Chapter Text
Jet is thirteen, and Smellerbee has found a corpse.
It's pitiful. Washed up on the riverbank, face-down and covered in burns. Jet's stomach turns somersaults at the sight; it's no bigger than he is, and he hopes for this kid's sake the death was quick.
Long black hair, the darkest Jet's ever seen, trails in the water, and the skin looks pale under all the sunburn (and regular burn).
Bee helps him turn it over, and he very nearly loses the little he'd eaten that morning at the sight of the gory mess covering half of a face still soft with baby fat. A burn, the size of a grown man's hand, stretches from below the cheekbone to above where an eyebrow should be, and from the inner corner of the left eye to behind the ear on the same side. Singed hair, sand, and mud stick to the oozing wound, and make Jet grateful this poor kid can't feel it anymore.
When he's able to tear his eyes away from the horrific sight, it's to look over the corpse's clothes, try to make out if it's someone they should bother burying or just chuck back in the river. Ashmakers always wear red, and Earth folk wear green. It's like a rule or something — the Freedom Fighters are an exception. They wear whatever they can get ahold of.
This corpse wears nothing, except a ragged pair of pants flared above the knee, and a gold ring around the right bicep. The left has a bruise that matches the ring.
"We'll bury it," he decides. "Ashmakers don't burn like that."
It's then that the corpse breathes — a long, agonized wheeze that makes Jet's own chest hurt to hear it. Before he can register what's happening, the definitely-not-a-corpse turns over on its — their — side, hacking and retching up blackened water. Bee crouches down, massaging the not-a-corpse's back until their lungs seem to be cleared. Jet's mind races, trying to pinpoint a course of action — can they take this kid back to the hideout? Are they too injured to move? Can a burn that size even be treated, or would it be kinder to just put them out of their misery?
The kid lets out a little whine, falling back on the ground with a weak moan. Bee looks up at Jet, the same questions clear in her gaze. It's on Jet to decide where they go from here, just like always.
"We'll take 'em back to the hideout. Deathgrip can do his best for the burn," he says. Bee nods, and attempts to hoist the kid on her shoulders. Jet steps over to help — strong as Bee might think she is, she's still a lot smaller than either Jet or this kid.
They carry their guest to the hideout, and leave them in the expert hands of their medic. Hopefully, what they have will be enough, and they won't have to dig any graves for a while.
~
Jet is fourteen, and his friend is an idiot.
Their not-a-corpse made a full recovery, to everyone's surprise. Deathgrip's good, but nobody knew he was that good. They now have an expert swordsman to rival Jet's skill (not that Jet would ever admit it).
It's been almost a year since that day, and now their rescuee stands in the medic's house again, his hand full of boarcupine quills.
"How does this always happen?" Jet asks, trying not to sound amused and failing. Duo glares at him, not even needing to try; that scar makes everything look menacing on him.
"It wouldn't happen if you'd put the traps further from their nests," he says. "And use a different bait. I've told you this a million times."
Even his voice is menacing; smoke damage, Deathgrip said, though he wouldn't be surprised if there was some kind of permanent hoarseness from strain. Jet agreed — he wouldn't make it through a burn like that without screaming himself sore.
"You can use a stick to get them out of the traps, dumbass," Jet says, as the medic yanks another barbed quill out of his friend's hand. Duo winces.
"It'll hurt them," he says, as if his hand isn't full of spikes. "And we're just losing bait."
"If you know so much, I can put you in charge of trapping," Jet retorted. Duo scoffed.
"I could do it better than you," he says, sounding completely confident in that. "But so could you."
Jet rolls his eyes. But next time he sets the traps, he sets them further away. He doesn't like Duo getting hurt.
~
Jet is fifteen, and he thinks he might be in love.
He stands at the edge of a clearing, watching Duo slash and stab with the dual dao for which he's named. His waist-length hair is tied back in a ponytail at his nape, still swirling and swaying with his movements. In the sunset light, the black turns gold; Jet wants to run his hands through it, and get out all the tangles with his fingers. It's a stupidly sappy, time-wasting thought. He's had a lot of those lately.
