S2, The Chase. I wish my brain had been willing to do more with this episode, but the way it plays out largely like a Looney Tune skit kind of killed the inspiration to try writing it.]
"Yeah, yeah. Now come get your komodo-chicken."
" Ostrich-horse! " came the offended correction, as Jet knew it would. "And also her name is Song !"
Song the ostrich-horse. Song-the-human-woman would either find that deeply insulting or incredibly endearing and Jet had a bad feeling he knew which it would be.
"I'm about to do something really stupid," Zuko warned.
"'About to?' You willingly threw yourself against both Azula and the Avatar . What part of this entire situation hasn't been stupid so far?"
"LEAVE!" Zuko shouted with a lash of fire. Jet stood silently beside him with his swords.
Zuko hadn't been able to trust the ship's cat to the crew. The crew he'd been part of for a year at that point.
And the Avatar expected him to trust his injured and vulnerable uncle to the enemy.
The last time Zuko had trusted the hand reaching out not to hurt him, it had cost him half his face.
x
[S2, Bitter Work]
"No," Iroh interrupted. "Azula is crazy and needs to go down."
Zuko went taut as a bow string, expression open and— Jet didn't think Iroh could have put that look on his face any faster had he slapped Zuko open-hand.
+ [And now we start digging into the fun parts~ EMOTIONS!]
"But I don't feel any shame at all! I'm as proud as ever!"
Jet snorted, holding up his hands beseechingly when both princes glared his way.
Iroh went on, "Prince Zuko, pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source. True humility is the only antidote to shame."
Okay, he wasn't even going to try to hold back this time. " I know what you're ashamed of." Zuko looked his way with equal parts curiosity and apprehension. "Your skill with your dao, because steel is lesser than fire . You're good, and you know you're good, and being good makes you happy . And that's just intolerable to you.
"Mercy," he continued, refusing to pull any punches. "Kindness. Weakness. " And at that , Zuko flinched. "The Fire Lord and Azula have never missed a chance to mock you for it."
"I—"
"But it's what Ursa loved about you most. Feeding the turtle-ducks, saving the life of a man you thought would betray you, rescuing a little girl, saving a Yuyan archer recruit left to die by his fellows.
"And you're ashamed of your scar." The prince's body jerked like Jet had taken a whip to his flesh. "And dammit, you shouldn't be!" He punched the ground in front of him and glared at the fire prince, dared him to deny it. "Zuko, you put your body on the line to try and save the lives of an entire regiment! …and you see that as the greatest mistake you ever made.
"Well, I don't. If that's not honor, I don't know what is."
Zuko was deadly silent next to him, gaze on his knees and hands flexing open and closed. He wasn't arguing back, at least.
Yet.
But Jet knew Zuko, and he knew he'd brood on this, because trauma and three years at sea had made Zuko excellent at brooding and over-thinking, no matter what Former General Iroh said about his lack of planning.
He sighed, looked up and the sky, and then turned to Iroh. "Could you set something on fire for me?"
Zuko's shoulders tensed, like he knew what Jet was thinking—probably did. Brooding. "Don't! He's going to—" He cut himself off and looked away.
Iroh looked between them with a furrowed brow, but Jet didn't back down. "Fire. …please."
"No!" Zuko rounded on him with the temper of a young volcano. "Why do you keep doing this?"
And Jet's temper got the best of him, too, because he was getting really fucking tired of the distrust in that question. He grabbed Zuko's wrist and yanked it up, pulling him closer until they glared at each other from a breath away. "Because you're worth following, dammit! I said it three years ago and I'm saying it now and I'll say it however many spirits-damned times I have to until it sinks through that thick head of yours! If an oath of pain is the only kind of loyalty you trust, it's the fucking loyalty I'll give you!"
Zuko's golden eyes burned through him. "I don't want your pain, you water-logged idiot! I want you safe!"
"Then you better get over these damn hang-ups you have over protecting me! Protecting all of us, 'cause I don't intend to leave the others behind. Do you?" Jet softened his voice and his grip. "I'm not going to make it easy for you. I have it on good authority I get into all kinds of fucking trouble."
Zuko snorted softly. "You are the trouble."
He grinned. "That, too."
Golden eyes looked away. "It's not easy."
Jet's turn to scoff that time. "Who the hell lied to you an' said any of this was gonna be easy? When's that ever stopped you? Fuckin' sword master at fifteen, found the damn Avatar when everyone else in a hundred years failed, broke into and out of Pohuai Stronghold with the fuckin' Avatar, while stealing one of their archers. You eat impossible for breakfast and have difficult for tea."
"Explains why it tastes so bad."
"So you're an acquired taste."
x
He was only a little surprised when Zuko gave him the secret meeting signal. He made the response sign back and neither of them did anything more until well after bedtime.
He snuck away first, because even years later, it was still easier for Zuko to sneak around, so if Jet got away clean, they were both good.
He figured the cliffside they'd used earlier was still just as good, and forty breaths later, it was evident Zuko had thought the same, warm form sitting next to him in the darkness.
Thirteen breaths after that, the fire prince pulled in a deeper breath. "You're ashamed of your loyalty."
Jet went tense before he could stop it. Then huffed and forced himself to relax. "Is this revenge for today?"
"…This pain I'll accept."
…dammit. "Heh. You're not playing fair."
"Low War," Zuko agreed. But he didn't take it back. Just waited in the dark with him, warm and there.
Like he'd always been there, from the very first.
He never could deny that waiting silence. "Loyalty, huh?"
"You hate the Fire Nation."
"True."
He didn't have to see those golden eyes to feel them on him.
"And you love the Fire Nation."
"…Ha." Dead in the dark, straight through the heart. "True." It was a beautiful land. Full of beautiful, cruel, amazing, terrible people. "Make it better , Prince." A nation not built on blood. A Fire Lord that cared about the lives in his hands. A leader worth following. A land it wouldn't tear him apart to love.
They both deserved that much.
"I'm banished."
"Yep."
"Exiled."
"That, too."
"A wanted criminal."
"You never do anything by halves."
"A traitor to the throne."
"Might as well make things interesting."
It was easier to talk, in the dark. Always had been. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven breaths later… "I promise."
Jet smiled. "Never doubted it."
x
[The White Lotus Part]
"Welcome, Brother," the man bowed. "The White Lotus opens wide to those who know her mysteries."
[Iroh being all Mystical (tm) and Cryptic (tm) with White Lotus passcodes, and Jet and Zuko are talking in Yuyan Sign that Longshot taught them.
Jet: "We're not allowed in the secret old people club. And I-" *holds hand to his chest* "-am heartbroken. No, no, go on. We'll just wait out here and make our own club."
When Iroh comes back out and sees them signing: "What are you doing?"
Jet: "Secret young people club stuff, you wouldn't understand." ]
x
[Managing to meet up with Longshot, Smellerbee, and Chibi outside the gates of Ba Sing Se thanks to Iroh.]
"My name is Xiao-Mei," Chibi said, proud and clear.
The irony of this moment was not lost on him. "You got her to tell us her name—right before we have to have her lie about what her name is."
"…yeah, that sounds like my kind of luck," Zuko concluded, ever the ray of sparkling sunshine in their dark world.
+[Iroh's flirting]
"My name is Mushi."
And spirits help him, Jet could not stop himself from muttering, "Former General Mushi, he's retired."
There came a choked sound at his side and Zuko cleared his throat and coughed to try and cover it, but Jet could see his lips twitching helplessly.
X