Once Upon a Teashop (Chapter Two)
Title: Once Upon a Teashop
Pairing: Jetko, Zukka
Summary: In which Jet's a stalker, Sokka's suspicious, and Zuko just wants to make it through the day without murdering anyone. Welcome to the Jasmine Dragon.
Chapter Summary: Zuko manages to get a date while Jet and Sokka bet on his life.
Rating: T
Warnings: Crack? Which will clearly lead to some OOCness. Oh, and Jet's alive. Slightly AU, but will follow most of the major events of the end of Season 2, even if it ignores the timeline.
Notes: Sorry about the length of time between updates; hopefully I'll be better about that in the future. But basically I stopped and took the time to finish planning this story. And it is good. :D
One Big, Cosmic Joke
It was days like this that Sokka wondered when his life had turned into a big, cosmic joke. Actually, scratch that. He knew when it happened. It happened the day Katara was born, all cute big eyes and cool waterbending skills and innate ability to make her older brother look like an idiot. But during some point since he started this journey with Aang (this futile attempt to save the world), the spirits seemed to have started taking delight in torturing him, personally.
Which is how Sokka found himself here. The Jasmine Dragon. Serving tea in an apron, with Zuko (prince of the spirits-damned Fire Nation) and Jet (…yeah, that same psycho Jet who tried to destroy a whole village). On the bright side, Iroh was pretty cool now that Sokka had taken the time to get to know him. And he paid well. If Sokka kept this up (and Aang didn’t go spending money they didn’t have on useless things like whistles) Team Avatar would probably have enough money to finish their quest and destroy the Fire Lord. Once they found Appa, of course.
All in all, though, Sokka had to admit that the job wasn’t that bad. He’d been working here for all of five days, and it turned out that working in such a city-renowned teashop had great benefits. Namely, eye-candy. Like that girl with the braided pigtails who had come in every day since he started. From the scowl Zuko got on his face whenever the scarred teen noticed her, Sokka assumed she’d been coming in for even longer than his measly five days. So, in that way, life at the Jasmine Dragon was pretty damn good. Even Mr. Moody-Fire-Nation-Price wasn’t a problem as he tended to sit in the back room being emo too himself while brewing the tea (turns out he was grateful that Iroh had hired the extra help after all. He only ever needed to deal with people when the place got extremely packed-usually about two hours every day). No, the problem was a certain Freedom Fighter with a penchant for hitting on his favourite baby sister. The wheat-chewing boy had been bugging him for the past week: today, especially. And if there was one thing Jet had in droves, it was clearly stalker-tendencies. Every step the blue-clad teen took, every move he made, Jet was there on his heels. And exiled princey over there had to deal with this almost every day?
Sokka almost felt bad for Zuko. Almost.
“Hey, Sokka,” Jet, speaking of the slimy bastard, sidled up next to him.
“Don’t talk to me,” the water tribe boy ordered, picking the tray with Iroh’s freshly-brewed, freshly-poured tea, and turning to deliver it to cute pigtailed girl who was staring at Mr. Emo-pants himself, a love-struck grin spread across her dainty face
“Sure, why not. That girl’s been eyeing Li for days, and he’s completely oblivious. I think she’s going to make her move.” The smirk that was plastered on Jet’s face clearly read, ‘I’m a genius’. Which he so wasn’t. Sokka had called it from the first day on the job-not that the stalker would remember.
“Ignoring you,” he replied instead of pointing this fact out.
“Yeah, okay,” Jet shrugged, his own tray full of tea almost spilling with the movement. “Bet you two gold coins that he completely blows her off.”