Duo finishes practicing and sheathes his swords. His eyes catch on Jet in the shadows — bright, vicious eyes, the color of fallen leaves, of the golden ring Duo still wears on his arm. Jet's favorite color, these days.
He crosses his arms — muscled, wiry arms, but not as wiry as Jet's. They're strong, too. Duo's a couple inches shorter than Jet, but he makes up for it with how ferocious he is. Jet's come away from fights against Duo with bruises and bloody noses to match the ones he gave.
Duo clears his throat, and Jet realizes he's been zoned out, staring at Duo's arms. Shit.
"Oh, hey, Duo. When'd you get here?" he says, trying to play it off like he just noticed Duo standing there. Like he hasn't been watching him for the past half-hour.
"You've been watching me for the last half-hour," Duo says. "What do you want?"
To run my hands through your hair and hold hands with you while we watch the sunset and kiss you in the middle of a battle and run to you afterwards —
Jet cuts that thought off before it gets too long and overflows the brain-to-mouth filter. "Spar?" he asks instead, drawing his hook swords. Duo snorts, but nods, taking a fighting stance.
"Sure. Bring it on."
~
Jet is sixteen, and fighting the Fire Nation side-by-side with someone he loves, and who loves him back, when it all unravels.
The Avatar arrives, along with two Water Tribe siblings, one of whom is the prettiest girl Jet's ever seen (which is just an observation, since he's madly in love with Duo and that's not changing) and the other of whom is the most suspicious, paranoid person Jet's ever met.
(Later, Bee points out that Sokka's suspicions were correct, so was he really paranoid or just intuitive? Jet doesn't have time for these questions.)
The real trouble, though, begins when the Avatar catches sight of Duo's face. He gasps audibly, and when Jet's about to tell him off for being rude to his boyfriend (like he's got any room to talk, those arrows aren't exactly a fashion statement), he says, "Zuko?"
Duo's face goes seven shades paler than normal, his eyes wide before they narrow dangerously. Foreboding sets in, and Jet can only watch as Duo gets in the kid's face, snarling.
"How do you know that name?" he hisses.
The kid seems unruffled in the face of Duo's anger. He tells a story — the Water Tribe siblings leaving the South Pole to help him learn Waterbending in the North. On their way, being chased by a Fire Nation Commander and an old man who used to be a General. Being captured and held in the old man's quarters. A shrine in those quarters, with a painting of a young boy, the old man's nephew.
"He looked just like you," Aang finishes. "Only without the..." he gestured over the left side of his face. "I thought you might..."
Duo avoids the Avatar's group after that. After it's all over, and the Avatar and friends have left, and Jet's been chipped out of ice, he finds Duo sitting at the edge of their shared platform, looking out over the shorter trees. His hair's down, pooling around him on the planks. Jet takes a moment to run his hands through it as he sits down; Duo stops him with a gentle hand on his wrist. It's burning hot against his still-freezing skin.
"I have to tell you something," Duo says, his voice quiet and shaky. When he looks at Jet, his eyes are sad, and Jet lowers his hands to his lap.
That's the night Jet finds out that Duo — no, not Duo. Zuko — isn't at all the person Jet thought he was.
The night Jet learns how the Fire Lord treats those he deems weak. His hatred for those monsters grows tenfold, and he struggles to keep it inside as Zuko goes on talking.
When he finally falls silent, Jet can't contain it any longer. His best friend, the person he loves has just been one of them all along. An ashmaker, just another one of those monsters. He says all these things and worse, and Duo Zuko just takes it. When Zuko won't even fight back, won't tell him it's not true, Jet breaks down and storms off.
He spends the night on watch, taking over Smellerbee's shift and not bothering to wake Longshot for his.
When he comes back in the morning, the other bed in his hut is empty. There's a note — Zuko's gone, to live with the monsters like him who made it out of the village.
Part of Jet thinks good riddance. The rest of him can't hear it over his crying.