[fic] Something to Hold Onto, Chapter 9: Strain This Chaos, Turn It Into Light

[wildgoosery]

Title: Something to Hold Onto [9/13]
Word count: 11,000
Pairing: Jet/Zuko
Rating: A very hard R for language, violence and sexual content
Summary: Since the day the walls of Ba Sing Se fell, the Freedom Fighters have struggled to protect what remains of the city and its people. Jet and his second command, a mysterious boy named Li, have spent the summer piecing together an army, hoping for a chance to take the city back for good. But Li is also Zuko, and the time for that secret is quickly running out. Soon, he'll have to decide exactly who he is, what cause he's going to fight for and where his heart lies.

This chapter: "Sometimes it's the small stuff that changes everything."

Notes: For this chapter in particular, I am very grateful to have had kittyjimjams and jlh to guide me through the trickier bits and pieces. I'm ALSO grateful for the efforts of my amazing artist friends, who pretty much destroyed me with awesome these past few days! boredgods, gulliblesnail and foxysquid all very kindly drew illustrations for this chapter, which are linked to in the text and at the end. AND!!! The amazing ming85 drew me a frankly HEARTBREAKING image after reading Chapter 8, which is now linked to in that post if you want to see it!



:: Previous Chapter ::







The creek was shallow, but the water was cool and clear. Jet held his hands beneath the surface, his blistered palms just above the smooth stones at the bottom. He could feel the current swirl between his fingers, gentle and soothing and natural in a way so few things were within the walls. If he kept his eyes down, he could almost imagine he was in the forest again.

Beside him, Zuko sat on a large, flat rock with the remains of his tunic in his lap. He tore off another strip, the old silk giving way with faint protest. The sun hovered just above the tree line, and Zuko's wet skin gleamed in the last rays of daylight. He'd scrubbed the worst of the soot away, but as Jet looked up he could see dark smudges around Zuko's hairline and the backs of his hands. A stand of pine trees had grown along the creek bed, and beyond them loomed the sand-colored bulk of the outer wall.

Smellerbee and Longshot were settled on a fallen log a short distance away. Smellerbee had gathered yellow flowers from the edge of the wood and sat with a bowl held between her knees, grinding the blooms to a paste with a large stone. She had said very little since reaching the campsite a few hours before - and Longshot, of course, had said nothing at all - but that was fine. Jet didn't need them to say anything. He just needed them to be there.

He heard pebbles skittering, kicked aside by careless footsteps, and turned to watch Jin emerge from the woods. "I found one," she said as she jogged over to where Zuko sat. She carried a small pot made of dented copper, and Zuko smiled slightly as he took it from her.

"Thanks," he said. He dipped it into the creek, filling it halfway with clear water.

"I talked with Xue Sheng," said Jin. "He says they'll be fine. They're just a little shaken up."

"What happened?" Zuko asked. "Why were they in there?"

Jin sighed and laughed a little. "Su Dao went back for his squirrelmouse," she said. "Then Roo went in after him."

"Shit," said Jet. "These kids…they should know better."

"We thought they'd left with the other runners," said Smellerbee. "We didn't notice they'd gone back inside until too late."

"They're lucky that Jeong Jeong was there," said Zuko. "If he hadn't held the fire back as long as he did…"

"They're lucky you were there," said Jin. She reached over to ruffle Jet's hair. "Both of you." Jet returned her smile and she gave his head one more affectionate pat, then found another rock to sit on while Zuko dropped strips of fabric into the pot, along with a stick he'd stripped of bark and branches. All of them watched as Zuko placed his hands flat on the metal. Within seconds, steam had begun to rise from the water, curling around Zuko's face as he concentrated.

"What about the Jasmine Dragon?" Jin asked, quieter now.

Zuko didn't look up from his work, but the crease in his brow deepened. "Gone," he said. "Once Uncle and Jeong Jeong left, it just…" He shook his head, his bottom lip between his teeth. The water was at a full boil, now, and white clouds of vapor hid the nuances of his expression. "It was a wooden building."

"I'm sorry," said Jin.

Zuko took his hands away from the sides of the pot. "It's fine," he said as he gingerly plucked the stick from the scalding water. "Everyone made it out. That's what's important."

"Still," said Jin. She looked between their faces, Zuko and Longshot and Smellerbee and Jet. "I hadn't had a home like that in a long time. Not since I came to work in the city, and that was years ago." She smiled a little. "Remember when it was just the five of us? That first night, after Iroh left. When we were trying to figure out what to do."

"You were," said Zuko. "I was a mess."

"You weren't so bad," said Smellerbee. "You kept Jet busy."

Jin chuckled softly. "Busy. Right."

"Heh. Yeah, that, too," said Smellerbee.

"I'm sitting right here," Zuko muttered as he poked the contents of the pot with his stick. Jet felt a little swell of affection in his chest, but the weight of what had happened was still too much - too overpowering for anything else to push through.

He lifted his hands from the creek. The pain had dulled to a low throb, but when he flexed his fingers he could feel his skin cracking, stiff and swollen. "Any word on Gen?" he asked quietly.

Jin looked down at her lap, the smile gone. "Ping sent someone to look for him a few hours ago," she said. She didn't sound hopeful, and Jet had no reassurances to offer her; no words to soften what they all knew to be true.

Gen had betrayed them, but Jet couldn't find it in himself to be angry. He knew what the Fire Nation did to their prisoners. He knew what Gen would have suffered. A stronger man might have held out, but Jet had given Gen no reason to endure it for his sake. Jet had failed him, as a leader and as a comrade in arms. He had no right to judge Gen for what he'd done.

Zuko used the stick to lift the strips of fabric from the pot. He held them a few inches above the surface, dripping water, and waved Smellerbee over. "This might sting," he said as she knelt between him and Jet.

Jet braced himself and held out his hands, the palms turned up. Smellerbee dipped her hands into the hot water, rubbing them together until her skin was red from the heat, then used her fingers to spread the yellow-brown paste in her bowl on Jet's blistered skin. It had a sweet, vegetable smell, like decomposing leaves.

The wet bandages felt like coals, and the corners of Jet's eyes prickled with tears. He fought to keep his arms steady as Zuko worked - he knew the other boy was being as careful as he could. "Don't wrap them so tight I can't use them," he said.

"I'll have to change the bandages in the morning," said Zuko. "I can make them looser then."

"Make them looser now," said Jet, firm though not unkind.

"We've all had a really long day," said Jin, frowning as she caught the implication. "We need to rest."

"We've rested plenty," said Jet. "We need to train. Jeong Jeong's still at the camp, right?"