Sokka snorted, shooting a bemused look at the current object of his ire. “Like hell that’ll happen. You’re on.” Clearly Jet wasn’t factoring Iroh into the equation. Sokka rolled his eyes, turning away from his fellow employee to drop the tea off at his table. And now that the lovely young lady there had been served, it was break time. Which also meant time to sit back and win two gold coins, easy as pie. Shooting an eager grin at his nemesis as he passed, the water tribesman meandered over to the sequestered table that the two had claimed as their own during breaks. He plopped himself into the seat against the wall and mentally prepared himself as he watched the girl finish her tea. A few seconds later he was joined by said nemesis, and the other boy seemed perfectly content to stalk Zuko to his heart’s content. The two turned to each other, shared a look, and then sat back to watch the fireworks.
Meanwhile, Zuko, Mr. Emo-pants himself, was absolutely positive that his life was a big, cosmic joke. The universe simply took pleasure in taunting him, in creating situations that it knew would cause him pain and agony, be it physical or mental. The spirit world was out to get him and him alone. No one else. Just him, banished prince of the fire nation.
Let it never be said that Zuko was not paranoid. Of course, it’s not paranoia if it’s true. In this case, though, it definitely was paranoia. Approaching his uncle, he glanced around cautiously to make sure that no one was in earshot (especially Jet, the stalking bastard) before he started.
“One of the customers is on to us,” he began. “Don’t look now, but there is a girl over there at the corner table. She knows we’re fire nation.” Iroh raised an eyebrow, turning to glance over his shoulder at this mysterious girl. With a scowl, the teen grabbed the old man’s arm. “Didn’t I say don’t look?!”
A sly smile slid over Iroh’s face as he replied. “You’re right, Zuko. I’ve seen that girl in here quite a lot. Seems to me she has quite a little crush on you!”
The exiled prince froze, a look of horror slipping over his face. He gaped at his uncle like a button-down shirt that was entirely too small. “W-what?” he finally managed.
“Thank you for the tea!” a peppy voice interrupted, and the dark-haired boy turned to see the pigtailed girl there, holding out the money for the payment. Zuko grabbed the money and turned to put it away before she could see the blush that was beginning to form on his face. “What’s your name?” she asked once his back was turned towards her.
Spinning back around, the socially-stunted teenager awkwardly replied, “My name’s Li! My uncle and I just moved here.”
A soft smile was on her face as she stared at him. “Hi, Li, my name’s Jin. Thank you, and…well…I was wondering if you’d like to go out sometime.”
Zuko stared at her blankly.
“He’d love to!” Iroh interrupted, a giant smile on his face. Who knew that after all those years of living on a ship at sea with absolutely no girl’s around, his nephew would turn into quite the lady-killer? Granted, the signs had always been there, what with the young lady Mai, but living with no women changed a boy.
Zuko, meanwhile, continued to stare blankly at Jin.
“Great!” she exclaimed. So what if Li hadn’t agreed himself? She had a date! “I’ll meet you in front of the shop around sundown,” the pigtailed girl concluded, turning to leave. Iroh, still smiling, slung an arm around his taller nephew’s shoulders, finally breaking the boy out of his stupor as the scarred young man turned to glare down at him. Of course, the retired general had dealt with that look for years and just ignored it, giving his very favourite relative a pat on the back before turning back to his brew.
Jet, meanwhile, could’ve laughed…if he didn’t cry, that was. Turns out the joke was on him. All the spirits were probably having a grand old time with the fact that he hadn’t factored the old man into his equation. He turned to face the water tribe boy who was giving him that cocky smirk.
“Pay up,” Sokka chortled. With a scowl, the older boy dug into his pocket and plopped the two coins into his competition’s hands.
“This isn’t over,” Jet growled. There was absolutely no way he was losing to that idiot, not after Sokka had caused him to lose Katara’s favor. The girl had left him stuck to a tree and covered in ice. When the rest of his Freedom Fighters had finally managed to get him out, it had been a wonder to all of them that he hadn’t caught any type of hypothermia. “How about this: double or nothing. I bet you anything he ends up ruining the date tonight.”
Sokka snorted. “Oh, please. If there’s one thing I know, it’s girls. I made out with the moon spirit once, you know. Oh, Yue…” he trailed off for a second, staring longingly into the distance before snapping back to the conversation. “And my current girlfriend? Kick-ass warrior, let me tell you. But like I was saying, I know girls. That’s the type of girl who’ll find all Z-Li’s weird antics adorable. You’re on.”
