Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The sleek, black modern facade across the street had been blank yesterday. Today the space above the door was filled with big, red kanji that Katara assumed from the block letters written underneath spelled out the name of the shop: Red Fire Lily.

The space next store was also new, and appeared to be some sort of cafe. This sign, in green, read: The Jasmine Dragon.

From the big storefront window of Spirit Oasis Ink, Katara had been watching the new shops go up across the street for the past several months. She'd wondered about her new neighbors, and wondered about the different possibilities for her own clientele. The spaces across the street had been empty for a long time, and it was an unfortunate business truth that not everybody wanted their store facing a tattoo shop. People had strange ideas about these things, although many of Katara's clients came to her because she was the only native in town specializing in genuine Water Tribe ink. She did other stuff, too, but her favorite thing was always having a fellow tribesman in the chair looking to connect to their heritage, even as far away from home as Ba Sing Se. It made her feel connected, too, even though she hadn't been back in years. She'd done her brother Sokka's art, and he'd been the model for many of the pictures on her walls. Some of the pictures were from her own tats, too. A lot of the men who came in took particular interest in those. Some of them had even asked her out, but she always turned them down.

Right now Hahn, one of their repeat customers, was in the chair while Yue did the finishing touches on his upper right sleeve to match the left. He stole glances down her shirt while she leaned over him intently, and every so often he got too bold in his ogling and Yue would flick his wrist and he would lean back, suppressing a grimace.

Katara sighed and resumed watching the shops across the street. A moving truck had pulled up and the movers had begun placing boxes, furniture, and wrapped packages on the sidewalk.

One of the guys spoke to the other young men and seemed to be directing them, and Katara wondered if he was the owner. He was young, trim and muscular, dressed in a black t-shirt and jeans, with a handsome face - though his expression was rather a bit severe as he spoke to the movers, Katara thought - and long black hair half pulled up into a messy topknot.

Another man came around the side of the truck with a box filled with potted plants. This guy was older, short and stout, sprays of tropical flowers growing taller than his head. When the young man saw him, he turned his attention away from the movers, and embraced the old man, mindful of the box in his arms. Katara watched as the young man's serious expression morphed into a soft, radiant smile as he spoke animatedly to the old man holding the flowers, and inferred from the obvious affection between them that they were probably father and son, though they didn't look all that alike.

"Wow," Yue said. "Check out the hot guy across the street."

Hahn looked up and laughed. "You mean the old grandfather?"

"No, dummy," Yue flicked Hahn's wrist again. "There was a young guy who just went into the shop. Major hottie. Katara, back me up here."

"Hm," Katara said distractedly. The young man had indeed gone inside the shop, and behind him the movers carried more boxes of brightly colored flowers, some Katara had never seen before. She had the sudden urge to draw them, hypnotized by their tantalizing colors and wide, cheerful blooms.

The door to the shop directly across from them, which appeared now to be a flower shop, opened again.

"Oh," Hahn said, much too cheerfully, although there was no warmth in it. "You mean the freak?"

It was the same guy who had come out of the shop, but from this angle Katara could see that there was something wrong with the left side of his face. Some kind of burn. Even from this distance, Katara could tell that it was severe, and old, and covered a large portion of the left side of his face, even half-hidden by the curtain of dark hair. It was the kind of scarring that happened when a wound like that hadn't been treated properly, and Katara winced thinking of the story it told.

The scar twisted his handsome face into a permanent scowl on that side, and even when he smiled at the old man, it seemed only halved, not so bright as it had before.

Katara heard Hahn gasp again as Yue flicked his wrist once more. "He's still good looking," she said. "Even with the scar."

Katara could tell by the way she had said it that Yue considered even with the scar to be a feature, not a bug. Yue had dated enough scarred bikers and tough guys since Katara had known her, guys she brought home after high school mainly as a form of rebellion against her parents, who'd wanted her to marry Hahn. To be fair, most of them had better manners.

