Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There's a junkyard neighboring Uncle's new place, ugly silhouettes of crushed-up cars and scrap piles blocking the sunset above the wooden privacy fence. Weeds cover the rotting wood, spilling out of the seams between boards. There's a perfect view of it from Zuko's second-story bedroom window; how lucky, he thinks, to live somewhere that so perfectly encompasses everything he feels about this new life.

"Fresh start, my ass," he mutters to himself, pulling up a strand of ivy that turns out to cling to the fence for another twenty feet. The smell of the plant is overpowering, and he chucks it on the growing pile of weeds behind him with disgust. Dirt from the roots sticks to his skin with humidity, making him feel grubby and sticky all over.

He looks at the work he's done so far. Looks at what he still has to do. Sighs. He's going to be here forever.

"If Dad could see me now," he grumbles, smacking a mosquito on his arm and getting back to work. "Proud of me yet, Mom? I haven't forgotten who I am. Not that it's done me any good."

"You know, you shouldn't talk to yourself out loud. People will get the wrong idea."

Zuko looks around. The voice came from behind the fence, but —

"GAH!" he snatches his hand off the wood, staring at the brown eye peering at him through a gap in the fence. It disappears, and a moment later a brown, sunkissed face pops up over the fence, wiry arms propping up a lanky frame wrapped in unseasonable flannel. The boy grins shamelessly, an unlit cigarette between his teeth. His dark eyes watch Zuko from underneath a mop of brown hair.

"Looking like an insane person isn't much of a first impression," he says, which is fucking rich coming from a guy who was just watching Zuko through his fence. "What brings you to the neighborhood, psycho?"

"It's Zuko," Zuko snaps. "And it's none of your business." He turns back to his work, hoping the boy will get the hint and leave him alone.

No such luck. The boy swings his legs, clad in faded blue jeans and a pair of ancient motorcycle boots, over the top of the fence, dropping onto the ground next to Zuko. "I'm Jet."

He says it like Zuko should know who he is. Like he's that important. Zuko used to think that way, before the world showed him exactly how little he mattered. 

"You with the old guy who came by last week to check out the house?" Jet asks, dusting off his fingerless leather gloves. Zuko grunts an affirmation, hacking at the base of an ivy stem with a trowel. "He seems nice. Your grandpa or something? Helping him get settled in?"

"Uncle." Zuko throws the tangle of vines on the pile, wiping sweat from his forehead. "I live with him. Are you gonna help out, or what?"

"Afraid I wouldn't be much help." Jet looks down at the pile of weeds. "I'm, uh, allergic."

It's a crap lie, but Zuko's past caring. "Well, I'd like to get this done before it's dark."

"Oh, say no more. I'll get out of your hair," Jet says. "Nice to meet you, Zuko. I'll see you around."

He waves, jaunty and cheerful, and climbs back over the fence. Zuko rolls his eyes. Douchebag. He gets back to work tugging vines off the fence, and tries to ignore the feeling of being watched that lingers even after Jet's footsteps fade out of earshot.

"The fence is cleared off," Zuko announces when Uncle comes in, without looking up from the sink. He's scrubbing the dirt out from under his nails, the water at the bottom of the sink turning browner than it already was from the rust in the pipes.

"Excellent work, Nephew. I'm grateful for the help," Uncle Iroh says, lowering himself into a seat at the table.

"Some weird kid came over from the junkyard next door. Jet," Zuko says.

"Ah. I did not know we had any younger neighbors," Uncle says cheerfully "I hoped you would make some friends here."

Zuko scoffs under his breath. "Right."

"It would do you some good to have company your own age," Uncle goes on. "It's not healthy to be around an old geezer like me all the time."

"Your company is fine." Zuko shuts off the sink, drying his hands on a paper towel since they haven't gotten the linens unpacked yet, and throwing it in the compost bin Uncle dragged with them — For the tea garden, as if they'll have any time for planting. Zuko starts school in a week, and the last thing he wants to deal with in his spare time is more plants.

"Although that is true, I'm sure it would be easier settling in at a new school with someone to show you around."

"I'll think about it," Zuko lies. He will certainly not think about it. "I'm going to bed. Good night, Uncle."

"Good night, Zuko. Rest well."

Zuko rolls his eyes as he climbs the stairs. In this place? Fat chance.

He looks out the window at the junkyard fence. There's no sign of Jet; he must have fucked off home for the night, having had his fill of harassment. Zuko drops onto his mattress, and tries to rest.

It storms that night, tree branches beating against the house until the wee hours. When Zuko gets up in the morning, the weeds he piled up the day before are strewn around the yard. He spends the morning gathering them, and walks to the end of the drive to dump them at the edge of the junkyard. Mercifully, there's no sign of Jet or any other talkative neighbors.

With ample time and nothing to do, he decides to unpack. The linens go in the old white chest of drawers in the corner of the kitchen; the plates and bowls go in the cabinet over the sink. Uncle's favorite tea set is carefully put away in the old-fashioned china cabinet in the dining room. Before long, the place almost looks like you could live in it.

He walks around the yard again, looking for the tree that kept him up half the night. It's a tall, sturdy oak, with a fork in the trunk at about chest height. There's a bird's nest situated in the fork, three perfect blue eggs resting inside. He snaps a picture with his phone.

He also finds a gap in the fence between Uncle's yard and the junkyard. That, he thinks, would explain the weird feeling he got last night, if Jet was still hanging around there. He picks up the fallen board to wedge it back in place. Before he closes the gap, he spots a flash of color on the other side, lying on the dead grass. Propping the board against the fence, he squeezes through the gap to inspect the object.

It's a set of old car keys, he realizes, rusted and bent, on a bright red braided keychain, a cluster of cheap monogram charms hanging off the end. He imagines the driver was probably someone's mom, probably with a ton of kids. There's probably a thirty-year-old minivan somewhere in the junkyard missing its keys.

Zuko fights the urge to pocket the keys, even if no one will miss them. He doesn't need them, and it was his sticky fingers that got him kicked out of his last school — even though it wasn't his fault his teacher had left the office unlocked, the test answers right there — and, honestly, a couple packs of gum and cigarettes from the gas station weren't that big a deal. But he's trying to change, for Uncle Iroh, so he drops the keys back on the ground.

He hears the crunch of gravel as Uncle's car pulls in the driveway, and steps back into the yard, replacing the broken board.

The week goes by quicker than Zuko expects, his time mainly consumed by yard work as he figures out how to work the push-mower in the garage and the weedeater in the decrepit shed out back. He spots Jet once, hanging out on the sidewalk when he's dragging trash to the curb, but he only nods in greeting as Zuko's passing by, before returning to blowing smoke rings at the sky. Zuko's weirdly disappointed; much as he told Uncle he didn't care, he isn't used to the quiet of the suburbs. In their old apartment, you couldn't step out to smoke without the elderly tenants harassing you for a game of checkers or commenting on the weather. Here, people nod from the sidewalk.

Uncle takes him back-to-school shopping after dinner one night, and the day before school starts, Zuko sits with him at the table and helps plant herbs in a small window box. Uncle drives him to school in the early morning; it's pouring rain, hot and muggy, when he climbs out of the car.

"Have a good day at school," Uncle Iroh says.

"Thanks," Zuko replies, holding his hoodie over his head so he won't get drenched. "Be careful driving home."

Uncle smiles. "Of course, Nephew."

He drives off, going a good five miles under the speed limit. Zuko's not exactly worried about him.

He turns to look at the school building, sighing. Here goes nothing.

Zuko's homeroom is on the second floor, with a view of the soggy football field from the window in view of his desk; right at the front of the classroom so he can see the blackboard, and so the teacher — a wizened man named Mr. Jeong — can keep an eye on him.

To his right, a girl named Suki Yokoya, with freckles, big golden hoop earrings and a green muscle shirt, studiously copies paragraphs from the history book. To his left, a boy with dark skin and a ponytail named Sokka Enuaraq folds paper airplanes with his notebook pages — which were already covered in notes when Zuko arrived, five minutes late after he got turned around in the halls. The airplanes are rather good, but Mr. Jeong doesn't seem impressed, giving Sokka a marvelous stink-eye from behind his desk.

"Ahem." Someone taps on Zuko's shoulder from behind; a bright-eyed girl with twin braids — Jin, he thinks her name was — gives him an apologetic look.

"Can I borrow a pencil?" she whispers. "I forgot mine. Sorry."

"It's fine." He hands her his pencil — Uncle sent enough extras with him that he won't miss it. "Here you go."

"Thanks." She smiles, glancing at Mr. Jeong before leaning in. "You're new here, right?"

He nods. "Yeah."

"Song said someone moved in next to the old scrapyard across from her place."

"Yeah, that's me," he says.

"What do you think so far?" she asks, playing with the end of her braid.

"It's nice." He shrugs. "Some weird neighbors."

"Ah, you've met Aunt Wu?"

"No, but there's —"

"Mr. Huo, Ms. Yu, if you cannot contain yourselves I will separate you," Mr. Jeong warns. "Return to your study."

Jin grimaces, pulling her notebook towards herself and flipping it open. Zuko turns around, digging out his spare pencil.

"So you're in the junkyard house?" Suki Yokoya asks him over lunch. For some reason she, Jin, Sokka, and another girl named Song all decided to cluster together at the same table as Zuko. "Song says she saw you moving in."

Song is a pretty girl with big eyes and dark hair in a braid. Out of the four, she's so far the one he's caught looking at his scar the most.

"People say that place is haunted," Suki continues with a grin, shoving a handful of chips in her mouth from the bag of Bugles she brought in, then offering it to Sokka. "Bunch of kids died in some big accident out front of it like, a zillion years ago."

"Ignore her. She tells every new kid their place is haunted," Sokka says, passing the bag on to Song so he can perfect the wings of his paper airplane. "She's full of shit."

"Well, it's creepy for sure," Zuko concedes. "There was this guy hanging around, Jet? He looked about our age. He seemed...weird."

"I don't think I know a Jet," Jin says with a frown. "Maybe he's a senior, though, I don't really know all of them."

Suki grins. "Or maybe you found a real gh-gh-ghooost." She wiggles her fingers in the air, wavering her voice. Zuko rolls his eyes.

"Knock it off, Suki," Sokka says, sharing a look with Zuko like Can you believe this?

Maybe, Zuko thinks, living here won't be so shitty after all.

When the bus drops him off at the house, it's still pouring. In spite of this, he spots Jet coming up the sidewalk, flannel tied around his waist and showing off a baggy black t-shirt. From the look of him, he's unbothered by the rain, his wavy almost-mullet still defying gravity despite being soaked.

Zuko also spots the exact moment Jet spots him, because he grins and flicks his cigarette butt out into the road. Zuko cringes with chagrin; he really didn't want a conversation out in the rain.

"Hey, Psych! School start already?" 

"Yeah. Where have you been?" Zuko asks, more accusingly than he means, though Jet doesn't look fazed. "Didn't see you there."

"What, you think a high-society individual such as myself would slum it at a public school?" Jet clutches his heart, mock-offended, and digs another cigarette out of his pocket with the other hand. "I was busy. Didn't have time to get to school. You got a light?"

"Sure." Zuko fishes his lighter out of his pocket. "Busy doing what?"

"Thought you wanted me to fuck off and leave you alone," Jet says, lighting his cigarette, and blows out a cloud of smoke. Any smell is drowned out by the smell of the rain. "Now you're interested in what I'm doing?"

"So only you're allowed to be nosy?" Zuko counters. "Forget this. I'm going home."

"Fuck you too," Jet says, almost pleasantly. "I was just making conversation."

Zuko rolls his eyes. Whatever.

It's not until he gets inside the house that he realizes he didn't get his lighter back. When he looks out the window, Jet's gone already.

"Well, fuck."

School gets easier as he settles in a routine, learns names and room numbers and how to stay on the asshole gym teacher's good side. He still doesn't see Jet in school, but figures Jin was right, and Jet's in some other grade or lesson plan.

He hangs out in the junkyard a little bit on weekends, watching Jet tinker with the engine of a pickup truck that he swears only needs a little spit and polish before it'll run, and becomes somewhat endeared to the cussing and rudeness and the loud, off-key singing that happens when Jet's into his work, like he forgets Zuko is even there. And he's not oblivious to the way Jet looks at him when he is aware of Zuko's presence; it makes him feel a little lightheaded.

(He never thinks to ask for his lighter back. After a while, he doesn't care so much.)

After a while, Zuko starts to feel almost normal about living here.

That is, until October begins, bringing mercifully dry, cool weather and the smells of dying leaves and overripe apples from Aunt Wu's yard. 

"Come on, Sokka, are we going to Zuko's Uncle's swanky tea shop, or what?" Suki asks, twisting the strings of her pine-green hoodie around her fingers.

"Hang on," Sokka says, pushing open the door to the school library. "I need to get these books out before fall break, it'll just be a minute."

Suki shares a look with Zuko, rolls her eyes, and follows Sokka inside.

"Come on. When he says 'a minute' he means twenty." She beckons Zuko over to a shelf. "Here, check this out. These old yearbooks are a better history lesson than anything Mr. Jeong teaches."

She picks up the Senior Class of 1975 — Donated by K. Enuaraq yearbook, and opens it to the tawny inside cover, cluttered with black marker signatures like graffiti.

Unlike Mr. Jeong's class, Zuko doesn't have to pretend to look interested as Suki turns the pages to show him the asshole gym teacher's dorky haircut.

"No wonder he's such a dick when his parents sent him to school like that," Zuko murmurs, pulling another book off the shelf. This one's a lot more recent — Junior Class of 2006, to be exact, donated anonymously, and unmarked. He opens it to a random page, expecting similar things to the '75 yearbook; unfortunate haircuts, tacky clothes, braces.

Instead, he finds a familiar face looking back at him — the same curly hair, dark skin, black eyes, pierced ears. He's wearing a plain black Henley and leather jacket in the picture, but it's still, unmistakably, the very same person Zuko spoke to not two days ago when he was taking out the trash.

"Suki?" he says. "What—?"

"Hey guys, I got my books. Let's go," Sokka interrupts, shouldering his bag.

"C'mon." Suki takes the yearbook from Zuko's hands, putting it back in the shelf. "We're gonna miss the bus, and I am not walking, no matter how good your uncle's tea is."

She and Sokka lead the way out of the library, and Zuko follows, trying to act like he's fine and that his understanding of the world didn't just turn on its head.

"Hey," Jet calls, when Zuko gets back to the house. He's back in the flannel today, open to show the t-shirt underneath. When it's not pouring rain, the faded Nirvana logo is a lot more visible. He has a lit cigarette in his hand — no smell, the wisps of smoke vanishing in the air above his head rather than fading away. How did Zuko not realize?

"Hello? Earth to Zuko." Jet waves his hand. "What's eating you?"

Zuko's unable to form a response, so he doesn't. Instead, he goes inside the house, making a beeline for his room.

He opens his laptop on the bed, hesitating over the keyboard. Jesus Christ, what do you Google when you think your maybe-friend has actually been dead since before you were born?

Tentatively, he types in jet andal corvo county obituaries and filters to results before 2009. Nothing comes up. Zero results on FindAGrave either. There's a tentative hope that maybe he's wrong and it's just a bizarre coincidence — the guy would be old enough to have kids of his own by now, god knows Zuko looks enough like his own dad for it to be confusing if he didn't have the scar —

Then he finds a news article. Corvo County Teen Missing. He clicks on it, clicks out of the join for free subscription box, and reads.

When school resumed after the end of fall break on October 16th, teachers were not initially alarmed by the unexcused absence of high school junior Jet Andal in the classrooms. Andal's attendance record was described as "patchy", and him being absent was no cause for concern. However, after two days without Andal's attendance, Corvo High Principal Yukari Yokoya contacted Andal's foster family, and was informed that he had not been present at the house since two days after fall break began. The family have been trying to reach Andal through his cell phone since, but had no luck, and reported him missing to the police department on Friday. No word yet on whether foul play is suspected, but Officer Long Feng at the Corvo County Police Department offered this opinion:

"We see this all the time. A kid that age gets rebellious, decides to run away, realizes how good he has it at home and comes running back. He'll be back in no time."

Anyone who has information on the whereabouts of Jet Andal can contact the police department through the website at -

Zuko closes the article without reading the rest, holding his breath, and searches for any follow-ups. The only thing he finds is an update saying Jet's vehicle was found abandoned in an alley, there had been no further leads, and the case was still open as of December 2006. After that...

After that, nothing but speculation on message boards, and Zuko will be damned before he trusts true crime buffs with anything, but...

He sighs. What other choice does he have? Biting the bullet, he clicks on the top Reddit thread.

r/UnsolvedCrime 5y. ago
u/backupjunebug
Re: Corvo County missing teen Jet Andal, possible connection?

Anyone remember this case from 2006? I went to school with that kid. Always thought it was weird how the cops never really investigated far into it, and how the family didn't really push for anything.

Anyway, I was looking at something unrelated and came across this article that set off some alarm bells. Give it a read.

EDIT: the dumb site has it behind a paywall, and fuck that, so here's the gist - body found in the neighboring county around May 2007, bad condition, foul play, time of death the previous fall. No ID ever made, but the guy was around the same age and height, and some personal effects were found that makes it seem more likely in my mind. I don't know, just thought I'd share in case anyone had thoughts on it. To me, it lines up too well to be coincidence.

Edit 2: to the fucknut that keeps commenting all "b-b-but the cops didn't pursue it as a lead-" I will find you and slam your genitals in a car door. fuck cops and their mishandling of cases involving brown, queer poor kids. That shouldn't even be hard to understand.

Edit 3: muting comments and no longer replying. You people are sick.

Archived post. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast.

Zuko scrolls to the comments, scowling at what he finds that hasn't been deleted.

u/ unlqvtu666 3y. ago
Lmao I remember that case too, don't know why you care so much. He wasn't that special.

u/hidenseek 2mo. ago
Some cases don't need to be solved lol, you're thinking too deep about someone who, realistically, OD'd in a back alley.

u/gingerstardust 5y. ago
For fucks sake give it a rest you've been blabbing about this shit since graduation j. the cops did all they could, some people just don't wanna be found. time to move on from your old boy toy. and get a better burner name, there's exactly one june from our grad class.

u/backupjunebug OP 5y. ago
🖕

u/15738393 5y. ago
Give it up. This case was cold as soon as it began. Stop looking for connections where there aren't any; you are not a professional investigator. Do not mess in areas beyond your understanding.

u/bebeabear 1mo. ago
you sound like a cop. L+ratio.

u/kaybatgirl 1mo. ago
tell me you're the murderer without telling me you're the murderer

10 more replies

Zuko sighs and shuts the laptop. Looks out the window, and there's Jet, perched on top of that old truck and breathing smoke out into the air. He glances toward Zuko's window, dark eyes lit by the sunset. Zuko looks away.

"Fuck," he breathes out, pushing his laptop away, and stands up, because there's really only one thing he can do now, no matter how little he wants to do it.

He's gonna have to talk to Jet.

Chapter Text

Jet doesn't look up when Zuko wades through the piles of debris to reach the truck. His eyes stay trained on the rusty bed of the truck, one hand absentmindedly tapping ash off the end of his cigarette. He looks alive enough.

"You gonna talk to me now, or run off again?" he asks, in an irritated, biting tone. "Because I don't know what the fuck I did to you, but where I come from, you don't just act like people don't exist when they're talking to you."

Zuko takes a deep breath. "No, I — I want to talk." It's a lie; he doesn't know how to broach this subject, much less want to. All his attempts at scripting it in his head were too close to Twilight for his comfort.

"Go on, then." Jet finally looks up, flicks more ashes off his cigarette, and takes a drag. "Talk."

Zuko sighs and climbs up into the bed of the truck, sitting on the side. Rust flakes off on his hand when he rests it down, so he keeps his hands in his lap instead.

"You're — you're not supposed to be here."

Jet snorts, gesturing around. "You see any owners? I'm not exactly trespassing."

"No, I mean..." Zuko closes his eyes. "I saw your yearbook picture. You — you haven't looked any different since 2006, and — and you went missing, there were news stories about it. I think you died. A long time ago."

He doesn't see Jet's reaction, but he feels the air change, becoming too still. The humidity clings to him without the breeze wicking it away.

Then Jet wheezes a laugh, and for a moment, Zuko relaxes. It's all just a practical joke, Jet's about to explain it, then they can both laugh about Zuko's gullibility and forget it.