“Fine,” the tall boy glared. He stood up and stretched, getting ready to return to work. “We meet out here just before sunset to follow them. How does that sound to you?”
“Perfectly agreeable. But, man, Li’s completely right about you. You are a stalker.”
“If I’m a stalker, what does that make you for coming with me?” Jet shot back, placing his wheat stalk back between his lips.
Leaning back in his chair and placing his arms behind his head, Sokka regarded his nemesis coolly. “I’m just a man with a heavily invested interest.”
“Sure you are,” was all the reply he got before the other boy was off helping with closing up the shop for the day. Just as he was about to get up to go help, a dark presence suddenly hovered over him. For a second, a chill went up his spine and Sokka thought it was some dark spirit come to wreak vengeance for an unknown evil. Then he looked up and realized it was just Prince Pouty with his usual penchant for pissy-ness.
“Oh, uh, hey Li,” he greeted, an unusual glint in his bright blue eyes.
Zuko grunted and grabbed Sokka’s arm. “C’mere,” he muttered, dragging the younger boy into the back room.
Sokka raised an eyebrow, definitely curious. The other teen kept twitching, and had begun to pace back and forth.
“Um…I, uh…I kind of-you will help me!” the angry prince finally forced out.
A snort came from the water tribesman as he leaned back against the shelf. He glanced around the small room, taking in the washbasin filled with dirty dishes and the tea supplies stacked around the room before finally settling his gaze on the sweating boy, a sight that was strange in itself because firebenders rarely sweated. Their body heat was unreasonable.
“Okay, I’ll help you,” he finally relented after a moment. “But only because you look so pathetic. Oh, and I’ve got invested interest in this. See, Jet bet me that you’ll end up scaring that girl off on your date tonight-don’t look so surprised, it’s a small teashop, and you guys were pretty loud. At least your uncle was. But like I was saying, Jet had a bet, so there was no way I could refuse it, you know how relentless he is.” Sokka broke off, noticing how hot the room had suddenly become. He glanced at the silently stewing prince.
“You…you guys are betting on me?!” Zuko exclaimed. Anger flowed off of him in waves of heat causing the room to suddenly become stiflingly hot.
“What the hell, Zuko? Calm down before you set something on fire! Unless, of course, you want to be arrested by the Dai Li.” He paused before adding, “Not that I care, or anything. I mean, go ahead. Get arrested. No skin off my back.”
The temperature dropped back to normal and Sokka was met with a look that was singularly not amused, Zuko’s only good eye narrowed. “Let it be said that the only reason I’m agreeing to this stupid date is because it’ll get Uncle off my back and Jet’s an asshole whose face I will beat in again when all this is over. So what do I need to do?”
Sokka paused. “Wait a minute, wait a minute. Did you say again? You mean you’ve beat Jet up before? Seriously? You gotta tell me, c’mon, dude! From one guy who can’t stand him to another.
Huffing, the prince dropped to the floor, stretching his legs out as he gestured for his enemy-turned-coworker to do the same. “Fine. I tell you, you help me, no one else ever hears of this. Got it?”
“Sure, sure,” the water tribesman acquiesced, sliding down to sit across from the scarred boy.
