[fic] Something to Hold Onto, Chapter 12: So Clear Now

[wildgoosery]

Title: Something to Hold Onto [12/13]
Word count: 8,900
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

Comments

[sistermagpie]

Oh. My. God, Al. Look what you have done here. LOOK WHAT YOU HAVE DONE! Jet is so ridiculously hot and also vulnerable it's like...I'm sure in my many babblings about previous chapters I talked about how Zuko is just, because of who he is, so transparent and always vulnerable! It's harder to read Jet sometimes because his defenses actually work. But in this chapter it's like he's gotten to the end of them.

Like, you know in cartoons when somebody runs off a cliff and they keep running and then look down and then they fall? Jet just sort of strutted off the edge of the cliff here. Without the battle to focus on for the first time all his insecurities pile on him. Like we can see how he gets strength from his view of himself as ragtag Earth Kingdom peasant forest Robin Hood type but also how he's limited by it. Or not limited *by it* exactly, but that even though it's a pretty fucking cool thing to be, there's a part of him that is always harshly telling himself not to ask for more. The whole "I'm nobody here" pose works really well until you dig down to the part of him who really wants to be somebody--somebody in a family, somebody important to someone else. I love how cocky Jet is but how much I can feel his terror at being plunked down in the middle of the Fire Nation and the Fire Nation court and feeling stupid and not special enough for Zuko.

Zuko, prove to Jet that he's important for himself and not just as his mission! God, this chapter was just...how did you manage to put Jet in the running with Zuko for the brave but insecure boy stakes here?

Also, as selfish as it is because I know these guys want to live, I love that we're basically syncing up to the series where Zuko joins the GAang here because yeah, that invasion didn't work. It's better than the series because even though it's coming to the end, it's not the end end of the series. I get to stay in the happy spot forever! (Actually, I shouldn't say that since I've no idea what will happen in the last chapter!)

And while you were knocking me out with Jet, you gave Iroh awesome Iroh moments--the kind where you can see how Zuko and Iroh are alike, actually. There's something in common in the way they sometimes say just the right thing because they believe it passionately. Bite the silver sandwich, Iroh!

And on top of that you give me Bumi's haiku. IDIK!!!!

Oh, and one stupid small type so I can say I helped: Zuko had been exactly right - Zha had left his Firebenders to die, completely ignorant of the danger the faced for his sake

should be "they faced for his sake."