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It starts with one of those days that aren’t good for no reason.
Xaalo would have nursed it with a drink or three, but he’s out of bottles he isn’t saving for special occasions. Missing the brat wasn’t something to celebrate by emptying those. Missing the brat is why his stores are low in the first place.
He needs to go into town. The last market day. Which meant people. Many people to deal with.
Of course fucking Gilo is back. The boot licker presses his mass through the crowd to make his way toward Xaalo the moment he sees him. Pumped up with pride like he hadn’t been gone for weeks out of embarrassment because a crippled teenage street wretch broke his nose. A shameless smile smeared on his face.
“Shame the scribe didn’t work out.” Fucking Gilo implying the brat stole everything worth something and hobbled away into the night.
“He did work out, worked too well.” It’s less fun without the scarecrow blushing every compliment.
“Then I’m sorry he’s gone.”
More like sorry there wasn’t an excuse to throw him in jail again.
Shame the blow from the brat didn’t knock decency into Gilo.
“Is there a reason you’re bothering me? I have things to do.”
That wipes the smirk off Gilo’s face.
Some letters. Both from the brat. Sooner than he expected.
Xaalo thought that meant good news.
Of course it didn’t.
The first one letter Xaalo asked for. The antisocial mess actually managed to find people to get along with. After they broke into his room at night and dragged him to town the next day. The kid seems less like a mess, and the Beifong’s doctor was trying to do something about his leg, something better than force a cripple to walk around without a cane like a bastard.
It’s everything he asked for. Yet another the brat wrote sits on Xaalo’s desk. He finishes his drink and pours another. He can deal with the second tomorrow.
The second has the eloquence of his self-deprecating monologues. Crossed out words were easier to understand than the boy’s mumblings. In two pages he said nothing more than sorry for messing up the opportunity and that he left the Beifongs. In fucking calligraphy.
Surprisingly, there were no suspicious facts suggesting his mysterious past Xaalo didn’t want to know about. Only that someone from it came back. The Beifongs might be able to illuminate Xaalo on the details. He doesn’t need to know.
Two days later, Xaalo has a visitor. A fat gray haired balding man with a fake smile Xaalo hates the moment he sees it. “What do you want?”
“It has been a long day. Perhaps a cup of tea while we discuss things.”
Tea. Fucking tea. Tasteless leaf juice. “I don’t have tea and I don’t take in strays.”
Fatso chuckles. “Word about town says you made an exception for the young man I am looking for. He is like a son to me. Please, let me thank you for your kindness and generosity of taking him in.”
Like a son.
The nobling limping around in a foreign country starved and scared of every authority figure was like a son to him. The same brat who answered to insults while never knowing how to take a compliment. The same kid who had less self-esteem than a puddle and expected beatings and food to be denied because he woke up late.
Like a son. The walking porridge bowl said about the skeleton.
Xaalo smiles, all teeth and masochistic malice. No need to go to the Fire Nation to insult the man.
He opens the door wider so the child burner can enter. “No tea. Only coffee.” There’s the fucking leaves—roots the rock-thrower bullied the brat into buying with his hard earned lower than he’s worth wages. Xaalo would rather have burned coffee. There’s nothing he’d love more than to start this conversation with the crowd favorite for worst father of the year than burnt coffee. Scratch that, poison would be the preferred drink for the scum of the earth, but Xaalo has none to serve.
“You have a lovely home.” The bastard says in a fake voice.
Xaalo pretends not to hear as he heats the water, instead thinking up a story to set the cruelest man alive on a wild hog goose chase. The boy should have more time to crawl out of the pit he was shoved into. A reunion with the man who did it won’t be any good for him. He might not be lucky enough to find someone to put the work into dragging him back from death again.
I was lucky to be born.
The letters weren’t dated. How close did the pathetic excuse for a human being he calls a father get?
He’s still looking; he hasn’t caught the brat.
Xaalo pours for both of them, watching the fiery bastard wince at the taste. “It’s quite bracing.”
Xaalo smiles and sips his own. Far more bitter than a proper cup should be. Perfection.
“How did Zu—Lee come to work for you?”
He knows the fake name the brat used, but isn’t in the habit of using it. Right, he asked around town, learned the brat isn’t there. Xaalo hopes for the brat’s sake he didn’t come back. Knowing his track record of blame, the welp will think Xaalo is pissed at him for ruining his relationship with the Beifongs.
“Heard I had need of a scribe.” Eavesdropped when he was getting Toothpick’s fucking flowers.
“Why did he stop?” Still wearing the fake smile shitty nobles thought made them look like real people instead of masks.
The kind of mask Xaalo and the brat saw taken away and reveal their real parents. But Xaalo’s parents were fun. The boy’s father was a monster. Not the kind parents tell their kids about to get them to eat vegetables. This man is far worse. He never spoke a kind word to the boy. No one did. He made the boy feel like he shouldn’t exist through every fiber of his being.
One vile rich bastard can’t unmake the monster.
Did your lovely daddy paint that picture?