And as he opens his eyes, Jet has his face in his hands, shaking his head. He barks another laugh that, Zuko realizes, sounds completely humorless. Zuko swallows.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I don't know if you knew that, but —"

"Yeah, Zuko, I fucking knew," Jet cuts him off. "That whole thing about how you don't even feel it, that it's like falling asleep? It's bullshit." He stands up, jumping off the cab into the bed of the truck. He lands lightly enough that it doesn't even shake the truck, and stands in front of Zuko. "So? What does it change?"

Zuko opens his mouth, then closes it again, because he doesn't know.

"Can anyone else see you?" he finally asks.

Jet drops onto the other side of the truck bed, pulling out another cigarette. He shrugs his shoulders as he lights it. "You're the first one who's ever talked to me. I don't know if other people don't see me or if they just ignore me."

Zuko tries to imagine that — not talking to anyone for seventeen years. "Are you always here?"

Another shrug. "Kind of."

"Kind of? What does that mean?"

"It means I don't fucking know," Jet says, blowing out a cloud of smoke. "I'm dead, that doesn't make me an expert on it." He waves a hand to clear the smoke out of his face. "I can't leave, if that's what you mean."

"Why not?"

"Just can't. Kind of black out whenever I do."

Zuko frowns. After a moment, he decides to broach the question that's really been on his mind.

"How did you die?"

Jet's expression transforms, his eyes darkening as he pastes on a smile.

"You are full of questions today," he says, with faux lightness, stamping out his cigarette and tucking it behind his ear. "Since we're having a personal Q&A sesh, how'd you get the scar?"

Zuko flinches. Jet leans back, with a vindicated look.

"Sorry," Zuko says, even though he doesn't feel like it.

"You can ask me a lot of questions, but not about that."

So Zuko doesn't ask again, even though the question burns to keep in.

"Are there other —" he hesitates. Ghosts sounds too presumptive when he doesn't know that's what Jet is. "People like you?"

"What, dead?" Jet asks. "Yeah, all over the place."

"No, I mean — Ones who came back," Zuko says, frustrated. Unbidden, he thinks of Lu Ten (of Mom) and a foolish hopeful feeling blooms in his chest. But Jet shakes his head.

"If there are, I've never met them."

Zuko tries to pretend he didn't have his hopes up for a different answer. "Why do you think you stayed, then?"

"Unfinished business or whatever the fuck, I guess." Jet cracks his knuckles, looking off. "I don't know. That's assuming there even is anywhere else, and I'm not just here forever." He waves his hand as if dismissing the thought. "Anyway. I reckon it doesn't matter, I'm here now."

Zuko guesses that's fair enough.

He hears Uncle's car pull in the driveway. Shit. "I didn't realize it was this late. I have to go."

He starts to climb out of the truck bed, but something stops him. He looks down and finds Jet's hand closed around his wrist — there's no warmth of skin on skin or roughness of calluses, though, just cold air and as much resistance as a spiderweb, like if Zuko pulls hard enough his hand might break away entirely. Zuko realizes it's the first time Jet's touched him. Or rather, not touched him.

"You'll come back, right?" Jet asks, his eyes trained on Zuko's face and his voice too steady, like he's trying hard to keep it that way.

"I'll come back," Zuko surprises himself by saying with more sureness than he really feels. He does not feel his heart skip a beat when, as he turns away and Jet lets go of him, he catches a soft, relieved smile on Jet's face.

If Uncle notices anything off about him at dinner, he doesn't say anything. He just offers Zuko extra helpings, and when Zuko leaves them unfinished with a mumbled excuse of needing to sleep, he wishes Zuko a good night in the same amiable way as always.

Zuko lays in his bed, mind turning over and over. What does it change now, knowing what he does?

He thinks about Jet's anger when Zuko asked how he died. How he immediately compared it to Zuko's scar. And yeah, that's on Zuko for asking dumb questions, but it makes him think about that article linked in the Reddit post, the one he didn't read because of the paywall. And fuck it, he can't get to sleep, might as well do more digging.

He pulls up the page on his laptop, clicking through to the article. He enters his card information on the news site, signs up for a free trial that he'll cancel as soon as he finishes the article, and begins reading.

It's...distressing. There are pictures of the site — a ditch on the roadside in the middle of farmland — and an all-too-clear description of the body's condition. Signs of physical trauma and drug use catches his eye in the report. Damage to torso indicated stabbing, bludgeoning. Zuko has always had a vivid imagination, but he wishes he didn't now.

Taking a deep breath, he searches for more information on the case. Dozens of articles come up on the first page. By the time he's read half of them, absorbing all the information he possibly can, it's after midnight and his head is spinning.

He closes the laptop and takes a deep breath. It's too much, and now he knows he's not sleeping, not with that fresh in his mind.

So instead, he gets up, creeps past his uncle's bedroom and down the stairs, and carefully slips out the back door.

The junkyard looks eerie in the moonlight, the wind making the overhanging tree branches whisper against each other. It's cold, and he wishes he brought a jacket.

There's no sign of Jet as he comes up on the truck. He peers through the windows; nothing. Frustrated, he backs away, turning to leave.

"Boo," Jet says, an inch from his face, and Zuko shouts, his back hitting the door of the truck.

"Asshole!" He glares at Jet, who doubles over laughing. "What's wrong with you!"

"Oh, that's a list that'd take a very long time to read out," Jet says, wiping his eyes. He grins at Zuko. "What brings you here?"

"Nothing. Fuck you." Zuko straightens up, tries to look like he didn't almost piss himself. "I'm going home."

"Oh, come on, you just got here!" Jet throws open the door of the truck, gesturing with a flourish. "Your chariot, good sir."

Zuko looks at the piles of junk receipts on the floor, at the dirty floor mats, and the seat covers stained with what's probably spilled pop from before Obama was in office. Maybe even Clinton.

"Come on. I don't bite." Jet smiles, but there's a nervousness in his eyes. Zuko feels bad for hesitating, and reluctantly climbs in. Jet gets in the other side, pulling his feet up on the driver's seat and lighting a cigarette.

"So, what's got you up so late?" he asks. "Nice pajamas, by the way."

Zuko looks down at Lu Ten's old soccer shirt and sweatpants. "Thanks. Um...you, actually."

"Me what?" Jet raises an eyebrow.

"Well — your whole..." Zuko waves a hand. "Disappearance. And then being found, I — it sounded bad, in the police report, and —"

"I wasn't found," Jet says, frowning around his cigarette. "What are you talking about?"

Zuko suddenly has the sinking feeling he got whenever Azula corrected his homework for him. "The...article? That someone shared on — you know about the Internet, right?"

"No, I lived under a fucking rock." Jet snorts. "You can't believe everything you see on there."

"Someone who went to school with you shared it!" Zuko says defensively. He digs out his phone, finds the Reddit thread and holds it out to Jet. Jet raises his hands, refusing.

"I can't use this."

Zuko frowns. "It's fine, you just touch the screen and —"

"No, I mean — I can't touch things. Look." He reaches over, pokes the screen. It doesn't even register his touch. "Dead, remember? Immaterial?"

"Oh." Now Zuko feels really stupid. "Right. Well...look."

He scooches over in the bench seat so Jet can see his phone screen, and scrolls through the Reddit thread. When Jet reaches the comments, he snorts.

"Wow, nice to see I'm just as popular dead as I was alive." He looks up. "But that's not me. I told you, no one ever found me."

"How do you know?" Zuko asks.

He shrugs. "Just a feeling. Like, if I concentrate hard enough, I can still feel where it is."

"And where's that?"

"I'm not sure." Jet takes a cigarette from behind his ear. "It's cold. Dark. Wet. I can't feel it as easily as I used to. Probably not enough of me left anymore."

Zuko tries not to think about that too hard, and wishes he hadn't indulged Song when she wanted to binge-watch Bones last weekend, because he did not need the frame of reference for that mental image.

"Do you think that's why you're still here?" He asks. "Like, your body wasn't buried right, so you can't move on or cross over or whatever?"

"Maybe." Jet shrugs again. "Guess I'll be here a while, then."

Zuko sighs and puts his phone away, leaning back in the seat. He digs a cigarette out of his own pants pocket, then realizes he left his lighter in the house. "So why are you here instead of there?"

"Dunno. By all rights I should've ended up at my foster parents' place, God knows they deserved the haunting." Jet sighs. "But this was my dad's truck, and I guess spent enough time here it counted as home, so..." He gestured around the truck's ragged interior. "Voilà. Two hundred square feet around the truck, give-or-take. And no keys, so I couldn't drive it even if it worked."

"It could be worse," Zuko considers.

"Yeah. And hey, now you're here," Jet smiles. "Does it make you feel special, that you're haunted?"

"I'm already haunted every day," Zuko informs him, ignoring the heat that rises in his face at Jet's intonation of special. "You're just a physical manifestation of it."

"I resent the implication that I'm just anything." Jet lays his seat back, propping his feet up on the steering wheel. "Anyway, what about you? Why do you live with your uncle? Got any other family?"

"My father. And my sister." Zuko hunches forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "I...I disrespected my dad. He said I wouldn't be welcomed back until I learned respect."

"So you're never going back," Jet says bluntly. Zuko glares at him, and he raises his hands in defense. "Sorry. What's your sister like?"

"Perfect." Zuko scoffs. "She always does everything right. Dad would never kick her out." He picks at a loose thread on his pajama pants. "She just turned fourteen. Last time I saw her, she was still losing baby teeth."

"I don't even know how old my kid sister would be," Jet says, looking up at the ceiling. "She was around that age when I died. I..." He was silent for a few moments, then cleared his throat. "I hope she did better after I was gone. Seems like I only ever fucked things up trying to help her."

Zuko doesn't know what to say. He can't imagine Azula needing his help.

"What was she like?" he finally asks.

"She was a brat. Never let me get away with shit." Jet smiles a little. "I had a lot of foster siblings, but she and I'd been through three different group homes together. She was the only one I let tell me what to do. At the time I was —" He cuts himself off, chewing his jaw. His smile is gone when he continues, "The time I died, we were trying to get away from our foster parents. Saving up money, trying to get to the city. Me, her and our foster brother, Longshot."

"Oh." Zuko pulls his knees up to his chest, sock feet cold from the air creeping in around the rusted doors. "I'm sorry that you didn't make it."

"Well, I did, in a way." Jet smiles wryly, sitting up. "Hey, you cold?"

Zuko shrugs. "It's chilly."

"Well, here." Jet strips off his flannel, handing it over. "I don't feel the cold anyway. Maybe you'll be able to wear this."

For a second, when Zuko touches it, it almost feels warm, like it's been on a living body. Then Jet lets go, and it's weightless, without warmth or texture. He puts it on anyway, so Jet's feelings aren't hurt, and mumbles a thanks.

"No problem." Jet lays back down. "Hey, can you tell me more about your life? What've I missed out on?"

"Well, kind of a lot?" Zuko shrugs. "It's been seventeen years. They made like ten more Star Wars-es since you died."

"I hated those movies." Jet wrinkles his nose. "Tell me more."

"Uh, we had a Black president, legalized gay marriage, political insurrection and clown attacks." Zuko puts his feet back on the floor, laying the seat back so he can look up at the ceiling. "The stock market crashed in like 2008 but it's supposed to be fine now. Disney owns, like, the whole world now, which sounds cool except they're not even good anymore. My Chemical Romance broke up but then got back together. Uh, and then for the last couple years everyone's been stuck in their houses because people won't wash their hands and stay home when they're sick, and everyone blamed it on Chinese people, because people fucking suck." He punctuates his words with sarcastic jazz hands. Jet snorts.

"The uszh, then." Jet sighs, flicking his cigarette butt on the floor. It's gone by the time Zuko looks at it. "People are stupid."

"Tell me about it." Zuko looks over at him. "Has it been that long for you?"

Jet shrugs one shoulder. "Nah. I couldn't have told you how long I was here. Could've been thirty years or a week." He looks at Zuko. "You're taking this whole thing like, really well."

"I've..." Zuko sighs. "I've kind of gotten good at adjusting to weird shit."

Jet laughs dryly. "Wow, thanks. Thrilled to know I'm so highly esteemed."

"Shut up." Zuko reaches over to smack his arm; he forgets, for a moment, that Jet's immaterial, and that the hit shouldn't land. So when it does, he's even more confused.

"You're solid."

Jet looks down at his arm, appearing just as surprised as Zuko. "Huh. Yeah, that's weird." He frowns, reaching to push Zuko's shoulder with as much pressure as a light breeze. "Anything?"

"Nothing," Zuko says. "Maybe it's a one-way thing."

"Joy." Jet sighs, laying back, and gets another cigarette out of his pocket — Zuko wonders if being dead means he has an endless supply. "You can go home, if you want. Probably want to get your beauty sleep before school."

"Actually, it's fall break," Zuko tells him. Jet pauses with the cigarette halfway to his lips, before nodding slightly.

"Right."

"And I'm not gonna get to sleep anyway." Zuko looks out the window. The moon's barely a sliver right now, and the tiny amount of silver light casts eerie shadows in the yard outside. After a moment, he asks, "Do you want me to leave?"

Jet exhales, smoke filling the cab for seconds before dissipating. "No. I don't."

"Then I'll stay."

You're still two weeks short of seventeen, but nineteen is what you tell the slightly older college guy at the bar — the one who's been very generously buying his pals round after round.

"Buy me a drink, handsome?" You show him the X's on the back of your hands, batting your lashes and hoping your guess is a lucky one. From the way he eyes you up and down — it makes your stomach lurch, actually, but you keep the smile fixed in place — you guessed right.

The beer in this place is better than the stuff you used to nab from the fridge at June's place, but you don't have more than half a bottle, pouring the rest out in the potted tree by the bar. You laugh too loud at his bad jokes and stumble as you get off your stool anyway.

"It's too hot in here," you say, over the loud bassy music, fanning yourself. It's not, the AC is still running despite the fact it is literally fucking October and drafty as hell, but the guy doesn't argue, leading you outside. He doesn't protest either when you tug him towards the alley, where the smells of cigarette smoke and spilled booze and weed linger on the air.

He crowds you against the wall, and you try to ignore what his mouth is doing on your neck while you slide your hand in the back pocket of his jeans, finding smooth leather and loose change.

You pull away, affecting a chagrined, tipsy look.

"Ah, shit. I gotta call my roommate and tell her I'll need her to pick up my car."

"It can wait."

"No, no, I'll be right back. She's an early sleeper, I gotta make sure and catch her before it's too late." You flash him a smile, and keep up your stumbling act until you're out of the alleyway and back in the bar.

You lock yourself in the single-stall bathroom at the back, and get the wallet out of your sleeve.

There's barely any cash — lousy luck — but you find a $25 Domino's gift card tucked behind one of the credit cards. Happy Anniversary, baby! is scrawled on the back with hearts. Sleaze, you think, pocketing the card. You drop the wallet at the lost-and-found as you leave the bar, having no use for the credit cards inside. (You tried, once, getting ahold of one, but it was only a day before the owner canceled it. Not worth the trouble.)

Your truck is parked down the road from the bar. You slide into the driver's seat with a grin and lay on the horn, startling your passengers awake.

"What the fuck, Jet," Bee complains, throwing her balled-up hoodie at you. Longshot's silent glare suffices as an agreement.

"Who's up for dinner? My date's treat." You hold up the gift card between two fingers. Bee frowns, gingerly taking the card and examining it.

"You smell like a drunk," she says, handing it back. "You're not driving anywhere."

"I had half a beer, Bee, it's fine." You roll your eyes and fix your mirrors. "Buckle up."

Zuko wakes to a view of pinkish-tinted sky through the windshield, feeling off-kilter, a buzzing sensation coursing through his body, and he can't shake the discomfort of the...dream? Memory? Whatever it was, it's distinctly un-normal, and he doesn't like the implications of it.

His left arm is all pins and needles, but as he squints through the hazy darkness, he can see it's stretched across the middle backrest between the laid-back front seats, knuckles just brushing Jet's bare shoulder where his t-shirt is pulled up.

Jet's still sleeping, and Zuko smothers a gasp when he sees his face; there's a greyish tint to his skin, or what's left of it, and the angles and hollows of his face are overpronounced with too little flesh to soften them. His right cheek gapes open, teeth showing through the wound. If Zuko wasn't already convinced of Jet being dead, he is now.

He swallows back his revulsion, reaching out to shake Jet's arm. He half expects no response. But then his eyes open, the shadows melt — and then it's like nothing happened at all. His face whole again.

"Something wrong?" Jet asks sleepily, rubbing his eyes. He looks quizzically down at Zuko's hand around his arm, which Zuko draws back quickly.

"I — I have to go back home," he says. "My uncle will be up in a few hours. He'll be worried if I'm not in my room."

Jet nods slightly. "Okay. Seeya later." He seems disappointed, but Zuko would rather just come back later than have to explain this ghost shit to Uncle, especially given the non-zero chance Uncle would believe him.

"Seeya." He climbs out of the truck, wincing as the hinges shriek, and winds his way through the piles of junk back to Uncle's yard.

He gets back into his room, and lays awake on the bed until Uncle comes to get him up for the day. When he looks out his window, Jet's nowhere to be seen, inside the truck or out of it.

He thinks about that dream, and realizes he has a lot more to learn about this whole ghost thing.

Chapter Text

Suki invites herself and Sokka over, because of course she does, and Zuko is too thoroughly exhausted after being up half the night to put up a fight. He figures it's about time he had them over anyway, and it'll help keep him awake.

"Holy shit," Sokka says when he takes them out to the backyard to show them around. "You're next to the fucking Sato scrapyard?"

"Uh, yeah?" Zuko says, not understanding the significance. Suki rolls her eyes.

"The Sato family were kind of local heroes who founded some engineering school, and Sokka's a huge nerd about them," she teases. She picks up a hickory nut from the ground, tossing it into the woods at the edge of the yard as she flops onto the dry-rotted hammock left by the previous owners. "Not too much exciting about a bunch of junk for me."

"There's a joke in there somewhere," Sokka says, tucking his hands in his pockets. He leans up against a tree, nodding at the fence. "Katara always made me hold her hand walking by that place."

"Your sister?" Zuko asks.

"Yeah. You'll have to meet her sometime." Sokka smiles, before it fades a little, his gaze straying back toward the junkyard. "She always said the place felt creepy. Can't imagine why."

Zuko forces a smile. "Well, maybe Suki's theory was right."

"Ha, ha." Sokka rolls his eyes. "Come on, it's getting cold out here."

"Aww, Sokka's scared of the ghost!" Suki jeers, grinning. "I bet it's some sweet old lady who got rear-ended and had a heart attack. Shame on you, Sokka."

Despite Suki's laughter and Sokka's indignant response, Zuko can't bring himself to laugh. He looks back to the scrapyard as if he'll see Jet there, listening, but all he sees are empty cars.

"Let's go inside. We've got homework, remember?" he says.

"Ah, alright. Buzzkill." Suki heaves herself up from the hammock with Sokka's assistance, and brushes lichen off her gray hoodie. "’Sgo. I'll get a study playlist queued up."

"Suki, no," Sokka says. "You cannot expose Zuko's innocent ears to that stuff you call music."

"What is it?" Zuko asks, morbidly curious.

Suki digs out her phone and opens her music app. "This, my friend, is art." She presses play, and the jaunty intro mingles with Sokka's exasperated sigh.

"It's not that bad," Zuko says. He could get used to it, even with the somewhat whining vocals. The tune is nice.

"We're not studying to the divorce playlist," Sokka says flatly.

"She who holds the playlist picks the tunes." Suki waggles her phone at Sokka. "And that's the depraved depressed divorce playlist to you, sir." She shakes her head, tapping on her screen as she mutters, "I've gotta air out my secondhand trauma somehow."

"Your parents are split up?" Zuko asks before he can think. Suki looks up from her phone.

"Um...yeah. It's no big deal, though, I was kidding about the trauma thing —"

"No, it's — My mom left. When I was eleven. Because of my dad. So I get it." Zuko shoves his hands in his pockets, feeling awkward when he says, "If you need to talk or anything..."

"No offense, bud, but that's what the playlist is for. Gotta get that catharsis." Suki punches his shoulder lightly with a little smile. "Thanks, though."

"No problem." Zuko smiles back.

Sokka clears his throat. "Not to break up this touching moment, but —"

"Yeah, yeah. Let's get inside before Sokka pisses himself with fear." Suki grins, wiggling her fingers at Sokka's face as she heads back to the house. "Watch out, granny ghost is gonna getcha!"

"You're so mean and for no reason," Sokka growls with a reddened face. Zuko shakes his head, sparing a glance for the still-vacant scrapyard before following them in.

