[Zuko POV~]
But Ba Sing Se was massive , and not only could he not find Jet, he couldn't find Agent Yin Yue, either.
If nothing turned up soon, his next idea was doing something stupid and conspicuous and conspicuously stupid to get grabbed by the Dai Li himself.
It was admittedly not a good plan, even by his rather loose and chaotic standards, but desperate fires burned desperate fuels. (And Zuko very carefully didn't think about the second half of that saying. How desperate fools made for desperate fuels.)
The actual plan he went with was only marginally less stupidly reckless.
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[Jet was brainwashed by the Dai Li to forget Zuko, which neatly vamps his hatred of the Fire Nation up to canon levels. Cue canon sword fight, only Zuko's idea of ending the fight is letting Jet shank him with one of his swords and getting them both thrown into Dai Li Jail together. Jet's protect-Zuko instincts go mad and give him bad headaches to start countering the brainwashing.]
He moved the tight hold he had on his side and was answered with a hot-wet gush covering his hand and wrist. It didn't take the top spot, but it was definitely one of the worst ways he'd experienced warm-wet- leaking as a sensation .
The smell of blood was almost overwhelming in the small space.
The hold on his arm tightened. "Fire Nation, what are you doing? "
"I have to… have to stop the bleeding."
"Taking the pressure off isn't how you fucking do that!" Jet shouted, reaching for the gash.
Zuko pushed him away, pushed him back entirely. And when Jet's face firmed, expression going immovable, Zuko held up his hand and produced a flame.
Jet flinched back, face twisting into a scowl. "I don't know what you're thinking—" He didn't believe him, or not quite. Didn't remember him entirely. But he remembered something. There was a crack. That would have to be enough.
"I think…" he trailed off and lost the end of that thought somewhere.
His breath was coming shorter. He really did need to stop the bleeding. He really, really didn't want to.
And oh, apparently he'd said that out loud, because Jet's hands were tight on his shoulders. "I don't care if you want to! Stop the bleeding! "
"I-if pain is the loyalty you'll accept, it's what I'll give you."
Zuko was panting now, and he couldn't even tell if it was the pain or the oncoming panic. Because he could feel it building. Black and huge and swamping, a wave to drag him down-down-down. He swallowed hard.
It was easier to focus on Jet's words, to listen to an order.
Trembling, shaking, and breaking out in a cold sweat, Zuko pulled his chi away from his injured side, and pressed the fire to his skin.
And Zuko burned .
Jet couldn't do anything but watch. Had never been able to do anything but watch.
Watch as his village burned and the Earth Kingdom burned and Zuko burned.
Zuko burned.
He burned and the fire flared higher and hotter because he was a firebender and the flame wasn't under someone else's control and fire reacted to high-value emotions like pain and fear/terror/oh-spirits-please-stop-no!
The Fire prince's tortured scream ripped Jet's heart open and memories gushed like blood from a wound. Like the bubbling, blackening blood on Zuko's side under the fire.
"Zuko! Fire Prince, no!"
His head throbbed—spirits, it hurt, like… he couldn't even think of a comparison with Zuko's screams ringing in his ears. All at once, Zuko slumped, like a doll carelessly dropped mid-play and Jet caught him before he could hit the floor and do himself more damage.
More damage than holding fire to his own skin spirits what the fuck, Zuko? No. No.
Zuko's breath tickled his throat to the beat of all four of a humming-fly's wings all at once. That couldn't be anything close to a healthy rhythm.
( Less healthy than burning himself? )
"C'mon, Fire Prince, breathe with me. Just breathe for me. Zuko. "
" Jet, " came the reply, choked and desperate and relieved and seven other things he couldn't catch.
The air in the cell was a terrible mix of warm campfire and burning flesh and blood and dust and metal, but he needed Zuko to breathe it all the same. "Breath control."
Zuko's next ten breaths took approximately three seconds total but that was still a marked improvement.
There was weak clutching where Zuko's fingers circled his wrist. "Remember?" he gasped between terrifying short breaths. "Do you—"
" Yes. " He remembered every single horrifying detail, all at once. The relief in the prince's eyes was painful. But, then, pretty much everything about Prince Zuko was painful. And the sun rises in the east, Jet thought with something like finality and something like resignation. "Now quit wasting your breath on talking and use it for breathing. "
Surprising him precisely not at all, Zuko ignored the command. "Hurts," he whimpered. "Hurts. It—"
He couldn't help but ask, "Was this part of the plan?" Because there had to be one. Terrible, risky, half-thought. But there.
Always, always there.
Zuko's scratchy, broken laugh closed Jet's throat on a hard lump. "If I get any more lop-sided," he began, but then trailed off and never finished. His hand trembled against his side and Jet found it impossible to breathe.
"Wish we had Maple or Sushimi here." Wouldn't be the first time they'd had them steal a set of keys. As it stood, they had nothing. The Dai-Li had searched them both very thoroughly, and Jet was down both sets of his lock picks and the tattered scraps of his dignity.
Jet had one idea, and he was fully ready to admit that it was a terrible idea.
But he didn't have any others and they were on something of a time-crunch here.
"Got a plan, but it all depends on you, Fire Flake."
Zuko snorted softly. "Your nicknames are getting more and more ridiculous." They were. But Zuko didn't ask him to stop and Jet didn't offer.
"Just wait," he promised instead. "You haven't seen near the depths I can sink to."
Zuko didn't waver, voice low and even as he asked, "What do you need me to do?"
"You'll have to burn even hotter, Fire Prince. You think you can do it?"