“You know how Jet’s been stalking me?” Zuko asked, though he continued before Sokka could get a word in edgewise. “Well, it didn’t start with the creepy, obsessive, underwear-sniffing type that he’s got going on now. It was a few weeks ago, and he saw uncle bend his tea warmer at the station-we had met on the boat to Ba Sing Se, by the way, and he kept trying to get me to join his stupid Freedom Fighters-and started following us around trying to prove we were firebenders. Which we are, but no one else needs to know that. Anyway, one night I guess he got tired of it and publicly accused us of firebending at the old teashop we were working at while some guards happened to be there. He attacked us to try and get us to defend ourselves by firebending, and I, uh,” Zuko paused, rubbing the back of his neck as a faint blush crossed the bridge of his nose, “I grabbed one of the guards’ dual dao blades and took him on. Almost sliced his head off, too, but the asshole ducked…So, anyways, the Dai Li came and were going to arrest him for ‘disturbing the peace’, but I…might have felt a little bad? I don’t know, it was a stupid moment of insanity, but I told them he was drunk and I’d take him home. Surprisingly they left him alone, and Jet decided I couldn’t possibly be firenation if I’d done something that nice. Bastard didn’t stop stalking me, though. What?” the prince added, seeing the way Sokka was gaping at him.
“Okay, two things: first of all, you took on Jet, master of the hook sword, with dual dao blades? I thought firebenders didn’t lower themselves to things such as weapons. And secondly, did you just say you did something nice?”
Zuko glared at him. “I happen to be a master at dao blades, thank you very much. When you don’t live in Fire Nation territory, which I haven’t since I was thirteen, it helps if you have other forms of defense. I learned that shortly after I was banished.” He fell silent for a moment, and Sokka shot him an indecipherable look before he continued. “And as for Jet, well…temporary insanity, like I said. Besides, the look on his face-it was like kicking a tiger-puppy!” And the look on Sokka’s face got even stranger.
“Um, Zuko, I don’t know if you didn’t get the memo or something, but you’re evil; you’re supposed to do things like kick tiger-puppies.” An extra nod of the water tribe boy’s head gave the statement extra emphasis.
The exiled teenager snorted and shot a disbelieving look at the younger male. “I’m not evil. Azula’s evil. And for the record, she does do things like kick tiger-puppies and throw rocks into turtle-duck ponds for fun. And besides, Azula’s downright friendly compared to my father…” His voice turned slightly bitter during the last bit, and Sokka decided it was officially time for a topic change.
“So!” the tan boy exclaimed, slapping a hand down on his knee. “Girls. Here’s what you need to know…”
TBC…
Pairing: Jetko, Zukka
Summary: In which Jet's a stalker, Sokka's suspicious, and Zuko just wants to make it through the day without murdering anyone. Welcome to the Jasmine Dragon.
Chapter Summary: Zuko manages to get a date while Jet and Sokka bet on his life.
Rating: T
Warnings: Crack? Which will clearly lead to some OOCness. Oh, and Jet's alive. Slightly AU, but will follow most of the major events of the end of Season 2, even if it ignores the timeline.
Notes: Sorry about the length of time between updates; hopefully I'll be better about that in the future. But basically I stopped and took the time to finish planning this story. And it is good. :D
One Big, Cosmic Joke
It was days like this that Sokka wondered when his life had turned into a big, cosmic joke. Actually, scratch that. He knew when it happened. It happened the day Katara was born, all cute big eyes and cool waterbending skills and innate ability to make her older brother look like an idiot. But during some point since he started this journey with Aang (this futile attempt to save the world), the spirits seemed to have started taking delight in torturing him, personally.
Which is how Sokka found himself here. The Jasmine Dragon. Serving tea in an apron, with Zuko (prince of the spirits-damned Fire Nation) and Jet (…yeah, that same psycho Jet who tried to destroy a whole village). On the bright side, Iroh was pretty cool now that Sokka had taken the time to get to know him. And he paid well. If Sokka kept this up (and Aang didn’t go spending money they didn’t have on useless things like whistles) Team Avatar would probably have enough money to finish their quest and destroy the Fire Lord. Once they found Appa, of course.