"I'll be right back, Uncle doesn't like me smoking in the house," Zuko says as he steps out the front door. Suki gives a thumbs-up, doodling in the margins of her Algebra homework. Sokka chews on a pencil, hyperfocused on his Social Studies essay. Zuko closes the door as he steps out on the porch, shivering a little when the chilly air hits him.

Instead of lingering on the porch, he goes and sits by the fence. There, the dead grass warmed by the sun gives off a little heat, so it isn't miserably cold when he sits down. After a little while, someone sits down next to him.

"Your friends are cute," Jet says when Zuko wordlessly offers him a light. He scooches right up against Zuko — which doesn't affect much given that he's intangible — and hunkers down against the fence. "The girl's funny. Reminds me of someone I knew."

"June?" Zuko guesses, remembering the dry, snippy language used in the Reddit thread. Yeah, June could match Suki. And Jet's slightly wistful tone reminds him of one comment he remembers vividly — the one referring to Jet as June's boy toy. Though, June's post also called Jet queer, which tracks with — well, everything so far, he thinks.

Jet smiles. "Yeah. June was cool." He sighs, tapping ash off his cigarette. "Always let me crash at her place if my foster parents were being dicks. Had a bitchin' CD collection. Stole beer from her dad's garage fridge for parties. Didn't tell anyone when she caught me and Lee Oakes making out in said garage during said party."

"Lee O—" Zuko stops short, taken aback. "The librarian?"

Jet looks at him, raising a nonchalant eyebrow. "Oh, is that what he's doing now?"

"Jesus Christ, that's weird." Zuko shakes his head. "So June wasn't your girlfriend?"

"Nah, are you kidding?" Jet snorts, as if Zuko could possibly know anything about her. "I mean, we dated, publicly, but she always had more of a thing for Bee."

Bee. The weird dream/memory comes back to Zuko. "Your sister?"

"Mm-hm." Jet leans back, tossing away his cigarette butt. "It's too bad I don't know what happened to her. I hope she and Long got somewhere safe."

Zuko recalls how nobody aside from Jet was mentioned in the missing persons reports. It seems unlikely they would go completely unmentioned if anything had happened to them. "I hope so too."

"Anyway. I'll let you get back to your nerd date." Jet stands up, brushing nonexistent grass off his pants. "Adiós."

Zuko waves, putting out his cigarette and heading back inside. Suki and Sokka mumble greetings as he sits down with them and opens up his laptop.

Instead of continuing his reading for Biology, he opens a new tab and pulls up Facebook.

June's page is easy enough to find through the Corvo High '08 Alumni group. Her page lists her age as 34, her birthday in early summer. The top post is an opening announcement for a local brewery and bar, with a picture of her and a short, scruffy-looking person of about the same age behind the counter of a bar. The rest of her pictures vary between liquor, tattoos, and a mean-looking mixed breed dog named Nyla. He isn't expecting to find Bee, but when he scrolls to June's shared posts — there's Bianca Mun in the reactions of every one. When he goes to her page, his suspicions are confirmed.

Bianca — or rather, Bee, she/they, 31, trans and lesbian pride and South Korean flags in her about page — seems to live a full life. Between working with June at the brewery, volunteering at local shelters (one of them the same one Suki volunteers at, he notes), and taking pictures of admittedly gorgeous sunsets, they seem to have a lot on their hands. One post, dated two weeks ago, catches his eye.

Dug up this old pic, the post begins. Brought up some old memories.

It's a photo of Jet — in the same faded flannel and jeans Zuko knows, albeit with a different t-shirt — with a group of other similarly-dressed teens, lounging against the rail of the walking bridge in the park. Jet stands in the center, one elbow braced on the rail behind him, the other hand holding a cigarette in a mock toast. The digital camera time stamp in the bottom corner reads 10/02/06.

Zuko releases a breath, slowly, and shuts the laptop. He knew, conceptually, that there were people Jet knew when he was alive. That most of them probably were still alive. It's a lot weirder seeing the evidence of it — that Jet died, and people just had to live with that, maybe not even knowing it.

"Biology kicking your ass that bad?" Suki asks dryly.

"Yeah," Zuko says, forcing a laugh. "Something like that."

After Suki and Sokka leave, Zuko goes out to Jet's truck. They sit on the tailgate, and they talk.

"Aw, she has a puppy," Jet says when Zuko shows him June's page. "And a brewery. Guess all that illicit beer paid off."

"Bee works at the same place." Zuko clicks over to the brewery page, showing the banner of June and Bee behind the counter. Below that are more pictures, with people Zuko recognizes from the photo Bee shared — years older, but still recognizable. Jet's expression changes, his eyes fixed on the screen like he's afraid to look away.

"They're... they're doing good," he says, slightly choked. "I guess they didn't crash and burn without me after all."

Zuko doesn't know what to say to that. He watches Jet keep looking at them like he's trying to memorize every one.

"This kid —" he points to a guy who, although short and a little stocky, is probably 25, if not older — "that's The Duke. Fuck, he was up to my chest last time I saw him. He liked soccer and pirates."

He says it like it's the kid that died, and not himself. Zuko can't imagine how he feels, much as he tries.

"Do any of them know?" he asks. "About what happened to you?"

"Nah." Jet finally looks away from the screen, pulling his feet up on the tailgate and hugging his knees. "No, I'm sure they probably have some idea, but I barely know what happened. And I'm sure if they did, I wouldn't be a cold case." He clears his throat. "Anyway, I'm glad they're all still sticking together. I — We had a falling out. It was my fault."

He goes tight-lipped, like there's more he wants to say, but he doesn't.

"I'm sorry," Zuko tells him.

"Not like you could do anything about it," Jet says bitterly, and Zuko suddenly feels horrifically inadequate. He can't imagine how it must feel, being on the outside looking in while everyone moves on —

Well. Actually he can.

Sighing, he types in a name he hasn't searched in a very long time.

"This is my sister," he says, showing Jet the page. Azula's Facebook is private, but Ty Lee is constantly posting her hangouts with Azula and Mai, and her page is the one Zuko pulls up.

"Holy shit. You look just like her," Jet says with a small laugh, pointing to a beach selfie where Azula's glowering in the background. "You've got that same grumpy look."

"I do not," Zuko says, glaring at him.

"Relax. It's cute." Jet smiles, a little, and Zuko feels a little better. "Do you and her not talk? I mean, I know your dad kicked you out, but he couldn't have totally cut you off, right?"

"We haven't been close since we were little kids." Zuko sighs, scrolling down the page. "She was Dad's favorite, and I was a failure, so she avoided being like me at all costs."

"Wow. That's fucking sad."

"Yeah, well." He looks down at his phone — a picture of Ty Lee, squish-hugging Mai and Azula who wear matching rueful smiles, fills the screen. "She's the one who called Uncle the night I got kicked out and told him where I was. I guess I owe it to her to stay out of her life."

Jet sighs. "For whatever it's worth, I don't think you're a failure. I mean, you're doing better than me."

"Low bar," Zuko can't resist saying. Jet cracks a crooked smile.

"Yet you're still here. I must not be that bad." He leans back on his elbows, looking up at the sky. "Thank you," he adds after a minute. "I'm — I did want to know how they were doing. And I'm sorry about your sister."

"It's okay." Zuko puts his phone away, pulls his feet up to sit crosslegged. "She's safe. She's alive." He thinks of how Bee, and Long, and The Duke probably felt — probably feel — the gnawing lack of closure. He thinks about Mom, the empty spot in his life after she left, that he doesn't know will ever be filled. "It could be a lot worse."

"Things could always be worse." Jet pauses. "Well, maybe not for me. But just because it could be worse doesn't mean it isn't shitty. Feel what you feel."

Zuko doesn't disagree, but it's also such Uncle-ish advice that he feels inclined to ignore it. "Guess so."

Jet settles against his shoulder, lighting a cigarette. "My foster mom told me these'd kill me one day. Actually, she told me a lot of things would kill me, and that it'd be my fault. I hope she feels guilty." He shrugs. "Probably not though."

"My dad said I was lucky to be born." He snorts. "That my sister was born lucky. That's why I suck at everything and she's the fucking golden miracle of the family."

"Some people have no business reproducing." Jet picks at the paint on the edge of the truck bed. "Honestly, probably a good thing I'm dead so I couldn't fuck up any kids like that. Shame about my good genes going to waste, though."

Zuko shrugs, unable to fault the logic of that one. Jet is good-looking, from a totally objective and unbiased standpoint.

"Though," Jet says thoughtfully after a moment, "I guess if he hadn't reproduced, you wouldn't be here."

"That's true. Though, for a while there was a non-zero chance I was someone else's. Dad got a paternity test, though, and unfortunately we're related."

"Bummer." Jet stands up, grinding his cigarette butt under his heel, and hops down out of the truck. "Hey, you got any CDs? I think I can get my stereo to work."

"I have music on my phone," Zuko points out, climbing down after him.

"Really?" Jet turns around, tucking his hands in his jacket pockets. "Anything good?"

"What do you listen to?" Zuko asks, opening Spotify. There's no Wi-Fi out here, but his downloaded library is expansive enough. "I have..." He skips over the opera soundtracks he studies to, and the pop albums Song and Jin recommended. "Here. You can look through these."

Jet leans over his shoulder. "Jeez. I've missed out on a lot. Wait —" He taps Zuko's hand, stopping him mid-scroll. "There." He points out The Black Parade in the list of albums. "They announced that coming out like, months before I kicked it. I was pissed about missing that one."

Zuko has to push past the surrealness of that.  "That sucks."

"No shit." Jet sighs. "Can we listen?"

Zuko shrugs and presses play.

"I changed my mind," Jet says, tossing a chunk of gravel in the air and catching it. He's laying across the cab of the truck, and very obviously pretending that he wasn't about to cry ten seconds ago. "I don't think I would've appreciated that as much if I hadn't died."

"I mean, if you'd kept chainsmoking you probably would've ended up with cancer anyway," Zuko says, leaning on the inside wall of the truck bed.

"Hey, I didn't smoke this much while I was alive. Long has asthma and there were little kids around, I'm not that much of a douche. There's just fuck all else to do now." Jet sighs. "You know how boring that is? Nothing to do but sit around all day and smoke and stare at people. Everyone starts to look the same after a while." He shakes his head, shaggy hair falling in his face as he sits up. "You're the most interesting thing that's happened to me."

"Flattered," Zuko replies drily, keeping his head down so the light of his phone will obscure the blush on his cheeks. "I'll be sure and put it on my resumé."

Jet rolls off the cab, which never fails to give Zuko a heart attack even if he knows Jet can't really get hurt. He climbs into the bed and sits next to Zuko.

"Hey."

"Hey," Zuko replies, acutely aware of the closeness even though he can't really feel it. He risks glancing up from his phone and finds Jet's face mere inches from his own. His eyes skate over Zuko's face, lingering on his scar a moment before moving on. Zuko notices for the first time that they're framed by smudged, faded eyeliner, his long lashes stuck together with slightly clumpy mascara. There's a smudge of glitter at the corner of one eye. He looks like the morning after a party, not that Zuko's experienced many of those.

"Whatcha looking at?" he asks, tilting his head. Zuko blinks, coming back to himself.

"Nothing." He looks quickly back to his phone. "Um, you want to listen to more music, or like, play a game, or...?"

"Your uncle's gonna be back soon, isn't he?"

"He's working late," Zuko says.

Jet hums, stretching his legs out in front of him.

"So. Your folks split when you were a kid?" he asks after a moment.

Zuko swallows down the instinct to snap that it's none of his business. He told Suki, after all, and if he's on that level with her then he has to be with Jet by this point. "Um, yeah. They — they only got married because Mom got pregnant with me, and it didn't really...work. So she left when I was eleven. Never heard from her again."

"That's shitty," Jet scoffs. "Didn't take you or anything?"

"Dad wouldn't have let her if she tried," Zuko defends automatically. For all he knows, she did try. The fact is, he doesn't know anything. "I don't think it was formal or anything. Just woke up one day and..."

Jet grimaces. "Well, that sure explains a lot."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Zuko asks, frowning at him.

"Well, just a wild guess, but I'm pretty sure well-adjusted healthy people don't go around talking to ghosts." He rolls his eyes. "Let alone ghosts as fucked up as I am."

"You're not that fucked up," Zuko says automatically. Jet snorts a laugh.

"Thanks, I'll be sure and put that on my resumé." He sighs. "What about your dad? Sounds like a real piece of work."

"You could say that." Zuko's left eye twitches. "He had a lot of expectations for me. I didn't really fit any of them."

"Well, they were probably bullshit. You seem just fine to me." And there's another one of those looks Jet gets, and Zuko has to look away before Jet can see him blushing. "Anyway, I wouldn't care about what he thinks. You are who you are, not who he is."

That's the problem, Zuko doesn't say. "Thanks."

"No problem." Jet's smile is all crooked teeth, and for a second Zuko sees the gaping, fleshless grimace he saw when he woke up in the morning, but then it's back to normal so fast Zuko chalks it up to his imagination.

Which reminds him. "Um. Jet? When I fell asleep out here, last night, I...I had a really weird dream. I think it was because of you."

He describes it, editing details so it doesn't sound like he was in Jet's experience, because that's — too much, too weird, and he can't see Jet being comfortable with it, so in the version Zuko tells, he was just a spectator, viewing it all from outside.

When he gets done, Jet still has a weird look on his face.

"You — you really saw all that?"

Zuko nods. Jet breathes out slowly, leaning back. His head lays back over the wall of the bed, his hair falling back. There's a little black stud in his left ear, behind the tiny silver hoop, that Zuko never noticed before.

"Why, though? I mean — that shouldn't be happening."

Zuko shrugs. "I don't know. We were both asleep. Maybe something...bled over."

Jet sighs, standing up and pacing, a cigarette out and lit and between his teeth in the time it takes to get on his feet. "Sixteen fucking years and I still don't know how this shit works. I fucking hate it."

Zuko snorts. "Welcome to my world," he says, earning an impressive glare.

"Fuck you," Jet mutters, puffing out a cloud of smoke. He sits back down, crosslegged in front of Zuko. "You can't use your stupid Internet phone to figure something out?"

"Most people still don't believe in ghosts," Zuko points out. Jet scoffs. "And most of the ones who do probably haven't seen a real one."

"I don't really care for the thought of you seeing in my head every time we sleep together." Jet winces at the same time Zuko ducks his head, face burning. "Bad wording. Sorry."

"That could have just been a one-off thing," Zuko says, pushing past his mortification. "We don't know that it's normal for that to happen or just a fluke."

"I'm not keen on trial-and-error." Jet puts out his cigarette and tucks it behind his ear. "There's some shit in my head that I didn't wanna see. I'm not gonna subject you to it."

Zuko doesn't argue with that. He wouldn't wish most of his memories on anyone else, either. And some things were better kept private.

"We can figure it out if it ever comes up again," he says, getting up. "I have homework to do."

"Will you come back later?" Jet asks, looking up at him. Zuko almost hesitates, but what does he have better to do?

"Yeah," he says. "I'll be back."

Jet beams, and Zuko wonders why he ever considered saying no.

"So, my deathiversary is coming up," Jet says, unprompted, while Zuko's taking a turn working on the truck. He's perched on the roof again, crosslegged. "Hope you're getting me something nice."

Zuko fumbles, and drops the wrench. He hears it clunk against the metal detritus underneath the truck.

"That's not funny, Jet," he says, getting down on the ground to retrieve the wrench.

"Why not? It's like a second birthday. And since I'm never gonna have one of those again..." Jet braces his elbows on his knees, leaning forward. "That's the wrong bolt."

"Now you tell me," Zuko mutters.

"Hey, how old would I be now, anyway?" Jet asks. "’Cause I was like, almost seventeen when I died."

Zuko's almost seventeen now. Meaning, when Mom was first going into labor with him and Dad was broadcasting the news to whoever would listen about the new heir to his company, Jet was either dying or already dead, hidden somewhere unknown to anyone and never to be found. It's almost funny how fucked-up this whole thing is.

"You'd be like, thirty-four, almost."

"Shit," Jet murmurs. "That's, like, adult adult. My parents weren't that old when they..."

Zuko's mom was twenty-one when she had him. She was thirty-two when she left. She would have been thirty-four when he got kicked out.

Thirty-eight, now, but who's counting? The fact that his mom is only four years older than Jet might be the most uncomfortable thing about this whole situation.

"You've never told me about your parents," he says.

"Ah, they were environmentalists. Treehugger types, you know? Dad quit his job working at a power plant to protest the thing existing." Jet cuts him a mirthless grin, putting a cigarette between his lips. "They made some really powerful people really mad. After they managed to stop construction on a big plant, our house mysteriously went up in flames." He scoffs, rolling his eyes. "Ruled accidental, obviously. Faulty electrical wiring or something dumb like that. Total bullshit."

Zuko feels nauseous. He ducks his head, finding the right bolt under the hood and working it loose with the wrench. It comes off with flakes of rust.

"Zuko, this was an accident, wasn't it? Just a mistake." Dad's lawyer, hovering by the edge of the hospital bed with a stack of paperwork. Uncle's heavy gaze from Zuko's other side, his grip on Zuko's hand tightening.

"Nephew, let me —"

"Mistake," Zuko said, his tongue feeling heavy. His face hurt when he moved his jaw. "It was a mistake."

Uncle Iroh frowned. "Nephew —"

"It was my fault." It was, wasn't it? Zuko had made a dumb mistake, and this was the consequence. This question, it was another test, and he wasn't going to fail like Uncle wanted him to. "It was an accident."

"I'm sorry," he says, putting down the wrench.

"I was eight. I managed to get out because Mom smelled the smoke." Jet's voice is thick, stifled. Not on the edge of tears, but there's none of the usual dry, sarcastic bite. "I tried to be like them, fight the way they'd taught me to. Guess it didn't get me anywhere in the end."

Zuko closes the hood, climbs up to sit next to Jet. He doesn't know what to say, but when Jet takes his hand — a chill goes up his spine like someone walking over his grave — he doesn't pull his hand away, even though it'd be easy.

"It's easier than I thought with you here," Jet says. "When you guys moved in, I expected you'd just ignore me like everyone else. And then when you could actually see me...I thought it'd feel like I was missing out. Like all the years I'd been dead would catch up to me, you know?"

Zuko does know. He feels that way every time Ty Lee shares a picture of Azula, another inch taller, another year older, without Zuko there to see any of it.

"I get it," Zuko says. Jet smiles a little.

"It feels more like picking up where I left off. Well, not right where I left off, but — you know what I mean." He shrugs. "Guess if I were out in the world, it'd feel different though. This place here hasn't changed since the '80s, excepting the addition of yours truly."

Zuko shrugs. "Pretty big change, then."

"Anyway, what I'm getting at here is — I'm glad you showed up." Jet grins, crooked canine tooth peeking over his lip. "Almost makes dying worth it."

"That's a first in my lifetime," Zuko says, a flush of warmth rushing to his face.

Jet smiles and looks up to the sky. The sun's setting, coloring the clouds with streaks of pink and orange that deepen to purple near the horizon. Zuko watches the sky, remembering how Mom used to take him and Azula on picnics and spend hours watching the clouds when Dad was too busy in meetings. How at some point it became just Mom and Zuko, because Azula didn't have time for picnics and cloudwatching. How eventually, Mom was gone and Zuko didn't have time for those things, either.

He has time now. When Jet leans on his shoulder, he pushes back gently, smiling easily back when Jet grins over at him.

"You wanna finish working on the truck while it's still daylight?" Jet asks.

"You're never gonna get this thing working, you know that, right?"

"Won't know until we try." Jet winks, and there's a flutter of nervous butterflies in Zuko's stomach. He climbs down after Jet, picking up the wrench.

 Zuko's supposed to be catching up on sleep before he has to help Uncle at the shop tomorrow. He's had trouble with insomnia for years, but tonight, his mind won't stop turning over what Jet said about his parents. Earlier, he combed through newspaper sites and managed to track down a single article from 1997 about a fire in the neighboring county that killed a couple in their home, with their eight-year-old son the only survivor. In the same newspaper was an article about the new Phoenix Energy plant that would be continuing construction, despite previous environmental concerns. 

Phoenix Energy. Because just like every sucky thing in Zuko's life, his grandfather's fingerprints are all over this. Funny, what invisible strings that connect us all, one of Uncle's friends at the shop said once. Zuko isn't laughing. This is just another item on the list of crimes his family's gotten away with.

Now, instead of sleeping, he's on Facebook, scrolling through all Jet's friends' pages and hoping to find more information on a different crime.

He doesn't know what he's looking for — Clues, like he's some kind of fucking detective? Zuko's been accused of being too nosy for his own good, but he's not dumb enough to think he can bust open an unsolved death using Facebook — but it's unnerving how little Jet's mentioned by any of them. Especially with how suspicious it all is — Jet's never said the word murder, but Zuko can read between the lines.