"Jet…we just lost our home. We almost lost Roo and Dao. I don't think this is the best time for-"

"Those kids are scared," said Jet. "Scared of Firebenders. Scared of fire." Zuko had finished with his right hand, and Jet closed it into a fist, getting used to the pain. "They can't go into battle like that."

"He's right," said Zuko as he started with the next set of bandages. "They'll freeze. Or worse."

"We need to get their confidence up again," said Jet.

"By throwing fireballs at them?" said Jin.

"By reminding them they can fight back." Jet paused, watching as Zuko's long, thin fingers stretched the bandages over his wounds. "And that we can throw fireballs, too," he went on, a part of him surprised by his own words.

"Hopefully we won't have to," said Zuko. He tucked the end of the last bandage in place and sat back on his heels. "There. Done." He looked up into Jet's eyes, his lips pressed together. "Any better?"

"Yeah," said Jet. He stood, and the others followed suit, their little group shifting into a circle beside the creek. Zuko stood to Jet's right, and Jet allowed himself to rest one bandaged hand on the other boy's hip. They were both alive, both mostly whole, and he wanted to savor it. "Look, I know things are shitty right now. We're all tired. We've lost a lot in one day." His hand shifted, his arm curling around Zuko's waist. "But we can't think about that. Not tonight. Those kids look up to us, you know? We have to keep it together."

Jet was more than tired. He was exhausted, his chest burning from the smoke and his muscles aching. All he wanted was to find an empty tent and curl up with Zuko in his arms - sleep until the eclipse was over and everything was decided, for better or worse.

But he couldn't. So he took as deep a breath as he could manage without coughing, then pressed on in a tone he hoped was more confident than he felt. "Jin, we just brought a lot of new bodies into this camp," he said, brisk and businesslike. "See what needs doing, and get the runners to help you. Longshot, Smellerbee, you'll run drills with me. Zuko…" Jet met his gaze, concentrated on keeping his own voice even. "I think your uncle wants you. Firebending practice."

"I should be with you," said Zuko. "I'll need my swords tomorrow, not my bending. I promised Xiao Si Wang-"

"Wang will understand," said Jet. "Just…go with Iroh, all right? He knows what he's doing."

Zuko frowned, reluctant, but nodded all the same. "If that's what you want," he said.

"It is."

It wasn't. He had an awful, panicked feeling of time growing short - a black shape on the horizon, indistinct but no less ominous for it. He didn't want to let Zuko out of his sight. He didn't want to move his hand from the hard, sharp point of Zuko's hipbone, or to break contact with the warm solidity of his body, his narrow waist or the almost-grown breadth of his shoulders. But Jet understood what had to be done; what was needed, outside of his own, selfish desires.

He clenched his jaw and tried for a reassuring smile. Zuko frowned a little, but Jet stood his ground, and after some hesitation Zuko leaned in, kissed Jet's cheek in his usual, awkward manner for when they had an audience, then turned and walked away.

Jet fought the urge to call him back. But he couldn't help wondering how many more chances he'd get.





Jet had been a leader for almost as long as he could remember. He hadn't meant for things to turn out that way, not really. He had simply done whatever made sense at the time. He'd lost his family, his entire village and all the people he'd ever known, so he'd learned to look out for himself - what to eat, where to sleep, who he could trust and who was best avoided. He'd found children stranded in the wreckage of their homes and shown them all he'd puzzled out on his own, how to catch a possumhare and build a treehouse and make a fire. He'd taken hooked swords from the ruins of a blacksmith's shop and taught himself how to use them. He'd fought off the patrols that stumbled into his little camp, then he'd gone looking for the Fire Nation outposts that pushed too deep into his valley, wiping them out before they could threaten what he'd built. The younger kids looked up to him and the older ones respected him, all his hard-earned knowledge and the battles he'd won. Jet had perfected the art of confidence, of convincing the world of his strength and control, because he'd had no other choice. Now it came to him as naturally as breathing.

For a little while, training with Jeong Jeong and the very real danger of his Firebending were enough to hold Jet's attention. His injuries and aches made him slow, and the old man exploited every weakness with quiet efficiency. But these lessons weren't for Jet's benefit, and once he'd stepped aside his concentration failed him. Jet went through the motions of training with little thought, his body guided by habit and instinct, his mouth offering encouragement and chastising carelessness while his mind wandered elsewhere. Smellerbee and Longshot would notice, of course; Jeong Jeong and Piandao probably suspected. But Jet had nothing else to give that night. He felt unsettled; disconnected. He showed Dusty how to duck under an attack, adjusted Wang's grip on her swords so that she could keep hold of them while she rolled, but his thoughts kept drifting over the next ridge, drawn by the crackle of not-so-distant flame.

The sky darkened, the pines black and spidery against the glow that flared beyond them. Eventually the pull grew too strong for him to ignore. He slipped away as Jeong Jeong and Piandao went through the movements of combat in slow motion, quiet enough that no one but Smellerbee and Longshot paid him any mind. As he climbed the wooded hillside they both fell in behind him, unasked but all the more appreciated for it. Jet didn't want to have to ask, not ever and especially not tonight.

The crest of the hill rose before him, a rocky spine just high enough for him to crouch behind. He could hear voices, now, indistinct but still familiar. He felt at once drawn and repulsed. He was a man, proud and practical, aware of what had to be done. He was a boy, alone and terrified in the branches of a tree, his nostrils full of smoke.

He closed his eyes and dug his fingers down into the ground, cool and soft with moss and leaves. He took long, deep breaths of clean air, smelled earth and pine sap and decay, his friends' bodies beside him, his own filthy clothes and bandaged hands. But there was another scent beneath these, familiar but far from comforting: a whiff of ozone; the faintest hint of burnt leaves, caught up in the current.

"All right," Jet murmured. He straightened to his full height and looked down the far side of the ridge. A large, flat clearing stretched between the hills, lit by a crude torch that had been thrust into the ground. Zuko and Iroh stood to either side of it, facing each other, and as Jet watched they bowed, left hands flat and right hands fisted beneath. Jet felt Smellerbee's fingers on his arm, but he didn't look away.

Their movements were graceful and liquid, sweeping curves instead of the brutal jabs and thrusts Jet remembered. Zuko followed his Uncle's lead, all careful concentration, patterns of orange and black moving over his skin as muscles shifted. His fists drew paths of fire through the air, bright and hungry, whorls of light and clouds of glittering sparks.

Jet could see the beauty of it: Zuko's pale, lean body and the creatures of flame he conjured, flaring to life and fading, only the spots in Jet's vision and a faint shimmer in the air left to tell of their passing. He loved Zuko, and Zuko's bending was an extension of his self, his soul and spirit made manifest. Jet had known enough benders to understand that.

Jet saw the beauty and felt bile rise in his throat. The boy inside him recoiled even as the man ached to move closer, to touch those thin fingers and press them to his face and remind himself that this was Zuko - his Zuko that he knew and loved and trusted not to burn him.

Smellerbee's grip tightened, and Jet turned toward her at last. Longshot stood behind her, one hand at the small of her back. Her eyes were wide beneath her headband, black irises reflecting the fire below, and he could see a flicker of fear in them.

"Why aren't you angry with me?" Jet whispered, hoarse from the tightness in his chest.

Smellerbee frowned, her full lips pursed. "Why would I be?"

"This goes against everything I ever said I'd do. Everything I ever promised."

"Jet…"

"We fought for years to keep the Fire Nation out of that valley. I promised I'd get rid of them. I promised all of you I'd-"

"Jet," she said again, firmly enough that he bit back his next words. She glanced over her shoulder at Longshot, asking some question with her eyes, before looking up at Jet again. Her nostrils flared as she exhaled, and Jet could tell she wasn't sure she should say whatever it was she was thinking, or how to put it if she did. She settled for, "That's not how it used to be."

Jet didn't understand what she meant. Things had always been the same for them before they left the forest, the same fight against the same enemy, played out across the years. His confusion must have shown on his face, because Smellerbee went on, hesitant but determined. "We were just kids, Jet. All we wanted was to have a home again. A family. And you gave us that. We had food to eat and a roof to sleep under and people who cared about us."

"You could've done that on your own," Jet muttered. He could tell she was dancing around something, and it made him feel stubborn.

"See, that's the thing," she said, more urgently now. "Not all of us can be like you, Jet. Not all of us would've made it on our own."

Jet sighed. "Smellerbee-"

"No, I'm serious," she said. "Just…listen to me, all right? Maybe we could've figured some things out. Maybe. But you gave us more than that. You gave us something to fight for. We'd lost everything we ever knew or cared about and you…you just…" She shook her head, bangs swinging, as if trying to jostle her thoughts into order. "We weren't just a bunch of hungry kids in the forest, Jet, we were your Freedom Fighters. You made us believe that we could do something. That we could make a difference."

The figures below swept into their next set, and Jet felt his face contort, the tension spreading from his chest to his whole body. He remembered their last night in the forest, the meeting around the long, wooden table at the heart of their village in the trees. Jet had said very little that night. He'd known there wasn't anything he could say to fix things, no way to take back what he'd done. He'd gone too far one time too many. "They turned me out and I dragged you along with me," he said. "How did I let that happen?"

"We came because we wanted to," said Longshot, soft and gravelly. "You're our leader. That's just how it is."

"I let you down."

"We let you down," said Smellerbee. "We didn't know how to help you."

"You shouldn't have had to," said Jet. "But I was just…" He closed his eyes, but he could see the glow of fire through the lids. "You were right. I barely knew him. I shouldn't have let him in so far. I just lost myself in it, like some stupid kid. I should've known better."

He felt Smellerbee's hand slide across his back as she leaned into him, her cheek pressed against his arm. "`I dunno. I think maybe I was wrong that time."

Jet let out a short puff of laughter. "Bee, I don't think you've ever been more right about any of the guys I've ever been with."

"Shut up and let me talk," she said, though the humor in her tone was shallow. Jet could feel the shift as her head turned toward Longshot again, and he wondered how long she'd waited to say this to him. "Jet…you know how bad things were. How bad you were."

"I know," said Jet quietly. He remembered the excuses he'd made to himself and to his conscience; he remembered all the people he'd killed, the way they'd looked and the sounds they'd made as they died. A great and terrible distance lay between the thrill of battle and the memory of it afterward. It wasn't only his burning village that Jet saw in his dreams.

"After the Avatar left - and that girl, Katara - it was like you finally saw it, too. That you couldn't go on that way anymore. But it was awful, watching you go through that. Like you'd realized things were wrong but you didn't know what to do about it, or how to make it better." Her arm around him tightened, and Jet's chest ached from the sadness in her voice. "You seemed so lost."

A cold, weary feeling settled in Jet's stomach. It was his own fault that she'd waited so long to say these things to him. The man he'd been would've slouched off into the woods by now, muttering about how she didn't understand. It was easy to forget how much had changed

"You wanted to come here to Ba Sing Se and start over, so we came with you. We kept hoping you'd figure things out, but you were still so…everywhere. Reckless. That thing with the captain's food. Asking some guy you'd just met to join the Freedom Fighters." Jet imagined he could hear her rolling her eyes. "You were so crazy about him, and he took up all your time. Made you do stupid things."

Jet couldn't help smiling a little, remembering those first few days in the city. Li had told Jet to leave him alone at least a dozen times, but Jet hadn't been able to help himself. He'd turned up at Pao's teashop and been too much of a nuisance to ignore. "Really stupid," he said, managing a soft chuckle. "Like with those flowers. And the apron."

"Yeah," she said. "But you know…you were happy. You smiled. I hadn't seen you smile like that in…shit." She sighed. "Years."

"Guess so."

"It happened so slowly, but…I dunno. I dunno when I noticed. But it was like you'd found yourself again. Who you used to be, when we were younger. Before the raid when all those kids died. Before we started fighting people who weren't soldiers."

"You think that was him?" Jet asked, so quiet he could hardly hear himself.

Her other arm came up, her hand tucking itself into the crook of his elbow. "Those weeks when he was gone…it was like we were back in the forest again. You were almost as bad as before."

Jet stiffened at that, a dozen protests already half-formed on his lips, but he clenched his jaw and swallowed them.

He felt another hand on his shoulder, above where Smellerbee's head rested. "It's okay to need someone," said Longshot.

"I know," Jet murmured. "It's just…" He had to laugh, the absurdity of his life too much to bear otherwise. "I could've picked someone less…fuck. Royal? Fire Nation?"

"Maybe," said Smellerbee. She wasn't laughing. She sounded thoughtful, and when Jet glanced at her he saw her chewing her bottom lip. "Maybe he's a good thing. Maybe this is our chance to build something bigger. More than just some houses in the forest. More than a few Freedom Fighters going on raids."

Jet looked down into the valley. Zuko was close enough that Jet could see his face, the tension of focus in his mouth and right eye and the blankness of his scar. On the ferry, Jet had seen that old injury as a bond between them, a testament to the suffering they'd both endured. And it still meant that, he knew. The Fire Nation had taken Zuko's life away, as surely as it had taken Jet's.

What Jet had told the Dai Li hadn't all been false confidence. He could feel the winds shifting, had listened carefully to what Iroh and the others had said - Ozai's time was ending, if not now then very soon. The question was what would follow. The road home had narrowed for Zuko, but it hadn't closed entirely. Things were different for him. More different than Jet was ready to think about.

"Maybe he can do things the rest of us can't," Smellerbee said gently. "Not on our own."

Jet pressed his hand against his heart, feeling its beat through his brestbone. "I keep thinking there's no way this can work," he said. "We'll fight tomorrow, and then…I don't know. If we lose, that's it. If we win, great, but…where do we even go from there?"

"Where do you want to go?"

"I want to stay with you," he said, though he could hear how stubborn it sounded. "You're my family."

Longshot raised an eyebrow, and Smellerbee frowned again. "Jet," she said.

He watched Zuko move through another set. The flames were too bright for Jet to see anything outside the light they cast. There was no sky, no distant hillside, no wall. Only Zuko and Iroh and the burning air between them, men whose destinies were too big for Jet to see, dwarfing everything he'd ever known.

"He says he wants to be with me," Jet murmured. "But I don't think he understands how things'll be. How they'll have to be."

"If he was going to leave you, he would've done it a long time ago."

Jet swallowed. He took slow, deep breaths to sooth his racing heart. "I don't want him to fuck up his life for me," he said.

"He won't," Bee whispered. She curled her arm around his ribs but there was nothing else for her to say. Jet reached up and squeezed her small shoulders, his hand clasping Longshot's wrist. The three of them stood together for some time, watching the firelight in silence.

The slope down into the valley was steep, and Zuko looked up at the sound of Jet's descent, boots sliding on rocks and dead leaves. "Jet!" he said, grinning as he bounded across the clearing, his cheeks flushed from the heat and exercise. "Uncle was just showing me an advanced set. He says he learned it from Masters Ran and Shao in the north, it's totally different, there's a…" He trailed off, and the redness in his cheeks darkened. "Sorry. You probably don't want to hear about-"

"It's fine," said Jet. He brushed his knuckles against Zuko's cheek. He could feel the heat rising, and he leaned in to kiss Zuko's mouth, soft and chaste but lingering. "Tell me," he said as he pulled away. "I want to know."





"It's a long, long way to Ba Sing Se, but the boys in the city they look so pretty!" Zuko was fairly sure that everyone else had sung "girls" but Jet was closer and louder, and his voice was most of what Zuko could hear. "And they kiss so sweet that you've really got to meet the boys from Ba Sing Se!" He drew the last syllable out, hugging Zuko's shoulders with one arm as the other gestured dramatically.

"I don't think that's how it goes," said Zuko.

"It's how it goes for me, handsome," said Jet, his breath warm against Zuko's ear, and Zuko couldn't help laughing. He never quite knew how to react when Jet was like this, but he'd missed it. It felt good to sit together so easily, on the ground in a circle of firelight, the grinning faces of their friends all around them. Zuko took another sip from the tiny cup of baijou Uncle had handed him, gentler than what his crew had once preferred. It tasted of anise and burned pleasantly as it went down, and Zuko found he didn't mind when Jet leaned in to kiss his neck, or how the runners that noticed snickered behind their hands. Jet brushed the inside of Zuko's thigh as he reached to pick up his own cup, and the smile at the corners of his mouth settled any question as to his intentions.

The campsite was larger than Zuko had expected. Uncle had explained before how many men he'd brought, but Zuko had imagined a few threadbare tents in a circle around the fire, the way they'd slept in exile when no barns or empty cottages could be found. Instead, they'd arrived to find a tidy village of canvass domes, most large enough to sleep a half-dozen men with room to spare. Still more tents had been struck in the small, sheltered valley that afternoon, and by the time Jet and Zuko and the rest of those who'd lingered at the Jasmine Dragon arrived, most of the Freedom Fighters had claimed a matt to sleep on.

Zuko had weathered far worse storms than this one. He understood the importance of distraction, how much better it was to channel what boiled inside him into something he could control, instead of keeping it stoppered up until it exploded out of his grasp. On his own, he would have trained to the point of exhaustion, this new, sharp grief pouring from his hands as flame until he felt empty again. But once the moon had risen over the hills, Uncle and Jet had both insisted on the need to unwind, and they had had their own ideas regarding how.

An enormous pot of duckupine stew had already been bubbling when they rejoined the others, eaten quickly and followed by more baijou than was probably wise. The soldiers Zuko didn't recognize all seemed to be older than him, though he couldn't say for certain where they were from. At least half were Earth Kingdom, judging from their clothes. Two or three were Water Tribe, all of them men who deferred to Pakku the way a student might. The rest seemed to be from the colonies, though Zuko couldn't imagine why they'd have chosen to come here. Colonists had a more than usual interest in the Fire Nation's grip on this kingdom - there was no saying what might happen to them if the homeland were to withdraw.

Zuko had expected the kids to be skittish, shaken by what had happened and anxious about what might follow. And they had been, for the first half of their meal. But Jet's campaign of levity had been relentless. He had wolfed down his food, and while the others finished he'd told stories about their first few battles in the city, exaggerated for effect and full of pantomimed action. The kids had been immediately absorbed, laughing at his impressions of Ping and Zuko and cheering in all the right places. The strangers, too, had seemed interested, watching Jet over the rims of their bowls, lips twitching into smiles.

Then Jin, already drunker than Zuko had ever seen her, had raised her cup and called for a song. After four choruses of "Long Way to Ba Sing Se," Zuko had found himself regretful that he'd so consistently avoided music night on his ship. He mumbled along with the words he knew, but most of these were Earth Kingdom songs that traveled no farther than the coastal colonies, nothing like the court music he'd learned as a child.

"Little girls following a flock of hogsheep," Jet was singing now, rocking them both back and forth in time with the rhythm. "The glow of the sunset follows them back, follows them back, follow me back to the valley so deep!"

Zuko wasn't sure what to make of Jet's high spirits that night. By any measure, it had been a terrible day for them all: so much lost in the span of an afternoon and so little to show for it afterward. His own thoughts were an uncertain tangle, relief and mourning and anxiousness all bleeding into each other. There was no space in this camp or this night for him to puzzle his way through it; no time to find his certainty again. Necessity would have to be enough to pull him through tomorrow.

He'd lost his home like this before, destroyed in a rush of violence that nearly took him with it. He'd lived on that boat for three years, but his affection for it had been reluctant; tinged with the shame of his reasons for being there at all. The Jasmine Dragon had been different. He felt more than just the loss of a familiar bed; the absence of routine. Living there had felt different than living on his ship, different even than his childhood in the palace.

He watched Jet belt out the last verse of the song, mouth wide and eyes smiling. Together, they'd made a home out of a teashop. It hadn't been at all the same. And now it was gone.

Jet knocked back another cup of liquor, wincing as it settled in his stomach. "Fuck," he said conversationally. "You know what we need?"

Zuko chuckled. "What?"

"We need some fucking dancing," said Jet. He held out his cup for Zuko to take and pushed himself to his feet, far steadier than he had any right to be. Zuko carefully set both cups down where they wouldn't be trampled and followed Jet across the circle, to where he was already in a huddle with Jin and Xue Sheng.

They quickly agreed that "Axi Under the Moon" was the way to go, but there was some variation from region to region, and as others left their bowls behind and came over to offer their opinions a fierce debate broke out. At first Jet insisted that as he'd actually grown up in the mountains where the dance was from, his word should be the final one. But Ping's lieutenant, Ni Shui Jian, turned out to have been born in the same area, and soon he and Jet were deep in intense negotiations regarding the order of sets and how long each of them should last.

"We only have a few flutes and two dasanxian," said Xue Sheng, who held one of the long-necked, three-stringed instruments and was plucking it experimentally.

"You think we had dasanxian in the forest?" Jet laughed. "I'll show you, it'll be fine." Then, a little louder for the benefit of those outside their knot of discussion, "Anyone know how to play the flute?"

"I can," said Zuko quietly. "A little."

Jet grabbed one from the collection of mismatched instruments and thrust it into Zuko's hands, beaming with excitement. "Just follow me," he said.

Xue Sheng turned out to have studied country dances and songs in his anthropology courses, and as Jet ran off to gather more dancers Xue Sheng taught Zuko the simple tune. Zuko's fingers felt stiff and clumsy on the holes of the bamboo flute, but Xue Sheng seemed pleased to have a skill to share. By the time Jet had returned from his rounds, Xue Sheng had patiently lead Zuko through several repetitions, and the flute had begun to feel familiar again.

"I haven't done this since I was a boy," Ping muttered, uncharacteristic both in his nervousness and in his hesitant smile.

Zuko had never heard of this dance before, but a surprising number of Freedom Fighters seemed to know it, even the city kids like Roo and Xiao Si Wang. Many of those who didn't were cheerful enough to try and learn, and soon most of the camp had arranged itself into pairs. Apparently the men were supposed to play instruments, but there weren't nearly enough to go around. Instead, most of the men's side of the line followed Jet's lead, sticks and scabbards filling in for dasanxian. Zuko tried to mimic Jet's posture with the much-smaller flute as Wang quietly took the place across from him, red-cheeked and serious.

By then Xue Sheng, Uncle and a few of the older Earth Kingdom strangers had settled at the edge of the circle, instruments in hand as they worked out the last details of their arrangement.

"Ready?" Jet called, standing across from Jin with his stick draped over his shoulders.

Uncle stomped his foot to set the rhythm, and within several beats the melody had taken shape, flutes and dasanxian playing a more complicated version of the one Zuko had learned. He watched Jet carefully, following him as exactly as he could given the difference in what they held. Jet hummed the dasanxian part as he spun, hopping lightly from foot to foot, the dance punctuated by quick kicks and half-bows. Soon Zuko found the patterns in it, saw the changes coming and anticipated what the next set would be. He had danced very little in his life but the basics of it came easily. He followed Jet as he had when they sparred, flowing from one movement to the next, the tune so simple that he had no trouble playing it even as he whirled. He felt graceless and foolish and was sure he looked ridiculous, but that didn't seem important just then. Jet was grinning and his voice was clear and strong and his gaze followed Zuko, intense and unwavering.

Zuko looked down the line of dancers, mostly divided by gender but not entirely, the men's side playing their instruments - real or improvised - and the women clapping a measured applause. Wang frowned in concentration, eyes on her feet and mouth moving as she counted. Jin's was open with laughter, her affect playfully mocking, as if her claps were a taunt instead of appreciation. Ni Shui Jian teased Ping about his footwork, which Ping bore with wry exasperation, grumbling about how his lieutenant was hardly an inspiring partner. Longshot and Smellerbee moved with the quiet ease of familiarity, relaxed and unhurried and perfectly balanced.

"Hey, Wang!" Jet called. "Switch with me!"

Wang giggled a little, and as the next set began she and Jet swapped places, Jin laughing louder than ever when Jet tossed his stick to Wang and offered a coquettish little bow toward his new partner. Zuko's cheeks were hot but he was smiling, and soon he'd found his rhythm again, carried along by the music and the dancers around him, the flow a comfortable one to settle into.

He remembered the opera house in the capital, all gilt molding and lacquered wood, and the performances his mother had brought him to. There had been some dancing on those evenings - a reed-thin woman alone on the stage, poised and calm as still water, a fan snapping open and shut in her hand. On the way home in their palanquin, his mother had explained to him what those dances meant, how every movement contained a story and every tilt of her head suggested a vast sea of emotion. Precision and subtlety had been the ideal, all meaning coded and contained; distant in its rigidity.

Tonight, the dance was anything but distant. They hardly touched, but Zuko could feel the push and pull between them - his body drawn into the void left when Jet moved away, the bobbing end of his flute answering the claps of Jet's bandaged hands, each rock of his hips and shoulders mirrored by Jet's own, as if a thread connected them.

It ended with both of them out of breath and laughing, Jet's arms around him again, one hand at the small of Zuko's back and his mouth tasting of baijou. Zuko let him take the time he wanted, his insides warm with alcohol and exercise and the feel of Jet's tongue against his own. He didn't care who was watching. Better the strangers know how things were now than be surprised later.

Jet kissed him once more, quick and playful, before he pulled away. As they walked to the edge of the circle again, Zuko noticed how many of the Fire Nation colonists had sticks in their hands, chatting animatedly with each other and shouting compliments at the musicians. Ping was listening to a small group of what might have been Earthbenders, his arms crossed over his chest. Ni Shui Jian and Piandao were crouched beside Uncle, grinning between glances at Jeong Jeong's back. A group of runners had formed a circle around Pakku's students, and cheered enthusiastically as the Waterbenders indulged them with complicated tricks.

Pakku himself was crosslegged in front of his tent, smoking a long, thin pipe as he watched the crowd. Jet steered them in that direction and sat down with less grace than was usual, laughing at his own clumsiness. "Man, this place is crawling with Fire Nation," he said, his tone light. Zuko tensed a little, unsure as to how he should react, but Jet tugged at his arm until he joined them on the ground.

"They come in handy from time to time," said Pakku. Smoke curled around his face as he spoke.

Jet chuckled and draped an arm over Zuko's shoulders. "How'd you fall in with these guys anyway?"

Pakku's eyebrows arched. "Iroh didn't tell you?"

"Not really," said Zuko softly. "I remember Master Piandao from the palace, and I think Uncle mentioned Jeong Jeong once or twice. But I…" He swallowed, his eyes on his hands. "He didn't say anything when we were at the North Pole."

"No, I suppose he wouldn't have," said Pakku. He was quiet for a time, and Zuko glanced up to find him watching the center of the clearing. Piandao had dragged a reluctant Jeong Jeong into the circle, and Uncle was calling to them from amongst the musicians, sungi horn in hand. Zuko couldn't make out what Uncle was saying, but Jeong Jeong had the weary look of a man being talked into something.

"I've known your Uncle a long time," said Pakku. "Since we were both much younger men." The bowl of the pipe flared as he inhaled, the light reflected in his eyes. "We're members of the same ancient society, one that crosses the borders between nations."

"You mean the Order of the White Lotus," said Zuko, thinking back to an afternoon waiting in a flower shop.

Jet frowned a little. "The what?"

"Sometimes when we were traveling, Uncle would play a game of Pai Sho with some old person in a bar or at an inn," Zuko explained. "They were weird games, too. Like all the moves were set ahead of time. The tiles would form a lotus on the board, and they'd say some stuff to each other and then he'd leave me alone to go talk in the back room." Zuko turned to Pakku again. "You're in that club, too?"

"It's a bit more than a club," Pakku grunted. "But yes. All of us are. Your uncle is a Grand Lotus, I'm surprised he never told you any of this."

The music began again, Uncle's horn accented by drums, and Zuko watched as Piandao and Jeong Jeong moved to stand opposite each other. "I guess there's a lot of stuff he didn't tell me," said Zuko.

The arm around his shoulders tightened. "Well, no one's told me shit," said Jet, his tone still light. "So how about you fill me in."

Pakku tapped the ash from his pipe and reached into his tunic. "Jeong Jeong and I were invited to join when we were only a bit older than you," he said as he drew out a small pouch. "Jeong Jeong was a favorite student of another Grand Lotus, Master Kuzon. He and Iroh were friends even then, from when they were at the academy together. But Iroh was a…different man in those days." He packed tobacco into the bowl of his pipe with one thumb, unhurried and methodical, then held it out toward Zuko.

Zuko lit it with a quick gesture. "Different how?"

"He was a prince," said Pakku. "He had a beautiful wife. A brilliant military career. The Order was a game to him, then. Something to fill the time between conquests." He pulled a long, slow breath through the pipe. Together they watched as Piandao and Jeong Jeong began to circle each other, knees bent and arms drawing slow, careful patterns. "Kuzon argued against offering him membership for a long time. He'd been a close friend of Avatar Aang before the war, and Iroh was Sozin's grandson. But King Bumi -"

"Wait, you mean that crazy guy from Omashu?" Jet asked.

Pakku sighed. "Yes. That Bumi," he said wearily. "Maybe he saw something of himself in Iroh, even then. They're both a little…off. And once Piandao joined - one of the youngest initiates in history, you know, barely seventeen - we had eyes and ears in the capital. So the offer was made, and Iroh took it."

"You had Piandao spy on Uncle?" said Zuko. He tried to imagine Uncle as a threat, but it seemed ridiculous. All that came to mind was a genial smile and a pot of tea. "What did you think he was going to do?"

"The entire point of the order is to preserve the art and beauty of the world," said Pakku, somewhat incredulous, as if he wasn't sure why this had to be explained. "And at the time your uncle was the heir to the throne of the Fire Nation."

So am I, Zuko thought, automatic even now. Aloud, he said, "But Uncle's always talking about how the four nations should balance each other."

"Iroh lead the only campaign to ever force its way through the outer walls of this city," said Pakku. "If your cousin had lived, other things might have gone very differently. Ba Sing Se might have fallen. Iroh might have been crowned Fire Lord instead of your father."

"But isn't…that's what you wanted, right?"

"What we wanted was for him to understand," said Pakku. "I'm just sorry the lesson came at so high a price."

"Understand what?" He couldn't tell if Pakku was being intentionally opaque, or if he himself was simply too thick to see what should have been obvious. Beside him, Jet was quiet and very still, his eyes on the dancers and his lips pressed together.

"How much had changed since the Avatar disappeared," said Pakku. "How far the world had fallen. You boys are too young to remember how things were, but you know what happened to the Air Nomads. You've seen the colonies here in the Earth Kingdom. You know what would have happened to my tribe if Aang hadn't been there."

Zuko did know. Zhao had killed the Moon Spirit, and Zuko remembered how the world had gone grey, the moon itself a black hole in the sky. He was a Firebender, but he'd felt the shift inside him - a sort of dizzy nausea, as if the ground had tilted like the deck of a ship.

Pakku blew out a long, thin stream of smoke. "He had to understand what we'd lost. How important it was to hold onto what was left."

They sat at the very edge of the firelight, apart from where the others had gathered to watch Piandao and Jeong Jeong perform. Freedom Fighters and White Lotus alike cheered them on, the dance a sort of ritualized duel, its movements reminding Zuko of the Firebending forms his uncle had taught him that night.

"You know this one?" Jet asked softly.

Zuko shook his head. It was a little like the dances his crew had indulged in on his ship, but nothing like what he'd ever seen at home. "My father didn't believe in…" Zuko paused and chuckled a little. It all seemed so absurd. "He called them 'peasant rituals.' He said they were beneath us."

Jet snorted. "Shows what he knows."

"Yeah," said Zuko. "Guess so." He slid a hand around Jet's waist, leaning closer. They watched the rest of the dance in silence. He could feel Uncle's sungi horn vibrating in his bones, the melody ancient and joyful and just at the edge of familiar, unrestrained as it echoed off the hillsides. Zuko listened and watched and felt the answering song in his heart, an eager fire that warmed him from within. His father had taken this from him, and he had never known.

The dance ended, and Uncle came to join their little group, the sungi horn now under Piandao's care. "I told Jeong Jeong one never forgets the Api Randai," he said as he settled between Zuko and Pakku. "Even if it has fallen out of fashion."

"Zuko was just telling us your brother's not big on dancing," said Jet amiably. "What, does he just hate fun or something?"

"He does not see the use in it, I think," said Iroh. "Although it was our grandfather who first forbid Randai at court. Perhaps because it was a favorite of Avatar Roku's."

"That was the Avatar before…Aang," said Zuko, the name awkward to say and strange to hear in his own voice.

"Yes, he was," said Iroh. He hesitated, then, enough for Zuko to notice. "And your great-grandfather, as well. On your mother's side."

Zuko was glad for Jet's body beside him, warm and solid and comforting. Uncle's words had caught him entirely off-guard, and he clung to the other boy like a lifeline, tying him to the world he understood. "You never told me," he said, unsure what else he could say.

