They are in the comments. There are a lot of them. Because I wrote a fuckton for this.
suzukiblu was my giftee.
dark_puck and
spyridona are my buddies.
neldluva,
crystaldrake, and
banditjoeykuba are also my people.
chameleon_pete and
takatohedgehog got random things written for them for various reasons.
'Verse: Uh. Canonish?
Characters: Jae/Huan
Author's Notes: So technically Jae's braid should be cut off by now, but it's prettiful.
---
Huan woke up sore the morning after. Which, given he and the earthbender had gone all night, made complete sense. Whoa. He'd always heard that Earthfolk had stamina, but he'd figured people had to be exaggerrating.
Yeah, so much for that theory.
He stretched and listened. He heard someone moving around in the other room in the apartment. Probably Jae. He wondered if the man had rebraided his hair yet, or if it was still flowing all pretty and loose down his back. Mmm. It had been nice to tangle his hands in it while Jae fucked him. And yanking hair wasn't as good as blazing his passion, but the earthbender didn't know he was a firebender and that was so not the way to tell him.
The smell of steaming dumplings caught him, and Huan pulled himself out of bed. He got dressed quickly, wondering if Jae planned to feed him before kicking him out or what.
The earthbender glanced up from the stove when he walked in. His hair, Huan noted with some disappointment, was braided again. On the other hand, he hadn't put a shirt on. Mmm, earthbender back.
"There's breakfast," Jae said, jerking his head at the table.
Huan blinked at the rather impressive spread, and his stomach rumbled. Well. Who was he to complain? He ate fast, though. Just in case.
"You remind me of me at that age," Jae said after a bit, and Huan glanced up to see him holding a cup of tea and a bit of steamed bread.
"How so?" He asked, curious. He didn't see how he could remind Jae of anything like himself. Jae was Earth Kingdom, after all, and even if he thought Huan was too, Huan really wasn't. He was only hiding his proclivities to keep from scaring the people he performed. Heck, he wouldn't have realized about Jae at all if the man hadn't kept running into him while he danced. Running into him all over the Lower Ring, which had been a little worrying until Huan figured out Jae worked as a courier.
So it made sense why Jae kept running into him. Though not why Jae always had money for a street-performer. At least not until Jae had invited him to get some tea.
Huan knew how to handle that once he figured out what was really going on. The tea and conversation were just the polite forms, things the Fire Nation didn't bother with for a simple roll in the hay. But he understood why Jae needed them here in Ba Sing Se. Earth Kingdom men didn't do this kind of thing, after all.
"Didn't get to have sex until I left home," Jae replied, "But we pretty much went all night and were only marginally awake the next morning. Thanh rolled his eyes at how much we ate - he's dealt with sixteen-year-olds and their sex-drives before."
Huan coughed and suddenly found the bottom of his mug very interesting. Um. Earth Kingdom men didn't talk like that, either. No one in the Earth Kingdom did.
Jae chuckled. "Just because no one talks about it doesn't mean we don't know."
"You're actually the first to have kept me around for so long," Huan admitted, giving the man a lopsided grin. "Wore me right out."
"Can't say much for the rest of them if they didn't even want you around until morning."
Huan flushed at the compliment hidden in those words. Jae was nice, and he was glad to have had last night with the earthbender. It'd been the first time in- in, well, ever that he'd had sex just for having sex. "They only wanted one thing, and I wanted another. There's a word for people like me."
Reply
Part of him knew he couldn't possibly measure up to whatever Jae was measuring him against.
"When'd your father kick you out?" The earthbender asked abruptly.
"I ran away, actually."
Jae nodded. "When?"
"I was just about fifteen." Fifteen and due to go into Basic Training the next year. No way in the inferno he could have done that. Being a firebender didn't make him a killer.
Jae nodded again. "Sixteen. Disowned on top of it. At least I had a place to go - a lot of people like us don't. So you either don't love who you want, or you trade in for a shitpotfull of trouble and unpleasantness and doing what you have to do to get by."
'People like us' warmed Huan far more than it should have. He wasn't like Jae, not even a little bit. No one had cared he was gay, just that he could firebend. But it felt awful nice to pretend he belonged, to pretend he deserved the earthbender's empathy. (Deserved the earthbender's soft mouth and wicked hands. Deserved the same kind of look in the earthbender's eyes when he said the name Sang Min.)
Huan winced. "Fire men had their uses. Got me here, at least."
"Don't know how much of a blessing that is. You could pass for Fire pretty easily - they don't think the same way we do about this kind of thing."
"Could and did. Sometimes they care about who they're fucking." It wasn't really a lie that he had passed for Fire. Not really. Huan tried hard not to think of the way Jae picked fights with Fire soldiers. Better to think about how Jae's cock felt or of maybe getting worn out like that again. He liked the man, he wanted the man, and-
And Jae thought he was Earth Kingdom. Continuing to lie to him about that felt, well, it felt dangerous.
Of course, not lying to Jae about it felt even more dangerous.
Huan reached for another steamed roll and decided to wait and see. The point might be moot entirely, after all. One night of hot, crazy sex did not mean Jae was interested in him staying around any longer than necessary after breakfast. Or even ever seeing his face again.
End
Reply
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment