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Hugo’s not dumb enough to believe in love at first sight. Hate at first sight, though? Oh yeah. He’s definitely felt that.
It’s moments like these, when he gets trapped in a literal cave, that he regrets his choice to leave Ba Sing Se. Sure, he was technically an outlaw that ran a rigged underground fighting ring, but he never got caught. He knew how to swindle enough money out of an upper ring moron to take home and make Don happy.
But then. Then. Everything changed when that little shit grabbed him by the throat.
“You’re cheating,” the-guy-whose-name-he’d-learn-was-Varian announced, apropos of nothing. Just walked right up to him when he was working and starts throwing accusations out there like fireballs. “You’re using your bending to rig the fights by shifting the foundation of the ring."
Hugo had quickly swallowed down his unease. Who the hell even was this twerp? He was in classic Water Tribe blues—ugh, a tourist. Hugo slaps on a sweet smile to appease the other men who were currently placing bets with him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I can see it when you move—you’re using your feet to vibrate the ring and—hey!” The boy snarls as Hugo grabs him by the upper arm and drags him around the corner of the stands.
Pleasantries were for upper-ring nobles, and Hugo doesn’t waste time with them. “Look, just tell me how much you want and I’ll give it to you. This is an elite operation down here. I’m not letting a kid like you screw it up.”
“I’m not a kid,” the guy snapped back. “I’m, like, the same age as you. And I don’t want money, I want you to teach my friend Earthbending.”
Hugo laughed. “If you want a teacher, go pay for one in the middle ring. You won’t find one down here.”
The boy’s glower doesn’t let up. “We can’t. We’re kind of criminals.”
“That’s not my problem, Sweet Cheeks.”
“You’re going to teach her.” The boy says this with the conviction of someone who knew exactly what they wanted, pointing an accusing finger at his chest. “Or else I’m going to tell everyone up there that the house has been rigging the fights.”
Hugo was good at calling other people’s bluffs, but this guy wasn’t kidding. He was small, but something about him seemed unhinged. Dangerous. Like he wasn’t afraid of taking a bet and losing it all. And Hugo wasn’t dumb enough to bet his neck on a stranger’s bluff.
This is how he would down in history as Avatar Rapunzel’s Earthbending teacher.
Him. Teaching the Avatar. His life was a joke.
Think of the money, Hugo, Don’s voice rings in his ear, even now the rocks cave in. We’ll be set for the rest of our lives when we turn her over to the Fire Nation. Zhan Tiri herself will write us a thank you letter and give us an island.
Hugo does want an island, but he also wants to not be in situations where he keeps having to run for his life from Fire Nation soldiers.
He groans as he sits up, smacking his lips. His mouth tastes like dirt. Gross. He hauls himself to his feet and inspects the damage of the collapsed cave entrance. It’s separating the rest of their group—if they were lucky, Eugene and his precious sunshine Avatar would be just on the other side. Moving the rocks would be tricky to ensure another cave-in didn't happen, but it was nothing he couldn't handle.
“Alright, just a sec.” He adjusts his stance, preps to move the rock and—
Nothing.
Hugo stops. He readjusts his stance, reaching inside himself for a cup of that familiar well of power that he knows is there. But it’s like the well is dried up, crumbling with dust and disuse.
And suddenly, he remembers why.
“Huh.” Varian hums behind him, sounding pensive despite their situation. “This batch is lasting longer than I anticipated.”
Batch, meaning, the weird vile of pink liquid that the smaller boy had concocted and shot into Hugo this morning at camp. Varian and his damn chemicals . He was always concocting something, rambling about his science and alchemical designs. Half the time, his ideas worked, and half the time they literally blew up in his face. One hundred percent of the time, they were crazy.
For example, creating a dart to suppress a Firebender’s power for a short period of time? In theory, a good idea. One that would probably save them the next time they were getting chased.
But not in practice when their resident Earthbender was a test subject and they just got trapped underground.
“That’s all you have to say? Your little science experiment has just screwed us!” Hugo hisses, whirling on him. “May I remind you that I didn’t sign up to be used as your guinea pig?”