"The two of them were friends, once," said Uncle, "before the question of war divided them. Roku believed in peace and balance. Sozin hungered for conquest and power. In the end, it was Sozin who won. Avatar Aang was born into a world on the brink of the war you know." He smiled at Jet, a little sadly. "It has been this way for some time, you see. Our family has long been torn between love and hatred."

Zuko's grip on Jet was likely hard enough to hurt, but he couldn't relax it. Connections blazed through his memory, linking Uncle's words to Pakku's, to his own life and the things he had done. "Uncle," he said. "You must be…happy. To finally have me on your side." He didn't know why he'd said it, exactly. He hoped Uncle would laugh and tell him he'd misunderstood.

But Uncle beamed with obvious pride, tears shining at the corners of his eyes. He reached out and grasped Zuko's shoulder, just above where Jet's hand rested. "You are not the man you used to be, Prince Zuko," he said, hoarse with emotion. "You are stronger and wiser and freer than you have ever been. You came to the crossroads of your destiny and you chose the path of light. Of good. I have never been more proud to think of you as my son."

"But…" Zuko could feel Jet's heartbeat quicken where his arm pressed against the other boy's chest. "I was hunting the Avatar. For years. And you helped me."

Uncle's smile dimmed somewhat. "It was what you wanted," he said.

Zuko felt sick. The pleasant warmth in his chest had drained away, leaving him cold and unsettled. "But why didn't you stop me? If you…" He swallowed. "If you knew I was wrong, why didn't you tell me?"

"You are a good man with a kind heart," said Iroh softly. "I trusted that you would find your own way, when you were ready to see it."

"But you could have just told me!" said Zuko, close to shouting.

"Zuko…" Uncle lowered his eyes. In that moment he looked tired and sad, and the sadness added years to his lined face. "Would you have listened?"

He couldn't bear to see his uncle like this. He looked away, into the fire, and dug his fingers into the folds of Jet's clothes. He knew the answer, but he couldn't say it. Just thinking it made his stomach churn and his face burn with shame.

Jet rose to his feet, dusting the twigs and dirt from his pants. "I think we should go for a walk," he said. "Get some air."

Iroh smiled softly and nodded. Jet held out his hand, and Zuko allowed himself to be pulled up, Jet's arm around his shoulders again as soon as he was standing. Together they walked away from the fire and voices, toward the moonlit hills.





The creek was different at night. The moon was bright and strong but its light was indiscriminate, catching blades of grass and ripples of water with the same intensity; the same color, blue-white against black. Zuko knelt on the damp, sandy dirt, knees soaked within moments and hands buried in the pebbles along the bank. He could hear the current as it tumbled over smooth rocks, but the sound held no comfort that night. It reminded him of the ocean and the life he'd lived upon it, the man he'd been then and all the things that he'd done.

He splashed cold water on his face, ran his hand down over his eyes and mouth. Beside him Jet was quiet and watchful, the moonlight picking out strands of his hair and pooling in his eyes.

The months flickered by as if reflected in the dark water, disjointed bits and pieces that twisted like a knife in his gut. He remembered the pure, unquestioning clarity he had felt on the deck of his ship as a column of light burst from the horizon and reached up into the sky. Not the beacon of hope it should have been - must have been to Uncle and to anyone else with a heart in their chest and half a brain in their head - but a promise. A ticket home that he should never have needed; the answer to a quest he should never have been sent on.

He remembered, too, that early morning in the forest, how he'd opened his eyes and seen not the inside of a prison cell but the high arch of a canopy, golden light filtering through the leaves. He remembered the pillow of moss and leaves beneath his head, the careful way he'd been laid out in the curve of a dry riverbed. And the Avatar, crouched only a few feet away, his voice a little sad as he spoke of loss and friendship.

"I could've ended it then," he said. "That's what he wanted. He saved me from Zhao and I could've helped him. I could…" He swallowed and shook his head. "Jee always said I was selfish, and he was right. I was a stupid, selfish kid."

Jet lay a hand on Zuko's back. If he was confused as to what Zuko meant, he gave no indication. "You made a mistake," he said, his tone flat. "We've all made mistakes, Zuko."

Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyes shut. He thought of pirates and bounty hunters, burned villages and frightened old women, all his desperate attempts to slow the Avatar down long enough to be caught. He knew that Zhao had been his fault, as well; that his crew and his own, poor efforts at deception had set the entire Eastern Fleet on the Avatar's trail. "I did so many awful things," he said. "I wasted so much of his time. He could've been mastering the elements instead of running away from me. The war could've been over by now. If I'd just left him alone-"

"Zuko." Jet's voice was sharper, now, on the edge of anger. "Don't."

"But if I'd-"

"You can't know what would've happened," said Jet. "That guy…Zhao? What if you hadn't been there to steal Aang back from him?"

That Jet had remembered so small a thing - that he'd listened so closely that night in the old apartment - gave Zuko an odd moment of cheer. But when Zuko looked up at him his expression was serious, and Zuko could see he took no pleasure in remembering, "I don't know," said Zuko. "He would've tried to take the Avatar home to my father, but-"

"You can't know." Jet's face was in shadow, but Zuko could see the deep crease in his brow and the frown that pulled at his mouth. "Sometimes it's the small stuff that changes everything."

Zuko reached back over his shoulder and took Jet's hand, their fingers weaving together. "I could've killed him," he said.

Jet snorted, not quite a laugh. "Have you ever killed anyone? Even once?" They both knew the answer, so he went on, squeezing Zuko's hand as he spoke. His words were clipped and trembling, the emotion beneath them bound up in tight sentences. "Zuko. I could've killed him. I know that. You think I don't wonder? If he'd been a little slower? If I'd gotten lucky? At least you had a good reason to fuck with him-"

"Jet, no, I was just-"

"You had a good reason. You wanted to go home. I get that, okay? I do." It pulled the breath from Zuko's lungs, to hear Jet say that. It made him want to turn and wrap his arms around Jet's neck, to push his face against the soft skin under his jaw. But he knew Jet wasn't finished; could hear how badly he needed to say these things. So he held the other boy's hand a little tighter and listened, to the water and the wind in the trees and the quiet voice beside his ear.

"He was trying to stop me from drowning an entire village," Jet rasped, "and I almost killed him for it. I think about that every day, Zuko. Every fucking day. But we can't take back the shit we've already done. We just have to live with it." He sniffed and dragged a hand across his eyes, and Zuko couldn't resist any longer. He pulled Jet into his arms, clumsy with urgency, his own eyes prickling as he buried his face in Jet's hair. Jet's arms were like iron bands across his back, fingers twisted into Zuko's shirt, and for a time they only held each other and breathed.

"That's our punishment, you know?" Jet whispered. "Remembering. We can't take it back. All we can do is try and make it right again."

