"Negotiations" (Avatar: The Last Airbender, Jetzula)
Title: "Negotiations"
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Characters/Pairings: Jet, Azula, JETZULA!!!
Rating: T/PG-13
Warnings: Er, Jet and Azula being, well, Jet and Azula... XD
Word Count: 1,645 (so much for writing a "drabble" for each... heh)
Challenge: Comicon '06 Shipping Panel personal challenge/
jakia's anti-OTP write-a-thon (even though this is my OTP, but oh well)
Ship #2
Jetzula
"Negotiations"
Jet massaged his arms, trying to bring some feeling back into them. It had taken the boys almost three hours to chip him out of the ice, during which his arms had gone numb from both the cold and the immobilization. He cursed Katara, spitting bitterly onto the wooden floor. Somewhere along the way, as he toyed with her feelings, he felt himself being pulled into her naive, innocent charm, her breathless wonder and childlike curiosity.
And he hated her for it.
He began to feel a warm tingling in his arm, which soon turned into a fiery pain, hundreds and thousands of little needles stabbing into his arms, over and over again. He grit his teeth and tipped his head back to look at the ceiling, waiting for the wave after wave of pain to stop, the wave after wave of her and the memory of her to stop, her fury, her raw power, the way she quickly and all-too-easily turned the tables and pinned him up, helpless, unable to do anything but watch as she undid his plan right before his eyes.
He felt the pain begin to ebb away, fading until it was only a few pricks here and there, and then nothing. He stretched his arms, bringing them over his head, then behind his back as a slow, lazy smirk began to spread over his face.
Since she had killed his plans and hopes... he'd do the same to her. No, not the Avatar-it would be far too difficult to capture him, never mind taking him down and killing him. No, he'd settle for someone a bit closer to her heart, the one who had been persistently opening her stubborn eyes to him.
Her brother.
Sokka, was it? That idiot of a boy who fancied himself a warrior. He'd find them, then ambush them while they slept. He'd take Katara and Sokka, leaving the Avatar sleeping, blissfully unaware that his friends were being carted away under his very nose. Then, he'd pin Katara to a tree, the same way she had pinned him to a tree, and kill Sokka before her eyes. Naturally, they'd have to be sure that she was away from any source of water, or else they'd be in big trouble.
Jet's smirk widened as he stood.
"Sounds like a plan," he said softly to himself.
Azula smoothed out the hair in her face, making sure that each and every strand was perfectly in place. They had been traveling for the whole day, following the Avatar's trails. It would most likely be a while before they found him; the places that they visited told her that the Avatar had already gone, weeks ago.
They entered a forest, the lizards plodding easily over the fallen logs and the underbrush. Azula carefully and gracefully avoided the low-hanging branches as Ty Lee folded herself into a low, pretzel-like shape. Azula raised an eyebrow. No matter how many times Ty Lee did that, she still found herself slightly disturbed by the way she made that surely uncomfortable position look entirely enjoyable. Meanwhile, Mai simply ducked and avoided the branches, bored look forever on her face.
A while later, they reached a clearing. Azula steered her lizard to a stop; Ty Lee and Mai followed suit. Azula took a look around, on the lookout for any sign of movement. Seeing none, she pulled on her lizard's reigns, but before it could take a step, something dropped down from the branches above and landed lightly next to her. She heard two more thumps behind her before she felt the cool tip of a blade a millimeter away from her throat.
"Who are you, and why are you here?" said the person wielding the blade, a boy with unruly hair, looking to be around seventeen years old, chewing the end of a haystalk, dressed in mismatched armor.
Azula raised an eyebrow, then said cooly, "And who are you? A Freedom Fighter?"
The boy jabbed the blade at her, and she dodged it easily. "Yes. Name's Jet. Now answer my questions."
Azula sighed. She knew that there were probably many more of them a bit further ahead; being a Fire Nation princess in the midst of Freedom Fighter territory would make things rather difficult. She could defend herself with her firebending, but things could still turn risky if she found herself surrounded on all sides.