We had a falling out, Jet had said. It was my fault. Zuko wonders just how bad it could have been. If maybe that had something to do with —

No. He cuts himself off before any kind of conspiratorial thinking can creep in. Jet's friends didn't kill him. He knows that in his gut — in the dream-memory, Bee and Longshot had seemed annoyed by Jet's recklessness, but there'd been concern under it all. They didn't hurt him.

...But they might know what really happened.

He types the address of June's brewery in his Maps app. Surprisingly, it's just down the road from Uncle's shop. It'd be so easy to stop in there on the way home tomorrow.

Before he can second-guess himself, he saves the directions.

If he can get closure on this for Jet...

It won't make up for what his grandfather did to Jet's parents. It won't put his father behind bars. There's no guarantee he'll even find who killed Jet. It might only serve to make Zuko feel better.

Still, that gut feeling tells him it's the right thing to do.

Chapter Text

Zuko tries not to lose his nerve when he goes to see Jet in the morning. It's chillier than it's been the past few days, and Zuko shoves his hands into his pockets to keep from freezing. Jet's got his flannel buttoned up all the way when he swings around the fence, seeming to materialize out of nowhere in the space of a blink.

"Hey, Psycho," he says, grinning crookedly and tucking a cigarette behind his ear. "To what do I owe the honor?"

"Do you ever try to not act like a cliché?" Zuko asks, not focusing on that canine tooth making it's appearance again. He shakes himself. "I'm gonna be at the shop today, helping my uncle. Figured I should give you an explanation for not showing up, just in case you decide to haunt me for it or something."

"But you did show up. You're here now." Jet's eyes light up a little. "You missed me."

"Did not." Zuko ignores the heat in his face. "Anyway, I — I figured I'd let you know."

"Your uncle owns a tea shop, right?" Jet asks, batting his eyelashes. "Will you bring me something back?"

Buy me a drink, handsome? and dim bar lights flash into Zuko's mind. He blinks away the mental image. "Can you even drink anything?"

Jet waves him off. "It's the thought that counts. You can drink it for me."

Zuko sighs, shaking his head. "Fine. What do you want?"

"Surprise me. And I want extra sugar."

"Would've figured you'd like black coffee," Zuko says. Jet wrinkles his nose.

"Gross, I'm not an animal. Sugar was invented for a reason."

Zuko can only imagine Uncle's face if he heard Jet say that.

"I'll do my best," he says. "And —"

He stops himself, catching sight of Jet's expectant look. I should tell him, he thinks. If Zuko were in his situation, and someone were to try and find out what happened — well, he'd want to know, wouldn't he?

But then he thinks about the Facebook pages, Jet barely a footnote in these people's lives, and decides he'd better not. Not until he knows more. He could end up finding nothing, and then he'd have raised Jet's hopes for nothing.

"...I was thinking we could watch a movie or something later," he finishes lamely. "It's cold for trying to fix the truck, and it'd give us something to do."

If Jet picks up on his nervousness, he doesn't show it. "Alright, good deal," he says, smiling. "I'll see you later, then?"

"Yeah," Zuko nods quickly. "See you later."

The shop is unusually busy for a Monday, and Zuko runs back and forth to get orders out to tables as fast as Uncle can brew them. He gets a brief respite during his smoke break and lunch, but he's run ragged by the time Uncle lets him go.

He slips into the break room before he leaves, grabbing one of the chai blends (Jet seems like he'd enjoy spice) and heating up the electric kettle Uncle keeps back there for tea with lunch (as if brewing the stuff all day isn't enough). After waiting out the brew time, he piles a few sugar packets and several creamers inside before putting the lid on. Then he takes the cup and ducks out the back door.

June's place — Rottweiler Tavern and Brewery — is visible from the street corner, and Zuko dashes across the road to get there.

The door opens with a friendly chiming sound. Inside, there's only one table occupied, a corner booth where an elderly couple sit sharing a pizza.

Behind the counter, someone with short, scruffy hair is drying out glasses. It only takes Zuko a moment to recognize Bee without the heavy makeup usually present in their pictures.

"We don't serve minors alcohol," she says in a surprisingly raspy voice, glancing up. "If you wanna order off the snack menu, feel free. We also do mocktails." They sound slightly begrudging about even that, like they'd rather he just leave.

"Bee, customer service voice." A tall, muscular woman who's unmistakably June steps out of the back room, drying her hands on her apron. "How can we help you, kid? Mozzarella sticks are on special today, half off with any sandwich purchase."

"Um, thanks. Actually —" Zuko steels himself. "I wanted to ask you some questions. I heard — someone told me you knew Jet? Andal?"

Bee sucks in a sharp breath and loudly sets down the glass. June's smile disappears.

"Kid, I don't know what you —"

"It's for school," Zuko blurts out quickly. "A class project."

Bee scoffs, and June looks skeptical.

"...For Social Studies?" Zuko adds weakly. He clears his throat, and tries for something more assertive. Thank God that media training since five years old didn't just wear off overnight. "I'm supposed to pick a relevant issue to write a report on. I heard about the case and thought it was a really prominent example of police negligence and media bias in cases involving Asian-Americans."

It helps, he thinks, that Suki was just discussing what topic they should pick for the Social Studies group assignment. He's not a good liar, but he can work with stretching the truth. And hopefully it'll get through to June.

Bee keeps scowling, but June sighs.

"Look, there's not much we can tell you. I mean, the cops obviously didn't find much. What they did, we weren't exactly briefed on."

Zuko grits his teeth, and tries not to feel discouraged.

How would Azula play this?

Carefully, he avoids looking directly at Bee. "I read he'd been away from home before he was reported missing. Was anyone with him when he left?"

"Don't see how that matters," Bee mutters, avoiding looking at him. "Why don't you pick another topic? You're not gonna get anywhere."

She turns around and drops the towel on the bar. "I'm gonna take my ten, J."

"Sure. Stay outta the bourbon," June says, ruffling their hair. She turns back to Zuko as the back door swings shut. "So, you make a habit out of harassing service workers, or this just something new you're trying out?" Her voice is colder than before, her gaze almost a glare under her purple eyelids. More than that, there's a threat that he's sure she's willing to deliver on.

"I'm sorry," Zuko says, swallowing. "I didn't mean to upset them."

June arches a sharply penciled eyebrow. "Really? Because it seems like you've done an awful lot of research for just that."

"I'm sorry," he repeats, like he always does, as if it ever helps. "I just —"

"Let me guess, you've got some true crime podcast and think you have your next hit story all figured out," she drawls. "Now you want a witness interview to, what, boost your credibility?"

"No!" Zuko shouts, face hot from the indignation he feels at her tone, like Azula's found a way to talk down to him from across the country. He quickly lowers his volume when the old couple shoot him a glare. "No, I — That's not it at all. I swear." The thought of using Jet's death for online clout is so bizarre it would be laughable if it didn't make him feel nauseated.

June crosses her arms and leans across the bar, narrowing her eyes at him. "Then you better have a damn good reason for pissing off my partner." She flips a paper menu off the stack in front of her, flicking it at him. "You wanna talk? Order. Ten dollar minimum."

Zuko frowns. "Couldn't I just give you ten dollars?"

June snorts. "What do you think I am, a babysitter? You order, I cook and talk my girlfriend out of an emotional breakdown, then I might tell you what I know."

Zuko glances at the clock, then the cup of tea cooling rapidly on the counter. He sighs. What choice do I have?

"Fine." He opens the menu, slaps eleven dollars on the counter for a sandwich and jalapeño poppers, and ignores June's smug look as she sashays into the back room. There's no mystery in his mind how June and Jet were friends.

He is gonna seriously owe me.

The jalapeño poppers are steaming when they arrive at Zuko's place. He takes a bite of one, and after scorching his tongue, quickly drinks some of the cold tea that he's accepted he'll have to microwave at home.

June passes him a paper boat with his grilled chicken sandwich, and leans on the bar, taking off her oven mitt and propping her hand on her hip. "Alright, kid. What do you wanna know?"

"Who was with Jet when he went missing?"

June raises a brow at him. "You tell me. You're the one who was able to track us down here."

"It's not that impressive," Zuko mutters. "You posted about the case on Reddit. I found a June who was at Corvo High in 2006 in the alumni Facebook group. Wasn't rocket science."

"You're a regular Nancy Drew type, huh?" June says dryly. "Guess I should tell Bee it's my fault you're here. Might help her sleep a little better." She sighs and sits on a chair behind the bar. "Bee was with Jet around the time he went missing. Them and our friend Longshot were skipping town, headed for Cincy."

So far, nothing Zuko doesn't already know, though it's good to have someone else corroborate the story.

"What did they want in Cincinnati?" he asks, gingerly picking up a slightly cooled jalapeño popper.

"Shouldn't you be writing this down? For school?" she asks pointedly.

"I have a good memory."

"Alright, kid." She shrugs. "Their living situation was shit. Jet was a troublemaker, the foster parents were at the end of their ropes dealing with him, and he was gonna be placed somewhere else without Bee or Long. Instead, he got the bright idea for all three of them to run off to the city and try to tough it out there."

Zuko frowns. "How did he expect to do that?"

"Hell if I know. Supposedly he had an older cousin in Cincinnati, Ezra or something. I never met the guy."

Ezra. Zuko files away the name for later. "So what happened?"

June looks off, going quiet for a while. Finally she says, "Bee and Longshot showed up at their house in the middle of the night after being gone for most of fall break. Their foster parents had been worried and already reported them missing, because they weren't complete asshats."

June frowns, shifting in place, and digs a pack of cigarettes out of her apron. "I remember Bee was mad that they'd called the cops. Which, yeah, fuck cops, but they were missing, not that the pigs really cared. Jet ran off all the time, and I think if the parents hadn't pushed after Bee and Long showed up without him, they would've dropped it. Chief Long Feng sure wasn't happy with the media attention the case got."

"He was the officer in charge of the case?" Zuko asks, the name sounding familiar. June, puffing her cigarette as it lights, laughs dryly.

"Ohh yeah. He'd been promoted to Chief, and it was his first big case. I think he thought it was demeaning, to be stuck in charge of a runaway foster kid rather than the big drug busts and homicides he'd signed up for." She waves away smoke from her cigarette, leaning on the bar again. "He still comes in here sometimes. Brings girlfriends with him. Drinks too much and has to take a cab home. He's not out in public much since he resigned, but I guess even pigs need to get shitfaced sometimes."

"Dad, please! I'm sorry I spoke —!"

Ozai ignored him, his grip on Zuko's wrist tightening. "You don't know what you've cost me. At your age, you should know when to keep your mouth shut."

Zuko's heart pounded. His father never touched him or came this close to him, and the look in his eyes was frightening. He looked desperately over his shoulder — Zhao Sakamoto, off-duty for the night, still sat in the living room, gun and badge tossed on the table and helping himself to more bourbon while he waited for Dad to return from his video conference. Zuko hated Zhao, but in that moment he hoped the man would look up, say something, do something.

"What was his role in the investigation?" Zuko asks, shaking away the memory and the phantom ache in his wrist that comes with it. The phantom pain in his left eye doesn't leave as easily.

June thinks for a moment. "He came around the high school, once." She flicks ash off her cigarette into a brown glass ashtray, resting her chin on her hand. "Asked everyone a lot of questions. Like any of us knew anything. I hid out in the boiler room 'til he left."

"What kind of questions did he ask?"

"Lee Oakes said —" Zuko suddenly has to fight off visions of Jet entangled with the glasses-wearing, how do you do fellow kids, late-fee-waiving librarian — "he got interrogated on where he'd been spending fall break, whether Jet had ever been involved in criminal activity, whether Jet was a 'disturbed individual'." She made air quotes with her fingers. "Teachers had a lot to say about Jet's detention record. Fights, smoking in school, talking back."

"You were close friends with Jet, weren't you?"

June snorts. "Yeah, you could say that."

"What do you think happened to him?"

She chews her lip, raising an eyebrow at him. "Well, you already know my theory."

Zuko raises a brow right back at her. "Humor me."

June glances at the clock. She releases her lip, taking a drag from her cigarette before stamping it out in the ashtray.

"I think he got in over his head. Maybe his cousin couldn't take 'em in, or moved. His ego couldn't take facing folks at home." She sighs. "I think Bee and Long tried to get him to come back, or maybe he told them to go home without him. I think he tried to make it out there alone, because he was an idiot kid, and I think it went really wrong. And I think when the cops finally found him, they couldn't wait to shelf the case because it meant they'd fucked up. The fact that they didn't have DNA or prints to compare was a handy bonus."

Zuko feels a pit form in his stomach. The possibility seems too likely, from what he's put together about Jet's time in the city. Even though the body from that article isn't Jet — though he can't say that to June — it's still the same in the end.

"Thank you for talking. I appreciate it." He digs out a five-dollar bill for his tip and gets up.

"Sorry I couldn't help you more, kid," June says. Zuko shrugs, taking his tea and the leftover jalapeño poppers.

"I think I've got what I need."

"Right." She picks up the tip, putting it in her pocket. "Get home safe. Good luck with your report."

Zuko turns his back before he rolls his eyes. "Thanks."

"Aw, you remembered," Jet says from his perch on the fence, when Zuko comes back to the junkyard; his tea in one gloved hand and the leftover food in the other, both fresh from the microwave.

"Hard to forget," Zuko says, shoving open the chain-link gate at the end with his hip. Jet leaps down, running ahead to open his truck door.

"I choose to take that as a compliment," he says with a grin. "How was work?"

"Eh. I was waiting tables, so it sucked."

"Couldn't be that bad. You're not dead." Jet slides over to the driver's seat, stretching his long limbs as much as the truck's interior will allow. "What kind of tea did you get?"

"Um, chai. Extra sweet, like you said. It's not bad." Zuko holds out the cup. Jet briefly looks surprised before taking it. He turns it in his hands, a faint look of...something on his face.

"I really don't know if I can drink it," he admits. "I mean, I don't really need food or water or... anything, I think at this point I run on nicotine." He cracks a weak, embarrassed kind of smile. "Worth a try, I guess. How'd you know what to get?"

Zuko's neck flushes under the look Jet shoots him. "Just a guess."

Jet raises an eyebrow, flipping the top of the cup open. He tilts his head back and takes a drink, Adam's apple bobbing in his throat, and Zuko quickly looks away, face feeling warm for reasons he's not going to examine. When he gets brave enough to look back, Jet's looking down at the cup, a contemplative scrunch to his features.

"I can't tell if it's under-steeped or I'm just not able to taste right, but —" he smacks his lips once, wrinkling his nose. "It just tastes like dust."

Zuko frowns. "I brewed it how it said on the tin."

Jet sighs, putting the cup on the dash. "It wasn't gonna be the same anyway. My mom had a secret recipe. I wish I'd bothered to ask about it before..."

Before what, he doesn't have to say; Zuko thinks about all the movies Mom was going to show him when you're old enough. He can't even remember the titles anymore.

"I'm sorry."

"Hey, not your fault, right?" Jet smiles crookedly over at him, masking his disappointed look enough that Zuko could pretend to ignore it. "So, you mentioned something about a movie. What were you thinking?"

Jet's halfway asleep, slumped intangibly against Zuko's shoulder, by the time the end credits of The Rocky Horror Picture Show scroll past. Zuko had never seen the movie before, a fact which sent Jet into a fit of dramatics when he mentioned it. Now, having watched it, Zuko guesses he can see why Jet would enjoy it so much. It's the kind of movie Mom probably would have liked, in her weird art-y way — naturally, Dad would have found it disgusting.

"What did you think?" Jet asks, lazily flicking ashes off his cigarette. Zuko shrugs, humming noncommittally.

"I didn't really get it. Not a big musical fan."

"Well, as someone who had unrestricted access to Video Barn at far too young an age — Hey, is the Video Barn on Yates Street still around?" he asks in an aside. Zuko picks up his phone to Google as Jet continues, "I think it's a masterpiece."

Zuko shrugs again, pulling up the map on his phone. "No Video Barn," he reports. "I guess the police station is there now."

"Those fuckers," Jet grumbles, tossing his cigarette behind him. He doesn't say any more, and doesn't need to. Zuko wonders how it must feel; to be trapped in a place you tried so hard to escape, forced to watch it change into something even worse.

"I should get going," he says, tucking his phone away and opening the door. Cold air rushes in, and he fights off a shiver. "Uncle's probably home. I'll have to think of something to tell him."

Jet looks up at him, unreadable, then nods once. "See you later. Hey, next time you can pick the movie. I wanna know what kinda fucked-up shit you're into."

From his tone, Zuko guesses he'd expected a better response to the movie. Fair enough. "I'll think of something."

Back in his room, Zuko combs the Andals' obituary for any surviving relatives. He finds Jet's father had a sister with two children, Ezra and Biyu. Following a Google search of Ezra Chen Ohio, Zuko finds a Facebook profile filled with aesthetic photographs of the Ohio river and the Cincinnati skyline at sunset. The guy in the profile picture is a dead ringer for Jet, give or take a couple decades of wear, so he's convinced he's found the right guy.

Zuko digs through the Cincinnati phone book his Uncle bought just in case, praying the guy hasn't moved or thrown out his landline, which he knows is a slim chance but it's that or some serious cyber-stalking that he...could probably pull off, honestly. He's had to get creative to keep up with family news, with Azula blocking his number and accounts left and right.

That might be easier, actually, and have a little more chance of working out. He can brainstorm a new cover story while he searches — somehow, he gets the feeling that school project won't cover this one.

He shuts the phone book. It's probably a dead end, anyway. He pulls up Facebook instead, figuring it's as good a starting point as any.

May as well check out the rest of the family, while I'm at it.

"— so fuck off, kid!"

The line clicks as Biyu hangs up. Zuko winces, his ears still ringing from her shouting. She had not taken kindly to the insinuation that her cousin's case hadn't been handled properly by the police, and the discussion went downhill from there.

Strike two. Zuko sighs, looking down at his notes. Ezra had been friendly, at least, but didn't have much information. According to him, Jet had planned to stay in his apartment, but ghosted — Ezra's exact words, unfortunately literal whether he knows it or not — before any real plans could be made. It at least helps Zuko create a rough timeline.

He glances out the window. In the moonlight he thinks he can just about make out Jet sitting in the truck, and —

The truck! God, Zuko's an idiot.

He pulls up the old article about Jet's truck, where it was found — that had to be where it happened, right? He jots down the address in case it's helpful later, and digs for more information. In one article, he finds:

Clothing and personal effects, including Andal's cellular phone and wallet, were found inside the vehicle.

Found outside the vehicle was an expired prescription painkiller bottle belonging to Reima Lincoln of nearby Cincinnati residence. Lincoln passed away in spring of 2006, but a caretaker at her home reported a breaking-and-entering a week beforehand, with several items going missing from Lincoln's prescription medicine cabinet. At this time, Andal is not considered a suspect in the burglary; it is more likely, sources say, that the drugs were purchased illegally from a street dealer.

Zuko frowns. Jet has never mentioned anything about drugs, but there's evidently a lot he hasn't mentioned. And, yeah, it's painkillers, but Zuko knows from experience how badly those can fuck you up. Illegal, expired ones? That's the kind of thing you mention when —

Zuko pauses, and has to remind himself Jet did not ask him to get involved. That he chose this, and it's his own fault if he goes asking questions he won't like the answer to.

He minimizes the page and pulls up his Geometry homework. He needs to cool off, and maybe after calculating the square footage of a tetrahedron, solving a maybe-murder will look less stressful in comparison.

Chapter Text

"We," Suki says apropos of nothing in the middle of a Jin-mandated lunch date, "should have a campout." She punctuates her sentence by skewering a meatball and dunking it in sauce. "You know, before school starts again."

"Sleepover?" Sokka makes a face. "Isn't that a little —"

"You say girly, and this meatball goes down your throat," Suki says, brandishing her skewer; Sokka raises his hands in surrender, backing off.

"Hey, I was gonna say juvenile."

"We are juvenile," Jin points out, unfolding her chicken wrap to pick off the olives and drop them on Suki's plate.

Zuko watches the exchange, bemused. "What do people even do at sleepovers?"

"We could go to that oh-so-creepy junkyard and have a séance," Song says, wiggling her fingers at Sokka, who scowls.

"For the last time —"

"I know, I'm teasing." Song sits back, sipping her drink — strawberry boba, the same color as her chunky knit sweater today. "Obviously you're a perfectly rational and scientific-minded person who doesn't believe in ghosts."