"We will," said Zuko, fierce and certain. "We'll figure it out." He smoothed the hair back from Jet's forehead, kissed it and then smiled a little. "Or, you know…you will. And then you'll tell me what to do."

Jet laughed softly as his grip on Zuko eased. "I don't think that's how it's gonna go."

"That's how it's been," said Zuko. The rocky ground was sharp under his knees, so he shifted into a more comfortable position, legs stretched out and Jet seated between them, his shoulder against Zuko's chest. Zuko stroked Jet's hair and looked up at the sky, the moon so bright that he could barely see the stars. This far north, they were different than the ones he remembered from his childhood, the constellations not quite where he expected them to be. "I guess I can't be sorry about how things went," he said. "About the Avatar. If I'd joined him, I'd probably be in the Fire Nation right now, with his friends and that Haru guy." He lay his hand flat on Jet's chest, fingers splayed over his breastbone. "I might never have met you."

Jet covered Zuko's hand with his own. "Probably not."

"I guess that's a pretty bad reason to be glad I acted like a jerk."

"Yeah, it is." Jet chuckled and turned his head, his hand reaching up to pull Zuko into a kiss. "I'm glad, too, though," he said once they'd parted, lips brushing Zuko's as he spoke. "So we're assholes together."

"That's good." Zuko kissed him again, his fingers sliding into the short hair at the nape of Jet's neck. His chest felt tight, like his ribs were too small for his heart and lungs and the feeling that burned in his stomach. He didn't know what to say - how to translate that heat into words that could bear its weight. "I'm glad I met you, Jet," was the best he could manage. But he meant it, and he hoped Jet understood what lay beneath. "Really really glad."

Jet's fingers traced the edge of Zuko's scar, skimmed along the shell of his burned ear and the line of his jaw. "Zuko," he said.

The ground was wet and rocky under Zuko's back, pebbles digging between his ribs and the knobs of his spine, a little painful with the weight of two boys bearing down on them. But Zuko pushed his hands inside Jet's tunic - slid his fingers over the raised lines of old scars, the flat planes of muscle in Jet's back, the sharp angles of his shoulder blades - and he didn't care about the pain. He cared about Jet's hot, eager mouth; the salty taste of Jet's throat under his tongue; the hand that tugged his pants out of the way and reached between his legs.

"Baby, I need you," Jet whispered, and Zuko cared about that, too. No one had ever needed him before. Not like this. He felt the same hunger he saw in Jet's eyes, even if he didn't understand it. He pulled Jet closer, kissed him more deeply, his body saying what his mouth could not.

That summer, as he'd wrapped himself in this new life and all its complications, Zuko had sometimes missed the way things were before, his years on the ocean with so clear a purpose. His search had consumed him, guided every action and informed every decision he made, his focus singular. He'd known, abstractly, that the point was to regain his inheritance; that if he succeeded, he would someday take his father's place on the throne. But that had always seemed too distant to think of seriously and too painful to really hope for - he had never thought about what it meant, or how his life might change. There had been too many details standing between him and that destiny, too many distractions to ever think that far. Better to concentrate on tomorrow than waste his time with someday.

Tomorrow the Avatar and his men would invade the Fire Nation capital. By nightfall, his father might be dead. Zuko didn't know if he would ever see the Fire Nation again. He didn't know if he would stand against his family in battle if such a thing was asked of him. He didn't know if he wanted that life anymore.

But he knew he wanted this. He wanted this every day.

Jet spit on his fingers, and a moment later Zuko felt a newer, deeper pain, burning and insistent. Zuko grit his teeth until it passed, knees spread wide and his own hands twisted into Jet's hair. They were rushing things, but he didn't care. They'd waited for too long already - since the morning before the Eastern Gate, when he had still been Li - and he didn't want to wait any longer. He felt Jet's fingers move inside him and arched his back, a moan rumbling low in his throat.

"Now," he said, a gasp as much as a word. "Please."

Jet rocked against him, eyes closed and lips parted, Zuko's legs over his shoulders and palms sliding along the backs of Zuko's thighs. "Zuko," he whispered. He kissed one sharp, pale knee; pushed the hair away from Zuko's face and leaned in to kiss his mouth, no matter that their position made it awkward. Zuko held him close, his own erection pressed between their stomachs, the pleasure of it almost more than he could stand. He felt like his skin was on fire. He felt like his heart would shatter itself against his ribs. Jet pushed against that place inside him and he clung even tighter, squeezing with his legs and his arms, as if he might fly apart if he let go.

He would never let go. He had lost so many things in his life - his home, his honor, his family. He wouldn't lose this. "Jet," he panted, over and over again in time with Jet's thrusts, quickening until the words blurred into a moan and the feeling overwhelmed him. He came with a soft, broken cry, rigid between Jet's body and the hard ground. Jet crushed their mouths together, hands on Zuko's hips, and fucked him as he trembled from the aftershocks, drawing them out into a long, slow spiral. Then Jet's own climax ripped through him, and he growled Zuko's name before his arms gave out and the two of them collapsed into a limp, warm heap.

Afterward, they lay on their backs with their fingers twined together, sweat and semen drying on their skin, their clothes bunched into pillows under their heads. They would have to go back to the camp soon. They needed to talk with the others, and to sleep. But they needed this, too - just the two of them and the quiet night. The rest of the world could spare them a little while longer.

"Hey," Jet murmured.

Zuko turned his head a little, far enough to kiss Jet on the cheek. "Yeah?"

"There's…" Jet paused and bit his lip, as if unsure where to begin. "Look. You're gonna have to make some decisions soon. About what you'll do. Where you'll go."

Zuko frowned. "Jet, I don't-"

Jet squeezed his hand. "I need to say this, okay? And it's hard. So just…let me say it."

"All right."

"So." Jet took a deep breath, whistling a little as he let it back out again. "You know, you'll figure it out. You will. And I just…whatever you decided to do, I'll understand. Okay?" He reached up and stroked Zuko's cheek, his smile a little sad. "You do what you need to do. I'll be fine."

"I need to be with you," said Zuko, because it was true.

Jet flinched, unable to hide it entirely. "We'll see," he said. He turned and draped his arm over Zuko's chest, close and comfortable. Then, his breath warm in Zuko's ear, "I'm glad I met you, too, you know."

Zuko kissed his forehead. "I know."







:: Next Chapter ::

The illustrations for this chapter, and the artists who drew them, are as such:

By gulliblesnail:
He drew the last syllable out, hugging Zuko's shoulders with one arm as the other gestured dramatically.

By foxysquid:
The three of them stood together for some time, watching the firelight in silence.

By boredgods
Even the city kids like Roo and Xiao Si Wang.