The vile rich bastard could paint over some of the image the monster made. Unlikely it would do anything but make Xaalo fall asleep with one less drink tonight. “I needed a scribe. One. Lee worked fast enough for three at a level of quality six would need to match in the same amount of time.”
The blind monster couldn’t hide all the shock from his face. “Zu—Lee is quite diligent.“
“Your work?“
He laughs deep in his belly. “No. He’s always been that way.”
Sure. Sprung from the womb with the fully formed insistence to work through crippling pain. That shit isn’t born. It’s made. It was beat and, at least one gruesome time, burned into the brat.
Father painted the burn! And I deserved it!
“How long have you been looking for him?”
“Almost three months.”
The scar was at least a year old. Poor brat was with him after it happened. Maybe as he healed. Probably being told that he deserved it every time he mentioned his pain, if the brat ever did anything but insist he was fine.
Xaalo doesn’t expect an honest answer. “Why did he leave?”
“I failed him.” The bastard justifies his actions. Failing his son over and over again. Tell him he deserves it; smack him around, then say he failed the brat. Repeat. Failure to be a human being and blame it on the kid.
Xaalo’s done. “No shit. An asshole in a dirt pit town who insulted him every other sentence treated him better than you. You set the bar so low it’s buried. I drag my feet on the ground, and yet making sure there’s food in his stomach and authorities don’t hurt him is more than you managed. How do you sleep at night?”
The mask blinks at Xaalo’s shift in demeanor. He stands, returning to Xaalo’s eye level.
When did Xaalo stand?
Xaalo doesn’t wait for the mask to break. He tries to crack it himself. “Going to burn my face too?” A flinch. Now he’s getting somewhere. “Or is it not worth it without my unwavering loyalty keeping me from fighting back.”
The bastard sighs. The hurt almost looks genuine. “I never hurt Zuko except by failing to protect him from my brother. Still my nephew has suffered greatly because of my inaction.” Fuck. It is genuine. “I thought the Agni Kai would be the—”
Xaalo holds up a hand so the insufficient uncle will stop talking. “The brat and I had an agreement. We don’t know each other’s history. Do not break it by filling in the details he occluded. I put scraps of together from mannerisms and reactions. I didn’t care because I never had to dig a hole for his corpse despite expecting him to keel over the first week.” Xaalo doesn't need to know what a fire spitting measuring contest had to do with the brat's wretched situation.
In the kitchen he tries to place the name. ‘Zuko’ sounds familiar. Some gossip somewhere. It’s the brat’s business. Xaalo stops trying to remember.
He returns with a fresh pot of water, a flowery teacup, and a bag of fucking roots. “I will not deign myself to serve root water. Do it yourself.” Xaalo smiles over his coffee as he picks up the pot, notices the water is cold, raises a brow at Xaalo, then does the same trick the brat used to heat coffee. “Does the scum who calls himself a father know the brat was here?”
“No.”
“Does he know you’re looking?”
“No. He has not cared about Zuko for a long time.”
“Stop saying his name.” Xaalo barks. “It’s familiar and every time you say it I try to place it. How did you track him here?”
“Master Piandao recognized—”
Xaalo holds up a hand again. The brat was one of Toothpick’s students. No wonder Gilo lost against the malnourished teen. Xaalo won’t tell him the odds were against him. It’s funnier that way.
“Mind the details.” Xaalo warns. “How did you fail him when he left?”
“He was hurt, wounded, and I didn’t stop him from fighting in that state. Then he was caught. Those who caught him were not kind to him.”
“No shit. Do you know how?”
The man’s face tightens. He does.
“Everything on his back that recent?”
A tight nod.
Shit. Some of them could have been old.
“How did you…” His voice creaks.
“He’s turned my basement into a volcano on occasion.”
Show me your back.
“He’s been practicing his bending?” Hopeful with a sliver of pride this time. “It sounded like his leg would interfere.”
“It’s gotten better.”
The man seems pleased, not hiding frustration. Then the confusion hits. He’s caught on. “You ask many questions.”
“Brat thought he deserved every kick to the face deplorable daddy dearest gave and expected them from everyone else. If you had a hand in that, I’d send you out with leads to nowhere.” Xaalo stands.
Uncle Fatso reads the brat’s recent letters.
The soft-hearted old man asks questions of his own, all after the brat’s well being.
I’m not weak.
A fucking wreck, but still standing, and that’s something.
Xaalo was not the right person to deal with something fragile.
He tells baldie some of it. Scrawny, not skeletal anymore. Physically fine, except the leg. Mess in the head, but nothing more than porridge man could have put together from what's already been said.
Brat wasn’t always scared of everyone. The back talk has always been there, boldness varied; more failure talk Xaalo has to stop before he learns something.
Then there’s nothing more to be said about the brat.
“Take that cup with you. I want it returned by him personally.”
The man bows, not trying to hide the Fire Nation of it. “Thank you for taking care of my nephew. It is good he was able to find kindness after everything.”
“Whatever.”
Xaalo closes the door after him and smiles. Then it disappears and he gets a drink.