Varian doesn’t mind his tone; the guy is busy digging through his huge backpack and produces a torch, lighting it. His casual demeanor only drives Hugo further up a wall. “It’ll come back. Until then, we should get moving. I remembered reading about how badgermoles are attracted to sound, and that was pretty loud. I don’t want to get crushed if they show up.”
He starts to walk away, but Hugo’s not letting this go. “Nuh-uh. We’re not going anywhere until you figure out a way to reverse whatever you stuck me with.”
Varian sighs. “Hugo, by the time I’d create an antidote you’d probably get it back naturally. It shouldn’t last more than another hour.”
Another hour? Unacceptable. Varian just looks so unbothered, and it makes Hugo want to claw his eyes out. Without bending, he’s basically lost a limb. He’s lost his soul , the thing that makes him strong and invincible. An aggravated whine tears out of his throat, and he barely resists the urge to stamp his foot like a child.
“What am I supposed to do during that hour? What if we get trapped somewhere else? Without bending, I’m—”
“Nothing?” Varian snarls. The sudden fury that sparks in the boy’s blue eyes is flickering and dangerous, like a wildfire that suddenly caught on a grassy plain. “ Weak? No no, keep going. I want to hear what you were gonna say.”
Hugo, wisely, does not go on. Instead he glares , glares hard at the boy who has been infuriating him every step of this journey since it began. Varian glares right back, crowding in close, lip-curled and ready to snap back.
It was a dance Hugo knew well. Picking a fight with Varian was as easy as breathing. The guy really did have a short fuse, and it was funny to get him riled up. His face and neck got all blotchy with an infuriated blush. It was hilarious.
But right now, Hugo isn't laughing. He's pissed. Frustrated that Varian suddenly has this kind of...power over him. That they're finally on the same level. It makes him feel twitchy. So, he says nothing and walks forward into the dark.
He doesn’t look to see if the other boy follows. The sound of his footsteps echoes on the damp walls. The temperature drops into a chill as they venture deeper into the belly of the mountain. It reeks like mildew and something that’s been rotting for a while. They walk for what seems like years—but really, it’s only been a few minutes, if the burning notches on Varian’s torches mean anything.
“Feel anything?” Varian asks eventually, bravely breaking the silence.
Hugo tries to move a boulder to their left. “Nope.”
Varian warbles out a nervous laugh. “Maybe I made it a little too powerful.”
“You think?” Hugo can’t keep the snippiness out of his tone as he kicks a tiny rock forward. Losing bending sucks. “At least we know those darts are going to give the Fire Benders one hell of a scare.”
“Yeah, they deserve it.”
And because Hugo is still seething, he presses it. “Oh, and you’re saying I deserve it too?”
Varian splutters for a moment, clearly confused as to how the conversation got here. “Wh-what? No! I didn’t say that.”
“But you sure acted like it when you took away my bending.”
“Maybe going a few hours without it will help you get some perspective! Bending isn’t everything. My experiments have saved your ass more times than you even know!”
Hugo laughs, the noise cold and mean. “No it hasn’t. You’ve gotten lucky with those goo bombs last week. It was my bending that got us out of that.”
“You made a wall. Those mongoose lizards could have run up it if my goo bombs hadn’t trapped their feet. My experiments can be twice as powerful as your bending.”
They’re so close to each other now. There is miles of cave around them, but Varian is once again up in his face like the walls are closing in. They're practically chest-to-chest. Hugo can feel the warmth radiating off the smaller boy’s body. Despite it all, it makes a small thrill of something run down his spine. That same feeling always rose up in him whenever Varian was around. It’s something that Hugo consistently has to push down, or else he might forget himself.
Fighting was so much easier than talking through whatever that was. And right now, there’s lightning in those baby blues, ready to strike.
So Hugo smirks and challenges, “Prove it. If you can get us out of this cave before I get my bending back, maybe I’ll take your stupid science seriously.”
“Fine,” Varian snaps. He shoves his torch into Hugo’s hands and drops to the ground, noisily digging in that ridiculous backpack. His hands produce what looks like a compass that’s nearly too big to fit in his hand. It’s got one too many pointers for it to be a normal one.
Varian lights a second torch, then squints at the device in his hand. He looks between the three tunnel openings ahead of them, biting his lip.