"You should go over there, Katara. Introduce yourself."

Katara glared at Yue, who was practically bouncing with excitement. Even Hahn looked like he was awaiting her answer.

" What ?" Yue said. "You know Sokka and I are pretty serious. Your brother and I both agree that you need to find someone, too."

Katara rolled her eyes at the idea of Yue discussing her love life with her brother, of all people.

For the rest of the afternoon, Katara worked on balancing the books for Spirit Oasis, while Yue finished up with Hahn and worked on two more customers, one a regular and another who was excited to meet two genuine Water Tribe artists, and asked animatedly about the tattoos on Katara's wrists. He seemed disappointed when they told him that the traditional tribal tattoos were a closed practice, but perked up when Yue offered to do a bracelet for him in a style of swirling lotus leaves and petals that Katara had designed herself.

Across the street, the movers and the father and son duo went back and forth from the two shops to the moving truck, and every so often Katara glanced up from her work to see the windows across the street beginning to be filled with bright, almost otherworldly blooms. It was a stark contrast to the empty facade that she had been used to staring at for months on end, and brought some much-needed color to the street.

The facade next to the flower shop seemed to be some sort of cafe, and Katara saw the movers set up tables and chairs underneath the awning in front of the sign.

Katara couldn't help wondering about the two owners, the serious young man with the burn scar and the jolly old grandfather. They seemed quite a pair, and Katara kept thinking about it even as she sighed in disgust every time Yue made a new suggestion that she go over and introduce herself, each one more forward than the last.

By five o'clock, the moving truck from across the street had gone, and Katara could see lights on in both storefronts. Yue had just finished up and Katara began the process of closing the shop for the night.

“It looks like things have slowed down for the day over there,” Yue said. “And it’s still early.” She glanced meaningfully at Katara.

“ Ugh, ” Katara muttered in resigned indignation.

“What? I think we should go say hi to our new neighbors, that’s all.”

“ Fine,” Katara said, throwing up her hands. “But you’re not setting me up this time. And I’m taking my sketchbook.” She wanted to get a closer look at those flowers, anyway. Katara slipped her sketchpad into her tote and slipped on her hoodie, locking up after Yue, and they crossed the street.

Katara remembered a time when the little shop across the street had been a barber, but now it looked completely different. Shelves of potted plants and floral arrangements took up most of the space on the black and white tile floor, and everywhere there were bursts of color, pale pink and yellow and bright orange and violet and reds of various shades. Most of the flowers seemed to be exotic breeds, many of which Katara had never seen before. She looked at the names on the tags and didn’t recognize them.

There was still a lot of empty space, and boxes stacked against the walls. Clearly it was still a work in progress.

The guy with the burn scar was standing over one of the shelves, half hidden behind a large red flower with odd, spindly blooms like reaching fingers that Katara didn’t know the name of. He held a small pair of pruning shears in one hand and was muttering something at the plant under his breath, as if he were disappointed in its performance. He hadn’t seen them come in. Yue gave Katara a look. She rolled her eyes. Yue coughed.

The man looked up.

“Oh,” he said, then frowned. “Um, we’re not open yet.”

“Sorry,” Yue said. “We…didn’t mean to interrupt. We just wanted to introduce ourselves. We’re your new neighbors. From across the street. Spirit Oasis Ink. I’m Yue, and this is Katara.”

“We can leave if you - “ Katara began.

“No, stay, please.”

Katara and Yue both turned as the door to the shop opened and the grandfatherly old man from before came in, carrying a tray with a steaming teapot and two porcelain cups. The man with the scar straightened.

“I didn’t realize you had company, my nephew,” the man said. “I’ll just go get two more teacups from next door.” To Katara and Yue, he said. “That is, if you don’t mind staying for a cup of freshly brewed jasmine tea? Made special by the house.”

Yue brightened. “We’d love to! We were just introducing ourselves to your nephew. I’m Yue, and this is Katara.”

The man gave them a warm smile and set down the tea tray on an empty shelf. Then he bent forward into a formal bow.

“My name is Iroh, and this is my nephew Zuko.” Uncle Iroh gestured to his young nephew, who had returned to busying himself with the shears as if they were no longer there, although Katara could sense him watching them. When Iroh had suggested they stay for tea, she had caught the slightest shift in his expression and posture, even as he seemed lost in his work.

After the old man had left, Katara turned to face Yue, eyebrows raised. Yue gave her a thumbs up and a grin. Katara rolled her eyes, aware that Zuko was watching her even as he kept pretending to ignore them. Not that she cared what this guy thought of her. So far he had been pretty rude, and a stark contrast to his jovial uncle. Quite an unusual pair, these two, and Katara had learned to be wary of unusual, though the old man seemed nice enough.

A moment later Iroh returned, two delicate china cups like the others in his large hands. He poured out two more cups of the steaming tea, and handed one to Katara and one to Yue.

Katara found that she was charmed despite herself. It was cool enough this evening that the hot tea was much appreciated, and the old man made pleasant company despite his nephew’s brusqueness. The tea was good, too. Her teacup, like the other three and the teapot that matched it, was swirled in a pattern of painted dragons and winding clouds.

“Nephew,” Iroh called, “your tea is getting cold. And your guests are stranded at sea.”

Zuko put down the shears. “I told them we’re not open.”

Charming, Katara thought. She caught herself staring at the man’s scarred face, then scolded herself. She’d studied nursing in school, it wasn’t like she hadn’t seen injuries like that before. No wonder he doesn’t want to talk to you, the way you gawk . He was probably self-conscious. Maybe he's just shy. Maybe he’s just an asshole .

Surprisingly, Zuko came over to them and took the cup of tea, although he said nothing, but eyed Yue and Katara silently. As their eyes met briefly, Katara felt oddly exposed, as if he somehow was able to sense what she had been thinking, and raised her teacup to her lips to break the tension.

"It's beautiful," Katara said after setting down her cup, nodding towards the tall plant with the red blooms.

"It's dying," Zuko said bluntly. "Spider lily. It doesn't like it here."

"I've never seen lilies like that," Yue said.

"They are native to the Fire Nation.” Iroh spoke with genuine warmth. “It is a pleasure to bring the delights of our country to the peoples of this world. We don't see many Southerners, especially, this far north. I recognize your tattoos, Miss Katara, as native to that region."

"Pearlwort and Deschampsia," Zuko muttered, as if to himself.

Katara hid her wrists in the long sleeves of her sweatshirt, feeling suddenly self-conscious.

Then Zuko set his teacup back down on the tray with a clatter and returned to his work without excusing himself from the group. From the way Iroh watched his nephew but said nothing, this behavior was not unusual.

Yue, never one to turn down a conversation, began telling Iroh about how they had come to Ba Sing Se, how they had met before that when Katara went North for college, and how they had come to open the shop across the street. Katara, bored of the discussion and not wanting to revisit her nursing school years, drifted away from the conversation. As Yue talked to the old man, Katara walked among the shelves, imagining herself lost in some strange, secret garden, fingers brushing against rows of rubbery leaves and silken petals.

Finally she found a spot where a small stool had been placed, perched herself on it, and began to sketch.

When Katara returned to her apartment after dropping off Yue for the evening, still tasting Jasmine on her breath as evidence of the strange encounter with the teamaker and his odd nephew, she began to fish in her bag for her keys and immediately noticed the empty space where her sketchbook should be.

Zuko had been snipping off the last dead parts of the spider lily and placing the cuttings in the compost when he spotted the notebook sitting half-hidden under the leaves of a potted poinsettia. He instantly recognized the thin, black book as the one that belonged to the owner of the tattoo shop.

He picked it up and glanced across the street. The window of the tattoo parlor was dark.

As he held the notebook in his hands, a sudden curiosity overcame him. He had seen her sketching the flowers in his shop, and he had a right to see her perspective on his merchandise, didn’t he? Well, then it couldn't hurt to look…

The first few drawings were very much like what he expected, although he couldn’t help but remark on her skill. There was also a lot more than he thought there would be, from the short amount of time she’d been sitting in the shop. One half-finished sketch of the yellow poinsettia that she had clearly been working on before she left. A detailed replica of the half-dead spider lily that blew his breath away in how it captured both the beauty and the melancholy of the plant's current state. She'd also done a few sketches of the same from different angles, incorporating it into swirling curlycue motifs that were possibly the beginnings of tattoo designs, he realized with surprise.

Zuko flipped the page, and what he saw next made his chest feel tight as his breath caught in his throat.

There was a drawing of him, close from the shoulders up, arranging flowers in a vase, the expression on his face showing that he was unaware of the viewer's gaze, his good eye focused intently on his work. The other side of his face was hidden by the spray of peonies and roses, the one he’d been working on earlier while she’d been here.

Zuko flipped the page again. The next one was him as well, but this time his scarred side was turned towards the viewer, framed by the same bouquet of flowers. His bad eye was in the center of the page, squinted, unfocused, surrounded by crude ridges of scarred flesh. The rough lines were so sharp that it hurt to look at. It was almost as if, were he to reach down and press his fingers to the paper, he might be able to feel the mottled texture of the scar tissue, already knowing what it might feel like. A leaf curled where his left eyebrow had been burnt away, as if growing there in compensation, and peonies seemed to burst from his shriveled ear.

He had never seen himself depicted in that way before. He avoided most mirrors nowadays, but still, he knew what he looked like. It startled him, the bluntness of the detail in the way she drew his injury, but also the beauty of it. He knew that he was not beautiful. Yet she drew his scars as if they were flowers. He felt heat forming at the edge of his vision - the right side, as he had not felt much of anything on the other for many years - but he blinked it away as he shut the book abruptly.

When Katara unlocked the door to Spirit Oasis Ink the next morning, there was a small cardboard box sitting beneath the window on the sidewalk. In it were two styrofoam cups of freshly-brewed (and still quite hot) tea - the tag on the teabags read matcha with honey and lemon. Beside them, propped on its side thoughtfully, was her sketchbook, poking out between the pages of which was a splash of vibrant red and green, a fresh cutting of Zuko’s spider lily.

Chapter Text

Katara wanted her mom.

Mom was in the room, but Katara couldn’t see her. All she could see was the hulking figure who stood between her and her mother, the large, grotesquely muscular back heaving up and down, like the back of an animal, a bear, or a rabid dog. But this was a man, skin and bone and corded sinew that stretched as Katara watched. Between the two massive shoulder blades, Katara could see that the man had a tattoo, a design of concentric circles, the center one dark and nearly eclipsing the outer one, whose edges radiated outward across the man rippling shoulders.

Katara screamed.

...And woke to the invading sounds of her clock radio, the familiar jingle of Morning Over Ba Sing Se tinkling with discordant joy, an unwelcome sound on most mornings. On this morning, though, at least it was better than sleep. Katara shook off the edges of the dream, like cobwebs clinging to her head.

The dream, too, was familiar, and the terror and the feelings of helplessness. But awake, Katara wasn’t that helpless little girl any longer, though the memory of her still lingered. She had to get to work.

“Well?”

Yue had her hands on her hips. The cardboard box that had been sitting on the doorstep of the shop this morning was between them.

“Well what ?”

“I just think you should go over there, is all. Thank him for giving back your notebook. And the tea.”

“Oh, come on, that part was obviously the old guy.” Katara didn’t think it seemed like the owner of the flower shop’s style, seeing as how he’d barely noticed them the day before. It had to be the uncle’s doing. He seemed like the type.