All in all, though, Sokka had to admit that the job wasn’t that bad. He’d been working here for all of five days, and it turned out that working in such a city-renowned teashop had great benefits. Namely, eye-candy. Like that girl with the braided pigtails who had come in every day since he started. From the scowl Zuko got on his face whenever the scarred teen noticed her, Sokka assumed she’d been coming in for even longer than his measly five days. So, in that way, life at the Jasmine Dragon was pretty damn good. Even Mr. Moody-Fire-Nation-Price wasn’t a problem as he tended to sit in the back room being emo too himself while brewing the tea (turns out he was grateful that Iroh had hired the extra help after all. He only ever needed to deal with people when the place got extremely packed-usually about two hours every day). No, the problem was a certain Freedom Fighter with a penchant for hitting on his favourite baby sister. The wheat-chewing boy had been bugging him for the past week: today, especially. And if there was one thing Jet had in droves, it was clearly stalker-tendencies. Every step the blue-clad teen took, every move he made, Jet was there on his heels. And exiled princey over there had to deal with this almost every day?
Sokka almost felt bad for Zuko. Almost.
“Hey, Sokka,” Jet, speaking of the slimy bastard, sidled up next to him.
“Don’t talk to me,” the water tribe boy ordered, picking the tray with Iroh’s freshly-brewed, freshly-poured tea, and turning to deliver it to cute pigtailed girl who was staring at Mr. Emo-pants himself, a love-struck grin spread across her dainty face
“Sure, why not. That girl’s been eyeing Li for days, and he’s completely oblivious. I think she’s going to make her move.” The smirk that was plastered on Jet’s face clearly read, ‘I’m a genius’. Which he so wasn’t. Sokka had called it from the first day on the job-not that the stalker would remember.
“Ignoring you,” he replied instead of pointing this fact out.
“Yeah, okay,” Jet shrugged, his own tray full of tea almost spilling with the movement. “Bet you two gold coins that he completely blows her off.”
Sokka snorted, shooting a bemused look at the current object of his ire. “Like hell that’ll happen. You’re on.” Clearly Jet wasn’t factoring Iroh into the equation. Sokka rolled his eyes, turning away from his fellow employee to drop the tea off at his table. And now that the lovely young lady there had been served, it was break time. Which also meant time to sit back and win two gold coins, easy as pie. Shooting an eager grin at his nemesis as he passed, the water tribesman meandered over to the sequestered table that the two had claimed as their own during breaks. He plopped himself into the seat against the wall and mentally prepared himself as he watched the girl finish her tea. A few seconds later he was joined by said nemesis, and the other boy seemed perfectly content to stalk Zuko to his heart’s content. The two turned to each other, shared a look, and then sat back to watch the fireworks.
Meanwhile, Zuko, Mr. Emo-pants himself, was absolutely positive that his life was a big, cosmic joke. The universe simply took pleasure in taunting him, in creating situations that it knew would cause him pain and agony, be it physical or mental. The spirit world was out to get him and him alone. No one else. Just him, banished prince of the fire nation.
Let it never be said that Zuko was not paranoid. Of course, it’s not paranoia if it’s true. In this case, though, it definitely was paranoia. Approaching his uncle, he glanced around cautiously to make sure that no one was in earshot (especially Jet, the stalking bastard) before he started.
“One of the customers is on to us,” he began. “Don’t look now, but there is a girl over there at the corner table. She knows we’re fire nation.” Iroh raised an eyebrow, turning to glance over his shoulder at this mysterious girl. With a scowl, the teen grabbed the old man’s arm. “Didn’t I say don’t look?!”
A sly smile slid over Iroh’s face as he replied. “You’re right, Zuko. I’ve seen that girl in here quite a lot. Seems to me she has quite a little crush on you!”
The exiled prince froze, a look of horror slipping over his face. He gaped at his uncle like a button-down shirt that was entirely too small. “W-what?” he finally managed.
“Thank you for the tea!” a peppy voice interrupted, and the dark-haired boy turned to see the pigtailed girl there, holding out the money for the payment. Zuko grabbed the money and turned to put it away before she could see the blush that was beginning to form on his face. “What’s your name?” she asked once his back was turned towards her.
Spinning back around, the socially-stunted teenager awkwardly replied, “My name’s Li! My uncle and I just moved here.”