“This way.” He starts walking toward the one on the far left. At this point, neither of them has anything left to lose, so Hugo follows.
Walking in the dark is ten times more boring than walking on the road. There’s nothing to distract yourself with. And worst of all, his feet are starting to hurt.
At least he’s got entertainment. “How’s it goin’ up there?” Varian doesn’t answer, which basically just gives Hugo free reign. “I’m sure seeing a whole lotta cave.”
The dark-haired boy continues to ignore him—probably listening to Rapunzel’s sage advice and taking the high ground. Well, Hugo doesn’t like the high ground. He’s fine down here in the dirt of the low ground, because that means he can be annoying as he wants.
He starts whistling, as loud and obnoxiously as he can, and it makes Varian’s eyebrow twitch. Ha. He gets through the second verse of Girls From Ba Sing Se when the cavern around them rounds. It takes a second for his brain to process what he’s seeing in the dark.
It’s a carved door.
Varian lets out a successful laugh. “See? I told you I’d find a way out. Help me get it open.”
It takes the strength of the two of them, but the stone finally rolls away. It doesn’t reveal sunlight like Hugo is expecting.
Varian sucks in a breath. “Oh.” Both of them go still. The cavern before them is dark and musty, yet anything but empty. A chill runs down Hugo’s spine at the two literal coffins in the center of the circular room.
The smaller boy steps to go inside, but Hugo catches his arm. “Seriously? You want to go inside a tomb? ”
And the smug look Varian shoots him makes Hugo want to punt the little shit into the sun. “Scared of ghosts?”
“ No ,” Hugo snaps, but his annoyance quickly turns to skittering unease as Varian ducks inside anyway. He wasn’t about to be left alone out here. Dammit. Grumbling, he follows the other boy inside, desperately trying to move something—anything—with his bending.
No luck. He’s going to bury Varian alive when they get to the surface.
“We’re so deep underground, the mountain’s natural magnetism must have thrown the compass off,” Varian is saying. He looks up, as if the map of how to get out will be written on the ceiling. “This must be in the exact center.”
“Great, we found the heart of the mountain. That gadget tell you which direction to go to get out?” His tone eases into something less snippy, mostly because he’s busy looking around. This tomb was huge, and the ridged walls gave the appearance that it wasn’t Earthbending that had carved this hollow.
But…badgermoles couldn’t have carved this out so cleanly, could they?
He shivers—not because he’s scared or anything. He loves the earth. He’s an Earthbender. It’s just cold down here. On the other side of the room, Varian stoops to read a plague by the stone coffins. “This is for the two lovers.”
Hugo glances over at the grim stones. Well that explained why there were two. Creepy. “What, like the ones from the legend?”
“I guess,” Varian mutters. “I didn’t think it was real.”
“Didn’t think something suppressing my bending could be real,” Hugo grumbles under his breath. He reaches for the well and—feels a drop when a pebble skitters across the stone floor in response to him. He beams. “Ha! Did you see that!”
Varian didn’t. Of course he didn’t. He’s still reading that stupid plaque. “‘Love shines brightest in the dark.’” He turns to look at Hugo. “What d’you think that’s supposed to mean?”
“Who cares,” Hugo chirps. He bounces on the balls of his feet, amping himself up before turning his bending onto a larger rock. “We’re gonna be out of here in a couple of minutes anyway.” He flexes his fingers, then tries to move a stone. It doesn’t even budge.
Varian laughs a little. The sound is wavering and nervous. That can’t be good. He turns, gesturing to the flickering of the torch. Hugo notices that it’s low. Too low. “Looks like it might not matter.”
Hugo’s blood runs cold. His bending wouldn’t matter if they were trapped in the pitch-black abyss. A flood of white-hot rage makes his pulse skyrocket. “I can’t believe I’m about to die underneath a mountain because of your stupid experiment—”
“Stop calling it stupid!” Varian shouts. His voice is louder than Hugo’s ever heard it, echoing across the carved walls. He actually looks furious, an expression that looks so strange on his usually happy face.
This wasn’t like the expression he wore when Hugo poked at him.