“Well, what about the spider lily?”

Katara pursed her lips and glanced at the lone lily, sitting brightly on her desk in a mug with the words I hate mornings a latte , filled with fresh tap water, that was currently serving as a makeshift vase.

“It means he saw my notebook. He saw what I drew.”

“Then he knows how talented you are. And he wants to know other things about you, too.” Yue said, currently flipping through the cursed notebook, stopping at the page Katara had done of Zuko. “Ah, hello there, gorgeous.” She drew her words out into a long, dramatic sigh.

“Do you not have any shame?”

“I’m dating your brother.”

“Good point.” Katara took the notebook from Yue’s hands and closed it. “ However , some of us do have a proper sense of embarrassment. I shouldn’t have drawn him, he shouldn’t have seen it .”

No sooner had the words left her mouth than the little bell hanging from the shop’s entrance rang out, and Katara jumped. She was infinitely relieved when it turned out not to be the flower shop owner or his uncle, but a customer, then was forced unpleasantly to examine why her mind had jumped to that conclusion in the first place as Yue greeted their first appointment of the day.

-

"That was a nice thing you did, nephew," Iroh said, a steaming cup of ginseng in his hands. 

Zuko frowned into his own cup as they sat in the empty cafe. Tables and chairs were scattered in a semi-organized fashion, and oil paintings of lotus leaves and curling dragons sat propped against the freshly painted walls, ready to be hung. "It was your idea, not mine."

"Might I remind you of the red lily's passion?"

Zuko frowned at something in his uncle's tone. "Red spider lilies mean goodbye," he countered. "Or death." Really, though, he had not been thinking of the flower's meaning when he had slipped it between the pages of the notebook. He had simply put it there because she had liked it and had drawn it. That was all. "She'll kill it anyway."

It was true. Spider lilies never lasted long away from the Fire Nation.

"The flower that blooms for only a short while is often the most beautiful," Iroh said. "It teaches us to appreciate the fleeting beauty in our own lives, don't you think?"

Zuko wondered if that was from some verse, or if Uncle had just made it up. Both were just as likely.

Zuko's mother loved flowers. Some of Zuko's earliest memories were of digging in the garden, dirt under his fingernails and grass stains on his knees, the heady smell of earth. Everything had been so simple then, with cool, black dirt beneath his fingers and his mother's warm smile as she handed him the wet seeds to place into the dark, warm holes. Then Zuko would cover them up with dirt and eventually, they would bloom into flowers, or pepper plants, or strawberries.

That had stopped after she went away. The garden had been left to seed and Zuko had been forbidden from tending to the herbs and blooms that had once thrived there. The garden, as it had been, now only existed in his memory.

He shouldn't have given Katara the lily. He shouldn't have returned the notebook, because it meant she knew he had looked. She shouldn't have drawn him in the first place, shouldn't have come when he'd told her the shop was closed. She was a nosy, rude girl and he didn't like her.

-

Katara had been about to take her lunch break when the door opened and Sokka bounded into the shop. Yue emerged from the back at about the same time, and he was quick to embrace her in a running hug, twirl her around in a circle once or twice, then set her down again as he turned to his sister.

"Hi, Katara."

"Someone's in a good mood."

Sokka placed a hand on his heart in mock offense. "Can't I see my two favorite ladies in the world and not have an ulterior motive?" He shot a grin and Yue that was very much at odds with his show of innocence. "Anyway, I got a contract today. Plus, it's lunchtime."

Katara chuckled at the timing of Sokka's internal clock. "You can tell us about it on the way to eat. And a new job means you're buying."

"I always buy for my baby sister."

Katara rolled her eyes at the obvious lie, but chose not to comment.