"I'm looking for the Avatar," she said. "He's traveling with a girl and a boy, both from a tribe of Waterbenders. Have they been through here lately?"
Jet spat onto the ground beside him. Azula wrinkled her nose. "Yes, they have," he said bitterly. "What's it to you?"
"I intend to capture and destroy him," she said casually, as if talking about the weather. She had noticed the way his eyes narrowed when she mentioned the girl, and smirked. "And if that means killing his companions, too, then so be it."
He lowered his blade slightly and frowned, eyes looking at the lizard, then travelling up to take in Azula's attire, and her hair clip. "And you're from the Fire Nation, aren't you?"
Azula sighed again, knowing that any lie she told would be inadequate. "Yes."
He jabbed his blade at her again, but in an instant, she lept off the lizard and was behind him, pinning his arm behind him. She saw similar motions out of the corner of her eye and knew that Ty Lee and probably immobilized her captor, and that Mai had probably stunned hers with a dart.
"We do not welcome the Fire Nation here," he hissed. Azula smirked, then stood on her tiptoes.
"I know," she murmured in his ear, smirking as she noticed the shiver that passed through him. "But we have a common goal here, don't we? Work together, and neither of us can lose. I'll get the Avatar, and you'll get the girl and boy. Sound fair?"
The boy struggled against her, but she held him fast.
"You know nothing," he hissed bitterly, but she laughed.
"Oh, but I do know," she said, knowing all too well that she didn't. But these kinds of guys were easy to read, and their stories were all the same. "Ditched you, didn't she?"
He struggled harder against her, but she only tightened her grip.
"Worse," he said. "Ruined my plans, then ditched me."
"Tsk, tsk," Azula said. "That's too bad. Were they good plans?"
"The best," he spat. "Kill off some Fire Nation soldiers by destroying the Earth Kingdom village that they were staying in. But she wouldn't hear it; she said that that was cruel, that there were innocent people down there... but I say that some things just have to be sacrificed."
Azula raised an eyebrow. "True, true," she said. "A truly ingenius plan. It's a shame that she stopped it."
Jet turned to look at her, surprised. Azula laughed softly.
"Oh, I know what you're thinking," she said. "'But you're from the Fire Nation; shouldn't you be against my plans?'" Jet raised his eyebrows even more, telling Azula that she was right. She smirked. "But, you see," she continued, "some of those soldiers are real idiots, and I would've been glad to see them gone."
Jet opened and closed his mouth a couple times, then narrowed his eyes and said, "And why should I trust you?"
Azula smiled knowingly, then released her grip on him and stepped back. "Simple. Come at me with all you've got, and I promise that I won't firebend, move, or do anything to defend myself from you."
Jet spat again.
"All right."
He lunged at her, thrusting his blade toward her throat. Azula stood, unflinching, and smiled wider when he stopped, the blade again millimeters from her throat.
"I trust you," she said softly as he stood before her, blade held steady, but chest heaving. Not from exhaustion, she knew, but from the mental battle that was being waged in his mind. "Now, won't you trust me?"
Jet said nothing.
Azula stepped up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. He flinched. She stood again on her tip-toes, then pressed her forehead against his, her lips too close to his for his comfort.
"Think of all you'll be getting back..." she murmured, her other hand trailing down his arm. He shivered again, then tried to pull back, but the hand on his shoulder tightened, her nails digging into the cloth and pressing against his flesh. She leaned in closer, their noses touching. "Honor... closure... revenge."
She brought her lips closer to his, noticing with smug satisfaction the blush that was tinging his cheeks. When their lips were about to meet, she drew back quickly and pushed him away; he stumbled and was about to fall, but quickly regained his balance. Azula looked back at Ty Lee and Mai.
"Come on, girls," she said, beckoning them with her hand, smirking. "We have some things to discuss."
The other chapters can be found here.
FF.Net: Mirror | Review?
- hl