Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Zuko comes back to himself slowly, one sense at a time.

All he hears is ringing. A continuous, droning note fills his head, just half an inch short of being a real sound. It's one he feels more often than not. One that he knows isn't a real noise but makes him want to cover his ears to drown it out anyway. It hurts.

His vision doesn't fare much better, wobbly as it is. Colors seem blown out and far too bright, even though he can barely make out the figures in front of him. The world is fractured and blurry. There's movement, streaks of light and shades of blue and orange, but nothing defined. His eyes sting.

He's forced back into feeling by an urgent pain in his chest. His whole body aches, but his lungs are burning. It takes him a second to figure out why—he's not breathing.

The realization has him sucking in a lung full of sea water before he can register it's a bad idea. What was previously a dull throb erupts into a stinging agony across his chest, and recognition breaks through. He's under water. He's drowning.

His body reacts before his brain, lurching towards the muddled streaks of color above him. Not a great idea. Something in his chest protests and burns through him in retribution.

The pain freezes him up. He's always found pain to be a good motivator, but not this time. This time, it locks him in place, pulling any sense from his mind and leaving it empty. All he can do is wait for his limbs to finally start cooperating again.

And sink.

As the pain recedes, so do the colors above him. His grip on reality is loosening without air. Darkness dances across his field of view, narrowing it to a pinprick. The ringing in his ears fades out.

It's quiet.

All too suddenly, his head breaks the surface, bringing with it the sounds of people and yelling and fire and air. He's gulping for it before he even has room in his lungs. Someone's heaved him up onto land, but through the blur of colors and sounds, he can't figure out who. All he can do is choke on a salty combination of brine and sea breeze.

Every cough sends spikes of pain across his chest. The sting of the air doesn't stop his desperate gasping, and the sea water rips up his throat with each hack. But this isn't right. He's choked on sea water before, he knows that burn. This is—this is different.

Something is very wrong.

The chaos around him hasn't ceased. Were he less preoccupied with drowning, he would be more concerned with answering whoever it is that's calling his name. He loses consciousness before he can find out who it is.

"Don't move," is the first thing Zuko hears upon waking. "Katara's already exhausted from keeping you from bleeding out. I won't wake her up if you reopen something."

It takes his brain far too long to process what's been said, but he's good at waking up in pain with someone telling him not to move, not to panic. He's done it before. So he listens and waits for the fog in his mind to clear.

"Sokka," comes a soft scolding to his left. It sounds tired.

"What? I'm being honest."

He knows that voice. He knows them both.

"We shouldn’t..."

Zuko's breath stutters. The irregular movement causes a flare of pain in his chest, and the adrenaline that comes with it launches him into awareness.

He's on his back, vaguely sore all over, and his chest is twinging painfully. Above him, the night sky rushes past. He can hear the ocean, but doesn't feel the waves.

This is not his ship. His ship blew up. Those damn pirates tried to kill him, but it didn’t work. Where is Uncle? And where—

His breath stutters again. Well, more like it never recovered in the first place. For a second, it feels like he's choking on his own tongue, then his lungs fill up again.

"Sorry!"

That's the Avatar.

He’s on his feet before he’s even fully thought about it, instinctively falling into a defensive stance. Unfortunately, his body protests. Whatever discomfort he felt before is nothing compared to the pulsing heat radiating from his chest now. His vision rocks off center, practiced footwork the only thing keeping him from toppling over.

What is wrong with him? Well, explosion, yes, but more specifically. A cursory glance down gives him a vague idea; there’s a sloppy wad of bandages covering the lower left side of his chest, secured by a winding string of them around his torso. That would do it.

He’s able to protect that side with only minor modifications to his stance, but it does little to ease his discomfort. Every beat of his heart sends a throb of pain through him, its epicenter just beneath those makeshift bandages.

But he can handle it, he’s no weakling. He centers himself with a deep breath and—

He can’t breathe deeply enough. No, it’s something else... He can’t...

“What are you doing?” the Water Tribe boy sputters, stealing Zuko’s attention. “How is that ‘not moving’?!”

The Water Tribe boy is crouched, an arm poised behind his back to grab that damned boomerang. Dressed as he is, Zuko does not want to be on the receiving end of that thing again. Where is his armor? Was he wearing it when the ship blew? He was definitely wearing a shirt, but that's gone.

The Avatar cuts in, sitting with his legs crossed and fists together, like he's meditating, to Zuko’s left. It’s entirely inappropriate for the current situation, in Zuko’s opinion. “Guys, stop! We shouldn’t fight up here; there’s no room!”

No room? Oh.

It only takes a second for Zuko to register exactly where he is: the back of the Avatar's flying bison. He's standing on the oversized saddle with nothing to keep him from flying off the edge at a stray gust of wind.

Zuko immediately drops into a crouch and whips a hand out to hold the lip of the saddle behind him. His defensive stance is ruined, but he’s not about to let his cause of death be “Fought an airbender four hundred feet in the air.” Azula would have a field day with that.

The Water Tribe boy has the gall to snort at him. In turn, Zuko offers the most withering glare he can muster.

Stupid. Assessing his environment should have been his first step, but once again, he’s found himself stuck at the tail end of acting before thinking.

“Put me down!” he demands.

Or at least, he tries to. Despite his panic, his breath is steady and even, and he can't stop breathing long enough to speak. All he can manage is a breathy whisper. His breath keeps coming without any regard for what Zuko actually wants.

He can't control his own breathing at all.

A dread he's never felt before settles in his veins. The lack of control is so foreign he feels sick with it.

He can't not be in control. He can't. No breath control means no flame control, and that means Zuko's main defense is as dangerous to him as it is to his foes.

Shit.

There's no outlet for his rising panic, not when he can't even choose if he wants to breathe through it. Instead, the panic thrums through his blood, through his heart, which pumps sickeningly out of sync with his breathing. His breath continues, constantly aggravating his wound, even as his body fights against it. The rise and fall gives him no break.

Going off of their expressions, his enemies are surprised by his strained attempt at speech too. Then, the Avatar's mouth drops open in a small O, like he's realized why.

Zuko's about to demand an answer from him, but another voice beats him to it.

“What’s going on?” At the head of the saddle, the waterbender is kicking off a blanket, awoken by the commotion.

“Zuko’s awake,” is her brother’s answer. A smile creeps onto his face. “And he can’t talk.”

Zuko has never seriously considered murder more than in this moment.

The waterbender’s eyebrows jump to her hairline. “What? Why— You’re bleeding!”

When she looks at him, her stare is far more anxious than Zuko thinks it has any right to be. It’s not her that’s injured and being held captive by her enemies. He looks down, and sure enough, his bandages are slowly staining a bright red. That’s not good.

The Water Tribe boy scoffs. "See, I told you you'd tear something!"

"Sokka, not now. I need to..." 

The waterbender is pulling her waterskin forward, and Zuko reacts accordingly, shifting his shoddy, crouched stance to target her.

She stills. Concern still dominates her gaze, but it's now backed by caution. Good.

Her brother sounds outright offended as he shouts, "Don't point your bending at my sister!"

Lurching between them, the Avatar puts his hands up in a placating gesture. “Okay, let’s just calm down!”

It only takes a couple ragged, uneven breaths before Zuko realizes his lungs aren't expanding against his will anymore. In fact, they're barely expanding at all. There's a pressure that wasn't there before. Every breath is a chore, barely giving him the oxygen he so desperately needs. But at least they're breaths he can control.

(He can't bend like this either, he realizes. He can already imagine how the flames would sputter with his shallow breaths. He can talk, but he can't bend.)

Zuko doesn’t let the Avatar continue. “Put me down.” The words are weak, but still heard.

“Love to. We’ll just drop you in the middle of the ocean, mmkay?” the Water Tribe boy responds. “Look around you! There’s no land in sight.”

“Then find some,” Zuko spits.

The Avatar is already shaking his head. The worry plastered over his face just makes Zuko want to punch him. “We’re going to the North Pole. We need—”

“I don’t care!”

“You’re in no position to make demands!” the Water Tribe boy yells.

Zuko growls. "I could burn you right now."

The Avatar's brow pinches as he fixes Zuko with a challenging stare. "Do it, then."

It would sound childish in any other context. Now, Zuko feels like the Avatar just called his bluff. A gust of wind reminds him of how far in the air he actually is, and he doesn't dare move. They have the advantage here, and The Avatar knows it.

Zuko almost lets loose a flame just to spite him. Almost.

He's not entirely defenseless. He can feel the pressure of his pearl handled dagger, its sheath sewn into the outside of his boot. (Did they not check him for weapons?) But the knife would only help in a pinch. Between the bending of the Avatar and his waterbending friend, and the much longer club the Water Tribe boy favors, the dagger would only work to get people out of his face fast. Maybe it's better than just his fists, but the odds are not in his favor if a fight was really to break out.

Still, he doesn't lower the defensive hand he has raised between them.

The waterbender, with the damn Avatar on her side, has little reason to fear him. She bends the water from her waterskin and moves forward. She only stops when he stiffens.

"Don't you touch me," he gasps. He can feel the blood starting to dribble down his abdomen, soaking into the hem of his pants.

Her gaze hardens. "I need to stop the bleeding."

"No."

Then, the Water Tribe boy charges him.

In his panic, Zuko’s too frazzled to be properly embarrassed over how easily he’s overpowered. He’s already hyperventilating, and it’s all over when his opponent jams his hand into his bandaged chest. A low blow, if you ask him.

“Sokka! Be gentle!”

“What?! How can I be gentle with this?!”

The tousle ends with Zuko pressed up against the lip of the saddle and the Water Tribe boy bracing his hands against the bandages on Zuko’s chest. It hurts.

Zuko chokes on the pain (or maybe that's just his fucked up breathing). "W—What are you... Stop!"

He grips the boy's wrists and tries to push the hands away, but the Water Tribe boy doesn't budge. In fact, he seems to press harder in response. Zuko feels light-headed.

"I'm being an excellent medical assistant here," the Water Tribe boy grouses, "and you're being a nuisance."

Zuko can't do anything to stop him, strength faltering under his shallow breaths. He can barely breathe enough to respond. Instead he settles for a murderous scowl, though he knows it won't phase them. Not with the ragged pants that tear from his throat.

"Oh, right!" The Avatar folds back into his meditative stance from before, but the Water Tribe boy stops him.

“Hold on, Aang.”

The Avatar looks uncertain, but he drops his arms.

The Water Tribe boy fixes his gaze on Zuko, his eyes cold. Pinned to the lip of the saddle with the world starting to sway, Zuko is trapped. His right hand twitches from where it grasps the other boy's wrist. If there was ever a time to use that knife, this is it. (And get flung off the bison in the resulting fight.)

“Your lungs have collapsed. You can barely breathe on your own. Aang’s been keeping you alive with airbending.”

Oh. That explains a lot. Zuko can’t do anything but choke in response.

Thankfully, the Water Tribe boy isn’t looking for a response. “Not even four hours ago, Katara was the only thing keeping you from bleeding out on the pier. You’re probably just minutes away from being back where you were then.” He accentuates his point by gently applying more pressure to Zuko’s injury. Fucking ow. “You need them. If you want to stay alive, you don’t try anything. Okay?”

Shit.

He’s right. Zuko hates it so much, but he’s right. A collapsed lung isn't something you can just walk off, despite how much he wants to. Dangling the Avatar's help over him is an effective tactic, even if it's one that makes his blood boil. He doesn't have time to deliberate, not when he's already wheezing for air.

Pinned and injured as he is, Zuko thinks it's unfair. It's basically a war crime, right? Threatening an incapacitated combatant. Not that he's incapacitated, he's just...

"Sokka..." Both his companions seem reluctant, the Avatar mumbling his short protest, but the Water Tribe boy ignores them. The look on his face is expectant.

Oh, how Zuko wishes he could dig his heels into the ground and say no. Watch that self assured look melt off the Water Tribe boy's face when he realizes that Zuko would rather suffocate than be at their mercy.

He's only vaguely aware of how his hands tremble against the Water Tribe boy's wrists. His vision is starting to fade, the world taking on a dull, grainy appearance. It doesn't matter how hard he breathes, he can't get enough air. He needs help. He needs...

It's a game of chicken, both waiting for the other to flinch. The Water Tribe boy stares him down.

"Okay?"

If there's one thing Zuko can rely on, it's his ability to make stupid decisions out of spite.

With a last burst of energy, he snatches the dagger from his boot and—

A blast of air knocks it from his hand.

He doesn't even think when he twists out from under the Water Tribe boy's hands and lunges for the blade. That's his last defense, and he can't lose it, not in a situation like this, not when he can't even breathe on his own.

He swears he can hear the world fracture.

The sudden motion has his vision swimming, and the force of the frenzied grab topples him onto his side. Any other information struggles to make it through the haze of adrenaline, suffocation, and dizziness.

With the pressure on his bandages gone, he very suddenly feels like his entire chest is spilling out onto the saddle, and shit, that was probably the stupidest thing he could've done in this situation. Panic grips him as he presses his own hands to the wound. They're slick with blood in a second.

His consciousness wobbles. Maybe if he wasn't about to pass out, he'd take a moment to marvel at his own rashness. Instead, he finds that he can't feel his own body anymore.

There's a flurry of voices above him, but he can't seem to hear it. More and more, all he hears is his own pulse, racing as his heart tries to keep him conscious with the meager supply of oxygen it's getting, and simultaneously pumps his life out onto the saddle. The world fades, and Zuko can't tell if it's the suffocation or the blood loss that's winning.

Then there's a rush of air, and he's breathing again. His lungs aren't being crushed under the weight of his own rib cage. His breaths are even and strong and not his own.

But the pace is not fast enough to make up for the lost air in the way his body demands. He feels his lungs straining, trying to suck in more air faster than the airbending will let it. It tugs at his wound. Despite the fact that he's breathing, the metered breaths leave him feeling like he's still suffocating, but without the mercy of passing out.

He drifts, not quite present but not quite unconscious as his lungs slowly, agonizingly, stabilize. As his thoughts fall back into focus, he's reacquainted with things he was already aware of in the shadows of his mind.

He's on his back, staring up at the stars. His arms and legs are tingling, which is more than a little concerning considering the fact that he's been losing blood. There's a heavy weight on his chest, steadily dipping towards painful as his brain catches up. In the same spot, there's something cool pressed against the wound, wicking the pain away as it comes.

Squabbling voices filter in next.

"—so stupid!"

"You shouldn't have pushed it!"

"Oh, so it's my fault? I didn't think he had a knife!"

"Just shut up and let me heal!"

Then there's quiet, only interrupted by the white noise of the wind and sea.

A wave of exhaustion hits hard enough that he's worried he actually loses consciousness for a second. Is that the blood loss, too? That's not good. Maybe he should actually take the advice he'd been given and stay still for a moment.

He's not sure how much time passes before his sluggish brain thinks to actually look around him. The Water Tribe siblings are at his side, leaning against each other as the boy presses down on his wound and the girl bends water to it. Against his bloodied bandages, the water around the bender's hands is glowing. Not just glittering in the moonlight, but proper glowing. It takes him a second to connect what he's seeing to what he's feeling, but eventually he gets there. The freaky glowing water is healing him.

Well. That's new.

Why the fuck is she healing him? That attack should've been the end of it. He should be drowning in the middle of the open ocean, not getting stitched back together by waterbending magic.

These people make no sense.

The Water Tribe boy catches his wandering gaze with a glare. "You back, sir stabs-a-lot?"

Zuko tries to answer with a scowl of his own, but it feels like it falls short of anything more than a grimace.

He gets a huff in response. "Yeah, you're back. So, now that we've established that attacking us is a bad idea, let's get this straight."

Maybe Zuko's just addled from the blood loss, but the Water Tribe boy is doing a much better job at looking intimidating this time around. He's pissed.

"I made it sound like you get a choice in what happens here. That's my bad," he snaps, words far more casual than his tone. "You don't hurt anyone. And you don't get a choice in the matter. I'll throw you off Appa's back myself, if I have to."

"We're calling a truce."

The Avatar's voice filters in somewhere beyond his immediate view. Zuko cranes his neck to see him seated closer to his legs, back in the same meditative pose as earlier. When their eyes meet, Zuko glares instinctively. The Avatar doesn't, just holds that same worried and hesitant look as before.

The funny thing about truces is both parties have to agree, and he's not itching to do that. He drops his head back onto the saddle, and it's purely because he's frustrated with the situation, and nothing to do with the tingling in his limbs or the sudden exhaustion.

"Zuko, please," the Avatar continues. "I know all of this is probably really scary, but you need help. We won't hurt you if you don't hurt us. I swear, you're safe!"

Zuko narrows his eyes and curls his lip. He's not fucking scared, he's just in probably one of the most vulnerable positions in his life: surrounded by enemies, hours from shore, and seriously injured. They expect him not to defend himself?

He's about to protest the Avatar's choice of words, but the wisp of forced air from his mouth reminds him of his situation. Great. He screws his eyes shut for a moment before glaring up at the stars.

Above him, the waterbender scoffs. "He's safe? What about us?"

"We have every advantage here," the Avatar reasons.

Zuko is absolutely not a fan of him using that as a point in his defense.

"Someone could've been hurt! And for what?!" the waterbender snaps. Her gaze is fixed on her bending, brows twitching with how tightly they're knit together. "There was no reason to do that! It's like he wants to bleed to death!"

There were plenty of reasons, even if none of them were very good ones. Not when he's so clearly at their mercy.

"That was too close," she continues, and her blue eyes finally shift to his. She looks equal parts exhausted and enraged. "I won't let you hurt my family, Zuko! One more dumb knife trick, and that's it."

Zuko feels a pinch of cold in the water covering his injury, but against the throbbing heat of an open wound, it doesn't feel all that bad. It's the anxiety of a waterbender's weapon against his chest that has him squirming, not the cold.

The Water Tribe boy, with his hands dipped in the water to keep Zuko from bleeding out while he's being healed, is not so content with the chill. "Aah, cold! Katara!"

"Sorry." The water instantly warms. "You can let go now, actually. I've got it."

Zuko very pointedly does not react when the pressure finally pulls away, despite the instinctive panic that floods his system. There's no rush of blood from his chest like last time, so that's good.

The Avatar takes a slow breath. "Katara, we kind of have him cornered. Not that the knife thing was okay, but..."

The Avatar defending him against his friends is not something Zuko ever expected to hear. And it's not doing his mood any favors, because he has absolutely no idea why he's defending him in the first place.

"He broke your truce," the waterbender hisses.

"Technically, he didn't know about it yet."

She grunts in annoyance. "He still hasn't agreed to it." 

She's clearly looking for a response. Zuko doesn't give her one, but the Avatar does.

"He hasn't tried to stop you again either."

Does he really have to point that out? Zuko grits his teeth and continues his hateful stargazing.

"That's not a promise," the Water Tribe boy grumbles.

The Avatar hums. "I think it's the best we're going to get."

Damn right it is.

He doesn't know if the siblings agree with the Avatar's assessment, but they don't say anything. 

The quiet that follows is anything but peaceful. Eventually, Zuko's too uncomfortable to let it continue. He tries to speak, maybe to cuss them all out, but mostly to ask what happened. All he can do is mouth the words.

The Water Tribe boy gets the hint. With his bending companions busy, he takes charge of explaining.

"Your ship blew up," he supplies, like Zuko doesn't already know that part.

An exasperated glare keeps the boy talking.

"Some metal lodged itself in your chest. Most of it's gone, but Katara doesn't know how to fish shrapnel out of someone's chest without killing them."

Zuko won't thank them for not digging around in his chest. It feels like common decency to him.

"Your lungs got sliced open. Definitely your left, maybe also your right. Some of the cuts were healed before we really knew what was going on, so we don't know how deep all the shrapnel went. Katara thinks you've got like, a fourth of your normal lung capacity right now."

Oh. Great.

"And you were drowning on ocean water like four hours ago, so that can't help. Breathing is a little hard for you right now. Sooo, kinda creepy airbending medicine."

Kinda creepy, indeed. It's borrowed time, provided by the Avatar and his waterbender friend.

The Water Tribe boy continues. "We're headed to the North Pole. Mostly because we were already going there anyway, but also cuz you need healers. Plural. And good ones. Katara's magic water can only do so much when there's metal shards still lodged in your lungs."

Zuko feels a sliver of ice enter his bloodstream. From the port he was docked at, the North Pole is three days away. Maybe two, if the currents are favorable and the weather holds. Does the Avatar intend to keep bending for three days straight? No, that can't be the plan. There's no way it would work.

Even if it was the plan, which it can't be, why are they helping him? He's been chasing them around the globe since they met. It's not like he's garnered any goodwill from that. Zuko's gaze slides back over to the Water Tribe boy. He holds the glare, and the boy bristles.

"You could at least pretend to be grateful."

Zuko ignores him, instead exaggerating his lip movements to mouth: Why?

The Water Tribe boy's eyes almost pop out of his head. "Why be grateful?!"

Rolling his eyes, Zuko clarifies. Why help?

"Oh. Good question." The boy crosses his arms, looking none too pleased. "We were close to the port, so we saw the explosion. Honestly, we didn't know it was you when we hauled you out of the ocean, and by then it would've been too awkward to just leave you. Also, Aang begged us."

That makes sense. The Avatar has already proven time and time again that he's a bleeding heart. Why would that change for Zuko?

"Then," the Water Tribe boy continues, "When we found out how bad it was, that you couldn't breathe on your own... Yeah." The faraway look in his eyes isn't easily missed. "The North Pole is the best chance we have at getting the shrapnel out without killing you."

Zuko doesn't have any memory of what happened after he was dredged up. Was it that bad? He tries not to think about how differently things would have gone had the Avatar's group not been so nearby when his ship blew.

Had he really caused that much ire in the pirates? Sure, they didn't part on great terms, but it was the Avatar that caused their problems, not him. Mostly. Was it really enough to try to kill him?

He doesn't get much time to ponder that. The waterbender, content with her healing, pulls back with a sigh. She bends the water with her, draining it from the bandages and leaving them only lightly stained with blood. His blood, mixed into the water between her hands. It's unnerving. After a moment's consideration, she discards the murky bubble over the edge of the saddle.

"That should be fine, provided you stay put this time." There's a warning in her tone, but it's undermined by a waver. She's clearly exhausted. "We still need to look out for infection though. Does anything else hurt?"

Zuko recoils at the question. The worst of it is in his chest, obviously, but he isn't free from a full-body ache. Explosions aren't gentle affairs, after all. He's got more than a few cuts and bruises, but it's trivial compared to his chest.

More importantly, why is she so concerned? The life-threatening stuff is dealt with. He's not about to let the waterbender fuss over a headache and a split lip. He has too much pride for that. So instead of answering, he glowers at her.

At his expression, her gaze sharpens. "I'm not exactly happy about this situation either, you know. But I'm not going to leave you suffering just because you're a complete asshole."

Zuko takes offense to that, even if it's not entirely wrong.

Glaring back at the sky, he shifts his arms underneath him to try and sit up. No such luck. His hands are trembling before he's even trying to push off the saddle.

The waterbender huffs. "That's the blood loss," she observes, coldly clinical.

No shit. He defaults to his favorite tactic of late: glaring. She holds his gaze with one of her own. If she thinks he's just going to roll over for her because she's "here to help," she's sorely mistaken.

But apparently, the glaring match wasn't quite the battle of wills Zuko thought it was. The waterbender leans back, satisfied. "You don't have a concussion, so that's good. How's your hearing? The explosion can't have been good—"

The waterbender shifts her hands towards his head, fingers poised to snap. Reflexively, Zuko clamps a hand around her wrist to stop her. The grip is pathetically weak, but it freezes her in her tracks.

The stalemate has everyone holding their breaths. Except for Zuko, that is, who couldn't if he wanted to. After a second more, the waterbender forcefully yanks her arm back.

"Fine," she grumbles. "If you've got hearing loss, don't come whining to me."

Zuko's just glad she's responding with the appropriate hostility again. He can barely deal with the Avatar's blatant friend making behaviors, nevermind his companion's.

The Water Tribe boy cuts in, his voice gentle. "Go back to bed, Katara. I'll clean everything up."

With a tired sigh, she nods. "Thanks." She moves to crawl back to her pile of bedding at the head of the saddle, but stops halfway, turning to the Avatar. "Are you sure you'll be alright, Aang?"

The Avatar smiles far too brightly. "I've done overnight meditations before! It'll be fine."

"While bending?"

"Well, no." He pauses, and something about that makes Zuko's heart drop. "But how different can it be?"

Zuko swallows against the lump in his throat. It's a three day journey.

The waterbender doesn't sound convinced either. "Just... Wake me up if anything happens, okay?"