"But," Jin says, a mischievous look in her eyes. "I do have a Ouija board. Care to test your faith, Sokka?"

Suki's eyes light up. Sokka looks unamused, rolling his eyes.

"If you guys wanna mess around with some Hasbro ripoff, be my guest."

"I don't know." Song runs her hands over her braid. "My mom said she played with one at a friend's house as a kid, and she never felt safe over there again."

"Well, how safe can anyone feel in a junkyard, anyway?" Suki counters.

"Why's it always my house you guys want to hang out at?" Zuko complains, looking down at his salad and trying to cover his discomfort at the turn the conversation has taken. "There's nothing special about it."

"That's not true," Sokka says indignantly, and Zuko braces himself for a well-meaning reassurance. Then — "We go to Song's for movies, remember?"

Suki snorts, patting his shoulder. "Never change, Sokka."

"We just don't want you to feel left out," Jin says, stirring her mint iced tea with her straw. "And we've all been hanging out at each other's houses for years, it gets old. Besides, Song and I haven't been over there yet."

That's true, Zuko has to admit. And...maybe it'd be good for Jet. To have other people around.

"I can ask my uncle," he concedes. Suki cheers as if he's given her a yes (which he hasn't not done, but...whatever).

"Bring your board, Jin," she says, tossing back her hot chocolate like it's a shot of whiskey, and claps Sokka on the shoulder. "We'll make a believer of you yet."

Zuko privately hopes not. Sokka gets annoyed enough with Suki, and he likes her a lot. He shudders to think of what Jet would do to him.

"Am I invited?" is the first thing Jet asks, when Zuko tells him he's hanging out with friends tonight — not a sleepover, since Jin has to be at her grandparents' house early tomorrow, but a late-night hangout all the same.

Zuko hesitates, unsure of his answer. Technically, by nature of Song's séance idea, Jet's invited by default, along with any other departed souls hanging around the place. Practically, though...

"I don't know if the others can see you," he says. "I'll look like a crazy person if I try to talk to you. But I'm fine with you being there."

"Didn't tell all your friends about me already?" Jet asks, tilting his head with a faux-innocent smile. The stud in his ear makes another appearance as his hair tossed back with the movement.

"I told them," Zuko says. "I didn't mention the whole..." He gestures at Jet, who grins.

"Dead thing?"

"Yeah."

Jet nods, taking a drag of his cigarette. "I understand. It's a pretty exclusive club, people whose best friend is a rotting corpse in the ground. I can see why you'd wanna protect that."

Zuko's gotten decent at translating Jet-speak. There's a bitterness here, but Zuko can't pinpoint why. It doesn't seem to be directed at him, anyway.

"Do you know why most people can't see you?" Zuko asks. Jet shrugs, stamping out his cigarette on the hood of the truck and tucking it behind his ear.

"I always figured it was like that Beetlejuice movie, with Winona Ryder?" Jet leans back on the hood with his elbows, crossing his ankles. "Most people are too closed-minded. They don't want their worldview compromised."

Zuko hasn't seen Beetlejuice. He only knows Winona Ryder from Stranger Things, and vaguely recalls that one movie where she was blonde and dated the guy with knife hands or something. Zuko fell asleep halfway through it.

"So, what, my worldview doesn't matter?" Zuko asks. Jet tilts his head again, eyes flickering over Zuko's scar. Zuko's used to people looking at it, but for some reason he feels the urge to flinch.

"I get the feeling your worldview's taken some hits already. What's one more?" Jet grins, sharp, and rolls his shoulders. "Hey, maybe that's why I'm still here too."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I didn't go to church, much as Lorelei tried to get me there. Never bought into the whole heaven-or-hell thing, never really questioned what happened after, come to think of it. Always figured I'd find out eventually." He shrugs. "Maybe I'm stuck floating here 'til I pick a side."

"I thought that was what purgatory was for," Zuko says.

"Hey, do I look like I know?" Jet spreads his arms. "Like I said. I didn't pay attention to that stuff. Anyway, what are your friends gonna do, play some board games? Raid the liquor cabinet?"

Zuko scoffs a laugh. He's pretty sure Uncle doesn't even have liquor in the house. "Actually," he says, feeling pretty stupid as he says it, "Jin wants to do a séance."

He realizes only in hindsight that it was a bad idea to tell him when Jet's eyes light up, a grin not dissimilar from Suki's spreading over his face.

"Really?"

Zuko shoots him a warning glare. "Behave. You can, I don't know, fuck around with the Ouija board or whatever, but don't, like, throw shit at anyone or start setting stuff on fire."

"Jesus, Zuko, what do you take me for?" Jet smiles, all faux-innocent. Then, he adds, "It'd take way too much effort. I can pick up things that are mine, and probably take anything you hand me, but it's not like I can just grab any random crap lying around. Not easily, anyway."

These rules — if that's what they are — get more and more confusing. Zuko just nods.

"Well, behave. That's all I'm asking."

Suki plops down in the grass, inches away from where, unbeknownst to her, Jet is leaning on the fence and observing the group. He's been there since Zuko walked out, but so far it doesn't seem like anyone's noticed him.

"It's chilly out here," Jin says as she sits down right in front of Jet. Suki, meanwhile, looks up at Zuko.

"Your friend Jet couldn't make it tonight?"

Zuko looks right at Jet as he answers, "He had homework."

Jet snorts in amusement and puts out his cigarette in the grass, striding up to where Zuko's setting up the camping lantern.

"Cute bunch," he murmurs, eyes flicking over at Jin and Song, who are huddled together over the board Jin brought.

"That thing isn't gonna do anything," Sokka's saying, hands shoved in the kangaroo pocket on his hoodie. "It's a piece of cardboard with a chunk of plastic. Even if it worked, no self-respecting ghost would touch it."

Suki ignores him. "O Spirits of Sato Scrap and Auto Parts," she intones, waving her hands over the board. She then adopts a grin, biting her lip and making a V with her thumb and forefinger on her chin. "What are you wearing?"

Song bursts into nervous snickers, tucking her knees under her oversized sweater. Sokka rolls his eyes.

"Alright," Jin says through laughter. "Let's be serious. Zuko, get over here."

He sits in the circle, leaving enough space for Jet to fit between him and Song. If she notices, she doesn't say anything or show it.

"Alright, everyone put your hands on the planchette." Jin raises her hands, then slowly sets them on the plastic piece in the middle of the board. Even Sokka begrudgingly joins in.

Zuko follows suit, shivering a little. It's stupid, maybe, given the actual dead person sitting on his right, but the board gives him the heebie-jeebies. Jet's raised eyebrow as he puts his hands on the planchette don't help; it feels like he's being made fun of. He probably is.

"Are there any spirits with us tonight?" Jin asks, eyes on the board. Slowly, the planchette inches toward YES.

"Subconscious muscular reaction," Sokka mutters. Jet mimics him under his breath, flicking Sokka's fingers. Sokka scratches absently where he was flicked with his thumbnail, but doesn't seem to think anything's amiss. Zuko stifles a laugh, partly because he'd look like a freak laughing at nothing, and partly because Jet doesn't deserve his amusement.

Jin clears her throat. "Please spell your name."

Jet bites his tongue. This time, Zuko can feel the planchette shifting, laboriously, over the board.

 U-R-M-O-M

Suki snorts. "Very funny, guys. Come on."

"That wasn't me," Jin says. Song shakes her head, too.

"It had to have been. Zuko's not funny enough to try that," Sokka quips.

"Ouch," Jet says at the same time as Zuko.

"Whatever." Suki shakes her head. "Let's try and focus. Ghostie, can I call you that? What year were you born?"

Jet rolls his eyes and pushes the planchette again.

1-9-8-9

Suki whistles low. "Damn. Really ancient. Okay, what year did you die?"

2-0-0-6

"Convenient," Sokka mutters. "Not like half of us were born that year, or anything."

"Shush." Suki's in the zone now, Zuko can tell. She keeps her eyes on the board, seeming to have taken the lead over from Jin.

"Did you live in this house?"

NO

"Were the '90s as cool as everyone says they were?" Jin asks. Jet chuckles and obligingly answers.

O-V-E-R-R-A-T-E-D

"Chatty," Suki remarks. She taps her fingers on the planchette, thinking.

"How did you die?" she asks, finally.

A hush falls over the group as the planchette doesn't move. Zuko swears he sees Jet's face flicker into that other place, blood dripping down his chin and eyes glazed over. It's gone in a split second.

"See?" Sokka says. "I told you. Nobody's creative enough to think of anything, and —"

The planchette suddenly moving startles a yell out of Zuko. His and Song's hands both leave the board. Suki's eyes widen as the camping lantern flickers rapidly. The planchette scrapes across the board. It abruptly lands on GOODBYE.

"What the fuck," Zuko breathes, turning to Jet, but he's gone.

The lantern goes out; someone screams.

"That was, pardon my language, fucking terrifying." Song says, huddled under Jin's jacket in Uncle's living room. After they got the light back on, Jet was still gone and the subsequent attempts to contact the beyond had a lackluster outcome, so they had all gone inside, somewhat spooked.

"Come on, you don't actually believe a ghost moved that thing!" Sokka says, even though Zuko's pretty sure it was Sokka he heard scream when the light went out.

"Well, something moved it, and it wasn't me," Jin says, looking to Suki.

"I didn't either," Suki says, frowning. "I mean, I don't really believe in ghosts, per se, but that was weird, right?"

Zuko agrees, though not for the same reasons. He glances out the window, hoping for a sign of Jet's return, but sees nothing.

"I think I'm gonna go home soon," Song said, checking her phone. "My mom wants me to help with the clinic bake sale."

"I'm gonna head out soon, too." Jin squeezes Song's shoulders before standing up. "Thanks for having us over, Zuko."

"No problem," he says. "Sorry it was kind of boring."

"Are you kidding? That was enough excitement for a week." Song stands up, shrugging on her cardigan. She hugs Zuko, then ducks out on the porch to wait for her mom. Jin follows not long after her, the board tucked under her arm.

"So, Zuko, you can be honest," Suki says. "How'd you do it?"

"I didn't." Zuko glances out the window; still no Jet. "I thought you had something to do with it."

"Eh, I thought about it, but it seemed more fun to wait and see what'd happen." Suki looks over at Sokka, who's looking back at her with a skeptical expression. Zuko wonders, if he told them the truth right now — what would they think?

"Maybe it was like Sokka said," he says. "Just subconscious muscle stuff."

"See?" Sokka gestures at Zuko, Suki rolls her eyes, and then that's the end of it.

Later, after Sokka and Suki are gone, Zuko trudges out to the truck. He climbs into the bed and sits down; it's silent, almost creepily, now that the crickets and frogs have retired with cold weather setting in. The stars are visible, no clouds blocking them. The moon is a thumbnail-shaped sliver overhead.

It's maybe ten minutes before he feels an almost imperceptible weight settle next to him. Jet doesn't say anything, just breathes out smoke that dissipates in the crisp air within seconds.

Then, "I didn't think it'd suck this much, you know? I hoped it'd be like with you."

Zuko's...surprised, by how strongly he disagrees. Initially, he'd thought the same, but now...thinking about it seriously, it feels wrong to have it any other way than it is. For anyone else to know. This thing with Jet is his, in a way — irritating and confusing, sure, but it's also a social exchange where he's never the third wheel, never the new kid, never behind the trends. It's hard to feel insecure when the only people you're compared to have moved on.

Still. "I'm sorry," he says. "Suki really didn't mean anything by it."

"Nah, she did," Jet says, stamping out his cigarette on the end of his boot. "Isn't that what everyone wants to know? All the gory, sordid details? You did," he points out.

Zuko looks down. "I guess." He still does, but it's different — a need to know what happened and get closure, not that morbid, voyeuristic curiosity he used to have. That's what he tells himself, anyway.

"It hurts," Jet says after a moment. "If I think about it too long, I get this like...ache. Like I'm about to puke, I can't breathe —"

"Do you even need to breathe?" Zuko wonders aloud, earning a glare.

"I don't know what it is," Jet says. "It's like...like when I was six and I fell off my bike doing some stupid stunt I'd seen my older cousin doing. I cracked my head on the ground and got a concussion."

All Zuko registers is six; two years left before his parents were dead and gone. Ten and change before he was, too.

"You...you looked different," he says, when he realizes Jet is looking at him. "For a second. After Suki asked. Your face, it was like..."

Jet's expression goes all tight. He looks away, but not before Zuko catches his ashamed look.

"Bad, right?" he sighs. "Like I said, moving shit around takes a lot of effort. So does keeping up all this." He gestures to his face. "I don't just get out of bed looking like this, y'know? If I'm tired, or upset, it — it can slip."

Zuko feels bad for bringing it up. Clenching his hands around the ends of his sleeves, he clears his throat. "I wore makeup, soon as the scar healed over."

Jet glances up, looking curious; tilts his head, a look on his face like he's never imagined Zuko without the scar, like he is for the first time. Strangely, it's comforting, to have it taken for granted like that. Just a part of him, with no tragedy or loss or strings attached.

"It was really irritating and looked really stupid," Zuko goes on, unable to stop himself talking. "Uncle didn't want me to hide it, told me it wasn't good to smother it, so I had to get the foundation myself, and it was — it looked so bad."

He laughs a little, remembers taking his allowance to the drug store, word-vomiting to the cashier that it was for his girlfriend even though she hadn't asked.

"They didn't have shades that matched my tone, they were all too pink or orange, so I bought a crappy three-pack of eyeshadow and caked on the yellow and blue to try and correct the color, only I fucked that up too. It looked like a bruise, and the texture was all wrong with the rest of my face."

Jet's smile is small, and a little pitying. He sits forward, wrapping his arms around his knees; hunched over like he is, flannel hanging off his shoulders but arms out of the sleeves, he looks like some kind of lanky, punk angel.

"So, I — I stopped wearing it," Zuko finishes lamely. "I guess I got used to people staring, because it was better than lying to myself about it. Not that you're lying," he adds quickly.

Jet laughs dryly. "Is this supposed to make me feel better?"

Zuko shrugs helplessly, and Jet laughs again — at him, this time, but at least he's not sulking.

"You're alright, you know that?" he asks. "You're not like other people."

"I've been told," Zuko deadpans.

"It's good, though," Jet insists. "You're...well, not many people would stick around, not like you have."

"I have an addictive personality," Zuko half-jokes, half-doesn't, remembering the sleepless nights and the excuses and I promise I'll be a better son, before he realized it was all worth nothing.

"You saying you're addicted to me?" Jet asks, with a stupid smirk. Zuko shoves his shoulder, flushing.

"Shut the fuck up."

"Addictive personality," Jet goes on, snorting. "Get that one out of a textbook?"

"You're a cliché," Zuko groans.

"You're cute," Jet says, and it's not the first time he's ever said it, but there's something different in his voice, in the way his eyes skate over all of Zuko, two black holes that might just swallow him up if he gets too close.

He's not scared, though, not how he should be. Instead he lets himself be pulled in, some invisible string tightening between them.

When he kisses Jet, he doesn't even second-guess it, not when Jet's lips go from barely-there cold to warm and soft, not when there's another tongue in his mouth, teeth on his lips, when he finally tastes smoke and something a little earthy — it's a blur, overlaid with painful clarity. Actions bleeding together while details stand out, a hangnail snagging in Jet's hair, rough, chapped lips catching under his teeth, hands tangling in his t-shirt.

He pulls away when he needs to breathe — he has to do that, he reminds himself — and it's then that reality sinks in.

He just made out with a fucking ghost. Full-on, French and then some — and that's something he can have a crisis about later, because right now, he fully plans to do it again.

"Whoa," Jet says, putting a hand on Zuko's chest when he lunges in again. It couldn't stop him, he barely feels it now, but Zuko doesn't push. "Easy, tiger. Catch your breath."

Jet looks the same as before, no magnificent change brought on by it. If anything, the tangled hair and kiss-swollen lips complete the morning-after-a-party look he already has going on. His flannel's fallen off his shoulders, bunched up behind him. He smiles at Zuko, all teeth.

"Where did that come from?" he asks. "Been wanting to do that for a while?"

Zuko glares at him. "Fuck off, I'm still annoyed with you."

"Shaking in my boots." Jet nudges Zuko's leg with said boot, laughing silently at his own joke.

"God," he says after a second, "it has been a long fucking time since someone's done that." He rubs a hand over his face, laughing again. "Jesus Christ."

"Was it bad?" Zuko asks, suddenly nervous.

"Nah, come on. You're good." He pulls his knees up again, hunching over them with a lazy grin. "Even better than I expected."

Zuko feels his face flush. He doesn't know if it's indignation, or just the thought that Jet expected anything at all.

Jet uncurls and moves in close again, getting up in Zuko's face.

"Well, are you gonna do it again, or am I gonna have to do everything myself?"

Zuko swallows. His limbs feel heavy, and he can't look away from Jet's lips. He was going off instinct before, not thinking, but —

"It's okay. I don't bite." Jet lays his hand on Zuko's cheek and leans in. A cold breath gusts over Zuko's lips, and then —

You're in the back seat of the truck, doing your best to get some shut-eye in the early hours. The radio's on, low, because Longshot can't sleep without it. Bee's in the front, keeping a lookout. You've had to start doing that lately, taking turns keeping an eye out for pigs and anyone else who'd try to drag you back to that hellhole.

You can't sleep. Maybe it's the cramped backseat or the smell of fresh asphalt from the construction site across the road or Longshot snoring in the front, but something's keeping you awake. Finally, you can't stand it.

"I'm gonna go for a walk," you say. "Maybe try and find something to eat."

"Be careful," Bee says, handing over her bag — it's where you keep the better part of your money, stolen and saved up from lawnmowing and babysitting. It's got your Ohio state driver's license, a cheap burner phone, emergency first-aid, along with a bunch of shit you don't really need but it's better to have anyway. There's also a knife in the front pocket, one you got Bee for her last birthday.

"I'll be fine." You smile and shift the bag over your shoulder.

There's a 24-hour convenience store down the road. The fluorescent lights and doorbell make your eyes and ears hurt when you walk in. The twenty-something cashier is listlessly reading a magazine, headphones on and blaring heavy metal. You make a beeline for the back of the store, sweeping a bag of bread and a couple of mini-boxes of cereal off a shelf and into your bag. There are chips on the shelf, and you grab a bag of those, too.

You take a drink and a pack of gum to the counter, forking over the cash for it. The kid behind the counter hands over your change with a sluggish salute.

"Keep it real, dude," he says, in a lazy drawl, winking one reddened eye. You return the salute and sidle out, pocketing a 4-pack of Bic lighters.

It's when you're headed back up the sidewalk that you see the blue lights. You don't try to run, just slip further into the shadows by the bulldozers and dump trucks, hoping the cops are just passing through.

When they're gone, you breathe a little easier, but your fingers twitch for a cigarette. You duck behind a Bobcat and light up.

The sound comes from behind you. You whirl, putting out your cigarette on your jeans before whoever's over there can see it. Through the dark, if you squint, you can make out a person standing with their back to you, a phone to their ear.

"...on your head if this gets out, not mine. Remember that, Kuei. I can ruin you, and I won't lose sleep over it."

Something about his voice is familiar. You can't place it, though; besides, you're miles from Corvo, the chances that anyone from there is out here are slim to none.

"Haven't I made it clear that I don't care?" the man snaps. "You'll make the handoff at the agreed location, or you'll find the press at your door in the morning. The blood trail won't lead back to me."

He shuts the phone, and turns to walk away. He pauses as a car passes by, and you can see his face, his blue uniform, the shiny badge on his shirt.

And, you realize, the man can probably see you.

You dodge back around the Bobcat and shove your cigarettes in your pocket. The cop hadn't looked at you or reacted, but there is no way you're sticking around to tempt fate.

You make it back to the truck and toss your bag in the back. Bee gives you a look, but buckles up as you turn the ignition.

"Cops in the area," you say. "Better safe than sorry."

You drive off, turning over the conversation you overheard. You're pretty sure Kuei is someone you've heard about, and that cop looked really familiar, but you don't have any way of finding out why right now.

What the fuck?

Zuko realizes he said it out loud when Jet pulls away, looking hurt.

"Jesus, okay," he says, sitting back. "Sorry, I thought —"

Zuko's brain catches up with what's happening. "No. Wait." He reaches for Jet's hand — hesitates — takes it anyway. "Sorry. I just —" he blinks. "I think that thing happened again."

Jet frowns, puzzled. "Thing...? Oh." He blanches, and pulls his hand away from Zuko's like he's been shocked. "Why? I mean, we didn't — last time, we were asleep."

