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It's warm out, and Aang tips his head up to Agni as the slightest breeze tickles him and brushes over his skin. His eyes are shut, not tight, and he inhales, exhales with every rise of chest and every fall of heart. He hears the faint whispers of spirits (looking over and after him in concern because of what took place few weeks ago. Jīshén yahā nàl), hears the sound of faint water, hears echoes.
Grass brushes his calves as he meditates. He doesn't call on the past Avatars. They know what happened, what he tried to do and are probably ashamed of him. He deserves it, he's ashamed of himself too, he can't ever do anything right.
What a failure you are Aang.
Aang is the Avatar and Avatar's are broken but they are not allowed to break. He did. He broke.
It's beautiful. The world is. But that still didn't stop him from wanting.
People are fragile, Aang knows this. People need help, Aang knows this. People aren't the Avatar, only one person is, Aang also knows this.
But, Aang is still delicate and so he's needed this time away from duty, as the Avatar, as The Air Nomad, as Aang. And that was a break, a taste of what could be before it wasn't, before it got more deep and he was taken away from-
Soft glide of wheels make their way down stone, steady noise carrying to Aang's ears to hear by the air. He keeps his eyes closed until the motion ceases, and the glides pause, and his companion, his friend, maneuvers himself to sit down next to him in quiet.
He opens his eyes, and turns to Teo with a dimmed down smile.
Teo doesn't smile back, his lips twist up the faintest bit but other than that he offers nothing except his eyes. And there is guilt, only guilt that threatens to swallow him whole and alive. Fawn eyes snap down to bandaged wrists, and he reaches out between them — a jump, a leap, something possible but so far — and his fingers are ghosts of what isn't. His touch is cautious - daunted but the trails he leaves behind is burning.
Aang turns his wrists outward, more able to feel and touch and reach, and gravitates to Teo's wandering as if they don't know they're seeking out something. Someone. Teo.
Maybe his mind knows him better than he does. But if his mind does, then why did it approve? Why did it say okay, let's do this? But his mind knows him better than he does, and knows he wouldn't be swayed until it actually happened and tried (proof) and told him to do it because there is no arguing with a man who is set.
Heaven seems so far away.
It's heartbreaking, actually. Really. How close he was but then wasn't. How he wanted and wants it.
Aang's far too gone. There's no point for him to come back up.
He's ashamed and he wants to melt in the fathomless sea. Go under. Become part of the heavens - he stops his ever-going train of thoughts there because, well, that's what happened and that's what could have been and it's the reality he failed in.
"Aang, you haven't said a word since," Teo gestures but doesn't let Aang fill in the silence. It's better this way. He likes it this way. It means that Teo is not shying away from saying it because this, this is something that should be said. "Since you attempted to kill yourself."
And now it strikes him, hearing it said aloud, what he did, what he tried to do. How he failed.
Sometimes, silence speaks louder than words can. Other times, words can speak louder than silences can.
He is a star but he almost sparked out.
And Teo- Teo didn't lie. Aang did not speak when he woke up in Teo's room, said person at his side waiting and waiting and waiting. He's ashamed of what he put Teo through. His bandages were tainted red then, blood seeping through and being tended by the healers.
He didn't speak or utter syllables when Teo casted aside his own duties and instead brought him to his home, where his roots were planted and seeded and grew, to the Southern Air Temple.
They've been here for many days now and Aang- words don't come to him like they used to before.
And he exhales, emptying all those feelings that rot inside of him out (or is he emptying all the air out?). And he breathes, and this is hard.
"I'm sorry." Is all he can say, can admit, can lie (maybe it's not a lie).
It sounds a little helpless. He sounds a little helpless.
"Aang, it's okay, you don't have to apologise. To me or anyone." Teo leans closer, shifts his weight so Aang can feel and see and be grounded to the earth. "It's just, why didn't you come to me or anyone else?"
"No Teo, you don't-" he starts but holds it in. He has no right to take his bitterness out on someone who did everything and left everything just so they can bring him here, the broken Avatar. Deep breath, hold, let go.