A soft smile was on her face as she stared at him. “Hi, Li, my name’s Jin. Thank you, and…well…I was wondering if you’d like to go out sometime.”
Zuko stared at her blankly.
“He’d love to!” Iroh interrupted, a giant smile on his face. Who knew that after all those years of living on a ship at sea with absolutely no girl’s around, his nephew would turn into quite the lady-killer? Granted, the signs had always been there, what with the young lady Mai, but living with no women changed a boy.
Zuko, meanwhile, continued to stare blankly at Jin.
“Great!” she exclaimed. So what if Li hadn’t agreed himself? She had a date! “I’ll meet you in front of the shop around sundown,” the pigtailed girl concluded, turning to leave. Iroh, still smiling, slung an arm around his taller nephew’s shoulders, finally breaking the boy out of his stupor as the scarred young man turned to glare down at him. Of course, the retired general had dealt with that look for years and just ignored it, giving his very favourite relative a pat on the back before turning back to his brew.
Jet, meanwhile, could’ve laughed…if he didn’t cry, that was. Turns out the joke was on him. All the spirits were probably having a grand old time with the fact that he hadn’t factored the old man into his equation. He turned to face the water tribe boy who was giving him that cocky smirk.
“Pay up,” Sokka chortled. With a scowl, the older boy dug into his pocket and plopped the two coins into his competition’s hands.
“This isn’t over,” Jet growled. There was absolutely no way he was losing to that idiot, not after Sokka had caused him to lose Katara’s favor. The girl had left him stuck to a tree and covered in ice. When the rest of his Freedom Fighters had finally managed to get him out, it had been a wonder to all of them that he hadn’t caught any type of hypothermia. “How about this: double or nothing. I bet you anything he ends up ruining the date tonight.”
Sokka snorted. “Oh, please. If there’s one thing I know, it’s girls. I made out with the moon spirit once, you know. Oh, Yue…” he trailed off for a second, staring longingly into the distance before snapping back to the conversation. “And my current girlfriend? Kick-ass warrior, let me tell you. But like I was saying, I know girls. That’s the type of girl who’ll find all Z-Li’s weird antics adorable. You’re on.”
“Fine,” the tall boy glared. He stood up and stretched, getting ready to return to work. “We meet out here just before sunset to follow them. How does that sound to you?”
“Perfectly agreeable. But, man, Li’s completely right about you. You are a stalker.”
“If I’m a stalker, what does that make you for coming with me?” Jet shot back, placing his wheat stalk back between his lips.
Leaning back in his chair and placing his arms behind his head, Sokka regarded his nemesis coolly. “I’m just a man with a heavily invested interest.”
“Sure you are,” was all the reply he got before the other boy was off helping with closing up the shop for the day. Just as he was about to get up to go help, a dark presence suddenly hovered over him. For a second, a chill went up his spine and Sokka thought it was some dark spirit come to wreak vengeance for an unknown evil. Then he looked up and realized it was just Prince Pouty with his usual penchant for pissy-ness.
“Oh, uh, hey Li,” he greeted, an unusual glint in his bright blue eyes.
Zuko grunted and grabbed Sokka’s arm. “C’mere,” he muttered, dragging the younger boy into the back room.
Sokka raised an eyebrow, definitely curious. The other teen kept twitching, and had begun to pace back and forth.
“Um…I, uh…I kind of-you will help me!” the angry prince finally forced out.
A snort came from the water tribesman as he leaned back against the shelf. He glanced around the small room, taking in the washbasin filled with dirty dishes and the tea supplies stacked around the room before finally settling his gaze on the sweating boy, a sight that was strange in itself because firebenders rarely sweated. Their body heat was unreasonable.
“Okay, I’ll help you,” he finally relented after a moment. “But only because you look so pathetic. Oh, and I’ve got invested interest in this. See, Jet bet me that you’ll end up scaring that girl off on your date tonight-don’t look so surprised, it’s a small teashop, and you guys were pretty loud. At least your uncle was. But like I was saying, Jet had a bet, so there was no way I could refuse it, you know how relentless he is.” Sokka broke off, noticing how hot the room had suddenly become. He glanced at the silently stewing prince.