And touching, Zuko thinks, but...he just kissed Jet for way longer than Jet kissed him. And maybe that was it.

"Touch my hand."

Jet hesitates, reaching out. Zuko closes his hand around Jet's.

There's something — a feeling like static electricity buzzing between their connected palms — but nothing more. Jet looks at him, and Zuko shakes his head, letting go.

"I guess it only happens sometimes," he offers.

"I don't want it happening at all." Jet looks disappointed, the air around him getting chilly.

"So, what, we just never touch each other again?"

"I don't know." He looks down, picking at his fingernails. Zuko gets the feeling he doesn't want to talk about it.

From off in the distance, Zuko hears Uncle calling for him. He sighs.

"I have to go."

"Yeah. See ya," Jet says.

Zuko pauses before getting up. He leaves a kiss on Jet's cheek, below the glitter smear and the two darker freckles at the corner of his eye. Jet looks surprised.

"See you later," Zuko says, heart pounding. Jet smiles a little, and waves as Zuko leaves.

"You were out there a while, Zuko," Uncle says when he comes in the house. "You look flushed. Are you terribly cold?"

Zuko shakes his head, hoping his face doesn't flush even more. "I'm fine, Uncle."

"Well, all the same. I'll get you some tea."

Chapter Text

It's early enough that the sun hasn't come up yet, and Uncle's still snoring across the hall. Zuko pulls his covers over his head to block out the obnoxious birdsong outside, and opens his laptop.

He's never seen Officer Long Feng before, but he has a hunch that he'll look familiar. Indeed, when he pulls up the Facebook page, the man in the picture proves to be an older version of the man he saw in the memory-vision-dream last night. He's arm in arm with a beautiful woman who looks decades younger than him, her smile a little too thin and her eyes a little too wide for it.

Zuko looks over the profile and wonders what that phone call was about. He's disturbingly reminded of the conversations Dad used to have behind his closed office door. Azula would always convince Zuko to listen with her an empty glass against the wall.

I could ruin you. Make the handoff. Blood trail.

If Long Feng is anything like Dad, then Zuko imagines there is a blood trail.

Could — could Long Feng have been responsible for what happened to Jet? He was the officer in charge of finding him, sure, but only in name if June's word was anything to go by. If Long Feng had spotted Jet that night, known he'd overheard the phone call —

Zuko's getting ahead of himself. He doesn't know enough to be accusing people of murder. Jet was in the city, apparently alone after Bee and Longshot left. Anything could have happened to him.

At the same time...anything could have happened to him. The news coverage of the case is sparse, and there's an obvious narrative to it; troubled teen with a history of running away, an abandoned vehicle with stolen prescription drugs inside. Zuko looked over a map a couple nights ago, and the place they found Jet's truck is right uphill from the Ohio river, at the edge of a city just outside Corvo County. As far as Zuko knows, they never officially searched the river, but anyone could put together what happened.

Anyone who hadn't seen what Zuko has. He thinks of the bloody, pained grimace Jet made last night when Suki asked about his death. Even Jet isn't prideful enough to be that angry over an accident.

His alarm clock rings out, startling him, and he fumbles for the off button, still tangled in the covers. He doesn't have to be ready for another hour.

He gets up anyway. While Uncle's in the bathroom, he eats a bowl of cereal; while Uncle's eating, he brushes his teeth and fixes his hair.

"You're up and ready awfully early," Uncle says when Zuko returns to the kitchen, gathering his things. "What's the occasion?"

"Just couldn't sleep any longer," Zuko answers, shuffling the contents of his bag to make room for both his laptop and headphones. "I think I want to go to the library after work."

The library will have old town newspapers, more than can be found online. The library will have printers he can use to print out what he has found online, and most importantly, the library will have free Wi-Fi. Between all of that, he might be able to make a breakthrough.

He wants, really, to go and see Jet, to talk and maybe do more, but he thinks he might not get to work on time if he does. It will be really, really awkward if Uncle has to call him back again. And, God, Zuko has not thought this thing through. Uncle's going to catch on, just like he always does, exactly when Zuko doesn't want him to.

He'll talk to Jet later. Tables won't wait themselves, and maybe when he gets home they'll have something to talk about.

Zuko flips through the pages of printed news articles, social media posts and what he managed to write down after he talked to June. The official missing poster he found on the police website. The declaration of death he found in the February 8, 2007 issue of Corvo Gazette. Even the reports he found on the other body, the one that isn't Jet but could just as easily be related to his death, one way or another.

Before, Zuko hadn't looked into Jet's other friends beyond their Facebook pages. He'd figured that would be where they mostly posted. But after more digging, he found a surprising amount of activity on message boards and blogs. No hard evidence so far, but all worth looking into. He feels accomplished by the time he packs everything up and leaves the tiny research room at the back of the library. He tracks down his uncle in the recipe books, and they drive home.

Zuko bypasses the junkyard gate, going straight to his room. The stack of papers — nearly an inch thick, printed on both sides, he didn't even want to think about how much printing it all had cost at fifty cents a page — goes on his desk. His laptop stays in his bag, and he shoves a notebook and pen in there too. He grabs a bag of pretzels and a bottle of water on his way out the back door.

Jet's nowhere to be seen when Zuko gets to the truck, but he knows that doesn't mean anything. He sits on the tailgate, filling up his notes app while he waits.

It isn't long. He looks up from his phone and Jet's there, inches away, looking just the same as when Zuko left him. He smiles, and Zuko's chest flutters weirdly as he returns it.

"Hey."

"Hey yourself." Jet tilts his head. "Where've you been all day, handsome? I missed you."

Oh, is all Zuko can think, through the blood rushing to his face. We're doing this now. He doesn't know yet how he feels about that. Jet's flirting never really fazed him before, but now it feels...different. Less like a joke.

"I thought you didn't really have a concept of time," he says.

"I do when it comes to you," Jet says, and Zuko has to think about how stupid that is to keep his face from crinkling up and blushing. "So, where've you been?" Jet repeats.

"Work. And the library," Zuko says.

"Nerd." Jet hops up on the tailgate next to him. "School's not even in session, and you're doing homework?" He sounds almost indignant, as if he can't imagine picking responsibility over his glorious presence.

Honestly, he's kind of right. Zuko lost count, somewhere around when the ancient printer was sluggishly chugging out the 20th page of hastily cropped and collaged news articles, of how many times he'd thought Wow, I could've been hanging out with Jet right now.

"Does it help that I was thinking about you the whole time?" Zuko asks, trying on the whole boyfriend-talk thing. It sounds wrong, and ew, no, he's just gonna talk like a normal person, thank you. Or the closest approximation he can manage. Unfortunately, Jet's already laughing at him. "Shut up!" Zuko grumbles, elbowing his side.

"Nah, that was cute." Jet makes an aborted move, like he's going to poke Zuko's cheek or something but thinks better of it. And then there's an awkwardness hanging in the air, both of them, Zuko thinks, reminded of what happened last night.

Zuko clears his throat, and takes Jet's hand from where it rests in the space between them. "What'd you do all day?"

"Eh, you know. Drift on the spectral plane. Wish the boring-ass owners hadn't torn down the basketball hoop back in '09." Jet looks up at the sky. "It is really fucking boring being dead. Nobody needs this much time. I almost miss homework."

Zuko thinks about the spotty attendance record he's heard about, and wonders if Jet ever even did his homework.

He feels his laptop pressed against his side through his bag, and gets an idea. The beginnings of an idea, at least. 

"Hey, do you wanna help me with something?" He hands Jet his phone — and, after digging in his bag, a pack of cheap multicolor styluses he got at the dollar store — and gets out his laptop. "Pick some music while I set this up."

Jet shrugs, picking a bright red stylus out of the pack, and taps away at Zuko's phone with it. A moment later, the buzzy first notes of Boulevard of Broken Dreams project from the phone's shitty speakers at full volume. Cliché, Zuko mouths at Jet, who flips him off in response.

He rolls his eyes and finishes setting up the laptop. He still has the thumb drive with all the copies of the stuff he printed, and plugs it into the port. Jet's looking curiously between the phone and the laptop and the thumb drive.

"So like, is this stuff just regular now?" he asks, finally. "I mean, I got a phone when I started driving, but it was pretty bare-bones compared to this. Almost no one I knew had a laptop except, like, rich kids."

Zuko bites back the impulse to remind Jet he is a rich kid, because that feels like rubbing it in. Besides, his phone is the $30 model from Dollar General, and his laptop is refurbished from an online discount store. Not exactly the iPhone he used to have before he smashed it against the wall in his and Uncle's first apartment.

"Yeah, pretty much everyone has a smartphone now. There's five-year-olds with TikTok accounts."

"I'm sure I'd be shocked if I knew what TikTok is," Jet deadpans. He nods at Zuko's laptop. "So, that thing can work all the way out here? Like, connect to the cell towers or whatever?"

Zuko shrugs. "Theoretically. Uncle's Wi-Fi doesn't actually work all the way out here, and it doesn't get service like a phone, so it's not connected to the Internet right now."

"What are you using it for, then?"

Zuko opens the files on the thumb drive. "I wanted to show you something. I — I thought, maybe..." He turns the screen to face Jet, bringing up the collage of articles beside his recollection of his conversation with June. "Well, you said you hadn't been found. From the looks of it, they didn't look very hard, and...I'm wondering why that is. If it's more than just what June said."

Jet's eyes scan the page, a furrow appearing between his brows. Zuko swipes to the next page when he finishes, and he reads that with the same expression.

"Why are you doing this?" he asks, and Zuko's shoulders tense. He's ready to go on the defense, before he realizes Jet doesn't sound mad. Just...confused. Maybe a little upset.

"I — I figured it was the kind of thing a friend should do," Zuko says. "And — well. We're friends. Or something. Right?"

Jet gives him a long look, his expression inscrutable. Finally he nods, looking away. "So, what does all this mean?"

"Well," Zuko says, "I was hoping you could tell me. You don't have to say what happened to you," he adds before Jet can say anything. "I won't make you do that. Just...tell me if anything in these articles looks...off."

Jet scratches the back of his neck as he peers at the screen. "Off how?"

"Stuff not lining up with how you remember it."

He sighs. "Okay. Right. Well, for starters, that —" he points to a line in an article — "is definitely not where I left my truck."

Zuko frowns, opening up the map he'd downloaded, marked with all the relevant locations. "Where did you leave it?"

"Right around here." Jet gestures to a cluster of buildings, a few blocks away from where the truck and its contents were recovered.

Zuko marks the location with a digital sticker and text in the photo editor. He adds, Truck moved after death to his notebook app.

"Okay. Anything else?"

"The phone and wallet." Jet frowns. "I definitely had those on me when...I didn't put them in the truck. The keys, either, I never left those, until I lost 'em a few years ago. Used to be able to move around a little more when I had those."

"Whoever..." Zuko stops himself, swallowing. He and Jet have never really broached the whole murder thing. It hangs in the air over them like a dark cloud. "Someone must have moved your stuff."

"Covered his tracks." Jet scoffs. "Bastard."

His. Jet's sureness in that one syllable deletes any notion in Zuko's mind that his friends had something to do with it. Jet would know. And he's talked about his friends enough, with none of the malice emanating off him now.

Zuko wonders. Who is it, then? Someone still out there, walking around with a murder hanging over their head? Or someone put away in prison for a different crime, keeping this one under wraps? Maybe it's someone who's already dead. That thought is the most discouraging — the idea that Jet's fate could be sealed away in two different graves. Ones Zuko might never find.

He can't think that way, though. He just has to keep looking.

"I did a lot of ghost research," he says, switching windows. "There wasn't a lot of conclusive stuff. It's really hard to tell when people are making up stories or just dealing with environmental stuff that makes them think they're haunted, but..."

The pictures he took of the book pages are blurry and hard to read, but it's legible enough to get the point across.

"'The prevailing belief is that ghosts are the imprint of a soul who met an unexpected, painful, or violent end,'"Jet reads. "'Literarily, ghosts or spirits are often used as a narrative tool to explore themes of grief, trauma, and closure. Societally, they fill the gap between the religious belief in afterlife and scientific doubts as to the existence of such a thing; a third option between eternal paradise — or damnation — and ceasing to exist entirely.'"

"I thought about what you said. Not being able to pick a side," Zuko says. "This reminded me of that."

"Fascinating," Jet says dryly. "So I'm not religious enough for eternal life but too much of a pussy to ditch."

"Well, this is more about the whole belief thing." Zuko shrugs. "I don't know how much it really means for you. I just thought it was interesting."

"Not really sure how it helps me, though." Jet adjusts the laptop so he can see the screen better. "I don't know what most of this is. The fuck is a parapsychologist?"

"Study of psychic shit. I thought looking at it might explain why I can see you but everyone else can't."

"Here I was thinking it was just our stunning chemistry." Jet tilts his head, leaning subtly on Zuko's shoulder. "You find anything?"

"Not really." Zuko bumps Jet's shoulder with his own, feeling the almost-there press of it. "I even looked up on the memory stuff, but there's no solid information on any of it."

"So we're back at square one. Joy." Jet sighs. "I don't think I want to know everything. Not yet."

Zuko looks at him in surprise. "You don't?"

"I don't know, I mean..." Jet turns and leans against the tailgate, putting his hands in his pockets. "What if finding out is what makes me leave? You know?"

"You don't want to leave?"

"It's kind of sounding like you want me to leave," Jet says mildly, looking over at Zuko. "Tryin' to get rid of me? Too much baggage?"

"No," Zuko says quickly. "I just...guess if it were me, I'd be pretty sick of this scene."

"Well, like I said." Jet smiles. "You're the best thing that's happened to me in a while. I'm not ready to let go of that just yet."

Zuko's chest feels like a hand is squeezing it, making it too tight for his heart. "You don't want to leave me?"

"Is that so hard to believe?" Jet asks, brows raised slightly.

"Kind of." He chuckles. "Nobody's stayed for me before."

"I'm kind of unprecedented," Jet points out, a little smug. "You, too, for that matter. Anyone ever mention dating a ghost?"

"You don't want the answer to that," Zuko says, wishing he could purge the search results from his memory. Jet cackles at whatever look he must have on his face.

"You're right, I probably don't." He glances at the computer screen one more time, fidgets with his earring. "Thanks," he says after a moment.

"For what?"

"Trying to help."

"Didn't help much," Zuko says, annoyed with himself for thinking it would. Pushing him, after Jet already said he didn't like thinking about his death —

"Hey. Get that look off your face." Jet pokes his cheek, the non-sensation sending a chill up Zuko's spine. "You're helping me more than anyone has in sixteen years just by bein' here. Seventeen, actually, now. I'm allowed to thank you for that, aren't I?"

Zuko sighs. "Yeah," he concedes. "I guess."

"You don't have to look so glum about it." He gets out a cigarette and lighter. "So, did you have a reason for coming out here, other than to show me your nerd stuff?"

"It's not —" Zuko cuts himself off. He's not gonna let Jet rile him up. "Yeah, actually, I did have something else in mind."

Zuko's already seen Scre4m like, 20 times — and yeah, part of that has to do with Rory Culkin playing a hot, unstable horror buff, mostly it's just the best movie in the franchise since the first, and way better than Jet's fucked-up homoerotically charged musicals, fuck you — but watching Jet watch it is like seeing it for the first time.

"This is better than what I thought you were gonna suggest when you said you had something in mind," Jet says, head bent close to Zuko's so they can both see the movie playing on his phone.

"What did you expect?" Zuko asks, glancing over. Jet blushes — do ghosts have blood, then, or is it just habit or something? — and ducks his head.

"Well, generally when people say that, they mean getting in the backseat to fool around."

"Oh." And now Zuko's blushing, and he doesn't know whether to feel flattered or offended. "I mean — did you want—?"

"Nah. Can't think how that'd work, you being solid and me...not." Jet shrugs, looking uncomfortable. "You're too classy for that, anyhow. I like the movie. It's cool they kept making more of these, the third one was a total bummer."

Zuko, at first, thinks he wouldn't mind figuring out how to make it work. That he doesn't have to be that classy. Then it registers that Jet's changing the subject — that maybe he doesn't want to make it work, and Zuko's...in agreement, he finds, for now. He doesn't want to rush anything, not when they're already walking on eggshells over this whole thing between them.

"Yeah," he says instead, bumping his shoulder. "There's, like, six now. I like this one best of the sequels, it doesn't get so caught up in tricking the audience with plot twists that there's no way to solve the mystery."

"Nerd," Jet says affectionately. "Don't spoil it, alright? My money's on Sidney's mom coming back as the killer."

"You're ridiculous," Zuko replies.

"Hey, weirder shit's happened."

That's true, Zuko has to admit, leaning on Jet's shoulder and focusing on the screen again. He smiles as Jet muffles a laugh in his hand at Charlie's summary of modern slasher 'rules'.

"When was the gay rule put in effect?" he asks. "Would have been nice to know. Maybe I can file a complaint. Get some compensation."

Zuko snorts, startled as always by Jet's flippancy. "I'll let you know if I get through to the office of Gay Grievances."

Jet snickers, reaching to take Zuko's hand. "Good to know you've got my back."

Zuko smiles and squeezes his hand. "Yeah. I do."

Uncle shouts from the house for Zuko to come home and help with dinner, and Zuko realizes with guilt that he's spent less and less time with Uncle since they moved here. He regretfully tells Jet goodbye, gathering his things and leaving the truck.

Uncle gives him a questioning look as he rolls up his sleeves and washes his hands in the kitchen sink. Zuko knows he must look like a mess — he fixed his hair the best he could, but his face is flushed both from the cold and proximity to Jet, and he knows there are marks on his face from when he fell asleep on Jet's shoulder.

Zuko doesn't say anything, just gets to work peeling the carrots on the countertop. How he could even begin to explain this — there's been a lot of strange and scary and embarrassing things in his life, but he's never felt like he had to keep them secret from Uncle. This feels different. It's both scary and a little thrilling, to have something all to himself.

Someone all to yourself, he thinks, remembering how many times he'd resented Azula for having her friends, while he was always just a tagalong, forever on the outskirts of any group, not cool or smart or funny enough to be in the inner circle. It's a childish way to think, he knows, but he can't help indulging the thought. Jet's one person in his life he doesn't have to worry about sharing or competing over.

Zuko wakes in the middle of the night, feeling cold, with a single thought repeating in his head.

In sixteen years...Seventeen, actually, now. The anniversary of Jet dying has come and gone. And Zuko, like a douchebag, spent the day bugging him with memories of it. God, what a tool.

And he didn't remember to get a present, either. He doesn't know what Jet would even —

Oh.

The ground is freezing, and Zuko's fingers must be blue by the time he finds the keys — he can't tell, in this light, but he can feel the sting of every blade of grass his hands brush through. There's dirt under his fingernails and more that he doesn't think will ever scrub out of his fingerprints.

Jesus Christ, he better appreciate this, Zuko thinks. The keychain — with enough dangly attachments  it could probably be used to flog someone — is tangled up in a patch of grass that's grown out since Zuko moved in here.

In the moonlight, Zuko can see the initials on the monogrammed charms — J, B, L, D, S, P, J again with chipped dark nail polish shadowing the negative space around it. Jet and his family — and no wonder, if Jet was telling the truth, that he could move past the invisible boundary around his truck when he had this. Zuko can almost feel an electric charge in it when he finally pulls it free —

"Happy birthday," Bee says, grinning all gap-toothed like she normally doesn't, not since Janet from the back of the bus made fun of her smile. She nudges the brown paper bag, decorated with permanent marker scribbles, across the Greens' chipped and battered dining room table.

"You didn't have to get me anything," you say, frowning. Bee rolls her eyes.

"June footed the bill for it. Don't even worry about it."

Jet's pretty sure June wouldn't be caught dead paying money for anything. That thought is a little more comfortable than her dipping into her parents' reserve for him.

"Shouldn't I wait to open it, then?"

"Nah. Come on, go for it." Bee's buzzing with impatience, and you resist the urge to tease her, opening up the bag.

The braided plastic key fob falls into your hand, a tassel of charms hanging off the end. There's a letter on each one — initials. You and each of the kids. And June's, outlined in shiny purple nail polish.

You smile, and fight back the stronger emotional response crawling up your throat. "Thanks, Bee."

"Don't get all sappy, I promised Longshot I'd hit you if you started cryin' over it."

Zuko comes to on his ass in the dirt, the keys clenched in his fist, and huffs out a heavy breath.

Yeah, he thinks. Keys are definitely the right call.

He gets up, pockets the keys, and thinks how he's going to get back to his room without tracking mud all over the place.