"I will."

The Water Tribe boy gives her a half hug. "Don't worry, I'm still staying up with him. You sleep."

"I'll try. Don't kill each other."

Her brother hums. "No promises."

The joke (because it was obviously a joke) seems to calm her nerves. She settles back onto her bedroll, but not before shooting Zuko a warning look.

Zuko's too busy puzzling over the logistics of his situation to react.

It could work, right? They wouldn't really be sticking to a plan that's bound to fail. Zuko's stayed up for three sunrises before. (Not voluntarily.) Surely the Avatar can manage it. While bending. Because he's the Avatar.

A twelve year old, untrained Avatar.

Zuko shuts down that thread of doubt as fast as it comes. It will be fine. He's just got to suffer through the indignities of being saved by the very person he's hunting. Because they wouldn't really put someone in this situation if they didn't think their plan would work. So it must work.

He thinks of the alternative, of the possibility that maybe they're just kids with hearts too hopeful for their own good, and he wants to strangle them for it. If this really is a stab in the dark, he might just lose it. He does not do well with uncertainty.

And they made a threat out of it. They forced a truce, like they know for certain they'll get to the North Pole, that Zuko's attitude is the only possible obstacle. He can't bring himself to call their bluff.

A cold, wet rag slaps onto his stomach so suddenly that Zuko can't stop his flinch. 

"Unless you want to sit around in your own blood," the Water Tribe boy says in way of an explanation. Then he turns back to their stash of packs.

Zuko bares his teeth in a breathless growl and takes the rag.

His hands aren't tingling anymore, but he's not exactly coordinated. There is a concerning amount of blood to wipe away, and in his state, it takes far longer than it normally would to clean. For once, he doesn't need to envision Uncle yelling at him to see why his impulsiveness had been a bad idea.

There's blood on the saddle, too. Should he clean that up? It might stain. Would they try to scrub it out, or would the Avatar just live with his enemy's blood discoloring his bison's saddle?

The Water Tribe boy snatching the bloodied rag back startles him from his thoughts.

"Okay, come on. Those bandages need to be changed, and it's easier when you're sitting up."

With a surprising amount of certainty, he grabs Zuko's arm and bends down to tug it over his shoulder. Zuko tries to pull away, but he's still concerningly weak, and the other boy has a strong grip. The Water Tribe boy pulls him into a sitting position before he can protest. The movement is slow, maybe even gentle, but that doesn't stop the world from tilting dangerously with the elevation shift.

By the time he's leaned against the lip of the saddle, the dizziness has fully taken over his senses. His ears are ringing loud enough that it drowns out everything else, so he really has no idea if anyone is speaking. Unable to focus on anything swimming in front of him, his stomach rolls dangerously. He squeezes his eyes shut and wills it to calm.

He can feel himself being maneuvered as the Water Tribe boy goes about replacing the bandages on his chest. Normally he'd be mortified by how pliant he's become, but in the moment, it's all he can do to swallow against the nausea. He's not going to be sick in front of the Avatar and his companions. Of all the indignities he's suffered, he won't let that be one of them.

Eventually, the nausea fades. The new bandages are secured and the movement stops, and the Water Tribe boy speaks again. "You good?"

What a stupidly vague question in his situation. He's probably not going to vomit all over the place, if that's what he's asking. In place of a response, Zuko pries his eyes open and glares.

The Water Tribe boy raises an eyebrow, then proceeds to smother him with a blanket. (Really, he just tosses the blanket over his head, but it's close enough.)

"You should rest, too," the Avatar suggests, uncaring of Zuko's blanket-drowning. "It's still a while to the North Pole."

Once he's wrestled the maze of a blanket over his shoulders and away from his face, Zuko directs the full force of his scowling onto him. The last thing he wants to do right now is rest.

The Avatar shrinks into himself. "Or not..."

To his right, the Water Tribe boy scoffs. "Stop being such a dick. We're only trying to help."

Zuko feels half inclined to listen, given the circumstances. Surrounded by enemies, he's not doing himself any favors by angering them. But, well, he's got to put his rage somewhere. The entire situation has his emotions almost boiling over.

This time, the look he offers the boy isn't so much of a glare as it is an exasperated stare.

"It's fine, Sokka," the Avatar responds.

The Water Tribe boy just shakes his head. "It wouldn't hurt him to be just a little polite."

They seem intent on taking away any control he has over the situation. First his bending, then his dagger, now his anger.

Fuck them. He isn't giving that up.

The Avatar shrugs. "He hasn't spit fire at us yet. That's good!"

If only.

His companion doesn't agree. "He tried to stab me."

"But he didn't! Think positively, Sokka!"

To Zuko's dismay, the Water Tribe boy's face relaxes, then he pulls Zuko's dagger from his pocket and considers it. That's where it disappeared to.

"I guess I got a free knife out of it."

Zuko blinks. A free knife.

"There you go!" The Avatar shares a hesitant grin. "I guess."

Oh, fuck that.

Zuko throws his hand out to snatch his dagger back. Sluggish and uncoordinated as he is, the Water Tribe boy dodges without much effort.

"Hey, no! You lost your knife privileges!"

Without the breath to argue, Zuko just makes another grab for it, much more coordinated than the last, and with much more injury tugging than he'd planned. He tries not to visibly wince.

The Avatar lets out a startled squawk, and the Water Tribe boy clamps a hand down on his shoulder. The grip is uncomfortably tight.

"Dude, stop," he barks. "Can you just sit still? You'll get the damn knife back when this is all over."

When this is all over. What does that even mean in this context? 

There's no guarantee he's ever getting his dagger back, especially not after everything that's happened. He'll just have to steal it back when he can, or else take their word for it.

Content that he's stopped grabbing for it, the Water Tribe boy flips the knife over, inspecting the blade before reading the inscription Zuko knows by heart. "It's fancy. 'Never give up without a fight.'" He hums. "And suddenly everything I know about you makes sense."

The Avatar has a dopey grin on his face. "That's inspiring."

"It's cheesy. And inconvenient for us."

The grin doesn't leave the Avatar's face, even as he shrugs.

With a pondering look on his face, the Water Tribe boy says, "Think if I give him a dagger that says 'Be calm and easy to deal with,' he'll do it?"

Zuko glowers, and the Water Tribe boy returns the look, pocketing the dagger again.

"Don't worry," the Avatar says, like he's trying to reassure Zuko even though Zuko does not need reassuring. "I'll make sure he gives it back."

Zuko doesn't know what to do with that.

As the conversation takes a turn for the unremarkable, Zuko tunes it out. He's hardly got the energy to pay attention to small talk right now. He's loath to admit it, but he's tired.

Under the night sky, Zuko feels the tug of exhaustion behind his eyes, but he refuses to acknowledge it. The shaky truce he has with the Avatar's group still has him on edge. Every breath he's forced through via the Avatar's bending reinforces his anxiety.

This truce is built on kindness. As much as he hates to admit it, Zuko has no leverage in this situation. The only reason he's alive is because the Avatar and his friends can't turn their backs on someone in need. His only bargaining chip is his own life, and that's not a chip he's willing to use. Not to mention, there's only so far he can push before they decide he's not worth it. So it's not much of a bargaining chip.

He's not stupid. Impulsive, maybe, but he isn't so idiotic as to throw his life away. He can cooperate, or at least meet the barest definition of it.

Doesn't mean he's not fucking pissed at his situation.

Zuko can't say he's not grateful to be breathing, but it feels so utterly wrong like this. Unable to speak, unable to yell and shout, unable to even panic properly, he's been robbed of a type of freedom he didn't even know he had. By the Avatar, no less.

How low he's fallen. He won't fall any lower, not by dropping his guard around them.

So he stays awake, despite the rest he needs to properly recover. It's one of the only choices he can make right now. His body will just have to take what it's given.

The Avatar and his companion chat, and Zuko stares at the horizon.

There are a couple of times when the Avatar gets a little too distracted by his conversation. Those are the times that Zuko startles to attention by choking. Each time, he spends far too long trying to hide it before jabbing his foot into the Avatar's thigh.

The first time it happens, the Water Tribe boy looks ready to bite his leg off before the Avatar cuts in.

"It's okay! That was my fault."

Zuko probably doesn't have to stare the Water Tribe boy down, but he does anyway. The boy doesn't hold out long, shifting his gaze to the Avatar instead.

"You can't keep going like this."

The Avatar doesn't waver. He sounds uncharacteristically serious. Duty bound. "I have to."

Zuko feels sick.

With a sigh, the Water Tribe boy glances back at him. "You're really gonna owe us after this, Prince Ponytail."

No kidding. Zuko avoids meeting his gaze this time.

Chapter Text

Zuko very quickly learns that he shouldn't be moving if he can avoid it.

Technically, he'd already learned that lesson, but now he's reminded of it with every small movement he makes. The adrenaline had shielded him from the worst of the pain before, but now he's fully exposed to it. Every twist tugs at his chest uncomfortably, like something is just a bit of pressure away from snapping. Even straightening his back has him anxious over injuries he can't see.

There are shards of his ship embedded in his chest. That sounds much more poetic than it feels. It feels like there's a sword held over his head, secured by fraying wires that creak whenever he moves, threatening to snap.

If only that was all he had to worry about. The shrapnel threatening to bleed him dry is nothing compared to the Avatar's energy. No amount of sitting still and resting his injury is going to halt that steady trickle.

Zuko's reminded of those glass timers he'd used back home. Uncle used them to teach him how long to brew tea; he never knew how long to wait without them. But on his ship, they were pointless. The waves would knock them off the table every time, until he just gave up on brewing tea properly all together. Not that brewing tea was a priority of his while he was at sea.

Still, it's a strong metaphor. The Avatar can't breathe for him forever, and Zuko can't wait for him to regain his energy. The energy he has is finite, always lessening. The sand trickles through the hourglass, and there's no getting back what's fallen.

He's really trying not to think about it.

They can't have been flying for more than an hour when the grumbling low of the sky bison startles Zuko out of his thoughts. Then they're losing altitude at a gentle but steady pace.

Zuko, still propped up on the lip of the saddle, cranes his neck to look over the edge. The move strains his injury, but he ignores the sting. (The Water Tribe boy is glaring daggers at him for moving anyway. He's got the worrying covered for them both.) Below them, the waves are growing closer.

Why are they sinking? What's the bison doing? Reluctantly, Zuko's gaze slides to the Avatar, not quite glaring this time.

"Appa needs to sleep," he explains.

They plop down in the bobbing ocean waves, the sky bison yawns, and Zuko wants to scream. If they're going to float in the open ocean for the next few hours, the least they could do is find a proper current heading north. Or at least drop anchor so they aren't sliding off course until sunrise. (Not that bison have anchors.) Who knows how much distance they could lose while the bison slept.

But he's not about to voice those concerns, not when it's a step too close to urgency for his liking. It's not urgent. He's fine, and the North Pole isn't even where he should be headed. He should be headed back to port, to where he left Uncle when Zhao stole his crew.

His chest twinges. Who is he kidding? In the privacy of his own mind, Zuko allows a fraction of urgency to seep in. The Avatar is no god. It's only a matter of time before he decides he can't keep breathing for two, and then Zuko can only hope he'll survive the rest of the journey. If he has any chance, they need to move.

No one else seems quite as concerned.

"He should be good to go by morning. Sky bison only need four hours a night." The Avatar seems way too eager to share his fun facts about sky bison, in Zuko's opinion.

"Really?" The Water Tribe boy sounds surprised. "He usually sleeps a lot more than that."

The Avatar grins. "He's always liked to sleep in. Plus, flying all around the world is hard work. Right buddy?"

The bison lows again, slower and more gravelly than before.

Zuko really hopes the bison doesn't sleep in.

Humming, the Water Tribe boy asks, "Didn't you say flying bison were migratory? Isn't he used to flying everywhere?"

"Sure, but Appa was never part of a wild herd. He's pampered! Wild herds..." 

As the Avatar launches into a lecture, Zuko lets the conversation fall into the background. Believe it or not, he really isn't in the mood for a lesson on bison behavior. He's a little preoccupied.

Frowning, Zuko looks between the horizon and the stars. They're headed north, but that's all he knows. Not that knowing their exact position would get them to the North Pole any faster.

Damn it.

lt's torture, knowing that at any minute the ground could cave in under him and he'd be gone. Relying on the strength of a kid to keep him from suffocating. And all he can do is wait. Something's bound to give before they can make it.

His palms are sweaty. His jaw aches from clenching it. He still has plans. He still has to regain his honor, he still has to go home. He needs them to move.

But he's not about to fight a ten ton bison on the issue. Even he knows that's an impossible battle.

The sand keeps falling. Zuko finds it hard to swallow.

"You're a lot better when you can't scream at people."

Zuko considers hauling himself over the edge of the saddle and sinking into the ocean.

"Though I'll admit, screaming is kind of a key personality trait for you." The Water Tribe boy cradles his chin between his thumb and index finger. "But we can work on that. I'm sure you just need a hobby."

Really, the ocean isn't a bad idea.

"You could try knitting."

The Avatar laughs. Zuko can feel it in his lungs.

"Or maybe you're more of a crocheting kind of guy."

"You could be a baker," the Avatar chimes in. "Lots of firebenders make really good bakers."

"There you go! Work with your skills. I wonder if there's a hobby that requires scowling."

"...Acting?"

Zuko's going to strangle someone.

Belatedly, it occurs to him that the Water Tribe boy is probably trying to distract him from his own nerves. It's working, if only for the moment.

Dawn breaks, and the Avatar is already struggling to keep Zuko's breaths even. He tries not to think about what that means for the rest of their journey.

Instead, he focuses on the sunrise, on the sky's many hues, and on the sound of the waves. All that's missing is the creak of a metal hull.

Normally, he's fond of mornings on the ocean. It's always peaceful to watch the overnight fog dissipate in the sunlight. Stuck for months only seeing the same few people, he's come to appreciate the quiet before the ship comes to life with the crew.

"I spy with my little eye..."

There's no quiet now. The Water Tribe boy is adamant in his duty to keep the Avatar from dozing off. The endless yammering would normally drive him up a wall. It does, if he's honest, but it's also a sign that he's not about to start suffocating. Give and take, he supposes.

"Something red."

"Uh... Zuko's hair tie?"

"Nope."

Zuko does not want to be observed at this moment.

There's no privacy on the back of a bison. His ship wasn't massive, but at least he could escape the crew and Uncle by hiding in his room when he needed to. Here, he gets no such luxury. 

"You better hurry. It's not staying red forever."

"Oh! The sunrise!"

Maybe he shouldn't have stayed awake all night. With no time to properly reset and evaluate the build up of emotions from the day, Zuko's feeling more willing to commit murder than usual. To save himself the moral panic it would bring, he tries his hardest to tune out their voices. Like he's been trying to do for hours.

Meditation is always helpful for when he's feeling high strung, though he hates to admit it. Especially when meditating is the last thing he wants to do when he's at the point of biting people's heads off for looking at him. He's not quite at that point, and he doesn't really want to get there.

But meditation requires breath control, something he definitely does not have right now.

Though, the waves are calm. The gentle rocking and splashing sounds on his ship were always a backdrop to his meditation, so he can focus on that. If he closes his eyes, he can pretend that his breaths are his own, that he's just doing breathing exercises on his ship.

He's nearly reached some semblance of regulation when the saddle lurches. There goes that calm.

The bison lifts its massive tail and slams it back into the water, launching itself into the air. Zuko doesn't flinch, per se, but he does clutch the edge of the saddle for dear life. The ascent is rockier than he anticipated.

The Avatar watches him with barely contained glee, clearly expecting the reaction. The grin he offers is uncomfortably genuine.

Zuko considers scowling back, but that feels like an avalanche of frustration about to come down. Regardless, he's too tired to care. He ignores the fact that the Avatar is even more so.

There's a dried up patch of blood on the saddle. Zuko lost track of it in the dark, and with everything that happened, he forgot it existed until the sun rose. Now, the discoloration is obvious against the brown cloth.

The Water Tribe boy tries to scrub it clean, but it's too late. The Avatar watches, his expression neutral as the spot refuses to fade under his friend's scrubbing. The blood flakes away, and the cloth underneath stains.

Then he's looking away, saying it's fine, saying it's just a saddle, it's not meant to stay pristine. He smiles as he says it.

Zuko can't tear his eyes away.

It's a stain. It'll take a lot to wash out.

Mealtime on a bison is lackluster. There's no lighting a fire on the saddle to cook with, so breakfast is just an assortment of dry foods Zuko's never seen before. Jerky with an unfamiliar seasoning, fruits and nuts from who knows where, and an assortment of staling pastries wrapped into neat little squares of paper.

Those were a gift, apparently. Perks of traveling with the Avatar. They also start a mini fight that Zuko is entirely unequipped to handle.

"Okay, we each get one and a half," the waterbender explains, unwrapping one of the pastries.

(She is far too calm after everything that happened last night. It's deliberate. He's been watching since she woke, and he didn't miss the sidelong glance and the slow, measured breaths before she fell into her morning routine.

She's choosing to be calm, and that pisses Zuko off.)

Her brother frowns, looking up from where he's sorting through their stash of jerky. "What? No, we have six."

"And we have four people."

The Water Tribe boy watches in dread as his sister tears one of the pastries in half.

"You don't give your enemies pastries!" he whines.

"Right, like how you also don't give them blankets and a trip to the North Pole."

Zuko, wrapped in a blanket and on a trip to the North Pole, would rather they stop talking about him and just keep the damn pastries.

"Those are medically necessary!" the Water Tribe boy hollers. "Pastries are not!"

"I don't know, Sokka," the Avatar pipes up, grinning. "Pastries seem pretty necessary to me."

The waterbender nods. "He's right. Zuko needs all the energy he can get if he's going to heal." The smarmy look on her face tells Zuko that she's just using him as a way to dig at her brother.

Zuko grits his teeth. He hates being used as a talking point.

Her brother is not happy with the excuse. "Then he can have extra of something else! Those pastries are for us!"

"Okay, fine," she concedes. There's a devious look in her eyes. "If you want to give Zuko more of your jerky to make up for it, then we can keep the pastries."

The Water Tribe boy erupts into complaints, and Zuko decides he's way too high strung to take their squabbling in stride right now. He doesn't want to be here, much less be the crux of an argument between people he barely knows. It's more than a little uncomfortable.

They can just keep the pastries if it's that big of an issue. He didn't ask for any. Honestly, he'd gladly starve if it meant he could get a single moment of quiet on the damn bison. Unfortunately, no one bothers to read his mind and take him up on that deal.

The Water Tribe boy's last defense for his pastries is effective. "He tried to stab me!"

The calm in the waterbender's eyes threatens to break, but it doesn't. Instead, she decisively tears a second pastry in half.

"I wasn't joking about the energy thing." Her tone is lacking the jovial lilt it had before.

Her brother sighs, long and dramatic, then returns to his jerky sorting with fervor, fishing around in his pack for something he's not finding.

He's grumbling to himself about pastries and seal jerky and unfair universes when he freezes in his search, eyebrows climbing to his hairline. None too carefully, he yanks out something that's most definitely not food.

"Hey, do you want this back?" 

The waterbender quirks her eyebrow. “You kept his shirt?”

The Water Tribe boy huffs. “Not the shirt. I mean, he can have it if he wants, but I don't think it qualifies as a shirt anymore.” As he rambles, he unwinds the tattered cloth to reveal a twisted scrap of metal, one end crusted in dried blood.

What the fuck.

The waterbender sounds just as disturbed. "Why do you have that?!"

Her brother huffs and looks at her like it's obvious. "You told me to hold it!"

"In the moment! I didn't mean keep it!"

"How was I supposed to know that?!"

"Why would anyone need to keep it?!"

The Water Tribe boy contemplates the question. "Personal trophy? If I got stabbed by an explosion, I'd want to keep it."

His sister looks mildly disgusted. "You couldn't have at least washed it off?"

"I was distracted, okay?"

Wait, is that...? When they said he had shrapnel in his chest, he imagined small shards, not a veritable dagger of steel.

"So, the question stands. Do you want it?"

There's a beat of silence as everyone turns to look at Zuko. Oh. He didn't realize the question was for him.

He isn't sure if he intends to keep it. The waterbender isn't wrong to think it's a little weird, but he holds out a hand for it nonetheless. The Water Tribe boy hands it over without a word.

Holding it, Zuko can't help but feel a little sick. The twisted metal is almost as long as his forearm, crusted blood stopping about halfway up the shard. It's... a lot. He knew it was bad, but he was never conscious to see the damage, not really. Seeing this now, he's surprised he wasn't completely run through.

It's dull. The word "dagger" was more of a nod to the general shape of the thing. The actual edges are pointed, but nowhere near sharp. That's probably the only reason they're even letting him hold it. (He tries not to think about how much force would be required to shove something this dull as deep into his chest as the blood tells him it had been.)

If that's what they had to pull out of him, he's suddenly much more worried about the shards still in his chest. The thought that they're even half the size of this monstrosity is enough to make him dizzy.

No wonder it hurts to breathe.

There are pieces of his ship in his chest, a piece in his hand, and the rest of it is laying in the sand below that pier. That's not supposed to hurt as much as it does. It was just a hunk of metal, nothing special in the Fire Nation navy. But it was also his home for over two years. 

Home is where the heart is. Lodged in his chest. Zuko nearly laughs. He's pretty sure this is not what Uncle meant when he said that.

At least Uncle wasn't on board. Or his crew, for that matter. Zhao had snapped them up just hours before, the bastard. And had failed to recruit Uncle to his invasion force. And had just connected the dots between him and the Blue Spirit...

That's no coincidence, he realizes with a start. He's been a little preoccupied lately, but with everything laid out in front of him, it's so obvious.

But he's a prince. Yes, a banished one, but a prince regardless. What kind of navy officer tries to assassinate a prince? Not that his status ever stopped Zhao from being particularly nasty towards him. They've always had a borderline hostile relationship, dipped in layers of official decorum and Uncle's placating manners. But Zuko never imagined he was in any danger. Would Zhao really go so far as to try to kill him?

Why the fuck did he put those swords back on the wall?

(Because he liked them. Because against those cold walls, he preferred to have something to look at, something that felt a little more personable than rusting sheets of metal. Zhao never came to his quarters. It shouldn't have mattered.)

Unfortunately for him, it did matter, and now he's paying the price. He'd still have a ship if he wasn't so stupid. There are no more walls to adorn.

Zuko drops the shrapnel onto the saddle and gingerly lies on his uninjured side, trying not to agitate his wound. It pulls against his skin regardless, ever the reminder of how close a call it was. How much of his life he owes to the people he's been chasing.

Intent to block out the world, he yanks the blanket up to his face. He doesn't want to think about any of this.

The conversation continues above him, buzzing over his head relentlessly.

"Dibs on the red one."

"What?! No, I love the red ones!"

"I know! I haven't even gotten to try one!"

Breakfast passes without him, but his portion of the rations is laid out by his feet when he finally sits up again. It's a handful of a fruit he can't name, a sizable piece of jerky, and one and a half stale pastries.

The piece of shrapnel is gone, and Zuko doesn't ask where it went.

The waterbender wants to check his injury as soon as possible. Zuko thinks that he'd rather keep his chest to himself, thanks.

She isn't swayed by his opinions. In fact, she completely ignores them, and acts like she doesn't notice when he shakes his head.

"Thanks for being so cooperative, Zuko. It really helps," she says sarcastically.

Zuko, fully utilizing his blanket as a shield, does not appreciate the joke.

The Avatar laughs. At least someone's amused. "Come on, it'll only take a minute."

Zuko scowls. Time isn't the issue. It's purely a matter of pride. He isn't in the mood to deal with vulnerability like that, not unless it's completely necessary. His bandages are fine.

The waterbender doesn't care. In fact, she splashes a skin full of water on him, soaking through his blanket and his bandages. Cold water, mind you. While they're four hundred feet in the air. Headed towards the North Pole. An involuntary shiver runs down his spine.

She smirks, then fails to cover it with a too serious frown. "Oops."

Water Tribe children are tricky.

But Zuko's been at sea for years now. He's been splashed with more than his fair share of sea water, so he's pretty much mastered the ability to steam his clothes dry with firebending.

Which... he doesn't trust himself to do right now. Not with someone else controlling his breathing. Damn it.

If the waterbender says a single word while he peels the wet blanket off, he's going to jump off the bison. Thankfully, she doesn't, but her self-satisfied smirk is almost as bad.

Slowly, she unwinds the bandages, taking care to avoid pulling on any fresh scabs as she does. It takes longer than Zuko has the patience for, but soon enough, the bandages are in a wet pile beside her.