“You…you guys are betting on me?!” Zuko exclaimed. Anger flowed off of him in waves of heat causing the room to suddenly become stiflingly hot.
“What the hell, Zuko? Calm down before you set something on fire! Unless, of course, you want to be arrested by the Dai Li.” He paused before adding, “Not that I care, or anything. I mean, go ahead. Get arrested. No skin off my back.”
The temperature dropped back to normal and Sokka was met with a look that was singularly not amused, Zuko’s only good eye narrowed. “Let it be said that the only reason I’m agreeing to this stupid date is because it’ll get Uncle off my back and Jet’s an asshole whose face I will beat in again when all this is over. So what do I need to do?”
Sokka paused. “Wait a minute, wait a minute. Did you say again? You mean you’ve beat Jet up before? Seriously? You gotta tell me, c’mon, dude! From one guy who can’t stand him to another.
Huffing, the prince dropped to the floor, stretching his legs out as he gestured for his enemy-turned-coworker to do the same. “Fine. I tell you, you help me, no one else ever hears of this. Got it?”
“Sure, sure,” the water tribesman acquiesced, sliding down to sit across from the scarred boy.
“You know how Jet’s been stalking me?” Zuko asked, though he continued before Sokka could get a word in edgewise. “Well, it didn’t start with the creepy, obsessive, underwear-sniffing type that he’s got going on now. It was a few weeks ago, and he saw uncle bend his tea warmer at the station-we had met on the boat to Ba Sing Se, by the way, and he kept trying to get me to join his stupid Freedom Fighters-and started following us around trying to prove we were firebenders. Which we are, but no one else needs to know that. Anyway, one night I guess he got tired of it and publicly accused us of firebending at the old teashop we were working at while some guards happened to be there. He attacked us to try and get us to defend ourselves by firebending, and I, uh,” Zuko paused, rubbing the back of his neck as a faint blush crossed the bridge of his nose, “I grabbed one of the guards’ dual dao blades and took him on. Almost sliced his head off, too, but the asshole ducked…So, anyways, the Dai Li came and were going to arrest him for ‘disturbing the peace’, but I…might have felt a little bad? I don’t know, it was a stupid moment of insanity, but I told them he was drunk and I’d take him home. Surprisingly they left him alone, and Jet decided I couldn’t possibly be firenation if I’d done something that nice. Bastard didn’t stop stalking me, though. What?” the prince added, seeing the way Sokka was gaping at him.
“Okay, two things: first of all, you took on Jet, master of the hook sword, with dual dao blades? I thought firebenders didn’t lower themselves to things such as weapons. And secondly, did you just say you did something nice?”
Zuko glared at him. “I happen to be a master at dao blades, thank you very much. When you don’t live in Fire Nation territory, which I haven’t since I was thirteen, it helps if you have other forms of defense. I learned that shortly after I was banished.” He fell silent for a moment, and Sokka shot him an indecipherable look before he continued. “And as for Jet, well…temporary insanity, like I said. Besides, the look on his face-it was like kicking a tiger-puppy!” And the look on Sokka’s face got even stranger.
“Um, Zuko, I don’t know if you didn’t get the memo or something, but you’re evil; you’re supposed to do things like kick tiger-puppies.” An extra nod of the water tribe boy’s head gave the statement extra emphasis.
The exiled teenager snorted and shot a disbelieving look at the younger male. “I’m not evil. Azula’s evil. And for the record, she does do things like kick tiger-puppies and throw rocks into turtle-duck ponds for fun. And besides, Azula’s downright friendly compared to my father…” His voice turned slightly bitter during the last bit, and Sokka decided it was officially time for a topic change.
“So!” the tan boy exclaimed, slapping a hand down on his knee. “Girls. Here’s what you need to know…”
TBC…