Chapter Text

Zuko clutches the keys in his jacket pocket, running his thumb over the freezing cold metal. The gravel at the entrance to the junkyard crunches under his feet as he makes his way to the truck. He doesn't see Jet, but he's okay with waiting for him. The sun is still mostly below the horizon, its absence lending an extra chill to the air. He climbs into the bed of the truck, curling up to keep warm while he waits.

It doesn't take long for Jet to show up. He hops up on the tailgate, flannel buttoned halfway up and hair even messier than usual. Zuko wonders if he sleeps.

"You're up early," Jet says, smiling with a surprised but pleased look. He tilts his head curiously. "Couldn't wait to see me?"

"I have something for you," Zuko says, thrusting out his hand with the keys in it. "For your...other birthday."

Jet raises an eyebrow, frowns the tiniest bit. "I was kidding about that, you know?"

Zuko feels his face flush. "I just thought you'd like it." 

"Well, thank you." Jet holds his hand out; when Zuko hands him the keys, he stares for a long moment.

"Where'd you get these?"

"They were at the edge of the lot. Tangled in grass." Zuko watches Jet anxiously, hoping he didn't misstep. "I — they're yours, aren't they?"

"Yeah." Jet turns the keys over, swallowing. "This is — real thoughtful, Zuko. Thanks." He closes his hand around them, clearing his throat. "You, uh — you have work today?"

Zuko shakes his head. "Uncle went in already. It's my day off. I thought we could just hang out here."

Jet looks up, meeting his eyes. "Yeah, let's hang out. But not here." He smiles. "You've seen my place already. I haven't been to yours."

Zuko should probably feel uncomfortable with the idea of having a ghost hanging out in his house. But it's Jet. 

"Alright. Let's go." He offers his hand; Jet takes it, gracefully dismounting the tailgate, and walks with him toward the gate.

When they reach the boundary of what must be his space — that stretch of ground on the other side of the fence inside Uncle's yard — Jet pauses, tentative, clutching the keys in the hand not holding Zuko's.

Then he steps forward, and then he's running, and Zuko has to scramble to keep up, Jet's laughter getting lost in the rush of air as he bounds toward the house.

"Oh my God." Jet drops onto the bed with an honest-to-God moan, not even bothering to take his shoes off first, which — yeah, it's not like he's going to get dirt on the bed, but it's the principle of the thing.

Zuko looks away, feeling both like he's intruding on something — never mind that it's his bed — and self-consciousness about the state of his room. Looking around at its contents, he feels hopelessly boring in comparison to Jet's haunt. The coolest thing in here is the box of kung fu trophies that's sitting, still packed, in the bottom of his closet.

"Fuck," Jet says, still sprawled on the bed like he can't believe he's here. He probably can't. "I forgot how it felt to lie down. Zuko, get over here, this is great."

Zuko doesn't point out that he knows, he sleeps there every night. Jet's excitement over the mundane is one of those traits that could be annoying, but it's honestly...nice, Zuko guesses, to see the things he's taken for granted with fresh eyes.

He sits down on the bed — shoes already taken off on the porch — and Jet rolls over to make room for him. Zuko's grateful his Uncle spoiled him with a queen-size bed, because he doesn't think he could handle the close proximity his old twin bed would have forced. This is already more personal than he expected.

"Do you want to like, do anything?" Zuko asks, looking around. He's not really sure what people do with guests, beyond the scheming Azula always did when her friends were over, and the boring dinner parties his parents had — he'd offer food, but that doesn't really work in this situation. Jet doesn't have schoolwork to help with. His thoughts stray to the bag with all his research inside; but no, he's not going to spring that on Jet right now.

"Whatever you wanna do," Jet says, eyes wandering the room. "I don't know why, but I figured there'd be a lot more screens in here. Lot more books than I figured."

"I like to read." Zuko glances to his bookshelf — is it really that many books? God, he looks like a total nerd. "Um, sometimes. But a lot of them are, you know, gifts and stuff for school —"

"Hey, I like my men well-read." Jet smiles, looking up at Zuko. "But I kind of imagined people'd just, you know, read everything online."

"Most things, yeah. But I like how books feel. It's more...there. And the light from a screen can hurt my eyes, so...plus, it kind of sucks when whatever site is hosting the book decides to delete it or make it unavailable for God knows how long."

"Like the Disney Vault," Jet says sagely.

"Sure?" Zuko shrugs. "I guess. But digital. And no guarantee of it ever being legally released again. Like if the Disney Vault was all Song of the South, but without the racism. Usually." Damn it, the analogy really got away from him.

"Crazy." Jet shakes his head, rolling onto his side. "Anyway, what do you read?"

"Mostly nonfiction. I like history." Zuko picks at some lint on the woven throw on the bed. "And, like, poetry and plays and stuff. My mom was in theatre, so."

"Really? You ever do any?"

He scoffs. "No. Dad said it was a waste of time."

"Fuck that guy." Jet looks around again. "So what do you do, other than read and...hang around on murder forums?"

"Um, I used to do kung fu, but that ended when I got kicked out. I practice now and then, but there's not a lot of time, and my depth perception is off, with..." He gestures toward his left eye. "Uncle said if I can stick it out at school past winter break, he'll enroll me in a class. I'll probably have to work my way back up."

"That's kind of cool," Jet says, sounding impressed. "You ever compete?"

Zuko scoffs. "In everything. It was mandatory in my family. My sister was better, but I got a couple awards." First place, even, once. Next to Azula's three-time championship, it'd looked pathetic. Still, Dad had cut the picture of him accepting the trophy out of the competition newsletter, framed it on the wall next to Azula's. That picture had been in the cardboard box Dad sent with Zuko after he was thrown out. It's in the bottom of Zuko's closet now, too.

"Well, I'd have loved to watch you kick some ass." Jet punches his shoulder playfully, not that Zuko can feel it. He rolls his eyes and pushes Jet's shoulder, rolling him onto his back. Jet makes a solid attempt at pulling Zuko on top of him with all his non-existent strength; Zuko's more than happy to give him what he wants in that regard. He braces his hands on the bed, hovering on all fours over Jet and probably looking extremely stupid, he imagines.

Jet looks up at him, mischief gleaming in his dark eyes; still, there's something shy about the way he leans up on his elbows to kiss Zuko. A hesitation in his movements that lasts until the millisecond their lips slot together. Zuko closes his eyes, letting himself get lost in feeling. Where their first kiss was a rushing, crashing blur, this one stretches for what feel like hours, even though it can't be more than a couple minutes before he pulls away for a proper breath — Jet keeps going, his mouth finding Zuko's neck and grazing sharp teeth over his pulse. Zuko shudders, and distantly wonders how the fuck he's gonna explain a hickey to his friends when they see it.

There's something a little exciting in that. A real, indelible mark left on him, proof that Jet's not only in his head. A counterpoint to his scar, that suffering doesn't have to be the only thing imprinted on him. It's the type of object lesson Pauline — the airy-fairy guidance counselor at his last school — would've eaten up.

"Jesus," he moans when Jet slides an ice-cold-then-hot hand up his shirt, digging blunt nails into his chest. "Christ."

"He ain't got shit to do with it," Jet says, grinning against his neck. "I'd appreciate a little credit."

"Shut up." Zuko pushes Jet back, kissing him hard enough that he does shut up for once. He's debating whether it'd kill the mood to put on some music or something when his phone chimes in his pocket.

"Shit," he hisses, scrambling off of Jet and fishing his phone out. Uncle, obviously, nobody else ever calls him without texting first — and he answers quickly, hoping his voice isn't as wobbly as it sounds to his own ears. "Uncle."

"Zuko! I forgot to tell you before I left, there's chicken in the freezer. Can you put it in the refrigerator to thaw?"

Zuko holds his breath, shooting a glance at Jet — reclining on the bed, looking ridiculously smug. He straightens his shirt, which is crooked from Jet pulling it up. "Yeah, okay," he says.

"Is everything alright?"

"Fine, thanks, I was just — jogging." He seizes on the first excuse that comes to mind. Jet cackles out loud, and Zuko flinches and glares at him, even though he knows Uncle can't hear it.

"I'm glad to hear you're keeping up with your exercise. Be careful of ice on the sidewalks! It can be deadly this time of year."

"Yeah," Zuko says, painfully. "I'll, um. Keep that in mind."

"I love you, Nephew."

"You too. Bye."

"Good-bye—"

Zuko hangs up and shoves his phone back in his pocket, burying his face in his hands as Jet dissolves into peals of laughter.

"Kill me," Zuko groans.

"It wouldn't help," Jet informs him, still snickering. He gets up from the bed and circles the room, running his fingertips over the books on the shelf. "This lady still writing anything?" He points out the dusty YA fantasy novels on the bottom shelf.

"Not really. She mostly just bullies trans people on the Internet now."

"For fuck's sake." Jet moves on from the shelf to examine the random crap on Zuko's dresser with nosy interest. "You got a CD collection anywhere?"

He does, even though he mostly uses his phone for music. He pulls the box out from under his bed, moving a box of newspapers and magazines off the top. Jet sits down beside him, leafing through the pages.

"Jeez. I wasn't expecting Playboy or anything, but this is out there," he scoffs, holding up a magazine spread. "Don't tell me this is your type."

Zuko's eyes land on his father's face on the page, and his mouth goes dry. It's an old issue, from before Mom left. In one picture, his parents stand on the lawn of the Seattle estate; he and Azula stand in front, ten and eight. On the opposite page is an overview of the military procession at Lu Ten's funeral. His uncle stands with his head bowed at the graveside.

"No. It's —"

He can pinpoint the moment of realization as Jet looks from the pictures to Zuko. And, yeah, Uncle's hair is all grey now, but he's not unrecognizable. Zuko's face has changed in one big, distinct way, but six years hasn't changed all that much. Azula is unmistakable, especially next to Mom and Dad.

"What the fuck," Jet says, disbelief coloring his tone.

"I — I know it looks bad."

"No shit. Your uncle's Iroh fucking Huo." The paper creases in his grip. "You — God. I need to..." He moves to get up. Zuko grabs his hand.

"Jet, wait. Look, I understand, I should have told you —"

"Yeah, no shit." Jet jerks his hand away. "You knew — has this whole thing been some kind of sick joke to you?"

"No." Zuko gets up, desperate. He doesn't want to crowd Jet, but he has to have time to explain. "I wouldn't do that, I — I'm sorry."

"Sorry." He laughs, sharp, bitter. There's a dull, glassy look to his eyes. "You're sorry. Your family is the reason my parents are dead."

Hearing it out loud sends a spike of guilt through Zuko's chest. He swallows. "And there's nothing I can do to make up for that, but —"

"Oh, is that it?" Jet tilts his head. "I'm just some pity project? Hoping you can, what, solve my death and make me move on so you can live without the reminder?"

Zuko bites back a frustrated growl. "I'm trying to help you! And you're not making it easy. You wanna talk about me keeping secrets, but you won't tell me anything." 

"I don't want your help! Especially now. I'd hate to come between you and your precious uncle."

"You don't get it," Zuko snaps. "He isn't like that anymore!"

"Like what? He's sorry now for all the people who lost their homes or died because of him?" Jet stares at him. "You don't get it. People like your uncle, like your grandpa, your dad — They can do whatever the fuck they want, and you know who gets punished for it at the end of the day? You know who gets dealt all the hurt they deserve?"

There isn't a thing Zuko can say that would refute that. "I'm sorry. I should have told you."

"Sorry doesn't fucking fix anything, does it?" Jet glares at him, his jaw clenched. He digs the keys out of his pocket, throwing them on Zuko's desk. "Keep your gift. Stay away from me."

He's out the door before Zuko can stop him.

"Jet, wait!"

Zuko grabs the keys, running for the door. His vision whites out as an electric shock courses up his arm.

Smoke. Singed hair, burnt clothes. Where's Mom? This is wrong.

He can't tell at first whose memory he's been thrown into, blinking in and out of his vision.

She was supposed to be here. She was supposed to come running after you — her and Dad. They're not here, though, and there's pieces of the house crumbling in, sparks shooting up in the air.

You run. The flames climb higher, but you don't care, all you can think about is getting inside. Getting them out. Your eyes sting, tears running down your cheeks as you fight through the smoke and pound on the door. 

Someone drags you back, grips your arm hard enough to bruise. Sirens, flashing lights, all of it blurs together. Somehow, you end up in an office, white and sterile, in a hard plastic chair. Someone's talking, but you haven't heard anything since you saw the stretchers loaded in the ambulance. The white zippered bags you've seen on the shows Ezra wasn't supposed to show you until you were older. 

They're gone. You won't realize why until later, but you'll never forget it.

He's on his knees at the top of the stairs, his arm feeling numb, the keychain still clutched loosely in his hand. He can see the front door from here, wide open and letting in the cold.

Jet's gone. Zuko gets the feeling that this — the memory he's been left with — was on purpose, somehow. The shock and numbness to the world are hauntingly familiar, elements of a play he's memorized by heart. He wonders whether, in those times he's gotten glimpses of Jet's life, something of his hasn't also slipped through the cracks and found its way to Jet. Zuko doesn't know if that's even how it works, and now he might not even get the chance to find out.

Well done. Even when you're the one and only option, you manage to fuck it up. 

He goes back to his room and doesnt't allow himself any pity. He's lost the right to that. He's still up there when Uncle gets home, and lies that he's coming down with something. He doesn't have to fake any of the nausea.

There's no sign of Jet through his window. The junkyard looks desolate, empty. He wonders if this will be his view from now on.

Chapter Text

You're not sure how many cigarettes you've been through. Doesn't matter — perks of being dead, you get an endless supply and no risk of lung cancer. It helps steady your hands; they haven't stopped shaking since you left his room.

It's cold today. Well, you're always cold, but lately you can feel it in the actual air. It's fitting. Shitty weather for a shitty day.

You should have known. Ever since you saw him with his stupid attitude, too good for you, you should have just left him alone, but you just had to play with fire. You were always gonna end up burned.

You can see him through the windows. He's watching, looking for you. You stay in the shadows, letting him search. It's slowly getting easier, the disappearing thing, and you hate that it's his fault — him, keeping you around, asking questions that make you pay attention and figure things out. For being dead as long as you were ever alive, you've figured out embarrassingly little about functioning on a non-corporeal level. Now, nearly all you know is thanks to him.

Yeah. Fuck that. You stomp out a cigarette butt. He'll get your thanks over your dead body, and good luck finding that.

A shiver runs up your spine, and you pull your flannel tighter around you, even though this chill isn't from outside. It's that icky, cold-water-on-your-insides feeling of someone walking over your grave. It hasn't happened as frequently lately as it does in summer, small mercy, but that means you're not used to it, and it takes a minute for the wooziness to wear off.

When you look up again, the window is empty, dark. The sky's starting to lighten. You're not sure how long you were actually out. You're pretty sure it doesn't matter, anyway — with no one around to talk to, what good is keeping track of time?

It could be a year. Or thirty. The house could be empty. What's it to you? Not like there's anything to wait for anymore, except the ground to take what's left of your bones, and whatever happens after that. You stick around forever because you never got a proper send-off, or you blink out of existence. You try not to think about it too much, in the here and now.

It would've been nice if you'd learned a little more about it, before he turned out to be just another lying user. 

It doesn't matter. Never did. Just like everyone else, he'll move on to some new project and forget you ever happened. That's the thing about the living; they get to move on, with other people who have pulses and sleep cycles and don't mind casual hook-ups in the back of a shitty truck just for the sake of it. Really, you were stupid to think it could've lasted, what with all that competition and all your baggage. Don't waste any more time dwelling on it.

You light up another cigarette, blow smoke at the moon, kick back against the fence. 

You're just fine right where you are. Not a thing you'd change.

Chapter Text

"What are your Halloween plans?"

Zuko looks up from his homework. Suki's sitting on the park picnic table in front of him, olive-green combat boots propped in front of her. On the table. He's starting to wonder why he's a magnet for these weirdos. She's got a jack-o'-lantern lollipop in her mouth, holding it with two fingers like a cigarette, and the familiarity sends a pang through his chest. It's been almost a week since he heard anything from Jet. 

"Um. I don't have plans," he says.

"Come on, you've got a haunted-ass junkyard next door and nothing to do for Halloween?" Suki moves to criss-cross-applesauce, looking Zuko in the eyes. "You could always go trick-or-treating. There's a few houses that don't give a shit how old you are, just wanna offload their Snickers."

"School's having some kind of costume ball the Saturday before," Sokka adds, with a snort. "Like anyone wants to hang out at their chaperoned party."

"Actually, I was gonna ask you to it," Suki says, smiling sharply. "But if you don't wanna go..."

Sokka's gone bright red. He swallows loudly. "No, no, if you want to then — I just don't have a costume, 'zall."

"I don't either," Zuko says.

"Well, we can fix that." Suki grins. "Maybe it'll take your mind off whatever you've been moping about."

Maybe. Zuko would like to forget about the keychain shoved in the depths of his backpack, the stack of research under his bed, the chill he still gets when he walks past the scrapyard even when he can't see anything there.

"Fine," he concedes.

"Hey, maybe we'll even find you a date," Sokka says, snorting. Zuko drops his head onto the table, reminded that it's his own fault he doesn't have a date. And, with his luck, never will.

"So, I take it we're hitting Spirit Halloween after we're done here?" Suki says, in a tone that's more telling than asking.

"Skater?"

"I can't go as a skater, I am a skater. My culture's not a costume," Suki says, putting the costume back on its hook. Zuko shrugs and moves on, passing over the nun and sexy nurse costumes without consideration. He doesn't want to be thwapped over the head with one of Suki's boots.

"We're supposed to be finding a costume for you," she says, giving him a stern look over her shoulder. She pulls a clown costume off the rack, handing it to him. "Here, bon appétit."

"Very funny." He shoves it back on the rack, examining a generic-looking Grim Reaper cloak. If nothing else, he can go as Ghostface, and push to the back of his mind the glee on Jet's face when he found out they'd made three more Screams. "You and Sokka doing a couple's costume?" he asks, feeling bold.

"Maybe. What's it to you?" Suki asks. She pulls a knockoff Wonder Woman off the shelf, considers it, then puts it back, grabbing a packet of fake blood and some rubber fangs. "Guess I can always go as a vampire. Ugh, I wish Joss Whedon hadn't ruined Buffy for me, I had such a good Faith Lehane outfit. Took months of combing thrift stores for '90s shit. Never got to wear it out 'cause of the pandemic, and then, you know."

"I mean, you could still go as her?" he points out. "Fuck that guy."

"Eh. Ick factor's too much. It only worked 'cause my girlfriend was going as Buffy, anyway." And there's some new information about Suki — Zuko supposes he shouldn't be surprised, but evidently Suki senses that he is, because she shoots him an unimpressed look.

"What? Shocked and awed that I can get guys and girls? You seem to struggle getting either one."

There's a retort on the tip of his tongue; but, no, he can't exactly tell her Actually, I had a boyfriend, but he's dead and also not talking to me and maybe never will. So there. Can't even show her the faded mark hiding under his high neckline, that'd just lead to more questions he can't answer.

Jesus Christ, what is his life anymore?

"Guys! I think I found the perfect costume." Sokka steps around the end display with a full-length skeleton costume held up to himself, posing dramatically. "Skin tight and ready to lurk." 

"You're embarrassing to be around." Suki's visibly fighting back a grin as she takes the costume, shoving it in her basket. "Pick some accessories. I'm not going out with a naked skeleton."

"Gettin' kitted out for the skeleton war!" Sokka cheers, disappearing around the corner again.

Zuko shakes his head. He grabs a Ghostface mask off a shelf, drops it in his basket. At least he won't have to deal with people asking whether his scar's part of the costume.

"Why do you keep doing this?" 

You don't take your eyes off the ugly kitchen tile, or the cigarette from your lips. The question just hangs, and Lorelei sighs.

"This has to stop. Think of the example you're setting —"

"For Christ's sake, Lor, you know he doesn't care," Carson spits. "It'd suit him just fine if all the kids turned out just like him." 

You scoff, even though it hurts your nose where you got punched. "Like me?" 

Lorelei gives you a pitying look. "Jet..." 

"No, say it." You look at Carson, challenging him. "Tell me I deserve to get beat up for being a queer." 

Carson just looks back evenly. 

"You pick a fight with someone, expect them to finish it," he says.

"So Bee deserved to get beat up, and I should've just let it happen." You stamp out your cigarette on the kitchen table. "Yeah, fuck that." 

You turn around, walk out of the kitchen and down the hall. Whatever Carson says is cut off by your bedroom door slamming.