This is the first time Zuko's been able to see his injury. Last time, he was busy keeping his stomach inside his body. It's not pretty. A jagged line runs under his left breast, scabbed over and raw around the edges. Spattered around the wound are many smaller marks, scabbed over as well, but much less angry looking. Bruising dots his chest, but they aren't the angry blues and reds he expected, instead fading browns and yellows.

If Zuko knows anything about healing, he knows that this is insanely fast for a day-old wound. Magic healing water really does the trick.

"No infection, so that's good," the waterbender comments. "I'll change out the bandages, and then you should be fine. Just be careful moving around. I'm worried that the leftover shrapnel could tear something again."

It only takes a minute or two to reapply the bandages. Then, with a bit of waterbending, the blanket is dry and offered to him again.

"Sorry about the water thing." She doesn't look sorry. "Do you need another blanket? That one's kind of thin."

Zuko shakes his head, tugging the one he's been given around his shoulders.

"Are you sure? It's only going to get colder."

He wants to scream. Instead, he clenches his fists and mouths the word firebender. Which is... kind of a half truth. He's not about to use his bending to warm himself without control of his breath, but that's also not information he's going to advertise. He can deal with a little cold.

The waterbender raises her eyebrows. "Oh, I guess that would keep you pretty warm, huh."

The Avatar shivers. "Man, I wish I could do that."

The scowl he offers the Avatar (the Avatar) is met with confusion. The stupidity on this bison is driving Zuko insane.

"What?"

Zuko just stares.

It takes far too long for it to click. "Oh! Oh, no, I can't firebend. I mean, technically, but I don't... I can't..."

That doesn't make any sense. Isn't that the whole point of the Avatar, bending all the elements?

The waterbender offers her support. "You'll get there, Aang."

"Yeah..."

That sounds far too reluctant, in his opinion. Sure, the Avatar isn't on great terms with the Fire Nation, but surely that doesn't justify skipping a whole element. That would throw off the balance, or whatever Uncle always says. Spirits and stuff.

Not that he cares about the Avatar doing his Avatar stuff correctly.

The waterbender crawls over to her brother, steals a blanket from the pile he's buried under, and throws it over the Avatar's shoulders. The unending drone of conversation moves on.

The lemur is a day lemur, apparently. And it doesn't understand what bandages are, or that they should not be jumped upon.

"Momo!"

"Fuck!"

Its landing forces enough air out of him that Zuko manages some amount of voice to his reactive cursing. That's the only positive thing about this situation.

The waterbender snatches the lemur up, but it's too little too late. The damn thing has to have aimed for his chest. There's no other explanation for it digging its little paws directly into his wound.

Reflexively, he wraps his arms around the wound as he rides out the pain. Damn lemur.

The Avatar startles, but doesn't break his bending stance. "Zuko! Are you okay?" 

What's he supposed to do? Nod? Shake his head? He's clearly in pain. What more confirmation does the Avatar need? He grits his teeth and glares.

The Avatar, for some reason, acts like this is new. Like he hasn't been constantly scowling at them and biting at every hand they offer in help. Help that he knows he needs.

The Avatar's shoulders droop, and with it, his bending momentarily falters.

Ignoring the skip in his heartbeat, Zuko looks away. He's so damn tired of this already.

The waterbender gives up wrestling the lemur into submission, mostly because it's not working. With the winged thing sulking on the other end of the saddle, she directs all her attention to Zuko.

"Did Momo tear something? Let me see."

That's one too many medical concerns for him today. When she moves forward to check on him, Zuko practically snarls as he jerks away. There's no sound, but his bared teeth are clear enough. He didn't have the patience for people before being mauled by an animal, much less afterwards.

The waterbender’s concern dissolves into anger faster than Zuko can blink.

"What? You're suddenly too good for my help?"

Yes. He'd love to argue that he was always too good for it, and he was subjected to it against his will. But he can't argue anything, not without a voice. Instead he just raises his eyebrows.

It gets his point across well enough. The waterbender screams in annoyance.

"You're a real piece of work, you know that?! After all you've put us through, we're still offering help when you need it, and you can't even stop being an asshole long enough to accept it!"

The Avatar looks uncomfortable. "Katara..."

She just shakes her head. "No, I don't care! We've done nothing but help, and he's just throwing it back in our faces!"

"Zuko, stop being stupid." Her brother, awoken by the (one sided) fight, has dragged his head from his mound of blankets to scowl at him.

The waterbender scoffs. "Look, now you woke up Sokka!"

That's a bold claim, considering Zuko hasn't made a fucking sound. 

"I don't know why we bother!" she continues. "You've been nothing but trouble for us since the start!"

He has no idea what she expected. That's kind of the point of their relationship.

"We're already this far! The least you can do is stop being a jerk and actually let me help!"

Zuko's been trying for the better half of the day to keep from punching someone in the face. Without his words to use as a pressure release, he can feel his self control failing. He's about ready to chuck himself off the bison and give up. Instead, he does something probably just as stupid.

He lurches into a crouch, his wound screaming in protest, and jabs his elbow into the Avatar's gut. The resulting yelp is followed by an uncomfortable pressure settling in his chest.

The siblings are up in arms immediately, their weapons of choice poised to defend the Avatar.

Zuko makes no move to reciprocate. He doesn't even trust himself to stand safely on the bison, let alone fight. Instead, he braces against the choking feeling of his lungs adjusting to the lack of bending and waits for it to pass. His next inhale is weak, but it's his own.

"Fuck off!" The words burn through his throat, a heavy rasp taking the place of his usual volume, but he doesn't care. "I didn't ask for your help!"

"You'd be dead without us!" the waterbender screeches.

"Why do you care?!"

"Why don't you?!"

Zuko scoffs, but it sounds more like a wheeze. "You don't know what I care about!"

"Clearly not your own health," she retorts, "Or you wouldn't be acting like such a brat!"

"I didn't ask—" He's already running out of air before he can finish his sentences. "—for your help!"

"What do you want us to do then?" the Avatar snaps suddenly. There's a sour look on his face as he rubs his abdomen. "Do you want us to turn around? Drop you in the ocean? What?!"

Face to face, Zuko can see how bad the bags under his eyes are getting.

"Just leave me alone!"

Expression twisting into anger, the Avatar shakes his head. "We're not doing that!"

Zuko narrows his eyes, incredulous. "It's a three day trip! Look at you! Stop—" He chokes, gasps, and continues. "Stop dragging this out!"

"Why do you want to die?!"

The fear that floods down his spine is achingly cold.

"That's not..."

That's not what he's saying. That's not what he's saying, right...? 

He just wants them to stop acting like they care. He wants them to stop carrying on like they aren't running a race they've already lost. He wants everything to stop, but not in that way, just...

He never put it into words. That was on purpose. Of course he doesn't want to die. But he also doesn't want to live through this.

Fuck this. Fuck them. Fuck everything.

He's sixteen. He's not ready. It's an impossible choice: continue on the smallest chance (constantly wavering in front of his eyes, threatening to collapse with every lapse in bending, without time to even recognize that everything is ending before eternity swallows him up,) that they could reach help in time, or save himself that turmoil and give up while he's ahead.

Shouldn't it be his choice? Shouldn't he quit on his own terms? Waiting on a hope that gets dimmer and dimmer each time the Avatar stumbles, each time he yawns... He can't keep doing this.

It's one thing to go out kicking and screaming, throwing all his vitriol at the universe until it decides enough is enough and throws back. It's another thing entirely to be snuffed out after he's screamed himself hoarse. Past the point of any fight, suffocating and wasting away and afraid for hours on end. Confined to a reality where the present moment is all that matters because there's no guarantee there will be another, and the present moment hurts.

(He's been there before. He's done that before.)

Believe or not, he doesn't want his last moments to be ones of desperate hope and denial. That's not peaceful. He never expected to get peaceful, but that doesn't mean he doesn't want it. 

It's hopeless. Every inch of him is telling him they can't make it. He knows his maps. He knows the ocean, knows the stretch between the tip of the Earth Kingdom and the North Pole. It's a three day journey. He's not wrong about that, and yet they're all so certain. Like he's the only reason that this could fail. Like he's unjustified in being scared.

He's terrified, and they blame him for it.

The sting in his eyes has him mentally scrambling back for any sense of composure he can muster, but there's none to be found. Then, his vision is swimming.

Shit. Damn it.He can't cry in front of the Avatar. He can't break down here. It's not fair.

And yet, there's nothing he can do. He feels the first tear fall at the same time that his heart drops into his stomach. There's no stopping it after that. The tears come tumbling out, and Zuko can't do anything.

The Avatar and his companions crumble along with him. Any aggression they held vanishes as they stare, eyes wide and jaws slack. Zuko desperately wishes they wouldn't do that.

He wants them to brandish their anger against him, to forget the tears and keep hating him so he doesn't have to deal with the consequences of any of them actually caring. Because they don't right now, they can't care. He's given them nothing to care about, and he doesn't intend to start.

But he can see the sympathy melting into their faces, changing what they think of him. Changing how they'll view every single interaction they have from this point on. Judging him for a response he's too weak to control. Feeling bad for the poor boy who'll be dead in two days. Who'll be nothing but a stain on the saddle of the Avatar's bison.

Zuko's breath hitches. He wants to scream, but it's all he can do to just breathe in.

The Avatar speaks, hardly above a whisper. "We're not doing that."

He doesn't trust himself to say anything. His breathing is beyond the point of speech by now anyway. Instead, he glares, clenches his jaw, and refuses to break eye contact. He won't flinch first, even as the tears roll down his cheeks.

The Avatar brings his knuckles together and breathes deeply. The pressure on Zuko's chest lightens, and the spots in his vision start to recede.

Of course. The Avatar has always been a bleeding heart.

Zuko feels his chest muscles contract, like he's trying to sob but can't with airbending dictating his breathing. But the rest of the physical reaction is there: the sting in his eyes, the lump in his throat, his lower lip threatening to wobble if he doesn't flatten them both together.

And he can't stop crying. Nor can he bring himself to wipe the tears away, because that would mean acknowledging their existence. He's not ready to do that yet. So instead, he holds his staring contest with the Avatar and waits for someone else to make the next move.

The Avatar does. Gently, he looks away and settles into his meditative stance, so assured in his movements that it feels like he's demanding calm.

One by one, they all fall back into the saddle. First the waterbender, then her brother, and finally Zuko.

For a brief moment, he sits on his knees and stares past them all, eyes focused on a nondescript blemish on the far lip of the saddle. He's too frozen to properly avoid their gazes. The tears don't seem to care that the rest of him can't move.

No one dares to speak. The stillness that remains is anything but peaceful. Quite the opposite. Every second that passes feels like being impaled by his own ship again and again. Or, what he imagines it felt like. He doesn't remember the pain, but it's got to have felt something like this.

Then the Water Tribe boy speaks, and the stillness breaks. "Look, Zuko—"

Zuko won't listen. Not with that look in their eyes.

For the second time that day, Zuko finds himself curling up and yanking his blanket over his head. It's a flimsy protection at best, and more than a little childish, but he can't take their stares any longer. He can't face the pity in their eyes. He won't listen to whatever they have to say.

Why does he always do this? Pushing and pushing until the world proves to him that he's gone too far. There's never any benefit to this hostility. All it does, every time, is make things worse for himself.

Things weren't great before he decided to ruin everything, but at least he had some semblance of pride. Now that's all gone with every tear that snakes its way down his face. They know he's scared, and that's unbearable. They're not supposed to know. Or at least, they're not supposed to care once they do.

They're pretty clear about caring.

His injury is intent on reminding him how stupid his stunt was with every heartbeat. He shouldn't have moved so fast, or moved at all, really. If he's reopened something, it would serve him right.

In his shoddy privacy under the blanket, he checks his bandages for any wetness. There is none, but his breaths have an unsettling crackle to them.

His heart sinks. That's not normal. But crawling out from his cocoon, face still smeared with tears, to ask the waterbender to check on it? There's no way he can do that. The embarrassment would kill him faster than his wounds.

Exhaustion pulls at him, and he's willing to give that much ground. He closes his eyes and sleeps for the first time since he woke up in the air. Hopefully the rattle in his chest will go away on its own.

It doesn't. He wakes up with his lungs spasming.

"Zuko? What's going on? What's wrong?"

The Avatar is already hovering over him before he can even sit up. No doubt he can feel the resistance to his bending. Zuko can absolutely feel the inverse.

His chest clenches around the air that's forced into it, leaving a stinging pain with every spasm. Whatever his body is trying to do, it's at odds with the Avatar's bending support.

Desperate, he meets the Avatar's worried stare and jerks his arm in a slicing motion. He doesn't trust anyone's tempers enough to touch him, not again, so he has to settle for mouthing the words he needs.

Stop. Stop bending.

The Avatar is clearly nervous, but also absurdly trusting. He hesitates only a moment before he stops.

With his lungs finally able to contract on their own, harsh, gurgling coughs force their way out of Zuko's throat. Each one dredges something up with it. Clumsily, he pulls a hand up to his mouth, both to shield his cough and to catch whatever his lungs are hacking up.

The coughing fit sounds desperate even to his own ears. He barely gets a chance to inhale (not that he can really do that on his own anyways) before another wave tries to force his lungs out of his chest. Every gasp for air just drags out another cough. It feels like he's gargling glass, and all he can do is close his eyes against the pain.

By the time it starts to subside, Zuko can feel tears squeezing out of his eyes from the exertion. The brain rattling coughs drag up one last spattering of fluid before he finally gets a break. Lightheaded, he only distantly feels the warm substance drip from his palm. He hopes it's just mucus, but when is he ever so lucky?

Once the coughing stops, The Avatar only gives Zuko a couple of independent wheezes before he's bending air back into his lungs.

For a brief moment, Zuko pauses and lets himself recover, then he pries his eyes open. Slowly, he lowers his hand and looks at it.

Yeah, that's blood. Damn it.

The waterbender, who Zuko didn't even register had been hovering as well, curses and snatches up a stray waterskin. She allows for no arguments when she demands, "Let me see your chest."

The last thing Zuko wants right now is to be gawked at, even if it's for medical reasons. But coughing up blood is bad. Like, "the last time he saw that was when one of his crew almost died of blunt force trauma" type of bad. So for once, he doesn't fight it. He pulls back the tangled mess that is his blanket and leans against the lip of the saddle to give her better access to the wound.

The waterbender pops the cork on the waterskin and bends the water to his chest. Once again, the glow it takes on as she begins healing is fascinating, but it's dampened by the fact that she's healing him. Again, from an injury that he can't afford to keep making worse. He just keeps making it worse.

The frown lacing her features deepens. "Your lungs are bleeding again, probably from all that moving around earlier. I'll bet the shrapnel shifted and tore something."

She doesn't say any more, nor does she promise a result like Zuko expects. She just focuses on bending.

He doesn't like that. He's not hanging on every word of assurance he's given, he's not that desperate, but getting nothing makes him nervous. Not that there's been anything in the past day that hasn't made him nervous.

The minutes pass in silence. They both look pale, the Avatar and the waterbender. He probably does too, if his heart trying to beat out of his chest is anything to go by.

Finally, the waterbender pulls the water back from his chest with a sigh. "That should stop the bleeding," she mumbles. "I think."

She thinks? The wild look he gives her sets off a strange mix of defensiveness and anxiety in her face that Zuko knows all too well.

"It's fine, it's just—" She hardly sounds convinced by her own words, but she takes a breath and settles into a confidence that feels entirely unearned. "I'm new to this. But it's fine."

She's new to this. Of course she is. Why not? In the list of things that are trying to make his heart explode from anxiety, just add "inexperienced healer" to the bottom. Just tack it on there. No biggie.

"Is he dead?" Behind her, her brother is peaking an eye out from his mound of blankets.

(Zuko is the only one who doesn't miss the Avatar's flinch. He feels it through a brief hiccup in his lungs.)

She shakes her head. "No, he's fine. We're all fine."

Zuko's not so sure about that. No one on the bison looks the least bit calm, except for maybe the lemur who's napping on the Water Tribe boy's back.

Said Water Tribe boy hums. "Hey, Zuko, maybe you could save your next dramatic episode for when I'm not sleeping," he sasses, then buries himself in blankets again.

If it was meant to be a joke, it falls flat. No one's really in the mood for jokes right now.

The waterbender gives a shaky exhale. "Zuko, when I say be careful, I need you to listen this time. Please."

Maybe it's the desperation in her tone, or the paleness of her face, or maybe his fear has finally won out over his stubborn personality. Whatever it is, Zuko feels whatever defiance he had in him crumble. He slams his eyes shut, because he hasn't quite gotten over the embarrassment of agreeing with people, and nods.

He hears the waterbender take a deliberate breath, as if assuring herself that everything's fine.

(Everything is not fine. He has pieces of his ship lodged in his chest. Pieces that shift and pull and tear every time he moves.)

A few more seconds pass in silence before he feels calm enough to open his eyes.

The Avatar meets his gaze immediately. After all that, Zuko doesn't quite have the energy to glare when they make eye contact. And it's purely because of his tiredness, not because the Avatar looks just as pale as his waterbender friend.

"...You've got, um..." He points to his lips.

Mirroring him, Zuko pulls his hand to his own mouth and feels the wetness of blood. He has to wipe it away with his left, because his right already has blood set in the seams of his palm and dribbling down his forearm.

"Here, hold on." The waterbender twists around to dig through her pack, producing a rag. Dousing it in water, she offers it to him. He takes it.

It's only while he's cleaning his hands of his own blood that Zuko realizes that they're shaking. Was that a close call? Did he almost get himself killed because he was so intent on spitting proverbial (for once) fire at his enemies for trying to help?

Damn it. What is wrong with him? He can't seem to go a single day without almost falling on his own sword. It's been this way as long as he can remember. He's just really good at destroying himself, isn't he?

"Zuko."

The waterbender's call pulls him from his thoughts. When he flicks his gaze over to her, he notices that she's shaken off the stricken look she held moments ago. It's replaced by determination.

"We're going to make it, okay? You're going to be fine."

Does she really believe that? Her confidence is almost as inspiring as it is naive.

Zuko just frowns and looks away.

The hostility between the Avatar's group and Zuko hits an all time low at the same time that Zuko would personally rather fling himself into the sun than be around any of them. No one seems willing to acknowledge his little breakdown, despite how drastically it's changed the way they approach him.

The Avatar, who had already been the most sympathetic before, has evolved into downright protective. That, combined with the heavy bags under his eyes, has the siblings defaulting to whatever he thinks whenever Zuko gets snippy. Which is constantly.

Zuko glares at them for trying to include him in one of the few games he could actually partake in. The Avatar says it's fine, that he doesn't have to play. The siblings agree without a word. It ruins the mood, and no one plays.

Zuko fends off the lemur with a foot, despite the fact that it's trying to approach gently. The Avatar looks upset, but asks the siblings to distract it. The siblings do so. The lemur sulks, and the Avatar sulks, and Zuko just feels angrier.

He's at his emotional limit, and he's still forced onward. He gets no break from his reality on the back of a bison. Every second is a grain of sand in the hourglass.

So he gets mad at nothing, and everyone around him has to deal with it.

"Is it smaller than Appa?"

"Yes."

"...Is it smaller than Momo?"

"No."

"...Is it..."

Silence, for far too long.

"...Aang?"

Zuko jams a foot against the Avatar's knee, startling him out of his drifting. It's definitely harsher than it needs to be.

The waterbender frowns. "Hey—"

The Avatar cuts in before she's even started. "It's fine. It helps."

She doesn't look convinced, but she quiets anyway.

"What did you say?" he asks.

"It's bigger than Momo."

"Okay... Is it nearby?"

They repeat this three more times. Each time is sooner than the last, and each time, Zuko shoves a little harder. The last time he does it, the waterbender snaps that she wants to hear about how the Avatar met his bison again.

The game ends, and the Avatar retells a story everyone has already heard.

Zuko decides he doesn't want to hear it again (doesn't want his heart to skip a beat everytime the Avatar trails off), and opts for sleep. It does not make his reality any better.

When the Avatar runs out of energy, Zuko's going to die. He's relying on a bison to outpace that.

Now, finally using the words he's desperately been trying to avoid, all he wants to do is curl into himself and sleep. It's easier than confronting anything about his situation.

"So, we need a plan," the Water Tribe boy starts. It's during the few hours that everyone is awake, and no one's quite hungry enough to pull out food. "For when we hit the North Pole."

"What do you mean?" his sister asks.

"I mean with Prince Jerkface."

Zuko scowls at the nickname.

"Look at him," he continues. "Who knows how much help we'll actually get when we arrive."

... What?

The Avatar echoes the sentiment. "Why wouldn't they help?"

"He's obviously Fire Nation. This might not work, even if they can help."

Zuko doesn't notice his mouth is ajar until the waterbender spots it. Something twists on her face as she promptly smacks her brother in the head.

"They can help!" she insists. "We know they can help!"

But they don't know if they will.

The Avatar has enough surety in his voice for all of them. "And they will. I won't let them not help."

The Water Tribe boy looks somber, even as he cradles the back of his head. "Aang, you might not get a choice."

"I'm the Avatar," he insists.

"That doesn't mean everyone will listen."

Zuko feels faint. They really dragged him out this far, and they can't even guarantee help if they make it? What kind of sick joke is this?

"Water Tribe clothes could help," the waterbender suggests almost sheepishly. "At least to get our foot in the door."

The Avatar nods emphatically. "That's a good idea. Sokka, can we use your coat?"

The Water Tribe boy is immediately taken aback. "Why my coat?!"

Zuko's inclined to agree. Why bother with a coat? His eyes will give it away no matter what he wears.

"You're about the same size."

"Can't he just wear a shirt?" he whines.

"The coat's got a hood," the waterbender counters. "We're trying to hide him, Sokka."

It doesn't matter.

"And what am I supposed to wear? It's freezing!"

"We have a lot of blankets."

Zuko stops paying attention.

He's been trying to avoid thinking, trying to avoid hitting rock bottom by simply not letting his thoughts move in any direction. That's left him completely blindsided by this new angle on his reality.

The Northern Water Tribe has every reason to just leave him to die. It would be the smart thing to do. The only reason they would even consider keeping an enemy alive would be to keep him prisoner.

As far as he knows, the Water Tribes don't take prisoners. Would they make an exception for the Crown Prince?

There's a coat being shoved in his face.

"To get our foot in the door," the Water Tribe boy says, and doesn't say what their plan is after that.

And that's how Fire Nation Prince Zuko finds himself dressed in Water Tribe blues.

He tries to be mad about the coat, he really does. He tries to be mad, or embarrassed, or even a little smug at watching the Water Tribe boy wrestle a blanket into a presentable looking cloak. He succeeds at none of these things.

All he feels is numb.

If he dies in these colors, he's never going to forgive them for it.

That night, Zuko wakes to the feeling of his chest jumping. He only panics for a moment before he realizes that he is still breathing, even if it's not as steadily as he'd prefer. It takes him a moment longer to figure out what's going on.

The Avatar is crying. The shuddering of his own breaths is affecting his bending, so Zuko feels it. Every sob, every hiccup, every gross snort of mucus. It makes him feel sick.

Already crowded by the Water Tribe siblings, Zuko's glad he's not on the docket for comfort. Not that he'd be giving his enemies comfort even if he were. But having a crying airbender is no good for his health, so...

They're quiet, though he doesn't know if it's for his benefit or just to maintain some sense of privacy. He's willing to give it to them, but he can't stop himself from hearing the Avatar choke something out.

"I just want to sleep."

Zuko feels his gut sink. It's the nail in the coffin, isn't it? He's right. All their denial and bravado and hope, and he's still right. They aren't going to make it. The damn coat wasn't even worth the heart attack it gave him, because they aren't going to make it.

He'll admit it only to himself, but he feels guilty. Not that there's anything to feel guilty about. Wanting to stay alive isn't something to be guilty over. It's a basic human instinct, and blaming someone for it would be crazy. And yet.

He wonders, not for the first time, if this whole endeavor is pointless. Just an exercise in suffering. He's on borrowed time. It's arrogant to think that anyone, even the Avatar, could change his destiny.

Maybe his destiny was to sleep at the bottom of that pier for eternity.

The Avatar keeps crying, eventually calmed by the words of his friends.

The sand keeps falling.

Zuko can't sleep for the rest of the night.

The Avatar can't keep pace for days on end. They all know this, but the lack of alternatives keeps them hopeful. "Them" being everyone but Zuko. Zuko's been ignoring his feelings and trying not to think too much.

He isn't quite suffocating. He's still conscious, better than he would be without the sluggish air forcing its way into his lungs. But he's not exactly thriving. Everyone can tell.