-

Across the street, the workers in the back of the moving truck heaved the new daisy yellow couch onto the ramp. Zuko stood on the ground next to the ramp and braced himself while holding the other end of the heavy piece of furniture. Why Uncle had insisted on purchasing the thing was still a mystery to him, and Zuko would be damned if the movers they'd hired on the little money they had right now got injured because of Iroh's impractical tastes in decor.

As the men at the top surged forward, sliding the couch down the ramp, Zuko lifted.

Then the back of his knee hit the side of the ramp. He had somehow miscalculated the distance, and now the heavy couch was slipping from his grasp as his knees buckled and he tumbled backwards.

One of the men above him shouted his name.

-

"Holy shit!"

Katara looked up as Sokka bolted out the door of the shop just in time to see a heavy couch falling from the back of a moving truck across the street. The grandfatherly owner of the cafe was shouting and trying to lift the piece of furniture from the ground while the owner of the flower shop had fallen backwards and crumpled beneath its weight in the middle of the street.

By the time Katara was halfway out the door, Sokka was there beside Iroh and the other workers, helping to lift the couch onto the ground while the flower shop owner shifted and sat up in the street. His uncle instantly shifted his attention to the young man, saying something softly and putting a hand on Zuko's back for support.

"I have medical training!" Katara said as she jogged up to the scene in the street.

Yue, close behind, offered to call an ambulance.

"I'm fine," Zuko said, still sitting in the street with his uncle cooing over him, clearly irritated by all the attention.

"That thing landed on top of you, and your head connected with the ground." Sokka said. "You could have a concussion or something."

Zuko looked at Sokka and opened his mouth, but Iroh put a hand on his shoulder. "Nephew, these people are trying to help," he said in a voice that spoke of calm, patience, and a history that said that he had said similar things before. Clearly Zuko had a hard time accepting help from others. But it was true, he had hit his head pretty hard, even if he did seem fine right now, as Katara mentally checked him for signs of concussion.

"I don't think there is a need to call right now," Iroh said, looking at Katara, and Katara got the meaning. More people and EMTs might be worse for Zuko. "But you do need to lay down, at least, for the moment."

"Your uncle is right," Katara said. "Can you stand?"

Zuko deliberately avoided her gaze as he stood up, only a little shakily, his uncle hovering nearby. "Yeah." Still, he let Iroh offer an arm around his shoulder, and once given the support, started to sag a little. Sokka took his other arm and they led him to the cafe.

When Katara entered after the crowd, she saw Zuko stretched out on a couch that was a twin to the one that had caused all the trouble outside. The place was beginning to look almost cozy, although Katara was sure that this was not the use Iroh had imagined for the comfy furniture.

"It's my back, mostly," Katara could hear the painful wince in Zuko's voice. "My head's fine, and the rest will work itself out. Laying down is worse."

"You need to take it easy for now," Katara said, finding the bedside manner voice from her nursing school days, the one she loathed. "Can you move to lay on your side so I can check your back?"

Zuko grunted disapprovingly, although his gaze shifted in reaction to her tone. Katara thought he sounded much like an angry bull, or a petulant child. After a moment he shifted so that his back was to her. Which made him look even more like a pouting child, Katara thought.

"We really need to check for bruised vertebrae. I'm gonna touch you a little on your spine, okay?" Katara spoke gently. Zuko seemed incredibly tense and she wasn't sure how he would react to her hands touching him, also taking her cues from Iroh, who laid a hand on his nephew's shoulder as if in reassurance.

"Thank you, Katara," Iroh said. Zuko didn't make a sound.

Gently, Katara placed her hands between Zuko's shoulders, feeling along his spine underneath the dark t-shirt he wore. "Tell me if it hurts, okay? We really want to be careful about any injuries to the spinal cord. You don't feel any sharp pain radiating anywhere, do you? Any numbness? Do you feel dizzy or sick?" Her hands moved lower down his spine as she talked, pressing gently around the vertebrae, feeling the taught muscles. Why would you think about this guy's muscles right now, you idiot? Zuko's response to her questioning was a single loud, indignant no, as if she wasn't using her lunch break to play doctor for a guy she barely knew - play doctor Katara, really , said a voice that sounded like Yue's teasing - and she reminded herself what an irritating person her new neighbor was.