Teo understands and reaches out again, lets his fingers rest delicately on Aang's covered wrists. "Maybe I don't. But I'm telling you that you don't have to apologise to me. Others? Sure, why not? But never to me." Teo lets his eyes flutter close for a few seconds. "So, I'll ask you this again. Why didn't you come to me?"
And the question sits there in the expanse between them.
He doesn't answer it for a while. He instead thinks: But I have to. I'm going against what the monks told me and me, the last airbender, the last living Air Nomad, tried to kill myself and it all ended and there were going to be no more airbenders or the Avatar. It, I would have been the last Air Nomad Avatar and everything. My culture, my people, my traditions would've been lost and we'd be lost to history and we'd be stories and we'd be legends.
And stories would start like this:
Once upon a time, there used to be Air Nomads. Once upon a time, there used to be airbenders. Now, there aren't anymore. They're lost to the ages and the last airbender killed himself. Was it out of grief, out of pain, out of suffering, out of loneliness? Nobody knows. What we know is that the Air Nation is gone.
The question sits there, waiting. Teo is waiting but not pushing or pulling. Just waiting.
"I'm the Avatar. Why should I? How could I?" his voice is hoarse from disuse. I'm the Avatar. The Avatar who is the bridge between spirits and mortals, bender and master of four elements, the star who shines bright - for people all over and who never dies.
A star doesn't ache, and crave, and wish. A star doesn't feel anything. It just ebbs out, slow and then it explodes, fast.
A star burns and-
Foolish boy, don't you know what it is like to burn.
Aang had burned. Almost. He had ebbed and exploded. Almost.
Teo slants him a cool look. "You forget that you're not only the Avatar. You're Aang too. Much more than the Avatar. Quit thinking you're alone." Then softens his features. "And because there are people who love you, believe it or not. We care and you can talk to us."
He doesn't breathe a single word.
"Talk to me." Teo murmurs, hurt woven so closely and intricately in the flesh of what flows out of lips. Aang can hear it, because he always pays close detail to him, and rests a hand on Teo's shoulder to - to help, in some way.
Teo catches it, gently puts it down on the grass beneath them but still curls his fingers imperceptibly around them. Honey-gilded eyes bore eyes into spring-storm eyes. "And this is the problem, Aang." He says it, Aang, like he would my love.
"What is, Teo? What do you want me to do?"
"Nothing, Aang. Just let other people comfort you, instead of you comforting them when you should be the one getting comfort. Seeking it. Let me." Teo squeezes his hand.
And Aang feels so so gone, so far away, but here and existing at the same time. A juxtaposition, of now and then, and here and there and—
"It's hard," spills out of his mouth. "Some days, most days, I don't think I realise I live. It's hard, everything is. Waking up even."
Teo presses fingers to his. "I know. You've gone through so much with no time to heal. You've lost so much."
Aang shrugs, because what is he to say - what is he to do?
"I'll be honest, now. I'll say it all."
Teo leans closer to Aang, head near his shoulder, easy to place if he needs to come back down. In reach. "Talk to me," he says again.
How?
Aang is a star. Crashing and burning and tumbling to Earth. Crashing and burning and flickering out.
"Sometimes, I forget that I'm alive and that I breathe and that I exist. I'm human and I breathe. But, it's just- At the same time, I'm the Avatar and being the Avatar has taken many things from me but it's something I latch on when I-" he stops. "Something I depend on when I don't really think and forget I'm Aang too and not only the Avatar. The Avatar makes up most of everything of me and."
Tears stream down his eyes, an ever running river, and leaves stings on his skin. When did he start crying? He doesn't even know.
His body wracks with emotion, with feeling he hasn't let himself feel. Aang doesn't know when he last cried. And then there's an arm reaching out, curling around his waist, pulling him, drawing him, not tugging him, near. Close.
Yet. Yet, being the Avatar isn't everything to do with it. Isn't everything that- There's more to it. Maybe, it's Aang's people, maybe it's everything lost, maybe it's him not letting himself heal. Maybe, it's him not dealing with it at all, not coping.