"You need some water?" the Water Tribe boy offers after he takes his own glug from the waterskin.

Zuko doesn't really process it until he's already speaking again.

"Hey. Dude."

Then there's a waterskin in his lap, and all Zuko does is glare at it.

They all know what's going on. The slow movements, the delayed reactions, if he even bothers to respond at all. He's a perfect mirror to the Avatar's exhaustion.

The Avatar's worried gaze bores into his skin. This situation has become commonplace.

The Avatar is worried about him, and everyone else is worried about the Avatar. Zuko's too tired to worry anymore. Now he just sleeps, because it's easier to be unconscious than awake and aware of... everything.

When he is awake, he hears snippets of conversation. One of the siblings telling a story, or playing a word game with the Avatar. Trying to keep him awake.

Would it be better for everyone if he put an end to this? The Avatar is torturing himself over a near impossible task. And if he knows the kid, he's going to feel responsible for Zuko's death for the rest of eternity. That's a long time to feel responsible for the world being unfair.

Sounds familiar.

No one says anything when he spends most of the day sleeping, or at the very least pretending to. He supposes it's more manageable for them. The more he sleeps, the less he can nonverbally snap at them for every little thing. He's gotten unnervingly good at that.

He's trying not to be so insufferable. It may not look like it, but he really is. Were he able to talk, he'd be doing a positively wonderful job at it. He's biting his tongue practically every other minute around these people. Too bad he doesn't get credit for things he's forced into.

The worst part is that they're all collectively refusing to be mad at him for his attitude. He used to think Uncle was the only one who could manage that, but apparently it's a common trait amongst people like this. People who are too kind for their own good.

That morning, he refuses the extra jerky the Water Tribe boy slips him. Not because he doesn't need the energy, but because he's sick of charity.

That afternoon, he glares at the waterbender for asking too many questions when she checks his bandages. Not because they aren't important for his recovery, but because he doesn't want to deal with her.

That evening, he puts a scowl on his face and pointedly ignores the Avatar when he tries to include him in the conversation with a few yes or no questions. Not because he doesn't need the distraction, but because he can't accept it from his enemy.

And when he's not being an asshole and not sleeping, he's staring into the distance with his thoughts running a mile a minute. Nothing he thinks about helps. It only serves to stress him out further.

His eyes keep wandering to the bloodstain on the saddle.

When dinner rolls around, Zuko's too caught up in his own head to realize. He's only pulled out of it when the Water Tribe boy gently kicks his boot.

"Stop thinking about it," he says. "Eat your food."

Zuko just grinds his teeth together and pulls his feet out of kicking range.

It's never ending, despite how far he pulls away.

The Avatar keeps starting awake. His bending keeps faltering and wavering in an uncomfortable rhythm. He zones out, loses track of conversations, and repeats what he just said as if it's an entirely new thought. He talks about things that don't make sense, and he laughs when the lemur chitters at him, and he starts bawling when Zuko gives him the cold shoulder again.

Zuko has absolutely no idea how to deal with that last one. The furthest he gets to an apology is watching with wide eyes as the Avatar falls apart in front of him. Which is nowhere near an apology.

Still, no one yells at him. His breath hitches in time with the Avatar's, and Zuko really thinks they should.

The waterbender gets the closest when she goes to comfort the Avatar, but even then she doesn't so much as glare. She just gives Zuko a look that makes him want to dissolve on the spot.

Damn kind people and their looks.

Later that night, when the Avatar asks him if he likes pickled cabbage, Zuko just nods.

The sand keeps falling, and the Avatar keeps bending.

They're lost. The siblings keep insisting that they're on course, but they have yet to see a giant ice city on the horizon. 

They're bickering over the map when Zuko feels that tell-tale pressure start to bear down on his chest. To his left, the Avatar is nodding off.

Zuko can't blame him. They're going on three days of this. But he's stubborn, or maybe just a coward, and he doesn't want to die. So he grabs the Avatar's arm.

The Avatar blinks awake without any more prompting. He shakes himself, corrects his posture, and slaps his cheeks.

"Sorry."

It's more defeated than Zuko's ever heard him. He shares the sentiment.

Just by watching, he can tell that the Avatar isn't going to be staying awake on his own. So when he grabs Zuko's hand, neither of them say anything. He clings to it like that's what's keeping Zuko breathing. Maybe it is, at this point.

Zuko squeezes his hand when the Avatar starts to drift off. And if he also squeezes when his nerves get the better of him, well, Aang isn't going to tell anyone.

Zuko wakes with a heaving breath and Aang's tearstained face looming over him. He's practically on top of him, hands draped across the fabric of the Water Tribe coat.

"I'm so sorry," he whispers.

Zuko's not great with comforting people, so he just does what Uncle does for him. He places a hand on Aang's back and lets him cry through it.

This time, when the world goes dark, Zuko doesn't expect to wake up again. He'll leave them with a stain on the saddle.

The last grain of sand falls into the pile at the bottom of the hourglass.

Chapter Text

There's a lemur on his legs.

"Watching over him, Zuko?" a cracking, old voice asks.

Zuko's tongue feels like lead. "...Ssure."

A short bark of laughter sounds to his left. "You good, buddy?"

"Mm-hm."

"Glad to hear it."

A hand is on his mouth. Zuko's halfway through a sentence he can't remember starting.

Obviously, he bites.

"Look, I'm just saying, we've already done our part. If they catch him now..."

"Sokka, look at him. He's helpless. We can't just leave him to fend for himself when we brought him here in the first place."

Zuko gets a hand about two inches into the air before gravity drags it back down. "M'not helpless."

"I'm so convinced," Katara deadpans.

"I mean, he's got a strong bite," Sokka answers.

Damn right.

Zuko's brain seems to kick in halfway through a conversation. Quite literally. He's in the middle of a conversation. And not like he's suddenly aware he's being spoken to. No, he's the one speaking, and he has no idea what about.

"...And it's fucking cold."

"Uh-huh." Sokka is sitting uncomfortably close to his bedside, well within arms reach, staring at his fingernails and looking more than a little bored.

"I'll bring you some proper clothes the next time I come by," a cracking, old voice says.

Who the fuck is that? Zuko's still flat on his back in bed when he turns to look at the sound. What he finds is an old lady a few feet away, seated near Katara in front of a low fire. If he's supposed to know her, his mind is drawing a blank.

"...What...?" He's got a tired rasp to his voice that he can't seem to shake.

"You're complaining about the North Pole," is Sokka's response. He doesn't look up from his nails. "Again."

Again?

"Y'know, I get that he's not used to the cold," Katara starts, her tone flat as she idly bends small droplets of water into the fire. They're too small to even hiss at the heat. "But you'd think he'd have something new to say about it."

The glare Zuko offers can't really do much when she isn't even looking at him, but he glares anyway.

Slowly, his gaze trails around the room. It's made entirely of ice, the floor covered with paths of furs that trail around a central fire pit and spread out to the four beds that surround it in a loose square. Two of the beds are raised up on blocks of ice, the one Zuko's laying in and the one directly across the fire from him. The other two are directly on the furred floor, probably not permanent fixtures of the house.

The room that he's in is clearly Water Tribe, and it's not a prison cell. It can't be.

Zuko tries to sit up, elbows braced under his torso, but he doesn't get far. As he moves, an unseen weight holds him down. The longer he strains, the more the pressure threatens to turn into something more. With his arms already trembling from the effort, he has no choice but to admit defeat, flopping back into bed. Which hurts. A lot.

"I thought we covered that sitting up is a no-no right now," Sokka mumbles, but he sounds like he doesn't really care.

Zuko most definitely does not whine, but he does let out some kind of breathy, keening groan.

It snags in his throat. 

Screwing the heels of his palms into his eyes, he takes a slow and shaky breath, in and out. He's exhausted, achy, and breathing on his own.

The sound that escapes him is two steps short of a laugh. "We made it."

"...Oh, you're awake awake." The boredom from before is completely absent from Sokka's tone, replaced with something much more vulnerable. Zuko has no idea what it is.

Wait, what the fuck does "awake awake" mean? Pulling his hands back from his face, Zuko turns his head to throw a questioning look at Sokka.

Katara's sudden ability to fucking teleport distracts him from that.

He tries not to recoil in alarm, but he's a little fucking alarmed right now. She's way too close, and way too intense looking. The awkwardness of being flat on his back in bed while everyone stares at him just makes it worse.

Instinctively, he glares, though the look feels a little too wild to be intimidating. Katara doesn't even have the decency to glare back.

She frowns, eyes flicking between his own, and asks, "Do you know who I am?"

...That's a very concerning question. "Yes," he snaps. Or tries to snap. It's not as sharp as he'd hoped.

For the briefest moment, Katara looks relieved. Then her expression moves on to something tense that Zuko doesn't quite have the word for, a frown set on her lips.

"Do you know where you are? How many fingers am I holding up?"

The hand shoved in his face is so close he nearly goes cross-eyed trying to figure that out. He doesn't get the chance to even be annoyed by the questions before Katara's on to the next, pulling her hand back.

"Can you count backwards from ten? Here, can you feel—"

She makes a grab for his hands, and that's far enough, in Zuko's opinion.

"What are you doing?" he hisses, pulling his arms as far from her as he can in his position.

Katara opens her mouth to respond when the old lady appears beside her, pulling her back with a hand on her shoulder.

"Relax, Katara," she advises. "You're just working each other up, and that won't do any good."

Thankfully, Katara relents, even looking a little sheepish as she steps back. "Sorry..."

The old lady just smiles fondly, then turns that smile onto him. It does nothing to ease the tension her presence brings.

How much does she know? What's his position here? No one's bothered to explain that to him yet.

He's not hiding behind a blue coat anymore. Sokka's wearing that again, and Zuko's not entirely sure how they've managed to hide the fact that he's Fire Nation without hiding him. If they've managed.

He can feel his hair tickling his neck beneath the pillows he's resting against. They never brought up the hair, but Zuko's not so ignorant to think it went unnoticed. It's conspicuous at best, and like his skin, like his eyes, it would give him away in a second. If they had any sense at all, they'd have cut it while he couldn't fight them on the matter.

They'd have left him at the pier if they had any sense at all. Zuko's glad that they don't.

Somehow, he's not in chains, despite looking the very picture of a Fire Nation citizen. It's quite literally the best outcome he could hope for, and that leaves his gut twisting with anxiety. If Zuko knows anything, it's that he's far from lucky.

Despite the questions, he feels a wave of exhaustion pulling at his eyes. Fuck, he's tired. Why is he so tired? That's not safe. With a frustrated grunt, he digs his fingers into his eyes in an attempt to rub the drowsiness out.

The healer gives him a knowing look. "It's just the sedative, dear. You'll sleep it off."

Is it even safe to sleep it off? If he drops off now, who's to say he won't be in chains the next time he wakes up?

"At least you're more lucid," the old lady continues. "I'm Yagoda, a healer. I was the head surgeon during your operation."

Okay, so probably not his jailer.

She takes a seat on the stool placed right by the head of his bed—which Sokka apparently vanished from when he wasn't looking—and offers another too gentle smile. "We'll hold off on those tests for now." She turns her head towards Katara. "Until the sedative wears off, they'll do nothing but scare you."

Zuko frowns. "What are the tests for?"

"Nothing to worry about now," the healer says at the same time that Katara blurts out, "Brain damage."

He definitely stops breathing for a moment.

"Oh, shoo," the healer huffs at Katara, flapping a hand in dismissal.

Looking more than a little sheepish, Katara slinks off to the far wall her brother has retreated to, knocking their shoulders together as she leans next to him.

"You should do the tests," Zuko breathes.

The healer fixes him with a calm look. "They'll just scare you both right now."

Believe it or not, he's already scared. The idea of literal brain damage is fucking scary. The fact that he's so out of it that they can't even tell yet is even worse.

Before he can protest, the healer continues on. "Now then. How's your breathing?"

That's too vague for Zuko to really know how to answer, so he huffs. "I'm breathing, aren't I?"

The healer isn't phased. She just hums with a soft smile and says, "Small miracles."

Zuko pointedly ignores the retrospective panic that statement brings him.

"Take a deep breath for me," she instructs. "And stop if something hurts."

He does, and is dismayed to find that his chest shudders the deeper he gets. He can't take in nearly as much air as he's used to, and he can't hold it steady either. His lungs are jumping just trying to expand fully. All this, backed by a persistent ache.

His exhale is shaky and uneven. Zuko personally thinks it's pretty shitty control for someone who's been doing breathing exercises his whole life, but the healer just nods like she expected it and moves on, like it's not a big deal.

"Any pain anywhere?"

Overall, he feels like he's been trampled by a komodo rhino. Which is to say, yeah, he's in pain. But around these people, he's not.

Zuko shakes his head, slipping into a light but comfortable scowl.

Unfortunately for him and his scowl, the healer looks unconvinced. "Well," she says, tone stretching too low to be earnest, "I insist on medicinal tea anyway, just in case."

Zuko's scowl can no longer be described as light. It can, however, be described as tired. He's exhausted, and the longer this conversation drags on, the more numb his mind gets.

The smile she gives in response is so genuine that he doesn't know how to respond. She can see his expression, right?

Or maybe she can see too much, because her expression shifts into something weirdly soft.

"Try to get some more sleep," she says as she stands. "I'll bring that tea sometime in the evening, and then we'll do a healing session."

"I've done nothing but sleep," Zuko grumbles.

She laughs. "That's the point of recovery. Get some rest, Lee."

Lee. Things make even less sense now. "Lee" does not make for a good political prisoner. There's no reason for them to keep Lee, the clearly Fire Nation kid, alive.

Despite the liquid anxiety threatening to replace his blood, Zuko feels the tug of exhaustion numbing his mind. If the worry isn't enough to keep him awake, nothing will. Maybe this will all make sense the next time he wakes up.

"...Just want to check. Please, Katara."

"Aang, I swear he's fine. He's just sleeping off the sedative."

"But I—"

They're not even trying to be quiet. Zuko yanks the covers away from his face to glare at the voices that woke him.

Aang is half out of the bed opposite of him, looking nowhere near as bad as he did on the bison, but clearly still exhausted. When their eyes meet, he chokes on his own words, and immediately his gray eyes flood with tears.

Zuko... kind of panics a little, just on the inside. He really doesn't know how to deal with tears, especially not Avatar tears. On the outside, he blinks and gives a somewhat defensive frown.

"There, see?" Katara drops a guiding hand onto Aang's shoulder, gently urging him back into the mound of blankets he seems to have escaped from. "He's fine. Now go back to sleep."

Watery gaze still focused on Zuko, Aang lets himself be guided back down. "You'll wake me if anything happens?"

"Nothing will happen," is Katara's adamant answer. "I'll wake you for dinner."

Finally, Aang looks away, nodding jerkily before curling back into his bed. He's down for the count in seconds.

Zuko is left staring at the mound of blankets, something twisting in his gut and deepening the frown on his face.

Catching his stare, Katara's expression darkens. "Don't give him that look," she scoffs. "He's allowed to be worried."

Is he? They're enemies.

Instead of responding, Zuko shoves himself into a sitting position. And— Yeah, okay, he should've been more gentle about that. Not only does the world tilt around him, but the dull ache in his chest erupts into a throbbing mess of pain.

Fuck, that hurts. The sedative seems to have relinquished its hold on his movement, but it's also left him exposed to his own raw nerves. It didn't hurt this much on the bison, did it? Probably has something to do with people putting their hands all over his lungs.

...That's really creepy, actually.

"Shit," he hisses, arms braced against the bed on either side of him to stay steady.

"Yeah, ow," comes Katara's sarcastic tone. "You have no one to blame but yourself."

Fair enough, but also fuck her. On principle.

After a few more beats, the pain ebbs back into a persistent ache. A very persistent ache. That healer said she was bringing medicinal tea, didn't she?

"Where's that old lady?"

Katara pulls a face. "Yagoda? Don't be rude."

It's not rude; it's an apt description. At Zuko's unimpressed stare, she scowls.

Before he can remind her of the fact, Sokka waltzes into view, gnawing on a piece of jerky. "She'll be back tonight," he answers around the meat. "So now that both of you have had your chance to try and utterly destroy my brilliant scheme—"

Zuko has no idea what he's talking about, but Katara's face does some funny acrobatics.

"—Let me actually explain the cover to the person it's covering." He turns, pointing at Zuko with the strip of jerky. "You're just Lee from the Earth kingdom who's using his very unfortunate heritage to his advantage. And this time you got in over your head."

Zuko feels a familiar scowl overtake his face. "What, exactly," he hisses, "Does that mean?"

Sokka straightens, scratching his ear like he's forcing himself to look casual. "The story is," he starts slowly. "You have a history of espionage and sabotage of Fire Navy ships."

Oh, fuck them. "Sabotage?!"

Leaning away, Sokka's expression sours. "I forgot how loud you are."

Zuko's definitely been louder. Really, that wisp of a shout was pathetic compared to what he's capable of. And that's not for lack of trying. Frustration builds behind the rage in his gut. Will his crew even be able to hear him over the— Well. Not a problem anymore.

"We had to say something," Katara says with a shrug. "The coat worked, but we needed something more solid. And the black steel that Fire Nation ships are made of is kind of recognizable. Someone was bound to ask."

Sokka sounds far too cocky for his little cover story, tapping his nose with the jerky. "Very clever thinking, if I do say so myself."

It's insulting, is what it is. Cleverness be damned, the insinuation has his blood boiling.

"I didn't blow up my own ship!"

"You did if you want to stay out of a prison cell," is Sokka's response.

And that's another thing. Zuko, who hasn't really stopped glaring since he woke up, narrows his eyes. "Why are you protecting me from your own people?"

Sokka's expression tightens. "We needed medical help. We couldn't risk that on the small chance that they'd still help if they knew who you were."

Like lying to a major governmental power during wartime isn't also a risk. Lying for his sake.

"But you already got them to help me. You should have given me up the second I was breathing on my own."

While Sokka's expression twists into some cross between a scowl and a wince, Katara huffs out an agitated sigh.

"Give us a reason to tell them, and we will," she snaps.

Like they fucking need a reason. "I'm your enemy."

"A bit late for that argument. You want us to throw you to the wolves at the first bump in the road?"

This is a lot more than a bump in the road. This is something that could make them enemies of the entire North Pole if they're not careful. It's beyond kindness at this point. They've jumped headfirst into idiocy.

"And what if you're caught?" Zuko growls.

Katara rolls her eyes. "We won't be, if you stop trying to blow your own cover."

Really, he thought he did pretty well for having absolutely no idea what was going on. "I didn't do anything!"

She scoffs. "The first time you were up and talking, you wouldn't shut up about your stupid Fire Nation life!"

Oh. Shit.

Apparently, Katara has a lot to say on the matter, because she rants on. "You kept talking like your uncle was in the room, and you couldn't recognize me or Sokka, or even answer basic questions, and I really thought after all that— Ugh!" She cuts herself off with a shout.

...How much damage control have they been doing?

"Point is," Sokka resumes for her. "You don't take a hint well when you're drugged to the spirit world and back."

"Well, maybe if you had fucking told me—"

The other boy just waves him off with the jerky in his hand. "You conked out before my genius struck."

That's a funny way to say "passed out from lack of oxygen."

"It's stupid," Zuko hisses.

"It's clever!"

"It's insulting! I'm not some incompetent war spawn that blew himself up!"

Katara lets out a frustrated sigh. "Zuko, it's just a cover story. We know what happened."

"Actually, not really." Sokka plops down onto a pile of furs adjacent to the raised bed Zuko is in. "Why'd your ship blow?"

A grimace settles on his face. "That's none of your business."

"So you did do it."

"I did not! Why would I blow up my own home?" And that's not really the word he meant to use there, but it's said, and trying to correct it would just draw more attention.

The siblings exchange a glance.

Sokka hums, unconvinced. "So what then? Faulty machinery? Political assassination?"

He's got good intuition. Zuko can't help the small jump of his brow at the guess. And unfortunately for him, they've gotten good at reading his microexpressions. Something about him not being able to talk for three days.

"That's it, huh?"

Katara looks at her brother. "Who tries to kill a Prince of the Fire Nation?"

Who, indeed. Zuko’s scowl deepens.

Waving it off, Sokka replies, "Plenty of people. Piss anyone off lately?"

Zuko grinds his teeth together.

"Right, stupid question."

Katara snickers.

"Was it a mutiny?" Sokka ponders. "Your crew was missing."

Whatever mirth Katara has evaporates. She glances at her brother, and the worried look spreads.

"Your crew was missing, right?" he repeats.

Zuko furrows his brow. What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

"There wasn't..." Katara falters, eyes flicking around the floor like she's trying to find the words. Her voice is quiet, tight. "There wasn't anyone else on the ship, right? Anyone that we missed...?"

"No." The response is too fast, too urgent for someone who doesn't care. "It was just me."

Katara practically melts in relief. It makes Zuko wonder how long she's been waiting to ask that. And just because he's Zuko and this is how Zuko works, he feels a spark of anger in his gut, spitting and popping like a sap soaked log on the flame.

Why was she holding on to that? Of all the questions that had to wait until he could talk, that was not one of them. How long was she sitting in her own worry before actually checking to see if it was warranted? Stupid.

He's only mad because stupid people piss him off. If they had asked before, he would have told them.

It was just him. Zhao took his crew for his stupid expedition to—to...

Shit.

Zhao's coming to the North Pole. He said as much, didn't he? He tried to recruit Uncle for it, too.

Dread settles in his stomach like a stone. Zhao is coming here. All his anger over stupid people, and he's the one who let himself get dragged right into the path of the Fire Nation's next target.

As they do, the siblings barrel over his revelation, none the wiser to it.

"Pretty dramatic for an assassination, though," Sokka comments.

"It's the Fire Nation," Katara snarks. "They don't do subtle."

They talk, and Zuko's thoughts are running a mile a minute.

Could it be a good thing? He could hitch a ride with the fleet and escape the city that way. Provided anyone notices he's here before lobbing a flaming projectile into the side of the ice house he's in. Provided his stupid cover story isn't called into question the second black ships start to dot the horizon.

But Zhao is leading the fleet. Zhao tried to assassinate a prince of the Fire Nation and failed. If he cares about his career—and that man is obsessed with his career—he'll do everything in his power to make sure no one knows. Including finishing what he started.

Zuko needs to get out, or Zhao will know he failed.

But he doesn't even know if he can stand without help. The exhaustion in him is bone deep, any energy he has being wicked away to heal himself. How's he going to manage an escape? How long does he have to do it?

He shouldn't have let them bring him here in the first place. Should've made them turn around and tried his luck with a normal surgeon. At least then if he died, it would be drugged to the spirit world and back, and not under Zhao's flaming fist. What was he thinking? Sure, he was a little distracted, but that's no excuse for pure idiocy.

Humming, Sokka throws a glance Zuko's way. "Do you know who did it?"

He should tell them. Zhao's dangerous. An invasion fleet led by him could easily wipe entire cities off the map. That's the goal. He should— But Zhao's also Fire Nation, just furthering the war.

Zuko's interests aren't exactly aligned with what's best for the war effort. At most, he's uninvolved. His job is to capture the Avatar, not for the sake of the war, but for himself. Pohuai Stronghold told him as much.

But even if he is selfish, he won't outright betray his nation. He won't actively interfere with a military campaign, won't condemn his people to failure before they've begun. He's no traitor.

Fire Nation soldiers cut down by his own broadswords flash through his mind.

He can't tell them anything.

So he does what he does to shut them out; he lies down and yanks the covers over his head. They know this motion by now, so they don't press. They really fucking should.

He doesn't mean to fall asleep like that, but in retrospect, it was kind of inevitable. At least this time when he wakes up, there's no one squabbling in his ear. Slowly, he eases himself up. Even though he's actually being gentle this time, his chest still complains, and he can't help the low hiss that escapes him as he rights himself.

As if he was waiting for Zuko to make a sound before waking, Aang pops up from his own bed like a singing groundhog. Katara, distracted from the misshapen lump of ice she had been manipulating, looks between them, raising an eyebrow like she's made the same observation. Then a less than pleased frown crawls onto her face. Yeah, she made the same observation.

She scowls at Zuko, like it's his fault that she went and let her friend get attached to his enemy.

The first thing Aang does after waking up is bumble over to Zuko's bed and hover there like an overprotective antelope dog. That is to say, he putters around in Zuko's space, barely even facing him half the time, while catching up with the Water Tribe siblings. (Zuko does what he does, and glares at Aang's back.)

The second thing Aang does (after Zuko silently passes some unknown condition for being fucking guarded) is beeline it to the ice balcony their weird ice house room thing has. Why is everything ice?