"I don't know," Zuko said, with a voice that pulled Jet back months in time to the Wani, when he'd asked Zuko if he thought he could be a bigger problem. He kind of wished things were as simple and light-hearted now as they'd been back then. And back in the present, Zuko's expression firmed, gold eyes dark. "But I'm going to try."
Spirits, but Zuko was beautiful. "So fucking pretty," he whispered against pale skin. Everything about him was fucking gorgeous, from collar bones sharp enough to cut, to every muscle he'd carved into being with painstaking hours of training. Long, elegant fingers, eyes brilliant and clear that showed right down to the burning gold of his soul.
Zuko's scars did nothing to mar that image, only added a dangerous overtone to the glory before him, like the terrible majesty of a multicolored canyon carving through the earth. Zuko's was the savage beauty of survival . Every scar a declaration of one more victory, one more time he'd been put back down and one more time he'd got back up. A quiet pride and rebellion in every line.
Jet was maybe just a little smitten and a lot utterly, hopelessly devoted.
"Flattery and sweet words will get you nowhere ," Zuko hissed.
"Zuko, If I got any further with you, you'd be legally obligated to marry me."
Zuko snorted and reached out to wrap his hands around the bars of their cell.
Jet's arm tightened around him, firm and steadying. "Come on, Firebrand, you can do this. You almost melted forged steel. But we're in the Earth Kingdom, this stuff can't be better than, what, ten-fold iron? You can do it."
Firebenders—very obviously—weren't fire proof. But they were very fire resistant. (That made it so much worse, why did every time and everything he thought about that make it so much worse? )
That said, fire resistant or otherwise, there was a glow behind Zuko's skin. He was running so hot there was literal fire flickering under his skin—in his stomach? What.
Fire Prince, what.
Fuck, that was a dangerous thought to have and no, no, he definitely couldn't afford to acknowledge how fucking hot that was right now no.
Slowly, so painfully slowly, the metal began to glow, first a dull, strawcherry red and then banana-onion yellow. Hotter and hotter, until they flared white and at last at last at last, Zuko did the impossible and melted the bars holding them captive.
Jet caught him as Zuko staggered away from the absolute ruin he'd left of their cell bars. "Easy, Fire Prince. I've got you."
"Got it," Zuko slurred. "S'like… dipping my hands in the sun. Incan— incandescent. We were incandescent." His hand splayed over Jet's chest and he was breathing hard—harder than a firebender should, face bright red almost to the point of worrying, and Jet didn't particularly like how deep pink his hands and arms were.
"I've got you," he repeated, trying to dredge up everything he could recall about Chi Drop from the depths of his memories, because if Zuko didn't have that right now, after what he'd just done , they were both a pair of waterbenders. Something like sleep deprivation and something like being drunk with a dash of exposure on the side, if he was remembering right.
Probably the closest thing to drunk Zuko would ever actually get.
Rest, food, water, fuck, Jet didn't want to think about what that little demonstration had done to Zuko's hydration levels.
(He wasn't going to think about Zuko and blood loss right now because no. )
Sun. Firebenders low on chi needed sunlight more than anything. Heat. Sleep.
Zuko's finger tapped against his chest, again, and again, and again. A simple two-beat rhythm that didn't quite line up with his heartbeat. Zuko's either, from what he could feel. "You burn, too," he murmured, "I can feel the fire in you."
"Only for you."
Delirium. His Fire Prince was delirious.
Delirious is better than dead.
Jet could almost be surprised Zuko was still upright right now, even with his help, except this was actually right up Zuko's particular alley of stubborn survival.
Thank Agni.
X
[Extra]
[Meeting a Dai Li agent on their way out]
Jet pointed behind them, to the still-glowing, melted bars. "Do you think you stand a better chance?"
Wait, he kind of recognized that particular stressed scowl.
"Li?"
"Yin Yue?" Zuko slurred.
"Hey, hey, hey! His name is Agent. "
Zuko smiled, but that was the last response he gave before going limp in Jet's hold.
Agent stepped forward and Jet tensed. "What happened?"
How far could they trust this Dai Li agent, anyway? But. But Zuko seemed to trust him. And Jet—
Jet didn't even trust himself right now.
"Your creepy-ass boss thought I'd be better as a Joo Dee and invited me to stab my lover."
Agent's breath caught audibly, and Jet watched the war in his eyes as he took in everything. The still-glowing bars behind them, the unmistakable stench in the air.
The Dai Li's eyes closed. "Long Feng was arrested for plotting against the Earth King."
"Hey, I was arrested just a few days ago, too," Jet said. It was all he said. It was all he had to say. Where is your loyalty?
"Let me help. Please."
Jet scrutinized him, hard. He still didn't trust him. But Zuko was limp in his hold, weak from blood loss and half-drunk from chi-drop. He needed help. Zuko needed help.
He nodded.
"You can still help me carry him. Get his other arm—and keep your hold above the shoulders." He didn't have to elaborate more on why, because there was, conveniently, still a massive dark bloodstain all down Zuko's left side where it pressed against Jet. He'd bled a lot (where Jet had stabbed him) and they were both covered in (Zuko's blood) gore.
He pulled in a deep breath and let it out harshly as Agent took up position on the other side. Come on, keep it together. You can vomit out your guts later.
Jet was getting uncomfortably used to the feeling of Zuko limp over his shoulder as he dragged them along. All after the firebender had done something stupid and self-sacrificial, of course, and that was becoming uncomfortably familiar, too.
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