“You’ve made it very clear that you think I’m not powerful like you. Well guess what? I’ve known that my whole life. And I’m fine not being a bender. Really, I am! I can make my own inventions to defend myself. I don’t need bending. I never have. But I don’t understand why you’re always so—!”
His voice cracks, breaking off into nothing. Baby blue eyes are glistening with unshed tears. Varian holds his gaze for a fraction of a moment before collapsing to the ground, pulling his knees close to his chest.
“Mean,” he finishes lamely. He angles his face away, smushing one cheek against his knee. Hugo’s frozen, joints totally locked up in shock. A hot pulse of shame and guilt rolls through him.
Oh.
The torch flame flickers, casting Varian in a tiny bubble of light against the crushing darkness around them. A lump forms in Hugo’s throat. Even though Varian was shorter than him, he’s never looked small—until right now.
Hugo inches toward the light slowly, carefully, unconsciously waiting for Varian to snarl at him again. He doesn't, so Hugo takes this as an invitation to sit next to him. For a minute he doesn’t say anything; just listens to the sounds of Varian’s careful, too-even breathing.
Well, if he was going to die anyway, he might as well go with a clear conscious.
“Wanna know a secret?” He doesn’t wait for Varian to respond, just plows forward in a quiet, whispered breath. “You freak me out.”
Varian laughs wetly, turning to glare at him. “So I’m a freak now too?”
“No!” Hugo balks, flushing in the dark. “That’s not what I—I mean, you’re weird, but not that weird—Er.” His voice buckles and breaks under the weight of Varian’s glare. He sucks in a sharp breath and tries to collect his thoughts. Varian’s gaze is suddenly too heavy, so he focuses on the weird headstone thingy they made for the lovers.
Still creepy.
“I’ve been running that fighting ring since I was thirteen.” Voicing that truth sounds so…odd in the silence of the cave. It feels simultaneously like yesterday and a lifetime ago. “My mentor recognized my talent when she caught me using my bending to steal on the streets. She took me in and the day she put me in charge of her ring, she told me if I let the stone tilt the wrong way she’d cut off my pinkie finger and make me wear it around my neck.”
“ What? ” Varian reels back, face stricken in horror. “That’s horrible!”
Hugo waves his hands to calm him down. “She was kidding! Kind of.” Don was ruthless, that much was a fact. But she wasn't quite that ruthless, especially not with him. And talking about Don's dark sense of humor wasn't the point.
“Ah, anyway…The point is I was terrified of getting it wrong. Every night the house had to take home the majority betting money or else. I got stronger just because I had to hide what I was doing in plain sight. And it worked. For six years, it worked.” A wry smile spreads across Hugo’s face before he can stop it. “Until you showed up one night and called me out after two minutes of watching a fight.”
Varian is quiet next to him, so quiet that Hugo can hear his own heartbeat loud in his ears. The air around them is stale, suffocating. He’s never been this honest with anyone. Especially not someone who he might…
He keeps talking before he can lose his nerve.
“I guess I’m bitter because you were able to see something a bunch of benders weren’t able to see. You’re clever. Smart. Probably the smartest person I know, honestly. I’ve watched how you make these crazy inventions out of scraps of nothing. Not a lot of people can do that. The Fire Lord herself would kill for a fraction of that talent.”
Varian snorts, “Yeah, right.”
“No, I’m serious! And you know I’m serious because I wouldn’t be saying any of this if we weren’t about to die.” Varian lets out a hollow, grim giggle, and Hugo finds himself craving the sound. “I’m…I’m sorry I pick on you. I actually think your inventions are really cool. I think you’re—” Hugo stops. He doesn’t know how to describe Varian. He finds himself torn between the words brilliant, funny, unique, perfect. Each word was more dangerous than the last.
Varian doesn’t seem to mind his cut-off sentence. He bites his lip, the pink flesh going white under the pressure. “I’m sorry too. I didn’t think to ask before I tried the formula out on you. Maybe it was a little stupid.”
“Well, when we get out of this, let's avoid being stupid forever.” It’s a joke that falls mostly flat, but still manages to bring grim smiles to their faces. Hugo stares at the flame of the torch as it goes down another notch. They probably only had five minutes of light left.