"It's gorgeous here!" he fawns, loud enough that his voice echoes back into the room.

Katara has a huge grin on her face when she peers through the balcony doorway. "I know! I never thought of using waterbending for building! There’s nothing like this back home!"

"Hey," Sokka grumbles. "My watchtower was pretty good."

Aang pops his head back inside. "Is that what that snow hill was?"

Sokka looks particularly dismayed when he answers, "Yes!"

"Oh. I thought you were just trying to see how high you could pack the snow."

Zuko doesn't remember seeing any watchtowers in the South Pole.

Apparently, he's been making a face, because Sokka scowls at him. "You knocked it over," he bites.

Zuko grinds his teeth together, readying his own insults against a tower he can't remember, and is instead interrupted by Aang.

"So did I!" His tone is just as cheery as usual, but the speed of his response makes Zuko think he's just trying to stop a fight before it starts.

Katara's mouth pulls to one side as she hums in disagreement. "That's not the same. Zuko destroyed it when his ship hit the ice."

Oh.

"You just left an Aang shaped hole in the side."

Aang laughs. Zuko tries not to think too hard about how he'd expected to feel the laugh in his own chest. He doesn't quite know what to do with the itching stillness that comes instead. "I like to call it a window."

"I like to call it property damage," Sokka retorts.

"Well, once Katara learns waterbending, she can build you a whole city of watchtowers!"

"I deserve a city of watchtowers," he gripes, to which his sister just laughs.

"Didn't realize I was here to become an architect."

Throughout all this, Zuko finds himself glowering from his spot in bed. He's subsequently ignored.

They have gotten very good at that, it seems. Ignoring him. They ignore his glares, his protests, everything, and just continue on like he's hardly there.

Not that he's helping the issue, staying as quiet as he is right now. But their banter moves faster than he can really process sometimes, and they don't exactly ask for his input. Not now, and certainly not on the bison.

What's more, they're doing an uncomfortably good job at not yelling at him. Apparently, he needs to actually say something for them to do that. Almost like it's not his mere presence that instigates things. Like he has a habit of saying things that piss people off.

"Okay, now that we're all awake," Sokka starts, moving to his own bed mat and prompting the others to do the same. "Ground rules."

"Ground rules?" Aang echoes as he quite literally flutters over to sit next to Katara on her bed mat.

Sokka nods. "While we're here, Zuko stays inside unless someone's with him. And the name 'Zuko' doesn't leave the room either. We can't have anyone finding out who he is."

Zuko glares. "I'm not hiding in this room just because you say so." There he goes again. At least they can't ignore him this way.

"You'd better," Katara snaps back. "Unless you want the whole city knowing who you are."

"Maybe I do!" He doesn't. An enemy city state in the middle of war would be endlessly more cruel than three kids that are weirdly invested in him staying alive, and he's too weak to fight his way out.

Sokka raises an eyebrow. "You want to be a Water Tribe political prisoner?"

"Why do you care?" It's not an honest question, more of a biting retort.

Aang's got that oddly determined look on his face, same as on the bison. "You didn't ask to be here. I'm not letting you get captured when we're the ones who brought you here in the first place."

"Don't worry," Zuko snips. "I won't be here long enough for that to happen."

Sokka releases a disbelieving guffaw. "How's that? We flew in. You don't have a ship to leave on."

Zuko swings his glare back to him. "There are docks, aren't there?"

It takes him a beat, but Sokka's expression sours quickly. "You can't just steal a ship!" 

"Then take me back yourself!"

Aang heaves a sigh and dramatically slouches forward. "But we just got here!"

"I don't care! You said it yourself; I didn't ask to be here."

Katara throws him a nasty glare. "We're not your personal bison travel service."

"Then I'll get back on my own."

"You couldn't even sit up a few hours ago!"

"You don't know what I can and can't do!"

Eyes blazing, Katara swings her arm around to point at the far wall. "Then walk to the other end of the room, right now!"

Zuko (not because he can't do it, because he can ) just screams, "Fuck off!"

With his hands up in a placating gesture, Aang interjects, "Guys, please stop yelling!"

"I'm not yelling!" they both yell.

Katara pulls a face, but Zuko doesn't really get the chance to react to that, and he's not entirely sure how he would have if he could. Instead, his bed sways and threatens to send him to the floor. Or maybe that's just his vision rocking off center. Locking his elbows, he braces himself against the bed and forces himself to actually breathe. When had he started panting?

They notice, because of course they do. Katara's anger evaporates before he can blink, and both she and Aang have their stupid, worried hands out, standing on their knees and ready to catch him if he does tumble off the bed. It's embarrassing.

Zuko barely gives himself a moment to breathe, just enough time for the dizziness to recede, before barreling forward.

"Take..." All the air he prepared wheezes out in one word. What the fuck is wrong with him? Why is he always so damn weak? "Take me back, Avatar."

Aang's face is pinched up as he shakes his head. "I can't do that, not when you're still recovering."

"I was on the bison, dying —" His voice doesn't crack before his next breath, because that would be stupid. "For three days!"

Like he's trying to piss him off, Aang just shakes his head again. "That was an emergency! You shouldn't move if you don't have to!"

He has to. He really has to. "I'm not safe here!"

"You are with us!" Aang's tone is bordering on pleading. "We won't let anything happen! You just need to stay here and listen to us—"

Zuko almost laughs. The sound that comes out is a rough wheeze at best. "So I'm your prisoner?"

Aang falters, posture slumping. "Er, I wouldn't say that..."

"I would," Sokka says dryly.

"Sokka," Aang whines.

"What? It's like you said; we brought him here, so we're just as responsible for keeping him safe from the Tribe as we are keeping the Tribe safe from him. That means forcing him to stay put and not cause trouble. That's functionally a prisoner."

An uncertain look flits across Aang's face. "I guess..."

Zuko tries to snort, but all he gets is a vaguely harsh huff of air. "I'm not—"

"Nuh-uh!" Sokka wags a finger at him. "People who can't breathe don't get a say!"

"I can—"

"Nope!"

"You're—"

"Nah."

"Fucking—"

"No, no, no, no, no—"

"Shut up! Stop interrupting me, you—"

"—No, no, no, no—"

Sokka drones over him, and he keeps going even as Zuko shouts in frustration. Aang and Katara are no help, just trying not to giggle.

Finally, Zuko's left seething in his bed, silent purely because if he hears another "no" from Sokka, he's going to explode. Not even metaphorically. He's going to spontaneously combust, like in those dumb little ghost stories they tell firebender kids to teach them why control is important. Just a pile of ash on the ground. That would be better than this, actually.

Sokka allows a moment of silence, which Zuko spends trying to kill him with glares, before opening his damn mouth again.

"So! No funny business! That means—" He holds up three fingers and drags each one down with his other hand as he lists, "No scheming, no bending, no whining."

Zuko grits his teeth. He doesn't whine.

"Considering adding no glaring to the list."

He absolutely glares.

Katara snorts. "Don't make it impossible, Sokka."

"Fine." Sokka says it like he's doing them all a favor. "Glaring is allowed, but only because it's an integral part of who Zuko is as a person."

He does not like them having opinions on what traits make him who he is, even if it is just a joke. They don't know anything about him as a person.

"I'm not following your—"

"People who can't breathe—"

"One more time, and I'll set your fucking ponytail on fire."

Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say.

"Hey!" Katara snaps, immediately on her feet.

Zuko doesn't flinch, but it's a near thing. She sounds like she's scolding an antelope dog, or a kid, and that sparks a flare of anger in him.

She continues, eyes blazing. "You don't threaten my family!"

Meeting her wrath with his own, Zuko spits, "I'll do whatever I want!"

"Not here, you won't! You'll follow the rules whether you like it or not!"

"Make me!"

...Probably not the smartest response he could've chosen.

Katara jabs her finger into his chest.

Honestly, it isn't even fair to describe it as a jab. It's more of a firm poke, but it hurts. Zuko doubles over with a hiss and some choice words. Eyes squeezed shut against the pain, he hears Aang make a startled protest and Sokka bark out a laugh. 

Katara's hard tone filters past her friends' reactions. "You don't get to say no here, Zuko."

"That... was low," he grinds out, twisting his head to glare up at her.

She clicks her tongue, and purposefully moves a hand up to her necklace. "You're one to talk."

That's hardly equivalent. He never fucking hurt her, and she got the dumb thing back in the end.

He scowls at the far wall and wills his body to recover faster so he can just leave already.

The healer shows up maybe an hour later, a shallow basket full of supplies anchored on her hip and bundle of gray furs in her other arm. Almost immediately, she tries to herd them out of the room.

"Shoo, you three. It's patient-healer time. These things don't concern you."

Aang, Katara, and Sokka all look to be their own versions of reluctant.

"But I—" Katara starts, and is interrupted immediately.

"No buts! If he wants you to know what we talk about, he'll tell you after." The healer turns fractionally towards him. "Unless you want them to stay, Lee?"

Zuko isn't happy to realize that he doesn't know how to answer that.

Taking his hesitation as an answer, she turns back to the three. "Shoo, then. No one but us in this room for the next ten minutes."

The lemur trills from where it's comfortably curled by the fire.

The healer looks fondly at it. "Alright, us and Zuko."

...What.

"Us and who?" Zuko echoes.

The siblings look like they'd rather be anywhere else at the moment. Aang, however, just has a confused frown on his face. Whatever Water Tribe conspiracy this is, he isn't in on it.

"Zuko?" the healer responds. "The lemur? That was the name, wasn't it?"

"Yep!" Sokka rushes in before anyone else can speak. "That's his name! Good ol' Zuko, our flying lemur. Guess, uh. Guess we forgot to tell Lee that, in all the chaos. Cuz y'know, things were pretty— Ow. "

Katara jabs her elbow into her brother’s side.

Zuko—the real Zuko—doesn't even glare. He's beyond that. Instead, he just stares at the three of them, willing them to dust with his eyes. He's put up with his fair share of indignities to get here, but this is too far. There's no possible explanation for why this was essential.

The siblings have the decency to look uncomfortable, but Aang still seems to be processing.

Before anyone can say anything else, Katara pops her hands on both Sokka and Aang's shoulders and steers them towards the exit. "We'll be outside then," she says in a rush.

Zuko's going to kill them when they get back. Once the healer is out of earshot, there's going to be a massacre. No survivors. He guarantees it.

While Zuko stews in his anger, the healer pulls a kettle from the basket she brought, already filled with water, judging by the way she holds it. She gently nestles it beside the fire before returning to the stool by Zuko's bed.

"Right then," she says, easing herself into the seat. "Let's get to replacing those bandages, hm?"

And like an idiot, Zuko lets his anger ricochet.

"No, fuck off."

Immediately, he snaps his jaw shut and shoves a scowl at the campfire beyond her. From the corner of his eye, he sees the healer raise her eyebrows, but she doesn't look quite as offended as Zuko thinks she should.

"And why not?"

There's no answer, because that isn't what he meant to say.

Normally when this sort of thing happens, he just doubles down and deals with the consequences. But right now, the consequences are delayed treatment, and that means delayed escape. So instead of making it worse, he grits his teeth and doesn't speak.

The silence that follows is heavy, and Zuko would prefer disintegrating into a pile of ash than sitting through it.

When it's clear he isn't going to answer, the healer speaks again. "May I remove your bandages, Lee?"

"Yes."

Halfway through unwinding the bandages and knee deep in an uncomfortable silence, the healer speaks again. "You know, if you feel bad, there is this thing called an apology."

Zuko no longer feels like he wants to disintegrate. When he snaps his gaze to her and glares, she laughs almost fondly.

"Teenage boys," she hums. "All the same."

The bandages are unwound and discarded, and the healer peers in to inspect the wound. Zuko can't help but feel like she's staring right into his soul.

There's a few new marks on his chest, fresher than the entry wounds, and far more precise. But he doesn't even have stitches, just raised, scabbed incisions and a few stray bruises.

Waterbending healing really is amazing.

The healer lets out a less than satisfied hum, gently poking right where Katara jabbed her fingers into his chest. There's a bruise there, but Zuko can't honestly say if it was from the jab or if it was just the reason why it hurt so much.

"Careful now," she admonishes. "I know it looks pretty far along compared to what you're used to, but waterbending isn't a cure all. Moving too much will just reverse all my work."

Zuko, who can't glare at the subject of his ire at the moment, scowls past the healer's shoulder.

"But it's healing well," she continues. "The incisions should heal without a trace." With a frown, she points to the jagged, red line on his left side, where that dagger of shrapnel embedded itself. "Though we can't do much about this. It will probably scar."

Isn't that great, Zuko thinks sardonically. His collection is growing.

"The surgery went well enough. I'd say you'll be safe to travel in two or three weeks."

Zuko almost chokes. "Weeks?"

The healer gives another one of her stupid, warm smiles. "Just be patient. You'll be right as rain in no time."

He's never been good at being patient. "I can't stay here that long!"

With raised eyebrows, the healer's lips flattens into a less than sympathetic smile. "You'll have to. I know you're eager to be up and moving again, but it's important to take things slow. You'll only prolong your healing if you push yourself."

Zuko grits his teeth and scowls.

In a practiced motion, the healer bends a blob of water from a waterskin nestled in her basket of supplies, but she pauses before bringing it to his chest.

"Is it alright if I do some healing now?"

She seems insistent on asking permission for everything. Definitely not the medical experience he's used to. Slowly, he nods.

With the ease of a master, she bends the water to his injury and starts healing.

It's cold enough to make him shiver at the contact, but the blue glow eases the persistent ache in his chest. He hadn't realized how constant the pain was until the water started wicking it away.

"As for the shards of shrapnel," the healer carries on, "We removed the pieces that were preventing you from breathing properly. The rest of it—"

Zuko feels his heart skip a beat.

"—Is non threatening as of now."

"...What?" he breathes.

The healer's expression melts into one of sympathy. "Don't worry, dear," she soothes. "It won't hurt you. We'll keep an eye out for infection, and if there's any discomfort, we can consider another operation."

He can feel agitation dripping into his frame, and with it comes the anger he's so used to spitting. "You couldn't just take everything out at once?"

Unphased by his brash tone, she shakes her head. "We couldn't afford to keep you under for longer than necessary, not when you were already too weak to meet the standard threshold for surgery."

"But—"

Apparently, she's used to patients who are a little combative, because she pins him with a look that is very unreasonably effective at shutting him up.

"What's done is done," she says. "Like I said, if there's any discomfort, we'll do another operation later."

"How soon is later?"

"Give it a few days at least. By then, we'll know if the leftover shrapnel will cause any problems."

"And if it doesn't?"

The look the healer gives him is knowing. "Then I'd recommend leaving it where it is. But—" she continues just as he's about to protest. "We can still do another operation. It will prolong the healing process, but it's not an unreasonable request."

Zuko grits his teeth. "Prolong by how much?"

"To do it right, at least a week."

That's too long. Zhao's fleet could be here any day. He can't voluntarily knock himself on his ass for an extra week because he's scared of some fucking metal.

The sigh the healer gives is long and drawn out. Gently, she pulls the water away from his chest and back into the waterskin. Then she regards him with an almost tired expression.

"You're going to fight me nonstop, aren't you?" she says.

...Zuko can't exactly say he won't.

When he doesn't offer a response, she hums and collects a roll of clean bandages from her basket. "May I?"

He nods, and she resumes her work.

By the time the fresh bandages are secured, the kettle by the fire is finally steaming, so the healer stands to go prepare the tea she brought. After half a minute of fiddling by the fire, she ambles back to her seat with the steaming cup in hand. But instead of handing it over, she gently places it beside her basket of supplies on the floor.

"We'll let that steep for a couple of minutes," she explains. "Now, I brought you a warm shirt and coat. Hopefully they fit."

The bundle of cloth she brought with her basket of healing supplies turns out to be just that. While Zuko's more than a little thankful to finally have a shirt again, he's not so keen on the idea of borrowing more Water Tribe clothing. At least they're not quite as garishly blue as Sokka's coat. The shirt is white, and the coat is a much more muted blue, almost gray. If he squints a bit, he can almost pretend he's not wearing enemy clothes. Almost.

They fit, and he only gets to find that out after learning that simply putting on a shirt is enough to leave him feeling like he's been sat on by the Avatar's bison.

"There we go." The healer looks him up and down with a nod. "I figured blue wouldn't be your color."

...Is that supposed to mean something? He really hopes not.

Sticking out her hands, the healer instructs, "Take my hands and squeeze."

Zuko looks between them and her face, a frown set on his face. "Why?"

"It's one of those tests you were so worried about."

Oh. For once, Zuko does as he's told.

"No weakness on either side. And you're talking and moving around just fine," are her observations. "Unless you have any concerns, I'd say there are no lasting effects from oxygen deprivation."

Shoulders slumping, he lets out a breath he didn't even realize he was holding. Briefly, the healer squeezes his hands herself before letting go.

"Right, then. Tea." Grabbing the cup from the floor, she pushes it into his hands. "For the pain. It's better hot, in my opinion."

Zuko grimaces and downs the cup in one go— and maybe that wasn't the brightest idea, because he's suddenly fighting off nausea through choked down gags. The tea is hot enough to burn his tongue beyond taste and still somehow manages to be the most bitter thing he's ever tasted.

She shouldn't be allowed to laugh at him. That should be against healer rules when dealing with patients.

"I'd say you'll get used to the taste," she chuckles, her tone thready with amusement, "But in all my days, I've never known anyone who tolerates it."

"Thanks for the warning," Zuko grumbles, shoving the cup back to her.

The healer just smiles—no, grins, taking it. "What, and ruin my good fun? Nonsense."

...Are all Water Tribe people like this? 

With another chuckle, she bundles all her supplies up into her basket and prepares to leave. Before she does, though, she offers one last piece of advice.

"Don't do anything reckless, Lee. You only get one body."

He's well aware of that.

With the healer gone, the others come waltzing back into the room only a few moments later. Aang makes a beeline straight to the fire, specifically to the little lemur curled up there, and starts cooing.

"Who's a good Zuko?"

That's one way to banish his anxieties. "Shut up ."

Aang doesn't listen, just snatches the groggy thing up and swings around to face the rest of them. His voice is laughing, bordering on hysterical as a grin splits his face. "Isn't Zuko the cutest?!"

The lemur chatters tiredly in his grip.

Directing his wrath to the siblings, Zuko growls, "Why?" 

Katara looks flustered. Sokka, on the other hand, looks like he's seconds away from joining Aang, depending on how this conversation goes.

"I didn't mean to!" she defends, her face reddening by the second. "Momo jumped on you the first time you woke up, and you said— A thing. And I just reacted! And Yagoda was right there, so—"

"You activated Katara's scolding instinct with your sailor slang, and Momo was a convenient scapegoat," is Sokka's clarification.

Aang has a lopsided grin still plastered on his face. "That's good, though! Now we have an easy explanation if someone overhears us."

An insulting explanation.

The lemur wiggles out from Aang's fingers, and Zuko makes a point to glare at it as it curls up by the fire again.

"So what did Yagoda say?" comes Aang's innocent query. "Are you healing okay?"

"I'm fine," Zuko snaps.

Katara pinches her eyebrows together. "According to you, or according to Yagoda?"

"Both."

She doesn't seem very convinced. "Did you do the tests? I can—"

"I don't have fucking brain damage!"

"Okay, fine." With a less than enthusiastic grumble, she relents.

Aang, on the other hand, looks panicked. "Brain damage?!"

Of course he wouldn't know. He'd been out longer than Zuko.

Katara rushes to soothe Aang's worries, but the slightly panicked way she goes about it is less effective. "It's fine! It didn't happen!"

"But it could've?" is his squeaked out reply.

With a tremendous flop onto the pile of furs that he seems to have claimed, Sokka butts in. "Lots of things could have happened, Aang."

That does the opposite of reassure him. Aang looks a little wobbly on his feet.

"What Sokka means," Katara amends, her tone pointed as she throws a glare at her brother’s back, "Is that we shouldn’t worry about what could have happened. Everything's fine now."

The stars align, and Zuko agrees with her. There's too much to worry about in the present to bother with the past.

Aang breathes in and nods his head. "You're right." His brow still has a worried kink in it, though.

Suddenly, Katara's expression lightens. "Does anyone want some spiced tea before bed? I think we still have some left."

"That sounds nice," comes Aang's weary response.

"Me too," follows Sokka.

With a nod, Katara goes to the pile of bags in the corner of the ice house and starts pulling supplies out.

While she does, Aang wanders closer to the fire pit. Instead of plopping into his own bed, he settles down on the ground beside Zuko's, back pressed against the foot end of the fur covered block of ice the mattress is on.

"What are you doing?" Zuko bites with a scowl.

"I'm just sitting!" Aang whines.

"Sit somewhere else."

Katara doesn't like that. She looks up from the kettle she's situating by the fire and glares. "Hey," she snaps, like it's a warning. Like she's got any authority over him. "He can sit wherever he wants."

Who could have guessed that he'd find himself scolded by his enemy for not being friendly? Zuko throws her the most impressive glare he can.

Aang does not sit somewhere else. Zuko doesn't ask for a cup of spiced tea, but one is shoved into his hands anyway.

Chapter Text

The anxiety coursing through his veins is at odds with the calm he needs to heal, but Zuko doesn't really do "calm" anymore. Usually, that's because calm means he's not doing what he should be. On the ship, it meant he was stuck in some metaphorical doldrums of Avatar leads. Now, it means he's pushing his luck by waiting around.

He needs to figure out his next step: how to get out of the city they've spent three days flying to. If he stays long enough for whatever plan Zhao has, he'll be surrounded by enemies on both sides. He's under no delusions about his status here. He's a prisoner, even without the chains. The more he recovers, the more their good graces will dry up. He needs to be gone before that happens.

So he has to find a way to escape one of the most naturally guarded cities in the world, where the only way he got in was as a functional prisoner, all while he can barely stand without shaking. And he has to do it without tipping off his captors, among which is the most powerful twelve year old in the world. And he's only got so long to do it.

Great.

The first step is standing. He can't escape if he can't stand for more than a minute at a time. Training, he tells himself, is the only way he's going to regain his stamina.

This is controversial in the ice house.

"You've made your point," Katara gripes, hovering only a foot away. Not touching, but still there, like she thinks he's going to fall. "You're so very strong and resilient. Now get back in bed!"

Zuko growls from his spot braced against the wall. Despite the fact that his limited energy is flagging, he's not going to give her the satisfaction of seeing him slink back to bed under her orders. Instead, he sets his jaw, presses his back to the wall, and slides down until he's sitting, like he'd planned to come here and sit all along.

Katara huffs, and Sokka has the audacity to laugh.

After only a few minutes, Aang plops down on the ground next to him. Zuko drops his head into his hand and nearly ruptures his eyeballs with the pressure his frustrated massaging puts on them.

He sits there for an hour, because he refuses to acknowledge their offered hands, and he can't quite push himself up on his own. It's only when the two siblings surround him and yank him up by the shoulders, most pointedly not asking for permission (or even giving a warning), that Zuko is able to stumble back to his bed.

Really, he isn't even there for the stumbling part. The second his elevation shifts, the world tilts. When it refocuses, he's sitting on the bed, with Katara waving a worried hand in front of his face.

He swats her away with more difficulty than he cares to admit. He fucking hates this.

The next few days go like this:

Zuko spends most of his free time sleeping, and the rest of the time mentally raging at his body for taking so damn long to sort itself out. He doesn't have time for healing, but he's forced to make time.

He gets medicinal tea and healing sessions from the old healer, and she teaches him stretches that won't strain his injury. She even helps him putter around the room as he regains strength.

When he's not sleeping and not exercising, he's being annoyed to death by Aang and the siblings and their spirits damned kindness.

They're not friends. That much is abundantly clear. But they keep doing things that "not friends" shouldn't do, and it's driving him crazy.

Aang is just so convinced that they're one grumpy firebender away from being the best of buds. But there's more to it than that. War aside, Zuko has a mission, and it's not one that can be fulfilled with smiles and sunshine. He has to capture the Avatar.

(A small, stupid part of his brain asks why. Why he can't just smile and sunshine it up and ask Aang to come to the caldera with him. But he knows why. The Avatar is the greatest threat to the Fire Nation right now. There's no peaceful resolution to Aang in the Fire Nation. Once they have him, they're going to—

He's twelve.

It's none of Zuko's business. The war is none of his business. He's just getting his honor back.)

The siblings don't act quite as bad as Aang, but they don't act normal. Katara makes sure the waterskin by his bed is always filled, Sokka's the first to hush the room when he's trying to sleep, and they both seem content to not murder him.