"Sometimes, I wish I was not born because then I'd not be here, and I wouldn't be the Avatar and the Air Nomad and I wouldn't have to deal with it at all. But I am. And there's nothing I can do about it. I almost did but that's not the- thing to do."
The afterlife didn't want me. Then who will? He quickly shoves the thought to the side and disregards it. There's no use in thinking over things that got him into this- but he can't help it.
Aang starts to wipe his tears but pauses, grimacing at the faint pain that lines in his wrist. Teo sees, catches it and wipes his tears for him. Aang smiles, crumbling at the edges from his impromptu crying session.
Teo moves himself so that they're face to face because- There are many things he wants to say, but he won't. Aang doesn't need it now, but if it tumbles out of his lips then spirits know he will say it all. "I know... I can't help you much but I'm here for you Aang. I want you to know that. Need you too." He presses his fingertips to Aang's, firm, made of steel and there.
You'll never be alone. He says, but he doesn't speak.
Aang swallows, and looks away from him.
Teo breaks the silence they've drifted in and says, low. "You know, I've thought of this before. Many times."
Aang glances up, waiting, watching. "Yet you didn't."
"Maybe I didn't." He replies, sharp but smooth. "But that's because I was constantly with people surrounding me, or either working. And just immersing myself in it so I don't have to focus on those thoughts but. I was never really alone. And I distracted myself with other things and thoughts."
He opens his mouth but shuts it. Questions whether or not. Spirits, he will say it all. "You."
Aang blinks, eyes gazing up at him wide.
"I thought of things but then I thought of you and..."
Aang continues to look at Teo, anticipating, quiet, gentle.
Teo dips his head, a tell-tale sign of the feelings that sits there inside. "I can be... that, for you. If you want me to be."
The silence is deafening. It's-
And Teo thinks this is what spirits must have felt when they were dying. A never ending taunt, miserable, as they search for whisper of beams and brushes of touch but then they explode into stars, if they're lucky. But they're cursed, to forever live in the sky and not move. To put on a show, because that's all they'll ever be for eternity. This is what they feel like with throats turned up, to the sky for mercy and the only mercy they're given is stars, is to burn. Never being able to move, never being able to come down, just stay up and never look down again.
Teo doesn't press his lips to Aang's. He doesn't do anything he wants to do. He only says, "I know I can't heal you or make you better but I'll be here. I can be. For however long we have."
And everything makes sense. Everything shifts onto axis and- "How long?" How long have you loved me? How long have you managed? How long have you known?
"For quite some time. Before you and Katara broke up. A while."
"Oh," slips out of his mouth, spills softly.
"Yeah. Oh." Teo smiles, humourless, a touch dismal. "I didn't want to tell you. Never wanted to. And the timing is so off and wrong."
Fall, sweet boy. Fall, and then with battered wings fly. (How Aang would like to fly.)
"I'm sorry. That I didn't think of coming to you." He mumbles, leaning back on the grass, wrists straining and aching but this is nothing compared to burning.
"Don't be." Teo forgives, he smiles, and isn't it funny what love can do.
Aang breathes, the beginnings of a tsunami before it rises up to its ending. "I bet the gods envy you. That's fine. I envy you too."
Teo's eyes go soft and fierce, the fierce kind of soft and he says, admits, "The gods envy me because I have you." And there is the seekable truth, the only truth in this world full of lies.
"I'll burn you," he murmurs, whispers, peeking up from eyelashes that flutter like a butterfly against dew-skin.
"Okay," Teo murmurs, whispers back, "show me what it's like to burn."
Aang does. He leans forward, further and Teo meets him halfway. It tastes like sunlight in veins and melodies of air and they are breathing. Aang is a star and he is burning, has been burning. Teo isn't but Aang is showing him what it means to burn. This is a reminder, a remember, a prayer of what didn't and wasn't.
Swells to a crescendo. A cadence, spun only for them.
There is galaxies with tapestries of liquid gold love, comets honed by razor edges of heartbeats, and the universe made from baring of teeth, and there is stars. There is stars.
They burn.
And when it all ends, it'll be alright because Teo will be there to catch him when he stumbles and falls, and Aang will be there to catch him (when he stumbles and falls) back.