Katara pressed gently into his lower back on the left side and the man underneath her hands tensed and hissed, then jerked with such ferocity that Katara jerked back, too.

"There's some bruising there but it'll be okay on its own and with some ice. Just don't overexert yourself for a little while."

"Okay, fine, it hurts, so stop touching it," Zuko said, shoving her hands away. He really was a big baby for someone who'd been playing macho only moments before.

Katara shifted her attention to Iroh, while Zuko continued to sulk on the couch. "Make sure he stays off his feet for a while. If he starts feeling dizzy or nauseous, or startled by loud noises, or experiences blurry vision," she looked back at the man on the couch, who was currently steadfastly staring at the back of it, away from them, and wondered how much vision he actually had in that left eye. "I mean, anything out of the ordinary, call someone. Keep ice on his back. And don't let him lift anything heavy."

Iroh took her hand in his two larger ones and smiled at her in that overly formal way of his. "Thank you for your kindness, Miss Katara. It is greatly appreciated."

By you, at least , Katara thought as Zuko turned from the couch to glare at them.

Sokka and Yue had helped the movers get the second couch out of the street. The offending piece of furniture had remained unharmed by and indifferent over the trouble it had caused, and took its place in the corner of the tea shop next to the couch that currently served as Zuko's sick bed.

"Thank you for the tea," Katara said, suddenly overly aware of Zuko's silent gaze. She had forgotten all about this morning, actually, and felt her cheeks heat a little bit in embarrassment. "And for returning my notebook."

She could still feel him glaring at her as she left, and something in his eyes followed her all the way down to the sandwich shop where she, Yue, and Sokka were regulars. Like he resented her for trying to help. It wasn't an uncommon expression from her med school days. Katara had seen it a lot on junkies and violent offenders who wound up in the emergency room, most of them not wanting the help they could provide. Like a dangerous, wounded animal. Yet he hadn't been quite angry when he'd looked at her, and she didn't feel threatened by him in any way. He just seemed lost, in a way Katara found it hard to articulate as she thought about it. She also found herself thinking about the spider lily, sitting in its mug on her desk, and the way he had looked when he'd bent over the flowers in his shop, like nothing else in the world mattered, his normally harsh, scarred features softened into something gentle.

-

Zuko listened to the sounds of Uncle bustling about the shop from his prone position on the couch with his back turned to the rest of the shop, staring at the plush, bright yellow cushions. Although there was still so much to do, he'd forbidden Iroh from moving anything else with him down for the count. The last thing he needed was Uncle getting hurt because of his incompetence.

Iroh had gone to the kitchen in the back and Zuko took the opportunity to gingerly lift himself off the couch, wincing at his bruised back, and made himself limp over to the half-finished bathroom, shutting the door behind him and leaning on the sawdust-littered countertop for support.

He managed to shuck off his sweat-stained shirt with only minimal exhertion, so that he was able to survey in the mirror above the sink the array of now darkening bruises on his lower back, mostly on the left side where he had hit the pavement.

Zuko's fist hit the bathroom counter and he silently cursed his stupidity. The bathroom door was closed but he heard his uncle call him softly from the other side, worry in his voice.

Zuko hated how much his uncle worried about him, and hated how stupid he had been earlier. The ramp had been in his blind spot, and he, like an idiot, had walked right into it.

He twisted to look once more at the bruising on his back, his eyes catching higher up, on the familiar tattoo between his shoulder blades. The mark of the Black Sun, a permanent reminder etched on his skin of the things he had wanted to leave behind (he had a lot of those, it seemed). Two concentric circles, one inside the other, the center one darker than the larger, whose edges spread outwards from the center, a perfect imitation of a solar eclipse.