He has no worldly idea why they do this. He expects more attacks and threats. What he gets is extra portions with every meal. He snaps at them, and they snap back. He bites his tongue, and things are downright pleasant.

They don't get it. Either they're too boneheaded, or they're doing it on purpose. It doesn't matter what he does; they won't stop being kind, like it's baked into them. Like it's not a choice. 

Maybe this is just a very specific, Zuko-only torture method. It's effective. He definitely feels tortured.

The healer adores the lemur.

"Careful," Sokka warns. "Zuko bites."

As Katara snickers, Zuko scowls at the cup in his hand.

The healer doesn't seem bothered by the warning. "He's so cute!" she gushes, scratching it under the chin. "Aren't you, Zuko?"

See, the problem is he's supposed to be drinking the tea right now, not glaring at it. That's hard to do when he keeps stopping to grind his teeth together, but it's either that or blowing his own cover in a fit of rage. Despite his track record, he does have some self preservation instinct.

Sokka smothers a grin behind his hand. "That's subject to opinion, I think."

Zuko throws his deadliest glare at him. Unfortunately, looks still can't kill.

Unaware of the murder he's attempting, the healer frowns at the lemur. "You don't think so?"

"Yeah, Sokka," Aang cajoles. "You don't think Zuko's cute?"

The horrified face that Sokka makes has both Aang and Katara in fits of giggles. Zuko tries very hard not to hurl his teacup across the room at them.

The healer shrugs. "Well, I think he's very handsome."

Katara's voice is a little too loud from giddiness when she says, "Sokka, do you think—"

"Shut up!" he snaps. "What about you, Katara?"

Katara chokes on her laughter, expression morphing into a perfect mirror of her brother’s horror.

Oh, ha ha. Zuko glares at his cup and bites back some very choice words.

It's not about his appearance, he reminds himself. They're joking and teasing each other at his expense because they're enemies, and that's what enemies do.

"I think Zuko's handsome, too," Aang pipes up, sounding almost smug about it. "He has very pretty eyes."

What the fuck.

With a smile, the healer looks into the lemur's eyes. "He does, doesn't he?"

As fast as he can manage, Zuko drains his cup. Half because the healer won't leave until he does, and half because the bitter taste distracts him from whatever the fuck is going on.

"You got any dating advice?"

Zuko freezes in the middle of his stretches to give Sokka a bewildered look, because where the fuck did that come from?

"See, I met this girl, and she's super pretty, and we're going to go talk on a bridge tonight..." He's got a dreamy look on his face that, frankly, makes Zuko want to gag. "I want to impress her without looking like I'm trying too hard."

Zuko scowls. Yeah, because asking your enemy for dating advice is "not trying."

"I was thinking of carving her something, just as a little gift. Would that be cute? Or weird? I don't want to be weird."

Too late for that.

"I think I'm gonna do it! Just a little fish, nothing weird."

That... might be a little cute. When his scowl (unintentionally) softens, Sokka gets a wry grin on his face.

"See, you can glare all you want, but I know you're listening."

So Zuko jams his fingers into his ears.

Breezing past the fur covering the threshold, Aang appears in the doorway, saying something that Zuko can't hear. He then points to Zuko with his eyebrows quirked.

Zuko does not remove his fingers from his ears.

It's likely that Sokka responds, but Zuko doesn't turn to look. Then Aang looks him in the eyes and laughs, his chest jumping and eyes crinkled at the corners, and Zuko doesn't feel it in his lungs. He feels something else entirely.

Katara marches into the room, soaked and ragged and absolutely beaming, and Zuko has no idea what's going on. 

"I beat him! I dueled him, and I beat his ass, and now he's going to teach me to fight!"

Zuko, who's got maybe half the story here, blinks and glances around. She has to be talking to someone else, right? But there's only Aang, who's standing behind her, looking like he's already heard this. 

"Okay, technically I didn't beat him, he just saw my necklace and caved cuz he loves Gran Gran, but it's the same thing."

Zuko just stares. She is definitely talking to him. Or rather, at him.

Katara, caught in her own excitement, doesn't care. She holds up a finger and grins. "But I will beat him. Once he trains me, I'll absolutely destroy him!"

"Who?"

She looks genuinely baffled by his question, which Zuko thinks is ridiculous considering no one tells him anything about anything here.

"Master Pakku. Keep up, Zuko." Then she whirls out of the room, rambling about getting an apprentice's coat before tomorrow.

Aang, left in the doorway, snickers. "Yeah, keep up, Zuko."

Zuko throws a boot at him.

"You've never properly been introduced. So, this is Appa!"

Face to face, the bison is absolutely massive. Something about only seeing the thing in retreat convinced him that it wasn't really that big. Even on its back, it was hard to conceptualize what was underneath the massive saddle. Also, Zuko was a little preoccupied at that time.

Now, when every breath from its massive lungs has the air rippling, Zuko's more than a little retroactively concerned for his own safety. 

"He's really gentle! Wouldn't hurt a fly!" Aang insists.

Zuko's unconvinced. Its eye is bigger than his head. There's no way this thing would even notice a fly, much less be able to actively avoid hurting it.

Considering everything, Zuko supposes he should be thanking the bison. Even though Aang was the one keeping him alive, this bison was the only reason they got to the North Pole. It was just as exhausted as Aang when they reached the city, according to Katara.

Zuko's not so sure how he feels about owing his life to two separate airbenders. It feels ironic, considering the actions of his forefathers.

"You can pet him if you want," Aang says, and he pats the bison's nose to demonstrate.

Zuko's not entirely certain if he does want to. This thing is uncomfortably intimidating. But at the same time, it's sort of a once in a lifetime thing. He's never going to be able to get close to the thing again once this weird truce breaks.

Slowly, he reaches out and places a hand on the leathery nose of the bison. It gently grumbles, and he can feel it through his touch. The power of this creature is undeniable, but at the same time, it's so passive. There's nothing to fear when all it wants to do is sleep and eat melons.

Then it opens its maw, and Zuko revises that assessment. After all, his hand is about to be swallowed whole like a crunchy little midday snack. But the bison just lets out a massive yawn and snuggles into its hay bed.

If Zuko scrambled back, it was because of the bison's foul breath, and absolutely nothing else.

Aang's laughter echoes through his head, and sticks there for the rest of the day.

He still thinks he can feel the leftover shards of metal burning in his chest.

He can't. There's no pain, no burning, not even any itching. He has no idea where in his chest they even are. The healing sessions and medicinal tea work like a charm, and the healer is satisfied that he's out of the dark. Only recovery ahead.

The shards will remain in his chest.

His body knows what to do, she says. The shards will get coated in some weird protective flesh that will keep them from tearing when he moves. Integrated into him like they're meant to be there.

The healer catches his expression, offers reassuring smiles and a hand on his shoulder and says, "You'll be right as rain" again, and he can't get his tongue to explain that he doesn't think that's right. Can't get himself to ask for her to keep going, to root out these things that have wormed their way into his body without his permission.

She knows he's uncomfortable. She's probably seen it before, with her experience as a healer. But another surgery is not an option, not when he doesn't know when Zhao will arrive.

She asks if he's okay with the shrapnel staying. Zuko squares his shoulders and lies.

Zuko does not like this new normal.

They're all sitting in their respective beds while some kind of stew bubbles away by the fire. It's reminiscent of peaceful, which is something that Zuko should never be around these people.

"Were you always this quiet?" Katara asks.

He wasn't.

Maybe he can blame the shift on circumstance. He's got nothing to say to anyone in the North Pole, after all. But that doesn't feel like the right answer.

"That's where you're supposed to say something."

This time when Zuko doesn't respond, it's on purpose.

Katara looks like she's getting a migraine.

Aang, who's got too many theories about things that don't involve him, pipes up. "Maybe he just doesn't have anything to say."

"He had plenty to say when he was chasing us," she huffs. "Mostly shouting."

Beaming for no good reason, he replies, "Don't need to shout when we're right here!"

With a glance up from the mauled piece of wood he's trying to whittle down, Sokka raises an eyebrow at his sister. "Isn't that a good thing, though? Being screamed at isn't exactly fun."

Katara relents with a half-hearted shrug. "I guess. It's just weird."

Sokka goes back to his carving. "Everything about this is weird. It's been weird for days."

"I like weird," is the quiet comment Aang gives.

Zuko has no idea what to do with that. Neither do the siblings, apparently.

"Aang—"

Whatever Katara has to say, Aang just bowls over it, bending himself to his feet.

"I bet the stew's ready!"

He snatches the metal ladle from where it's resting on their stone cutting board and dunks it into the boiling pot, not even pausing before taking an experimental sip. His verdict on the stew is, "Hot!"

In his pain induced panic, the ladle slips from his hand. It cracks against the icy edge of the fire pit with enough sound to echo through the room, and Zuko flinches.

No one else flinches.

No one else notices either, thank the spirits. They're too preoccupied with laughing at Aang, who's opted to swallow an ice cube the size of his mouth to try and ease the burn.

They ignore him, laughing and talking and calm, and Zuko still feels the crack of the ladle in his spine. His nerves are at odds with the atmosphere in their little ice house, to the point where he's almost begging for his muscles to relax, for his heart to stop fluttering.

There's no reason for this, he's just on the verge of shaking apart because of a fucking soup ladle.

His teeth slip past each other as his jaw tightens, like the pressure can relieve his stress. It can't.

He doesn't feel safe here. He hasn't felt safe since before the explosion.

It's not the first time he's almost died. It is the first time he's been fully conscious while watching his life (Aang) flicker in front of him.

They wonder why he doesn't talk. Zuko wonders what they'd think if he let all his thoughts spill out.

"Zuko?"

He doesn't realize he's been staring at the floor until Aang's call pulls his gaze away. A steaming bowl of stew is held out to him. For how long, Zuko's not sure. He takes it quietly, and ignores Aang's searching gaze.

There are three shards that have wormed their way into his chest. They smile at him, offer him stew, and they burn.

He looks for his dagger every chance he gets. He doesn't get many. In the infrequent moments where he finds himself alone in the ice house, he rifles through their bags with a desperation that almost concerns him.

Every search turns up empty.

Aang thinks he's being sneaky when he crawls out of bed in the middle of the night and props himself up against the foot of Zuko's. He's not. Zuko glares at the ice wall in front of him, watching his own shadow dance with the low fire constantly burning in the ice house. Then he glares at the shadow of a bald head peeking over the top of his legs.

Zuko kicks him in the back of the head.

"Ow!" Despite the surprise, Aang still manages a whisper-shout, like he's pre-programed to not disturb his sleeping friends. "What was that for?!"

"Go the fuck to sleep," is Zuko's grumbled response.

"I'm trying."

"Try in your own bed."

"...I can't hear your breathing from over there."

A whole mess of thoughts crowd Zuko's mind. "That's creepy," and "Not my problem," and "You can't care like this, Aang," all twisted up in between emotions that he can't figure out the words for. Anything he could say lies dead in his throat. The silence yawns on, stretching far past the reasonable window for response, and Zuko still can't figure out what to say. Apparently, his answer is nothing.

So he stays quiet. Aang takes that as permission to stay, and Zuko maintains plausible deniability.

Zuko starts to dream of things that he can't remember.

He dreams of the minutes before the explosion. He hears the creaking of his ship, feels the sway of the waves. It's peaceful, and it reminds him of home. (But not real home, just the fake approximation that he has no reason to long for the way he does.) Then he sees that damned reptile bird, and it's all fire and smoke and pain.

He dreams of being dragged from the water. His lungs, throat, and nose burn, and it takes so much energy to cough that he considers just not doing it, just falling away into oblivion. Then there's a pull at the water in his chest, and it all comes gushing out of his mouth with grating hacks. It hurts, but it brings the world back into focus.

He dreams of Aang, Katara, and Sokka, all peering over him and looking deathly pale, which is ironic considering he's the one dying. He hears them talk, shout, panic, and then he feels a pain in his chest. One he knows, but feels so foreign at the same time. He's felt this pain, but can't remember it.

He dreams of looking down. Of glancing at his own chest to find a black, twisted scrap of half melted metal embedded there. Dread coils around his spine. The shard juts into the air and wobbles with every shaky breath, stuck in his chest and moving with it. It's so incredibly wrong that he can't help the panicked whine that escapes him.

He dreams of Aang covering his eyes with a small hand; of Aang gently lowering his head to the cold, wet ground; of Aang whispering, telling him, "Don't look."

He dreams of panic. He dreams of an arm across his shoulders to hold him down. He dreams of hands on the twisted metal. He dreams of a countdown, of himself crying, begging, asking for them to please just wait. He dreams of a tug—

He wakes with a scream lodged in his throat.

(Something in the back of his mind shifts and pulls itself into the light. It smells like cooked meat and antiseptic, and it rocks with unfamiliar waves.

You've been here before, it says. You've done this before.

He doesn't look at it. He can't bear to.

Welcome back, it says.)

Zuko can be quiet when he needs to be. He knows how to sneak around sleeping bodies, how to escape a room without being noticed when the mood turns sour. So it's not hard to slip past Aang, who's finally fallen asleep curled up in a stray blanket.

Outside their guest room, the North Pole is cold. Zuko almost turns around at the first gust of wind. But he can't wait. The longer he sits around, the more on-guard Aang’s group will become. They won't expect him to leave this early.

He has to leave tonight. He can't stay here. Zhao is coming, and beyond that... Well, he just can't.

(He'll leave without the dagger. He doesn't need the dagger. His life is more important than the dagger.)

Seeing the masts of the boats at the shore, he begins the trek. His plan is to get to the boats, steal one, and just hope he can make it away from the city without being noticed. Then he'll sail back to the pier and find Uncle. It'll be fine. Nevermind that he's already clinging to the icy walls for support.

He doesn't have the luxury to be weak right now. He's a sitting turtleduck in this city.

Unfortunately, his body doesn't care.

He's not sure what sends him to the ground, if it's his own heavy breathing or if his sluggish reflexes failed to save him from a slip on the ice. He just knows he's going down. His shoulder hits first, jarring his chest and yanking the air from his lungs, and the world around him stutters.

It wouldn't be accurate to say he passes out, not really. Nor to say that he wakes up again, because he knows he was awake the whole time. It's just like his brain forgets it's meant to remember things. So when he does start remembering again, he’s left with a gap in his memory and no idea how long he's been basically lounging on the ice. The freezing ache in his fingers makes him think it's been more than a couple minutes, but he can't be sure.

Fuck, it's cold. He doesn't think about it when he cups his frozen hands and summons a flame. Then he's flinching back with a hiss, the flame gone as soon as it came.

What was that?

Twisting his right hand inward, he's met with the angry red of a fresh burn, centered on the meat of his palm and snaking a small way up his fingers.

He just burned himself with his own bending.

A drop of dread lands in his stomach, and Zuko can barely feel the ground beneath him. What is he, some kind of freshly kindled child? What kind of a firebender burns himself with his own fire? Especially with a flame that small. It's pathetic.

Is this really where the explosion has left him? Wrecked and useless?

It's not the first time he's been maimed and left with his bending in tatters. Waking on his ship nearly three years ago, of course he struggled with it. He knows the feeling of panic swelling in his chest when his own flames lick too close to skin. But he never fucking burned himself. Even when he came close because the world would narrow to just the flame, and he didn't realize how erratic it had gotten, he never burned himself. Years of training honed into instinct hadn't allowed it.

The explosion, it seems, ripped that away.

Suddenly, he's all too aware of his breathing. His lungs are weak, trembling whenever he takes a breath too deep and aching when he exhales too fast. He has to think to breathe evenly, like the natural cadence of in and out that was baked into him for just being alive has vanished. His control is nonexistent, and his bending is smothered by it.

Zuko's distantly aware that his hands are shaking, that he's still on the ground and should definitely move, but all he can see is those shiny red marks.

This is just the same as the early days of his banishment, right? Another flavor of weakness. Even though his head is clear and it's not even a mental failing this time, it's still the same thing. He's resilient.

(Emotionally. His skin is not. His body scars and stays broken. He can learn to quell his panic. He cannot learn to see clearly through his left eye. What if it's not the same?)

This has to fade. It faded the first time, it has to fade now.

The chittering is the only warning he gets before Aang's lemur lands on his side. Its paws dig into his ribs (the thing has no right being as heavy as it is), but it's better than the last time it landed on him. This time, instead of pain, the weight is grounding.

The lemur chatters again, and inches up his side to his face. Zuko turns, just enough to look the creature in the eyes. It sniffs him, and he lets out an uncontrolled huff as the wet nose brushes his cheek. It's gross. But it's grounding.

Slowly, intentionally, Zuko breathes in and out. Bobbing with each inhale, the lemur stays perched on his side. It doesn't move, or ask anything, or even seem to know what it's doing, but it helps. As he breathes, he can feel the icy ground reform beneath him, and the world falls back into focus.

Okay, so. He'll just wait it out. Let his lungs recover and teach himself to breathe again. If he can.

And he won't bend in the meantime. (Like that's no big deal.)

Aang comes barreling around the corner not a minute later, all panicked and fretful.

"Zu—" He chokes on the syllable and clamps his lips together. Not that it makes much of a difference. In the dead of night, it's not like there's anyone around to hear him. And their cover lemur is here anyway.

Said lemur trills, then jumps into the air and flies to Aang. He meets it halfway with an arm extended as a perch. As he hurries the rest of the way over, Zuko wrenches himself up into a seated position.

"What are you doing? Are you okay?"

Aang's hands hover worriedly, barely inches away from touching Zuko's shoulder. Zuko's certain to pull back and glare at the offending appendages.

"What does it look like?" he rasps. It comes out weaker than he planned.

Aang's eyebrows rise, deepening the childlike concern on his face. "It looks like you fell."

Okay, smartass. Zuko just hauls himself up, ignoring the other's worried hands. But before he can start walking back to the house, Aang's voice interrupts him

"You know we wouldn't let them do anything," he starts, his voice intentionally quiet.

Zuko shoots him a questioning glare.

"If the Water Tribe found out who you are. We're the ones who brought you here, so we're in charge of protecting you—"

"You've said," Zuko growls.

Aang's worried gaze lowers to the ice. "Well, it's true. You don't have to leave."

Right.

They walk back to the ice house in silence.

Katara is not happy, to say the least. "What were you doing?!"

Zuko thinks it's pretty obvious.

"You're still recovering! Are you trying to reverse all the healing you've gotten? Cuz you're doing a great job at that!"

He stays quiet, as he's gotten so good at doing lately, and stares at the fire. Cradled in his lap, his palm itches.

"You're just gonna ignore me?!"

Oh, now that it's pissing her off? Absolutely.

She throws water at him for that.

He can't help the startled squawk the move pulls from him. Damn it, that's cold. She couldn't bother throwing around water that wasn't ice two seconds ago?

Aang is trying his hardest to look only surprised and not amused at all, and it just comes across as insincere. Sokka doesn't even bother hiding his snort.

With a growl, Zuko swipes his hands across his face and flicks the gathered water towards the fire. The embers hardly hiss against the drops. When he glares over at Katara, she's got a smug grin on her face.

"Serves you right," she jeers.

Fucking little sisters.

Turning his scowl back to the fire, he sets about drying himself. Katara offers no assistance, which is perfect, because he wouldn't have accepted it anyway.

Apparently her little bending display was enough to cool her anger. When she speaks again, her tone is all business.

"Take off your coat."

She grabs her waterskin, and Zuko tries not to visibly droop. He's sick of healing. With as much venom as he can muster, he tries to scowl the waterskin out of her hand.

She has no sympathy for him. "If you didn't want a check up, you shouldn't have run off in the middle of the night. Now take off your coat."

"It's fine," he snaps.

"Zuko," Sokka bites. "Stop being an asshole and just let her look."

Lip curled into a snarl, Zuko turns to him. "I didn't ask for your commentary!"

"Too bad."

"Don't think I won't splash you again," Katara threatens.

"Then do it." He's not calling her bluff, because he knows she will. It's just a matter of when.

She narrows her eyes, fists clenched. "You—!"

And then Aang has to butt in where he doesn't belong again.

"Zuko..." He sounds tired.

Zuko meets Aang's gray eyes for a grand total of five seconds before he decides he just wants to go to bed. That's it. He's just tired, it's late, and he won't get them off his back long enough to sleep until he gives them what they want.

With a frustrated groan, he yanks the coat over his head with more force than necessary, much to his chest's complaint. His chest can deal with it.

Katara kneels beside him, cork on the waterskin popped, and bends the water to him. After the past few days, healing like this has become routine, though Katara is usually watching the old healer do it.

The room falls into a silence, only broken by Sokka yawning. He doesn't settle back into the bed mat he's seated on, but plops his head on his hand and closes his eyes. Aang looks like he's fighting off a responsive yawn, which he spectacularly fails at after only a couple of seconds. Even Katara looks weary, despite her determined concentration on her bending.

It's late, and he woke them all up with his escape attempt. That definitely was not his intention, if that's any solace to them.

Aang breaks the silence. "Maybe, uh," he starts sheepishly. "Maybe don't try to leave again...?"

Zuko rolls his eyes. "You can't really expect me to just sit here."

"We can and we do," Katara barks. "You need to heal. Your dumb stunts are worrying us all."

Zuko feels a cold rage twisting in his gut. It's calmer than his usual uproar of heat and emotions, but no less strong.

She pulls the water back into her waterskin, but doesn't cork it yet. "Is your side okay? Aang said you..."

The glare he gives her has the words dying on her tongue.

Because they're not friends. They never have been, and they never will be. He's here because he's too weak to be anywhere else. His need for medical help is the only reason he's in the North Pole, the only reason they're all able to talk without dissolving into combat. "Worrying us all." What a fucked up lie that is.

Katara, in her reactive anger, makes a pretty good mirror to his own expression. "Fine." She corks the waterskin and stands, fists clenched. "Whatever. It's not like I helped save your life or anything."

"You didn't have to do that," Zuko snaps.

"Damn right I didn't!"

"So stop acting like you care!"

To her credit, she meets his gaze with anger to rival his own. "I'm not!" she spits. "I don't care."

Aang throws out a quiet, "Katara..." He's ignored.

Zuko doesn't get these people, and it's driving him up a wall. "Then what the fuck is this?"

"What do you want me to say?!" Katara throws her hands in the air, and the ice house shakes with her. "I'm not heartless, like some people. It doesn't matter how I feel when someone is hurt! I don't care about you, Zuko."

There's something numb in his chest that really shouldn't be there.

"But I'm not going to let you suffer when I can do something about it. None of us are."

Zuko feels his jaw tighten. That's stupid. That's so fucking stupid.

Katara's lip curls up, showing her teeth. "Even if you haven't shown a single shred of gratitude since we dragged you out of the water."

Zuko's never been a fan of goodwill being dangled over his head like a threat. It's how goodwill always seems to be, in his experience. If she wants her damn thank you so badly, she can have it.

Stiff as a board, Zuko shifts his position so he's facing her, legs properly folded beneath him. He pulls his hands into a customary flame and dips his head.

"Thank you for your assistance in saving my life," he bites. "Do you want a reward? Do you want me to pretend we're friends? Do you want me to sit around quietly and just wait until you decide what to do with me?" His tone is sour as he scowls around the words, and his hands drop lifelessly into his lap. "Since I owe you my life."

Predictably, Katara looks incensed. "That's not— Ugh!" She arcs her fists down and screeches in anger. The icy floor trembles beneath her. "You're such an asshole!"

Like he didn't already know that.

Sokka's eyes pop open.

"You know what, actually, that's a good point!" He's not supposed to have that cocky ass grin on his face. "You do owe us! And you have intel on the Fire Nation! So..."

"No."

Aang's expression twists up in an uncertain knot. "Sokka..."

Sokka throws a palm to the air. "Hey, if we're ever gonna defeat the Fire Lord, we need all the info we can get. What better source than the literal Prince of the Fire Nation?"

"We shouldn’t—" Aang starts at the same time that Zuko's anger bubbles over.

"I'm not telling you anything!" he spits, twisting to glare at Sokka.

Sokka's ready to spit fire too. "You said it yourself! You owe us!"

Zuko thinks he was very clearly being sardonic about that. "I don't care! I'm not doing anything for you just because you saved me!"

Sokka's face twists again, something bitter settling there. "Course you wouldn't. That would be the honorable thing to do."

Oh, Zuko despises these people.

Rage erupts from his gut and clutches his throat in an iron grip. It chokes him, and paradoxically keeps the worst of his outburst from extending past his lips. He feels it flare, slam into the top of his chest, and sputter out into something that can speak.

"What do you know?!"

He jolts upwards with the words, crouched halfway between sitting and standing, and the only reason he hasn't surged into Sokka's space is because Aang's suddenly standing between them.