He could try his bending again, but what would be the point? He couldn’t blindly navigate the tunnels of this mountain if they still didn’t know which direction to go in. They needed a miracle. An intervention from the gods.
“Hugo?”
“Hm.”
“What if we…kissed?”
Hugo’s gaze snaps up, wide and alert. But those baby blues aren’t looking at him—Varian has twisted around to look at the carving on the wall behind them, depicting a man and a woman wrapped in each other, lips locked. The connection from Hugo’s brain to his tongue finally sparks back to life.
“ What?!”
Varian looks at him, then finally seems to realize what he said. His face flushes a deep red in the dark. “I just—this is the tomb of the lovers, right? And the plaque said love is always brightest in the dark, and soon it’s about to get really dark and here it shows them kissing, so I thought—”
“About us,” Hugo repeats dumbly, suddenly unable to put a normal thought together. “ Kissing .”
Varian somehow turns even redder and he scoots away. “N-nevermind. It’s, it’s actually a ridiculous idea, right?” He laughs once, then is suddenly on his feet. He paces nervously like the idea has given him too much energy to get out. “I mean—us, kissing. It would be bad.” He says this softly, as though to scold himself.
Hugo finds himself rising to his feet before he really knows what he’s doing. “Why would it be bad?”
“Because you hate me.”
Maybe it’s the dark. Maybe it’s the fact they’re probably going to die. Or maybe it’s the curse of the lovers, forcing them to feel things. Hugo suddenly finds himself speaking the truth. “I don’t hate you.”
“D—” Varian blinks rapidly, taking a fraction of a step back as Hugo slides in close. He tilts his chin up for their gazes to meet, bright eyes shining like sapphires in the dark. “Don’t you?”
“No,” Hugo breathes, bringing one of his hands to cup the side of Varian’s face. They’re fully pressed together now, one of Varian’s hands automatically finding purchase at his shoulder while the other holds the torch. It’s like there’s an electric current where Varian is touching him, a tingling feeling spreading out from his shoulder to the rest of his body.
The shadows on Varian’s face get longer as the flame extinguishes.
Hugo doesn’t hate him. He really, really doesn’t. He feels so much for Varian—so much annoyance and affection. It’s confusing. It’s complicated. He shouldn’t be feeling these things. He knows better.
But as the light dwindles, he finds himself drawn to Varian like a moth to a flame.
“Do you hate me?”
“No,” Varian whispers. It sounds like a secret. Hugo can feel the puff of breath on his lips. He clings to the other boy like a lifeline in a dark sea. He forgets how to breathe, body humming with anticipation. Hugo’s eyes slip shut, automatically leaning toward Varian’s warmth as they’re plunged into total darkness…
“Hugo, look!”
Abruptly, Varian is pulling away from him. Hugo opens his eyes, confused. The other boy’s grin is bright and wide across his face, illuminated by—
Wait.
Hugo looks up to see the ceiling of the cave covered in bright green crystals, bioluminescent in the dark. A laugh of disbelief leaves him, loud and chaotic. Varian starts laughing with him, and soon the two of them are cackling like crazy idiots.
“ That’s what the plaque meant!” Varian realizes once he’s calmed down. His grin is wide with excitement and the discovery of something new. “The lovers would put out their lights and follow the trail left by the crystals. I bet this shows us a way out!”
Hugo flicks his wrist experimentally, and—a piece of earth juts up from the floor from where he called it. “Looks like my bending is back on.”
“Looks like we don’t have to kiss,” Varian jokes back, and then he’s slinging his backpack over his shoulder. “C’mon, I bet Rapunzel and Eugene are following the path too! We can meet up with them at one of the entrances.”
And then Varian is off, scampering back out of the tomb into the cavern. Hugo knows he should be similarly overjoyed, but his fingertips come up to brush against his lips and he feels oddly...disappointed.
He shakes himself out of it. Varian was a target. Part of Team Avatar, as they jokingly called themselves. In a few weeks, Hugo would be selling them out to one of Don’s Fire Nation contacts.
And if Varian knew…
“Hugo!” a voice calls from the doorway. “Hurry up!”
“Coming!" He hurries to leave all thoughts of kisses behind him. It was just the cave. Just the adrenaline and confusion of getting stuck underground. Nothing more.