"Sokka." His voice is firm. It's not a voice a twelve year old should have.

He's looking at Sokka, but he has a hand out behind him to Zuko. Three fingers touch his shoulder, his pointer and thumb brushing only open air. It's not enough to push, but enough to be felt. Those three points of contact burn almost as much as the rage in his throat does.

Aang's voice is torn between certainty and pleading when he says, "He doesn't owe us anything. Not for this."

Zuko can't hear it. The words are clear enough, but the meanings don't register in his fevered head. Aang’s fingers sear against his shoulder, and he's dizzy with anger. Or maybe that's just the heavy breathing. He can hear more than feel his breath heaving, sucked in through bared teeth and expelled with just as much force.

What do they know? They can't just fucking say that. They can't just casually ask him to betray his people. As if his life isn't a constant battle between his selfish tendencies and his own people, between his unrelenting idiocy and his honor. What the fuck do they know?

"So you'd do it?" he spits between breaths. "Betray your people in my place?"

Sokka's expression shutters. "This isn't about me."

"Hypocrite." And maybe the word is more of a rasp than it should be, but he hardly cares at the moment.

Of course, Katara comes to her brother’s defense. "Sit down, Zuko." The words almost sound like a threat. Almost.

Zuko ignores her, eyes on Sokka. "Answer the question!"

With his fingers still burning into his shoulder, Aang turns to look at him. They're all looking at him, and they're not answering the fucking question. "Zuko, please calm down."

So that's it.

It doesn't matter what he says at this point. They've seen his anger, clocked it as irrational, and the next step is dismissal. And that pisses him off even more.

This is the part where he goes low, pulls from his library of meticulously documented lines and finds one to cross, finds a way to punish them for dismissing him. They pay attention to that, even if they ignore his anger. He makes people flinch—He's cruel on purpose as a petty act of revenge. If they didn't want to get hurt, they should've been paying attention. He makes it worse on purpose.

This is how it goes.

Except that's not how it goes this time, because Aang and Katara and Sokka have never once followed any script he knows. It's always improvisations with them, and he's no good at that.

Sokka speaks and throws everything off script. "You're right," he says, looking Zuko in the eyes like those two words haven't just ripped away any sense of understanding he had of the situation. "That's fucked up to ask of you. I'm sorry."

Zuko's jaw tightens. This isn't how it goes. He's never right. Things don't calm down. People don't apologize to Zuko, because he's Zuko.

"Zuko, you need to breathe."

He doesn't realize his breathing is so ragged until Aang's gray eyes meet his, and they're wide with worry.

And Aang isn't the only one reacting like a complete lunatic. The siblings each have their own version of concern painted on their faces, Katara with her eyebrows climbing skyward and her hands twitching at her sides, and Sokka with his eyes narrowed and head twisted slightly away—and Zuko hates that he knows these looks from them.

"Fuck off," he chokes.

Aang's fingers drop from his chest, but the heat remains. His next words are quiet. "I just want to help."

Anger still clings to his throat, so it's all Zuko can do to gasp out, "Then leave me alone."

And unlike on the bison, Aang actually considers his words. Actually pauses and looks him in the eyes, like Zuko's some puzzle he knows he hasn't figured out yet.

"Are you sure?"

Zuko can't respond with his teeth melded together.

Aang blinks, then turns away from him. "So, I was trying to learn how to waterbend a snowman yesterday, but Master Pakku wouldn't give me any practical advice. What's up with that?"

The siblings pause, glance at each other, and slowly follow Aang's lead, as they so often do.

They settle into their beds, chatting and all around ignoring Zuko, letting him smolder and rage alone. They ignore him, and he gets no chance to burn through his rage like he's used to. Can't throw insults, can't throw fire, can't even stomp into the privacy of his own room and rage at nothing. Not engaging. Not letting him make it worse. It's like they're putting the pot lid over a cooking fire, letting the flame choke itself to death.

Zuko can feel it working. Can feel his own rage choking and dying on itself. He clenches his fists. Choking hurts.

Chapter Text

Before the dreams started, Zuko had considered his most peaceful moments of the past few days to be when he was asleep. Now he doesn't even get that respite. The dreams keep his rest restless, and his waking hours are filled with people who refuse to leave him alone.

There's always someone around to gawk at him. Sometimes he gets a brief moment to himself in the ice house, but they never last more than a few minutes before someone is breezing through the door and rambling about something he couldn't care less about. When it's not Aang, it's the siblings, and when it's not them, it's the healer.

But it's usually Aang.

"How'd you sleep?"

"What's your favorite tea?"

"What did you do for fun on your ship?"

"Do you know how to play any instruments?"

The random questions are endless, each followed by Aang rambling about whatever prompted it, because most of the time, Zuko doesn't answer. He feels like his sanity is being chipped away with every second.

Maybe that's dramatic. But when his jaw aches constantly from clenching it, to the point where even the healer notices, he thinks that maybe he is actually going crazy.

"You need to relax, young man," is what she says.

She's got her hands on his face and is palpating his jaw with her fingers, because when he tried to decline some more medicinal tea, it popped and pulsed and he couldn't help but flinch. Her fingers press into the muscles just in front of his right ear, firm enough that he reflexively slackens his jaw to ease the pressure. Her other hand stays near his chin.

"You're going to crack a tooth at this rate."

She pulls away, and he doesn't miss the contact, because he hardly fucking knows this lady. Can't even remember her name, even though she told him once. Has no idea why he even lets her do things like grab his jaw and ramble about his weaknesses.

"Though," she hums, her hard look softening, and Zuko's never been above punching an old lady before. "It's normal, given what happened. And you're not sleeping well."

Damn it. He hasn't seen his reflection since well before all of this, but he knows lack of sleep shows on his face like the date on a calendar, blatant and nagging and always causing Uncle's brow to pinch in concern even though he's fine. The nightmares must be obvious on his face.

The healer's brow pinches together, and oh. That's why. Got it. "There are some medicines that could help. Do you want me to bring you something?"

Zuko shakes his head. The last thing he wants is to be drugged to sleep, not here.

"There's no reason for that pride," she scolds. "Plenty of our warriors have needed it to get through the nights without dreaming. There's no shame in it."

For once, Zuko can say that it isn't about pride. He doesn't say anything.

The healer waits for a response that he won't give before sighing. "Well, the offer still stands if you change your mind."

She leaves, and Aang's right fucking there, lounging on his own bed and trying to catch his gaze. Zuko doesn't let it happen. He just flops onto his back, drives his palms into his eyes, and tries to pretend that he's not constantly being held on display like some fucked up little zoo animal.

"So, are we gonna talk about it, or...?"

Zuko feels his lip curl into a grimace, and he shoots a questioning look at Sokka. Really, it's more of a scowl with expectations, but still.

"About you almost dying," Sokka deadpans. "And you trying your hardest to make that happen."

"I didn't—"

"Fight us at literally every turn? Basically tell us to let you die before you broke down crying at the thought?"

Zuko tries to keep from visibly wincing.

"And then last night, you were running around outside in the dead of night like you're invincible."

That... is what he did, yes. But they had every reason to expect that he'd run. It's not his fault they were unprepared.

"Look," Sokka sighs. "I'm not saying it's an easy topic, but you went through some serious stuff. You can't just..." He tapers off, waving a hand around like he's hoping a word will materialize in front of him.

Zuko, who's never taken well to being told what he can and can't do, huffs. "I'll do whatever I want."

"You'll hurt yourself that way."

He squares his shoulders and glares. "Why do you care?"

The hostility is supposed to shut people up, not make them stare into his eyes like they've got a front row seat to his soul. But Sokka does it anyway.

Finally, he asks, "Do you?"

...What does that even mean?

"Do you care? If you hurt yourself?"

Whatever Zuko expected from this conversation, it was not that.

Something about that question feels dangerous. Like if he stops to peer into that well of emotion too long, something's going to jump out of the water and drag him down. Mentally, he skitters away from it, almost on instinct.

Sokka doesn't look satisfied by his lack of response. He looks just as pensive, even bordering annoyed, as he did before he asked that dumb question.

"Right." Gently, he pushes off the wall, finally breaks eye contact, and walks outside.

He dreams of the explosion. He can't hear it. He knows there's the sound of the blast, of metal tearing, of his own startled cry, but he doesn't hear it. If he thinks about it, he swears he can, that it's not just imagined,  that his brain has those sounds tucked away and won't let him hear them. But all he really hears is ringing.

He wakes to a plate of breakfast by his head.

In the grand scheme of things, his escape attempts really aren't all that eventful, just sneaking around the icy city as he makes his way to the docks. Really, his biggest obstacle is time. He just has to reach the docks before he collapses, or before the others wake to find his bed empty.

This time, however, he's found himself with another mundane obstacle: navigation. It's hardly his fault when all the buildings look the same. Now he's turned around in some frozen back alley, unable to see further than the streets in front of him.

It's not like he jumped head first into the throng of ice houses. Just, the path naturally turned away when he hit a wall, and it was either climb the wall or follow the path. There was no climbing that wall, not when it was all slick ice for at least fifteen feet. And the path turned out to be much more winding and confusing than he anticipated.

The stars tell him that he's still facing the right direction, but that means very little when his next turn to keep himself headed south leads him to a deadend of an icy courtyard. He could double back, or try and scale a building and take the rooftops.

It's not impossible, he concludes. The buildings have plenty of embellishments that would make for excellent handholds. It's just a matter of strength. He takes a deep breath, anchors his hands on the nearest ledge, and starts to pull himself up. If he has to scale the building with nothing but sheer willpower, he will.

Doesn't matter how lost he is, it seems. They find him anyway.

The only indication that he's been caught is the rhythmic whistling of Sokka's boomerang. He drops to the ground without thinking, and he hears the boomerang fly past him and clank against the wall he'd been trying to climb.

"Nice dodge," he hears Sokka call, which is so fucking stupid, because who compliments someone for dodging their attack?

He's at Zuko's side in only a couple of steps, where he bends down to collect his boomerang and offers Zuko a hand up.

Zuko very deliberately uses the wall to stand.

Without so much as a frown, Sokka drops his hand and straightens. "Where ya headed?"

"...The docks."

Sokka pointedly looks around the courtyard they're in. "Hm."

Oh, fuck off. Growling, Zuko stalks past him and stomps out of the courtyard.

"Where're you going now?"

"Back."

Sokka trails behind him, and just has to ask, "So, not the docks?"

Zuko doesn't grace that with a response.

He makes it about five more paces before Sokka calls again, "Do you even know where you're going?"

Infuriatingly, Zuko does not.

Sokka tails him anyway, like he's got nothing better to do than watch him flounder through retracing his steps. And he really is floundering. All the buildings look the same, and he didn't pay much attention to the turns he took because he didn't plan on coming back. But he's stubborn to a fault, so he keeps going.

It's only after the fifth deadend, which might look more familiar than he cares to admit, that Zuko's forced to stop his rage fueled stomping. Sweat dots his brow, and he's breathing heavier than is reasonable for just walking around.

Sokka strolls up behind him, not sweating or panting. "Tire yourself out yet?"

Zuko is doing an absolutely amazing job at restraining his murderous urges, because there Sokka stands, not dead. Instead of murder, he stares at the wall in front of them and clenches his jaw tight enough that his teeth squeak against each other. If he opens his mouth right now, he's going to breathe fire and burn them both.

"Come on," Sokka says lightly. He turns and starts down the road with a certainty that leaves Zuko fuming.

Zuko follows, keeping several paces between them as he works his teeth into dust.

He's exhausted for the rest of the following day, and hardly bothers with his strengthening exercises. Frankly, the jaunt around town was enough.

"We weren't supposed to..." Katara blurts this out like she didn't plan on it, and then trails off into nothing.

Zuko fights the urge to ask what the fuck she's talking about, lest he come across as actually caring about what she says. This manifests as a pointed scowl.

She's got a distant look on her face, like she's just talking because she needs to, not because he needs to hear it. "We weren't supposed to take it out. The shrapnel. At the pier."

Oh. He doesn't get much more than a breath to adjust to the topic, much less time to consider if he wants to hear it, before she continues on.

"Just.. yanking it out like that probably only made things worse."

Idly, Zuko thinks that he sort of preferred not having that blade of steel stuck in him for three days. The thought of just leaving it in doesn't sit well with him.

"I just felt so useless," Katara almost whispers. She's clutching her elbows tightly, a step away from hugging herself. "Everything I did could've helped just as easily as it could've hurt. We're lucky you survived long enough to suffocate."

His jaw clenches. It didn't feel like luck.

"It's just so much easier to hurt than it is to heal. Why is it so much easier?" She sounds desperate for an answer.

Zuko doesn't have one.

"You don't make it easy." And suddenly she's mad, which is just great. He's already halfway lost in this conversation, (he hasn't even said anything,) and she's mad.

"Don't give me that look," she bites. "You've been causing trouble for yourself since all this started! It's like you don't care what happens!"

He does care. Obviously he cares, or he'd have jumped off the bison himself. "What do you know?" he snaps. "I didn't ask you to care."

"Why not?"

Zuko's mind blanks.

"I'm literally a healer, Zuko! And I've been pretty fucking clear that I'm helping regardless of what you've done! So why is helping you like pulling teeth?!"

"Fuck off!"

She throws an arm up in exasperation. "There, again! Why do you do that? Why do you make it worse?"

As if he doesn't ask himself that every day.

"Fuck off."

He dreams of Uncle, sticking by him regardless of the abuse hurled his way. It's tea and proverbs until it's not. Then it's smoke and metal and blood, because Uncle chose to sit in with him instead of take a walk.

He wakes with an extra blanket on him.

His next attempt involves trying to scale a building from the start. He's not looking to get turned around in those icy corridors again.

Unfortunately, his next attempt is also his most embarrassingly brief one.

Believe it or not, his body isn't exactly eager to indulge him in his standard acrobatics. Every pull and heave leaves him panting, muscles straining and lungs burning. He's about halfway up a three story building when he starts to think that maybe this isn't a good idea. Maybe he should get down before he hurts himself.

He hasn't even decided which direction he's going when a tendril of water wraps around his leg and yanks. With no warning, he doesn't have time to brace himself on the wall, so apparently he's going down.

His right shoulder takes the brunt of it. The force of the fall knocks the air out of his already weak lungs, and he's left gasping like a fish on land.

How the fuck did they notice so fast? He's got to be more thorough when he checks that they're all asleep next time.

Katara is immediately hovering over him, looking far too concerned considering she's the reason he's wheezing right now.

"Shoot, I'm so sorry! I didn't think it would work that well, I only just learned that—"

Despite his hard breaths stealing most of his attention, Zuko can't help but think of Azula. Bending prodigies and their "accidents." Well, at least Katara actually sounds genuine.

There's a hand on his back as he flounders for air, and he wants nothing more than to shake it off and shove her away. When her other hand, dripping with water, heads for him, he actually does, pulling away with bared teeth in a perfect imitation of his behavior on the bison. This time though, she doesn't look angry. Her brow twists up as guilt mars her features. Half of him thinks, Good. The other half of him thinks, Don't look at me, and you won't have this problem.

She doesn't stop looking. Of course she doesn't. Zuko's hardly had a moment of solitude since he woke up in the bison's saddle.

With a frown, she glances up at the wall he was scaling. "Why were you trying to climb a building? That can't be the most direct way out of here."

There's no direct way out of here, it seems. The damn city is built like a maze, and he's just trying to cheat it.

Her brow twitches, and here they go again. She's mad. "You still look like you're going to faint when you stand! You could've fallen!"

If he'd caught his breath, he would've snorted. He did fall, thanks to her.

"What did you expect us to do if that happened? Scrape you off the ice?!"

He just wheezes in response.

Actually, the wheezing really isn't letting up like it should. In fact, it kind of feels like it's getting worse. Is it getting worse? His vision seems like it's narrowing, and that's not good at all. Screwing his eyes shut, he tries to swallow between stilted breaths.

Whatever anger Katara held in her tone is gone when she says, "Okay, actually. Let me see."

She uses a hand on his shoulder to steer him to lean against the side of the building. If he wasn't so busy suddenly trying not to pass out, he'd stop her, or at least make some kind of display of defiance for the sake of his pride.

She doesn't even bother to drag the coat off of him, just soaks the water through his clothes and starts healing. He doesn't feel any hesitation in the move, which leaves him wondering if she's been studying more than just combat while here.

The water remains for far less time than he's used to. When he cracks his good eye open to see what's going on, Katara is watching him with a worried look.

"Nothing tore," she says. "Are you okay?"

Clearly not.

"You're not choking? Nothing in your throat?"

He shakes his head.

"Do I need to get Aang?"

Get Aang for what? No, she doesn't need to fucking get Aang. He shakes his head again, the movement sharp.

Katara moves to stand anyway, so he snatches her wrist to keep her down. Where he'd expected her to pull her hand back, she just stills in his grip.

"Your hand is cold," she observes.

No shit. It's the North Pole. He's been cold since he got here.

"I thought you said firebending would keep you warm."

It would. Why is she shocked? No bending is part of her brother’s dumb rules, isn't it? Not that he's trying to adhere to those, but. Well.

He doesn't even twitch to acknowledge her words, just sits there and tries to focus on breathing. She lets him.

Instead of doing anything to help, she settles. Crosses her legs underneath her and sits in front of him like that's going to stop his erratic breathing.

That makes it worse.

She's just sitting there, letting him suffocate and not explaining what the fuck is going on. When he tightens his fingers around her wrist, she just puts her other hand on top of his like some stupid imitation of comfort, and that is not what he wanted.

He can't so much as growl his frustration around the pants. A wave of dizziness hits, and he has to drop his head to the wall behind him to try and calm it. The ice stings against his skin.

Katara shifts forward at that, and he thinks maybe she'll finally do something, but she just awkwardly tugs up the hood of the coat he's wearing and yanks it over his head. Then she sits back and watches him.

He can't breathe, and she just sits there.

He's pretty sure he passes out at some point, or at the very least loses all the sense in his brain to his gasping and just can't remember time moving at all. When his chest finally starts to settle, the cold of the wall behind him is biting through the coat.

Katara hasn't moved, hasn't pulled her wrist out of his now slack grip. She's just patiently waiting for him to recover. How amazingly helpful.

"What," he gasps, "was that?"

Katara looks uncertain when she answers. "I'm guessing you just got the wind knocked out of you. Since your lungs are still weak, it took you a while to recover. I think."

She thinks.

He thinks that's fucking stupid, and his lungs need to fucking get with it. 

Zuko finds his breath randomly hitching for the rest of the day. He also finds a pair of gloves that definitely weren't there before nestled beside his boots.

"Zuko? Are you awake?"

Unfortunately. Zuko stays silent.

On the other side of the room, he hears Aang take a shaky breath in and out. It sounds wet.

Damn it.

"What is it, Avatar?"

"...Can we go outside?"

Zuko channels all of his frustration into one harsh sigh. Then, he kicks off his blankets, tugs on his boots and the coat that is definitely not his, and walks to the balcony. Aang follows him eagerly.

The air outside is frigid, especially so under the moonlight. It glistens off of the snow and ice surrounding them, the only colors white, blue, and their shades of darkness. It's beautiful, in a strangely haunting way.

Damn him for ever considering this fucking place "beautiful."

While Aang moves forward to drape his arms over the balcony railing, Zuko hangs back to lean on the wall beside the doorway, arms crossed in some semblance of defiance.

It's silent, save for the occasional gust of wind. And even though they came out here to talk , Zuko isn't about to actually ask Aang what's wrong. Instead, he gets to wait through the silence as it slowly grates on his nerves, until Aang finally speaks.

"I can't stop thinking about it," he starts, his voice thick with something heavy and dismal. "If the waterbenders found us even a couple minutes later, you would've..."

Zuko's still not a fan of the idea that Aang would be so distraught if he died, but he knows it's an honest reaction. Aang’s too good of a person to not care. It's stupid, in Zuko's opinion, because they're enemies, but he doesn't say anything. For once, he's not trying to make things worse. (Worse means tears, and Zuko never knows how to deal with those.)

Instead, he just lets Aang talk. It's a new skill.

"Towards the end, I... I couldn't bend. I was awake, but I was just so tired I couldn't control anything. The healers took you away, and I—" His voice cracks. He swallows once, twice, then continues. "I thought I failed." 

"Why don't you talk to your friends about this?" Zuko means for the words to come out bitter, but they fall short.

Aang shakes his head. "I don't know. I mean, I know they're there for me, but they don't..." He sighs and drops his head into his arms.

The quiet used to be somewhat peaceful. Now, it feels oppressive, keeping them both glued to the ice and stuck in the cold, lest they break it with the sound of movement.

When Aang speaks again, he's mumbling into his sleeve, and Zuko has to strain to hear. "They couldn't feel it."

He has no idea how to respond to that, so he doesn't. He doesn't know how to respond to much these days.

Aang pulls his head up just enough that he's not talking to his sleeve anymore. Zuko kind of wishes he hadn't. "I could feel how hard it was for you to breathe. It wasn't just bending breaths for you. It was forcing air in, then pulling it out, and I could feel your lungs fighting me every time. I could feel where the holes were, where the air was leaking out—"

"I get it!" he finds himself snapping. "I could feel it, too, you know!"

"I know." Aang turns just enough to catch his gaze. "That's why I can't talk to them about it."

Zuko can't help but feel exposed. After all, his suffering became a public affair. His body's failings were spread out before him, then patched together and held in place by someone else's hands. Flesh and blood and organs, so deeply personal that they were nearly impossible to share, were shared. Wrenched away from his own person and cradled by another. Felt and functioned at the command of someone else. 

And at the same time, the inverse was true. Zuko could feel Aang's breath as his own. He could feel the hitches, the laughter, the fatigue. Energy, hesitation, exhaustion; they were all in Aang's breath, and by extension, Zuko's.

For those three days on the back of the bison, Aang and Zuko shared the same set of lungs. A part of someone that just couldn't be shared was.

So yeah. The siblings don't get it. They were never involved.

Zuko gets it because he didn't have a choice.

"It was a stupid plan from the start," he grumbles.

Aang's face falls, like he was expecting something else, and all he got was Zuko.

Tough. All Zuko has to offer is rage and an inability to say the right thing ever. If Aang wanted something else, he shouldn't have chosen Zuko as his midnight crisis partner.

(He tries his hardest not to feel sick over the disappointment in those gray eyes.)

"But what else could I do?"

"I don't know! Doesn't make it any less stupid."

Aang is quiet for a long while, long enough that Zuko thinks the conversation is over, before he mumbles to the ground. "Yeah. It was stupid."

It's just an echo, but hearing Aang say it with that haunted, tired voice of his makes Zuko wonder if he regrets it. He doesn't ask. He can't.

He dreams of Zhao, of the look he has when he sees the swords on his ship. Then he's outside the stronghold, holding them to Aang's neck when an arrow sends him to the ground. He resurfaces, and it's not to a canopy of browning foliage, but to Zhao's laughter.

He wakes to a lemur on his legs.

If the damn lemur won't let go of him long enough for him to escape, then the lemur is escaping too. Zuko doesn't even care anymore. The thing can fly. It can always get off his shoulder and go back to its friends.

It's later than he usually goes. (Or earlier, depending on your perspective.) It's sometime in the early morning, because he's pretty sure they've taken to sleeping light around their usual bedtime in order to catch him leaving. That's what happened last time.

He doesn't try to climb any buildings this time, and he steers away from any paths that block his view of the horizon. The lemur is with him, a silent companion as he steadily trudges through the city, eyes on the distant masts.

He makes it the furthest he ever does with the lemur on his back. That is until the thing screeches and yanks at the hood of the coat he's wearing, flapping towards the direction they came. The pull drags him out of his own thoughts, and he trips over his own feet to fall straight on his ass.

"Fuck!"

The lemur, now calm as can be, just blinks at him from where it sits on the icy ground in front of him. 

While it's not exactly dignified to yell at an animal for being an animal, that's never stopped Zuko before. "What was that?! Why did you do that?!"

The lemur just flicks its tail, sweeping a small dusting of powdered snow into the water behind it.

Water?

In the stillness, the canal looks as smooth as the ice beneath his feet. The water hardly ripples at the lip of the walkway, only a pace away from where he's fallen.

Shit. He almost walked right into the freezing water.

Maybe on a moonlit night, he'd have seen it, but with the snow, tonight is darker than it's ever been. He's really losing his edge.

The lemur blinks again, and Zuko tries to ignore how expectant the look feels. He's not thanking it. Not out loud. Instead, he just plops a gloved hand on its head.

It doesn't seem very appreciative of the gesture, but that's fair enough.

Shaking off his hand, the lemur jumps back up onto his shoulders. Zuko gives himself a moment to rest before dragging himself to his feet and trudging onwards, hyper vigilant of the ground beneath him.

After a good few more minutes of walking, the boats are closer than ever, to the point where he can hear the waves slapping against the swollen wood. He's just got to cross a canal and walk a few more meters before he's out.

There's an elevated bridge a little ways down the path, with spiral steps on either side to allow access. He heads that way.

He's careful to breathe, to not get too excited, because getting to the docks is only the first step. He's not nearly through with this.

It's a good thing, he'll think later, that he didn't let himself get hopeful.

Slick from the falling snow, the ground is extra slippery tonight, so Zuko's not entirely surprised when he steps onto the first stair to the bridge and his foot slips out from under him. The fall isn't as rough as his last, but doesn't need to be. His reaction time is fucked. Walking across the whole city has him exhausted, so when he pitches forward, he doesn't catch himself in time.

Out of all the falls he's had in the past few days, this is the first one that hits square in his chest. The steps up to the bridge jam into his torso painfully, and he's left without any air in his lungs for the second time in the past two nights.

The lemur flies off the second he hits the ground. Where, he does know or care. He's too busy trying to force his lungs back into breathing properly.

Maybe he just happened to fall in the worst possible way. Maybe his tumble off the edge of a building did most of the work, and this was just the last straw. Maybe he put too much faith in the waterbender's healing. Maybe he's been close to tearing himself open every night. Or maybe he's just unlucky.

Either way, when he finally breathes in, there's a crackle in his lungs.

He's so fucking tired of this.

When he props himself up and scoots back to lean against a wall, he tells himself that he's tired, and that's why he's giving up on this attempt. Even though he can see the boats from where he sits. Even though he can hear them jostling on the waves from here. He's just tired.

Predawn light filters through the sails before him. Watching the boats bob on the water, blood in his lungs crackling with each breath, he waits for them to find him.

The sun breaks over the horizon at the same time the lemur returns, plopping into Zuko's lap as he chokes down another cough.

Sokka's voice filters in at his right. "You tried to steal our lemur?!"

Zuko grits his teeth and cracks his eyes open.

The dumb thing is still on his lap. Katara looks entertained by this, like their pet taking a liking to their enemy is cute and not a problem.

Sokka, on the other hand, is appropriately outraged. "Momo! Come here!"

The lemur chatters good-naturedly, and doesn't.

Katara, not nearly as offended by the response as her brother, quirks her lips into a smile. "At least he made a good alarm system." Her tone switches to doting as she bends over to ruffle the lemur's fur. "Are you playing guard for us? Yeah?"

The lemur chatters traitorously. It sounds exactly the same as a normal chatter, but it comes with Zuko feeling betrayed.

(That's unfair, a distant part of him thinks. The lemur's tattling tendencies are the reason they even found him this fast. And he was waiting for them to find him.)

Aang's the only one unconcerned by the lemur. He's got his eyes on the docks, barely even a few dozen feet from where Zuko's slumped on the ground. Brow drawn together, Aang slides his worried gaze back to him.

"Zuko?"

Zuko clenches his jaw hard enough that it creaks, and he can feel a headache spreading across his skull. Slowly, he pulls his hand out of his lap, presenting his palm to the sky. It's spattered with blood.

Aang and Katara gasp, and he's pretty sure Sokka just says, "Dude, what the fuck," but he can't be sure. Katara jumping into his space with water from the canal at her hands kind of disrupts his listening skills. The lemur flaps over to her shoulders the second her knees hit the ice.

A blob of water soaks into the coat and presses against his chest. He still hasn't gotten used to the strange feeling of stinging cold water mixed with the ease healing brings.

There are quite a few beats of tense silence before Katara looks up, water still held to his chest. She has the faintest smile on her face when she says, "I think the bleeding already stopped on its own."

He could've just left.

Zuko slams his head against the ice wall at his back.

"Hey!" Katara's tone is sharp, maybe a little shocked. She pulls a hand back, the other deftly assuming control of the bubble of water to his chest, only so she can smack him on the shoulder. "Don't do that!"

An indignant squawk escapes him as he pulls away. It didn't hurt, not with the thick coat in the way, but what the fuck? For someone who's scolding him for hurting himself, she has some interesting methods.

Her other hand resumes its position over his chest. "I'm not helping if you give yourself a concussion. Now stay still." The direction is more of a formality; he doesn't plan on going anywhere, nor does he make any motion to. "You're not bleeding, but I don't want to move you until I can heal some of this."

Fair enough. He's not exactly itching to tear his lungs open, despite what they might think.

There's a moment of silence. With the sun's rays breaking over the horizon and the lapping of the not so distant shoreline, Zuko would almost call it peaceful. Until Sokka speaks.

"Well, you almost made it," he observes. "Though I expected you to stop by the market for supplies before hitting the docks. Which is, y'know." He jerks a thumb to his left, away from them and away from the docks.

Oh. Yeah, that probably would've been the smart move.

Aang looks endlessly frustrated. "If you didn't get hurt, would you have even stopped to get food?"

Zuko works his jaw, and otherwise doesn't respond.

Aang throws his hands in the air with a shout. "Why not?! Did you even think this through?"

That's really not the reaction he expected. Yelling and scolding, sure. About the effectiveness of his plans? Not something he'd considered.

"I did!" Zuko bites back. He might not have thought it through well, but he did think it through. He's done nothing but think these past few days.

In an almost comical reversal of their roles, Aang glares down at him. "This can't be how all your plans go! Your planning sucks! I'm really starting to wonder how you even survived chasing me across the world!"

Okay, ouch. He'll admit he's not great at planning, but he's made it this far, hasn't he?

"What did you expect?" Zuko scoffs. "I'm not going to just sit around like some docile prisoner."

"You're not our prisoner, okay?!"

This apparently isn't something they've agreed on, because Sokka hesitates. "Aang—"

He just shakes his head. "I don't care! What was the point of everything we did to get here if you're just going to kill yourself trying to escape?"

The scene reminds him of the first day on the bison, with Aang accusing him of doing things that he's definitely not doing.

"I'm not going to— I just slipped!"

"It's not about just that!" Aang looks desperate and frustrated, an expression that Zuko seems to be very good at putting on his face. "It's everything! Every time you hurt yourself trying to escape, every time you try to stop Katara from healing you, every time you wake up from a nightmare and don't say anything—"

Zuko does not like them having opinions on, or even knowing about, his nightmares.

"It's the fact that you would've sailed off into the ocean without any supplies just to get away from us!"

Of course he's trying to get away from them. It's not like he can just sit here and wait for his own assassination. "What do you expect me to do?!"

"Think!" Aang supplies, jabbing a finger into his own forehead.

"I don't have time for that!"

Aang groans and throws his head back. "That doesn't make any sense!"

"You don't make any sense!"

"Neither do you!"

"You don't know anything about me!"

"Clearly!"

"Okay, guys." Surprisingly, it's Sokka that steps between their shouting match. "Loving the energy here, but maybe we can tone it down. It's only sunrise."

"Sokka's right," Katara says, pushing herself to her feet. She stopped healing at some point while Zuko was preoccupied with shouting. "You're loud enough to wake up the whole neighborhood."

Opposite of their usual positions, it's Aang that has to grit his teeth and breathe. Then, with a much more reasonable volume, he continues.

"Zuko—" He cuts himself off and sighs. It sounds so much like the sighs Uncle gives when he's run out of new words to scold with. "We'll fly you wherever you want to go when you're healed, and then you can keep chasing me and throwing fireballs or whatever—"

Throwing fireballs. He wishes.

"But you've got to stop trying to leave," Aang stresses. He looks desperate, maybe a little hurt by his own words.

His words may have held some comfort under normal circumstances. If Aang says he'll let him go, Zuko believes him. (He hates that he believes him.) But it doesn't matter what Aang does. Zhao's still coming, and Zuko has to be gone before he does, because if not...

He looks away, and Aang pulls a choked whine from the back of his throat.

"What do we have to do to convince you you're safe with us?" he asks.

It's not about them, that's the issue. And he can’t tell them why, because it's not something where he can twist and dodge around technicalities like every other instance.

Every other instance, he's found some justification, some work around. Most of the time, it's ranking his mission above all else, even though he knows that's not right. But it doesn't hurt anyone if he's warping technicalities, not really. Except maybe Zhao, but fuck Zhao.

Even as a banished prince, his people should come first. Violating his banishment and personally fucking over Zhao on his quest for the Avatar, those are things he can reasonably say don't affect his people. The average paddy farmer doesn't care if he's running around in Fire Nation waters or stealing Zhao's thunder. They do care if their child never comes home because he told the enemy to expect them. These are secrets that get people killed.

Maybe if Aang was more hostile, he could claim duress. Tortured into revealing military secrets. (Katara did jam her finger into his chest days ago. Does that count?) But the Fire Nation is pretty fucking clear about how they view people who talk, torture or no. Anyone with even a spark of honor would welcome death sooner than they would reveal national secrets.

He doesn't have any honor. Maybe that's how he'll spin this one.

This time, Zuko bites his tongue, because his teeth ache.

When they toss him back into bed and try to run off for the healer, he gets about as close to begging as he can. That is to say, his voice pitches higher than he means, and he peppers in some bonus swearing when he asks them not to. "Asks" is a relative term.

"I don't need the fucking healer!"

"You hurt yourself badly enough to reopen something after days of healing!" Katara argues. "You need the healer!"

"You already healed me yourself!"

"I'm not an expert, Zuko! Yagoda was your surgeon; she needs to know!"

"No, she doesn't!"

"She's gonna find out during today's healing session anyway. I'd rather not get chewed out with you because I didn't get her right away!"

"Too bad."

Katara drops her head into her hands with a tired sigh, then snaps, "Why are you always like this?"

Good question. Zuko just glowers at her.

She pulls her head up and glares back. "I'm still telling Yagoda."

"Telling me what?"

Zuko's stomach drops into his lap. The healer hurries in from the doorway, Aang at her tail. During his squabble with Katara, Zuko hadn't even realized he'd left. Sneaky brat.

"We found him coughing up blood," Aang remarks none too kindly. He still has an edge to his tone that Zuko isn't used to.

The healer settles immediately into a physical inspection, and Zuko spends the entire time glaring at Aang.

Aang just glares back.

As they knew would happen, the healer tears into each of them for it. Zuko for prancing around on the ice (her words), and everyone else for letting him do it. And as Zuko knew would happen, he feels like he wants to evaporate on the spot. He can hardly deal with Uncle's scolding sometimes. It's worse when he doesn't even have the familiarity to know when he can vent his anger and when he'd better just shut up and listen for his own sake.

This one feels like the latter.

"I don't know what's going on between you four, but you can all put it aside long enough for Lee to heal," she snaps, her tone commanding.

Zuko feels his cheek twitch, only sneering for a grand total of a half second, but it's enough for the healer to hone back in on him.

"This is no laughing matter," she bites. "Do you want permanent lung damage? Because this is how you get it."

He doesn't let himself outwardly react to that, but a drop of ice slides down his spine. He glares at his lap.

"You stay here," the healer continues. "And you rest. I am not opposed to drugging you if I have to."

Zuko refuses to meet her gaze.

After that, he's under watch constantly. There is no moment to slip out anymore, not when they're back to sleeping in shifts and the lemur has officially turned against him. He considers just trying to walk out numerous times, but everyone gets twitchy when he so much as stands now.

(It's mostly Aang. Aang won't stop staring at him.)

He almost runs while they stare him down, just to see what they'd do.

Aang does something weird. Aang always does weird stuff, but this one takes the cake.

That evening, after he's cooled off and fallen back into the Aang everyone's used to, he leaves a bag with Zuko's boots and gloves, intentionally wedged behind them so it's blocked by the legs of his boots. He doesn't say a thing, just promptly turns to help Katara with dinner.

The disregard makes Zuko wonder if the bag really is for him, much less if he's allowed to look inside. But curiosity gets the better of him, so he slowly moves to scoop it up.

No one reacts. Sokka is busy whittling another poor piece of wood into submission, Katara is completely absorbed in the stew she's prepping, and Aang is helping her cut the vegetables, back turned to him.

Gently, Zuko pulls the drawstring loose and peers inside.

It's rations. Dried foods and miscellaneous supplies, all neatly packed away. Probably good for months if they're stored properly. And, wedged between cloth wrapped supplies and tucked to the side of the bag—

Is his dagger.

He has no idea what to do with that.

"Are you... okay?" Sokka asks the next morning.

Zuko has no idea where the question came from, so he gives a weird look in response.

Then there's a finger in his face. "See? That!" Sokka sounds perturbed. "What is that? Why aren't you talking? Are your lungs okay?"

He bats the finger away and scowls. "My lungs are fine."

"Then fucking use them," Sokka whines.

Zuko glares, and refuses to.

"Are you doing okay?" Katara asks that evening.

Zuko's starting to get sick of their questions.

"It's just, you look tired. How much are you actually sleeping?"

Not much. It's hard when every nap ends with him gasping for breath.

"You're not in pain, are you? Or is it the dreams? I'm sure there's some medicine that could help," she offers, because she's too kind not to.

He doesn't respond.

"I can't help if you don't let me, Zuko."

So he won't let her.

"Zuko?" Aang asks that night.

Zuko's learned his Avatar-isms by now, and he knows what that one means.

No, he's not okay.

Zuko clenches his teeth and bites his tongue until it bleeds.

There's no reason it should be any different this time, no reason that he should react any worse. He should wake up with a jerk, or a gasp, or maybe even a fitful shout. There's no reason for this.

He wakes up choking, and he doesn't know why.

There's pressure bearing down on his chest, just like before, and he's halfway convinced he's back on the bison. He can see ice walls around him, can see the edges of his bed, but they don't register. It feels like he's still flying north. The shrapnel in his chest burns, and his lungs strain against it.

He hears Aang, sees him hovering like he does. "Zuko, I need you to breathe with me, okay?"

No. No, he's not doing that again. He can't be back there. He can't. All he can do is frantically shake his head and choke. He can't breathe.

"Yes, you can! In and out, see? One, two..."

He can't. His head is spinning, his heart is in his ears, and it's happening again. His lungs are broken, and there's no helping him this time.

"Zuko, please! I don't know what to do!"

A panicked whine reaches his ears, jumping with frantic breaths, and it takes him a moment to realize he's the source. His vision turns grainy, and the world around him sounds like it's underwater.

Then he feels his lungs press against air they didn't draw in, folding and expanding as guided by an outside force. It's steady, and fear grips him. He can feel his blood racing through his veins, completely contrary to the even pace of his lungs.

He can't do this again.

Zuko doesn't think. He just reacts. He shouts, he jolts, and he bends. It all happens in a second.

In a sweeping arc, flames erupt from his hands, and he already knows it's dangerous before he feels the burn. You don't bend when you don't have control. That's rule fucking one of firebending. That's how people get hurt.

Around him, he hears panicked yelps and scrambling feet on the furred floor. He feels the skin on his hands sizzling in the heat of his own flames.

Then he's doused in freezing water, and the world jerks back into startling clarity.

He's panting, soaked in his bed, and surrounded by Aang, Katara, and Sokka. They're all standing a few steps back, looking startled and maybe a little concerned. While Katara and Sokka are poised for action, Aang just looks upset.

None of them look hurt. That's something, at least.

Unfortunately for him, the concern on their faces isn't just a trick of the light. They're staring at him, at his hands, like they have a reason to be worried. He's not going to start throwing flames again, so what...?

Burns. His palms are shiny and red, shadows of the flames coiling up his fingers and around his knuckles. It's not the worst, as far as burns go. There's no charring, no breaks, no skin sliding off of muscle. He's had worse.

Doesn't mean it isn't concerning. It's worse than his little mishap on the first night he tried to leave. Probably can't be left alone like that one.

Aang's warbling voice wedges itself between his own too rapid breaths. "Sorry, sorry..."

What is he apologizing for? He's not the one who burned him. Zuko did that to himself.

His own fire. What is wrong with him?

His hands are shaking. His whole frame is shaking. The panic may have lost its grip on his senses, but it hasn't let him go. He can feel his chest jerking, his eyes and nose sting, and...

Damn it.

The tears come, and there's no stopping them. A strangled wail makes it halfway up his throat before he smothers it, folding at the waist to bury his face in his knees. His hands sting, crushed between his chest and his legs, but he figures he deserves that much. You don't bend without control. He knows this.

His chest heaves, jumping in quick succession as he breathes out. He tries to keep silent, just choking on air and tears and not letting his throat make a sound, because at least then maybe he can pretend he's just breathing heavily. At least then he can wipe the tears away before someone sees. He can tell himself it's just anger. Anger is easier. Anger doesn't hurt.

There's a tentative hand on his shoulder, and Zuko feels that familiar rage bubble in his gut. It strangles him, makes him feel just as uncontrolled as his panic, but he relishes the fact that rage doesn't look like weakness.

He should shrug them off, or yell at them, or something, but he can't move. The tears paralyze him, like they tend to do, and his rage is left to sputter in his throat. He chokes on it, loud and wet in the silence of the ice house.

Kicking and screaming does him no favors. It pushes away anyone who tries to help and leaves him to fight alone. But he doesn't have to deal with pity, how those looks twist in his gut and remind him that no amount of raging can hide how pathetic he truly is.

They already pity him.

He just wants them to leave. To back off with a sour look and some choice words about his attitude, like everyone else does. But he can't move, so he can't force them away.

The water covering him and the blankets starts to bunch up into larger bubbles—some of his tears do, too, and that's not unnerving at all—before it's finally pulled away, leaving him dry. More tears squeeze from his eyes anyway, doing their best to keep him soaked.

"Zuko." Katara's voice breaks through the quiet, through his strangled gasps. (Too wet to just be gasps.) "Can I see your hands?"

No.

He grits his teeth together, and they can probably hear the way it shifts his breathing, air suddenly whistling through teeth. The motion to clench his fists goes abandoned when the raw skin of his fingers creaks. It stings, and if anyone knows about burns, it's Zuko. Burns on a high contact area like the hands shouldn't be ignored. That's how you get complications. Infections. Scars.

It's not like they're going to let it go anyways. They already saw the burns. They already know. He's too tired to fight their kindness this time. Maybe tired isn't the right word, but he doesn't know what is.

Whatever the right word is, it's not a proactive one. He doesn't move on his own, but he doesn't shake off the hand on his shoulder that gently pushes him up. What he does do is school his expression and choke down his erratic breathing into something forcibly managed.

His mind takes a step back, and he's left feeling too detached to even properly be embarrassed. He just picks a distant point at the edge of the bed and stares, and he lets the world happen around him.

They don't comment on the tear stains down his cheeks or the periodic hitch in his breath where his lungs protest the forced calm. They don't comment, but there's no way they don't notice. Zuko would never be that lucky.

Katara slips her fingers around his wrists and maneuvers his hands forward. There's a moment of stillness where she's probably inspecting the burns, but he isn't quite sure. His targeted gaze doesn't give him any view of her face. Whatever she's thinking, she keeps it to herself as she bends water to his hands. A blue glow meets the orange haze of the low fire in the room.

He should apologize, he thinks distantly. Not that they aren't used to him throwing fire at them, but this is different. A controlled flame is dangerous, yes, but it's predictable. It's something he can stop if he needs to. And despite his anger, despite the requirements of combat, he never had any intention of burning any of them. He's not looking to hurt, just to subdue. If something did catch, or a bolt of fire did strike home, he could control it, dissolve it on impact so no heat would linger to make it worse.

That was not control. That was dangerous, downright irresponsible. He's not even sure if he could quell a fire right now if his flames found their own fuel source. 

There's still a hand on his back, he realizes. Aang's hand. He can feel the warmth through his shirt, and he swears it burns.

If his entire body wasn't creaking under lockdown, Zuko's pretty sure he'd be shaking. Maybe he is, and he just can't feel it.

Katara's the one to break the stillness. "What..." A frown is obvious in her voice. "I mean... Burns aren't normal, right?"

She's looking for an answer, but Zuko hasn't even gotten to unsticking his gaze, nevermind a nod or shake of the head.

"Can't be," Sokka mumbles, voice further away than his sister's. "The amount of firebenders we've fought—The amount of times we've fought Zuko—We'd have noticed."

"So what happened?"

The amount of genuine concern in her voice just makes Zuko mentally retreat further. His breath catches again, jumping in his chest. 

Then Aang inhales, fingers tense on his back like he's finally figured it out. "Firebending comes from the breath."

Zuko clenches his jaw. At least he can move that much.

Aang continues into the silence. If there was something from the siblings to prompt that, Zuko missed it. "The breathing exercises Jeong Jeong had me do, those were... This is why. If you can't breathe right..."

Good to know they're all piecing together his failures in front of him.

Katara's voice sounds strangled. "So, what? He just can't bend?"

"Not safely," Aang says. His tone lingers, like he's hoping for confirmation, or denial, or any reaction at all, but Zuko's too stuck to give one.

They're right. He can't bend, or he shouldn't. Not yet. Not without relearning the breath control he's lost first. Not without singing his own skin in the meantime.

"But that's just cuz you're hurt," Sokka reasons. He's got an edge to his tone that makes him sound uncertain. "Once you're healed up, you'll be spitting fireballs in no time."

Zuko isn't so sure. This feels different. His lungs creak like the hull of his ship, and he has a sneaking suspicion he's going to need to relearn how to breathe with something foreign interrupting his natural means of flame control—how to breathe with metal.

Learning to breathe properly on instinct takes months, if not years. He's back at square one. Back in the palace, watching Azula master a bending kata that he still breathes wrong through, that he still trips on while attempting. She wouldn't have to relearn to fucking breathe, would she? She'd just figure it out.

No one fights Sokka's assessment. It makes sense, and Zuko isn't the type to advertise his shortcomings.

The ice house falls into silence, the only sounds of the fire and Zuko's blood rushing through his ears. Katara holds her water over his hands, not even an inch away from touching as she heals. 

Zuko still can't tear his gaze from the corner of the bed. Can't do anything but sit, still as a stone, even as he becomes aware of the little discomforts around him. His eyes itch from the tears. His chin tickles from drops that haven't quite fallen. His legs are too warm under the blankets, and his shoulders are too cold, and Aang's hand on his back burns, and Zuko just stares.

The hand shifts, but doesn't leave. Just an unconscious move as Aang breathes and prepares to break the silence.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

He really doesn't.

Beyond the indignities of talking about his nightmares with people like them, what's he supposed to say? How is he supposed to explain that dream? It's not like the other dreams. Nothing even happened. He just felt the rise and fall of his chest, the steady cadence of his lungs expanding, and his fucked up brain mistook subconscious for involuntary.

How's he supposed to explain that he's afraid of breathing?

When Zuko doesn't offer any reaction, Aang lets out a shaky breath.

"Sorry."

That makes no sense. Zuko slowly angles his head towards Aang's voice, nowhere near looking up. In his paralysis, it feels like a greater move than it is. He swears he can hear his spine creaking.

"For bending," Aang continues. "I shouldn't have... I mean, you were panicking, and I thought... I didn't think..."

Oh. Yeah, that is what happened, isn't it? That forced calm in his lungs wasn't imagined. He didn't just throw flames around for no reason.

Except it was for no reason. Aang was just trying to help, and it would be unfair to say that it didn't work. Maybe not according to plan, but it broke him out of his panic—

By forcing a break. What the fuck is he thinking? Intentions be damned, Aang can't just do that. He can't just steal other people's breaths because they aren't right. Zuko knows he can't breathe right anymore, and he knows he was about to pass out without intervention, but his lungs aren't public fucking property—

"I'm really sorry, Zuko."

His anger sputters, a flame dying in its own smoke.

Katara finally pulls the water away from his hands. Just by the feel of the open air on them, he can tell the burns are practically gone.

What a fucking joke he is. The burns, the breathing, the nightmares. When Zhao shows up, he'll be dead meat.

He's running out of time, but he's nowhere near healed enough to convince them to fly him out, and every escape attempt collapses under his own ineptitude. He needs to leave, but he's stuck in bed, burned by his own fire, sick to his stomach by his own breathing, and— He can't protect himself like this.

They care about his life, right? They spent the past week proving it. That has to mean something. So when Zhao shows up, there's no way they'll just let him die. Right?

(He's an honorless coward.)

He breaks.

"Zhao's coming." The words sound distant, like they're not his own. "With a fleet."

There's a beat, then Sokka curses and bolts to the exit, undoubtedly off to wake someone important. Aang and Katara remain with him, but the air has shifted.

Zuko's left doing mental flips to try and figure out how maybe, maybe that wasn't betraying his people. He lands flat on his proverbial face.