Your face throbs from that asshole's fists, but it was worth it. Bee didn't even get a scratch. You wipe off the ooze of blood you can feel on your upper lip and shuck off the shirt that's covered in parking lot grime and dirt. You chuck it in the corner opposite of the hamper and drop onto the bed, fishing cigarettes and lighter out of your jacket. Pushing play on the paused CD in your stereo, you let Demolition Lovers drown out the sound of Lorelei and Carson's argument across the house.

God, you think, I can't wait to be out of here.

Zuko wakes up tangled in his covers, freezing. The radio's still playing the CD he put on before he went to sleep to drown out the thunderstorm that started at dusk. It's on the last track, but that doesn't mean much, given it's a forty-minute album. He's barely slept half an hour, and he certainly feels it. The storm, on the other hand, is still going strong, lightning flashing outside his window. 

I would drive on to the end with you,
a liquor store or two keeps the gas tank full ...

He gets out of bed and peers outside. Is he imagining, or is there a shadow perched on top of the fence? He can't tell, the streetlights too far away and the lightning only giving him glimpses through the pouring rain. 

...But this time, I mean it 
I'll let you know just how much you mean to me...

He shuts off the music and sinks back onto the bed, rubbing his temples, and the phantom argument playing itself out in his head finally silences. 

Fucking telepathy bond bullshit. After getting sent to the nurse's office twice for fainting in class, he started leaving Jet's keys at home so he couldn't accidentally touch them while getting a spare pencil out. Now? There's no fucking telling what will set it off. If Jet hadn't so clearly said he was done, Zuko'd think he was messing with him. 

"Leave me the fuck alone, Jet," he growls under his breath, just in case, as he crosses the room to turn off the fan and grab a pair of sweatpants. "Jesus Christ. I'm allowed to listen to music without you invading my head!" 

Nobody answers. He goes back to bed, wraps up in the covers until he's sweating instead of shivering. He doesn't put the music back on. God knows what'll show up next time he does. 

He's about over all this ghost shit. Especially if the ghost won't even talk to him. 

The next time he wakes up from a memory, he lays in bed, staring at the ceiling. He doesn't know what triggered it this time, and it's already fading — tiny flashes of rain pounding on the roof of the truck, sprawling out in the backseat to wait out the storm. Smellerbee and Longshot weren't there. He was alone — and going off the hopelessness he'd felt, he'd been alone for some time. 

And fuck, if it isn't familiar — if it doesn't remind Zuko of taking refuge in the gardens after Mom left, hoping she might stroll around the corner and scoop him up again, give him a hug or even a sign she still remembered who he was. 

Zuko can relate all too easily to feeling abandoned and discarded. Even though right now it's Jet who won't speak to him, he hates that he felt that way.

Is feeling that way, he realizes, thinking of the stack of papers under his bed. 

He turns on the light and pulls the papers out. There, on the top — Corvo Co. Chief of Police: "No More Taxpayers' Money on Runaway Case". The announcement that they were halting the search for Jet. 

And now Zuko's gone and done the same thing, just because Jet isn't talking to him? That's bullshit. He doesn't believe for a second that Jet's totally apathetic to his case being solved. He might not be good with feelings, but he's been around Jet long enough to know when he isn't being honest about them.

He grabs his notebook and pen and gets to work copying down bullet points.

"You can go out if you'd like," Uncle says, crowding the counter when Zuko tries to squeeze in and help him with dishes. "You've been spending too much time in here with your old uncle."

"Nothing else for me to do," Zuko argues, trying to grab for the sponge. "Suki and Sokka are busy. Song's at the clinic helping her mom." 

"What about that boy you were spending time with before?" Uncle gives him a knowing look from the corner of his eye. A week ago, Zuko would have blushed; now, he grinds his teeth.

"I haven't seen him," he says, because torturous glimpses out of the corner of his eyes don't even count. He's not even convinced he didn't imagine it last time. "Guess he's over it." 

Uncle sighs in an uncomfortably knowing way. "I see. I'm sure you can find something to do that's better than being cooped up in here! Go out and enjoy the nice weather!" 

It is pretty nice, Zuko guesses. T-shirt weather, maybe a hoodie if the wind picks up. Perfect for working on the truck. Less perfect for moping about how massively he'd fucked up with the one person who'd seemed to get him. 

Still, Uncle isn't gonna budge. He sighs and dries off his hands, taking his hoodie and going out the back door.

The wind's picking up, the sun's starting to set and cast long shadows — and there's a pinpoint glow of a cigarette, under the trees at the edge of the scrapyard, just on the corner of his vision. Slowly, as if it might disappear if he moves too fast, he turns his head. 

It stays, though, until he finally meets piercing dark eyes across the yard. Jet lowers his cigarette a fraction, the smoke obscuring his face. Stands there, like he's waiting.

Zuko's heart sounds too loud, pounding in his ears. He closes his eyes, opens them again. Jet's still there. 

He pushes the door closed and walks across the backyard, stopping at the fence. It feels better to leave a barrier between them — he's not sure whether it's for Jet's sake or his own.

"You're back," he says, for lack of anything better to say.

"You wouldn't leave me alone." Jet crosses his arms, taking a pull from his cigarette. He looks a little less put-together than Zuko's used to — his face thinner, his clothes looking more faded and threadbare. 

"I wouldn't leave you alone?" Zuko scoffs. "I wasn't showing up in your dreams every night."

"How many times'd you come looking for me?" Jet counters. "I could see you, you know." 

Zuko feels his face flush. He hadn't thought Jet was there when he'd been looking. "I — what do you want?" 

Jet strides forward, until he's right on the other side of the fence. A cloud of smoke comes out, right in Zuko's face, when he says "I want an explanation."

Oh, now you want closure, Zuko thinks a little meanly. "An explanation for what?" 

"Why you didn't tell me." Jet's voice is tight, like there's something physically in the way of him talking. "You — you knew, and just —" 

"I didn't want to make you mad."

Jet laughs, humorless. He doesn't come back with some quip, and Zuko's unsure whether to take that as a good sign. He swallows.

"I'm sorry. I guess I was happy there was someone who didn't know every shitty thing my family's done. Who...couldn't." It's a flimsy, stupid excuse even though it's the truth, and he feels ashamed to even be saying it.

"That's fucking unfair, you know that?" Jet says, still sounding like there's a hand around his throat. "You know more about me than anyone. You get your whole life to know as much as you want about whoever you want."

"I'm sorry." Zuko swallows. "I'd take it back if I could, okay? It was stupid and selfish. I was stupid and selfish. I'm not in this out of some sense of guilt or because I want you gone, I just...I know how it feels to have people hurt you and get away with it. To feel powerless. For everyone to move on without you. And if you need me to drop researching your case, I will, just..."

He runs out of words, or at least any that don't sound horrifically stupid. Jet studies him, dark eyes burning, before dropping his gaze to the ground.

"I'm about sick of people walking on my grave," he sighs, getting out a cigarette and flicking a lighter. "You think you can actually find anything?" 

"I've found more than anyone else has in years," Zuko points out, hope flaring in his chest. He hesitates before asking what he really wants to know. "Are we okay?" 

"I'd say you're gonna owe me for a while, billionaire boy," Jet replies, blowing out smoke. He's still avoiding Zuko's gaze. "But I get it. You were right, there's plenty of shit I don't tell you." 

"I'm sorry I tried to push you for it." Zuko feels ashamed all over again. "That was..."

"Fucked up," Jet agrees, finally meeting his eyes. He shrugs a shoulder. "Yeah." 

A silence falls. Zuko gets the feeling Jet doesn't know what to say, any more than he does. Finally he clears his throat. "Do you...want to go inside?" 

"Your uncle there?" 

Fuck. "We can go to the truck instead. If that's okay," he adds. "I. Have some music to listen to? Suki gave me homework."

Jet takes a drag of his cigarette, brows raising slightly. "You don't say." Blowing out smoke, he gestures with his head. "Come on."  

Zuko hurries to get around the fence, his heart picking up speed again. There's a weird, bubbly feeling behind his ribs, even though they're just listening to music. He doesn't even know where their relationship really stands at the moment, but it's a definite improvement over the silent treatment.

This was easy, he thinks, climbing into the truck and queuing up Suki's playlist. Jet's already kicking his feet up on the steering wheel, looking at him expectantly; Zuko thinks, somewhere in those brown eyes, he sees the relief he feels reflected back at him. 

"So, what's this homework of yours?" Jet asks him, and it's almost like nothing happened. Like he's eager to forget anything did happen. 

"Um, something called Violent Femmes. Suki said they're like, necessary listening if you're into punk or whatever. I don't know if that's just her opinion or —" 

Jet swears. "Nice, I could never get anyone to listen to them. I'm starting to like this Suki." He gestures for Zuko to put it on, grinning. 

Zuko knows, sooner or later, they'll have to talk about heavy stuff; there's a lot he wants to ask, and it seems like he finally has a shot at getting answers out of Jet. For now, though, he pushes play on Spotify, hiding his smile when Jet starts to sing along — badly, loudly, and with more energy than Zuko's ever heard from him. 

Zuko releases the breath he's been holding. They're okay. 

Chapter Text

Uncle's already at the shop when Zuko gets home from school, which means Zuko has the run of the house for a few blissful hours. He takes advantage of this in the normal teenage way; starting a murder board on the inside of his closet door. Thumbtacks, red string and all. 

"You don't think it's a little much?" Jet asks. He's lounging on the bed, flannel discarded and long arms stretched out behind his head. "Not that I don't appreciate the effort, but you can get in trouble for stealing shit from school. Learned that the hard way."

Zuko snorts. A box of tacks and some string from the art room are at the bottom of the list of shit he's stolen from school — and, granted, he got kicked out of those schools, but it was usually unrelated to the stealing. "They're not gonna miss any of it." 

"Figures," Jet mutters, stretching his legs. He's kicked off his boots — they're still on the fucking bed, and Zuko has to avoid the urge to change the sheets, even though the dirt on the boots seems to be permanently stuck on — he doesn't understand how dirt fits into the ghost shit, but then, he could extend that to clothes too. Jet's socks are mismatched, grey and black, with a hole in the left heel. His shoelaces are, too, orange and red snaking across the bedspread in a tangled mess. The colors are brighter than the rest of his clothes, less faded even than the bright yellow smiley face on his shirt. They must have been new; maybe a birthday present. Maybe bought to celebrate his new independence. Either way, it's fucking tragic. 

"If we're gonna do this, we need to establish some things," Zuko says. "First — where were Bee and Longshot?" 

"They went home. Probably around the thirteenth." Jet lights a cigarette, looking up at the ceiling.  "You know that." 

Zuko sighs, and writes down the date on a scrap of paper, tacking it up in the wall. "Why did they leave?" 

"Does it matter?" 

"Everything matters." Zuko bites down on frustration, not letting it sneak into his tone. No use scaring Jet off when he's just got him back. "So, why?"

Jet sighs, breathing smoke out his nose. "I was bein' a dick. They didn't wanna deal with my stupid, paranoid ass any more than they already had. I wouldn't listen to them about going back, so they went without me."

Paranoid. Zuko adds that to the list of throwaway remarks he isn't writing down, but keeping careful track of in his head. There are a lot of things someone could be paranoid about in that situation. Especially a teenager trying to make it on their own. He wonders what specifically had Jet antsy enough for his friends to leave him — could it be connected to his killer? Or killers? It's something to circle back to. Later, when Jet's in a less bitchy mood.

"Was there anyone else? Like — anyone you met, or..." Unbidden, he's reminded of Jet, letting a stranger take him out into the alley behind a bar for a chance to get ahold of his money. How many times did that happen? Did he make the wrong call one of those nights? "I don't know, did you bring anyone back to the truck?"

Jet snorts. "No. I look stupid to you?" He sits up, shaking his hair out of his face. "I wasn't really meeting people at that point. Closest thing was..."

He trails off, words getting quieter before dropping out entirely; his expression looks uncomfortable, and the hand not holding a cigarette fists into the bedspread.

"Nevermind," he says, brushing cigarette ash off his jeans. "Don't matter, nobody came to the truck. There was this asshole cop trying to get in my business one day, but I never saw him again. Guess that was probably after we'd been reported missing."

He says this through gritted teeth, and Zuko glances down at his sparse notes. Maybe they should take a break. He tucks his pen in the spiral binding, closing the book.

"Do you ever..." he considers his words carefully. "Do you ever feel mad at them? For leaving?" 

Jet snorts. "Then, yeah. Now? Fuck, no. Like I said, I was bein' a dick."

"If they hadn't left you, then —"

"Then there'd be two more kids dead." Jet's voice is flat, matter-of-fact. "Safety in numbers doesn't count for shit in that situation."

It sounds like he's gone over it in his head. Zuko reckons he's had seventeen years to think it over. God knows Zuko's done the same — What if Uncle had been there, that night? What if Mom had been there? He knows, though, that nothing would have stopped his father burning him. He certainly hadn't stopped when Azula came down, hearing the screams; Zuko remembers her in the doorway, seeing horror on her face through the smoke and tears for just a split second, before Dad's attention was on her and she plastered on her best smile.

 She couldn't help him. Not until after, when he was lying half-conscious on the grass outside, when she dropped the first-aid kit and a bag of his clothes beside him and announced that Uncle was on his way. If she had tried to help — to pull Dad off of him, to scream for a neighbor to come — she would have ended up in the same position. He wonders if Bee or Longshot tried to help Jet afterwards, too. If they meant to go back, but it was too late. God, no wonder Bee had been pissed at him for asking about Jet.

Zuko puts down his notebook and sits on the edge of the bed. Jet's slouched over, intently focused on chipping away his nail polish. Zuko clears his throat. "It's — I know it's hard to talk about." 

"No shit." Jet bites his thumbnail, glaring at the bedspread.

"And...I get it if you still don't want to talk to me about it," Zuko adds, and Jet's gaze finally shoots over to him. 

"Not like there's anyone else," he says. Not for the first time, Zuko gets a sense of bitterness about that. Like maybe Jet feels stuck with him, not just grateful to have someone there. And beggars can't be choosers, but — if Zuko were stuck on an incorporeal plane with only one person to talk to, he wouldn't be his own first choice either. 

Zuko sighs and lays down, looking up at the ceiling. He doesn't want to fuck this up again, but it seems like that's all he's managed to do. Jet being here now doesn't even feel like a victory, when, like Jet said, there isn't much choice in the matter. 

After a minute, Jet knocks the back of his hand against Zuko's arm. It's almost solid, and Zuko feels goosebumps creep up his arm. "Hey, Halloween's coming up, right?" 

"Yeah." Zuko sighs. "Suki and Sokka invited me to third-wheel them at the school dance." 

"No shit?" Jet snorts. "Got any plans for after?"

Zuko considers. "Not really. Kind of figured I'd just watch a movie. Probably burn some popcorn. Maybe sacrifice a few virgins."

Jet snorts out loud at the bad joke, and Zuko feels a little more like something between them is...repairing, if not repaired. "Mind having company?" he asks. After a pause he adds, "You know. To help with the sacrificing." 

"Sure," Zuko says. There's not a bone in his body that hesitates. "I'll probably be home at 10:30." 

"I'll be waiting. If you're late, I'm gonna write stuff on your walls." 

"Welcome Home, Cheater?" he guesses.

"Something like that." Jet grins, all the bitterness from earlier forgotten. "We can workshop it." 

"It's a date." The words are out before Zuko can really process what they mean, what Jet might hear; he has just enough time to panic as Jet goes still, swallowing. 

"Yeah," he says. "A date."  He exhales slowly, his head falling back onto the mattress, and Zuko sighs in relief.

Jet opens up, little by little. They work in the space before Zuko goes to school, after he gets home, before work, before bed. It's slow going, but every detail counts — if Jet can remember part of a license plate he saw, it might make a difference in the end. 

It helps, that he's not so touchy about Zuko seeing the memories anymore. He still seems uncomfortable with it, but he's at least accepted that it's going to happen whether either of them wants it to or not. They might as well make the best of it.

"God. Jesus Christ, delete that," he says, face buried in his hands after Zuko describes the scene of drinking a little too much on an empty stomach, taking a girl out to the alley, and promptly throwing up on her shoes instead of getting her number, wallet, or whatever else he might have been after. "That's irrelevant to your investigation. Stop laughing!" 

Occasionally, they just hang out, no research or investigation involved. It's awkward at first, but they slowly get back into the swing of it — music and movies and stupid drama.

It's a little over a week before Jet tries to kiss him again. 

They're laying in the front seats of the truck when it happens, Zuko's phone playing Life on the Murder Scene on YouTube because Jet never got ahold of the DVD before he died. They're basically spooning, heads close together so they can both see the screen, and Zuko's dragged a blanket out so they won't freeze, even though he's not sure how effective it really is for Jet. There's practically nobody driving by, and the sun is almost set outside.

"This is nice," Jet says, putting out his cigarette on the ashtray. "It's cool to get a break from, you know." 

"Yeah." Zuko pulls the blanket up over his shoulders. "It's nice." 

Jet shifts, looking up at Zuko. "I really should thank you. I know I've been a dick about this whole thing, but I appreciate you tryin' to help me out."

"It's nothing," Zuko says, even though it's not, it's Jet's life and death, and the fact he's been trusted with that is unreal. "You'd do the same for me, right?" 

Jet pretends to consider. "Well..." 

Zuko shoves his shoulder. "Asshole." 

Jet grins, shoving him back. "Of course I would. You know how nosy I am, baby." He rolls over, pressing closer to Zuko. His hand closes around Zuko's arm, and he can almost feel it through his coat. "I owe you that much." 

Zuko's about to reply when Jet lifts his head, pressing his lips to Zuko's. It's startling, like an electric shock, and Zuko doesn't recognize that as a warning until it's too late.

Shouts and footfalls follow you as you peel out of the department store, keeping your head down and looking no one in the eye. Your feet slip on the wet pavement as you make your exit, and you only just manage to right yourself and keep going. You can't afford to fall. You hear another shout behind you, angrier this time but farther away, and you waste your breath on a laugh as you leave the alleys and buildings behind for open road, slinging your bag over your shoulder. The truck's parked under the overpass, just down the hill —

A car backfires, and it's not a gunshot (you've heard enough of those in the last week to know the difference) but either way you falter, startled by the sound, and land on the sidewalk. Your hands scrape on the concrete, leaving bloody skids behind, but you push yourself back up. You don't look behind, because why would you? You take the bridge at a jog, even though your knees hurt like hell. 

There are footsteps, though, heavier than yours. You hear another shout behind you, and this time you risk looking. You don't recognize the face glaring at you from beneath a ballcap, nor can you make out the name on his badge, but you recognize the blue uniform and the silhouette of a gun on his hip, and that's enough for you.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, you think, because when it was the owner of the department store you were lifting from, you were enjoying the chase. You weren't prepared for this. 

"Son, why don't you put the bag down?" he says. He has a low, even voice, but his hands are close to his belt, and you keep your eyes on them. "Nice and easy." 

You drop it, taking a step back. Something in you feels embarrassed, like you should be fighting, but all you can think is how there's two kids waiting for you in the truck.

"Listen, son, I recognize your face from the posters. You're awfully far from home, aren't you?" he says. "Where are your brothers at?"

"None of your business," you snap. While part of you's screaming to correct him about Bee, the Don't Talk To Cops part is taking precedence. "We're not going back there."

"I'm afraid I have to take you in." He reaches for something on his belt; you see metal, and take another step back. 

"Fuck, no, you don't," you spit. "Take the fucking bag and leave me alone!" 

"This isn't about the bag, Jet," he says, and there's something disgusting about the way he speaks to you then, like you're too stupid to understand. He takes a step closer, shiny namebadge flashing in the headlights passing by — Lieutenant D. Li, Corvo County — what the fuck is a Corvo cop doing all the way out here? "Your parents are worried about you. Don't worry, you won't be in any trouble. Just come with me and you'll be safe."

You glance behind you. You can see where the truck's parked from here, if not the truck itself. If you're fast, then maybe...

"Great talking. Gotta run." You chuck your bag at the cop and take off across the bridge, ignoring him cursing and yelling after you. When a hand catches onto the sleeve of your jacket, you fight to free yourself until you jerk out of his grip, colliding with the short rail. You flail, trying to grab on as your momentum carries you over.

And then you fall.

Zuko feels like he's been doused with cold water. He flinches, and then swears when his head knocks into the door. Jet's looking up at him, with worry that morphs into bitter resignation as he realizes what happened.

"What was it this time?" he asks, letting go of Zuko and moving to kneel on the floor, like he's afraid he'll give Zuko something contagious. 

"You —" Zuko's mouth feels dry. "I think..."

Jet's eyes widen slightly. "Zuko. What did you see?" 

Zuko tells him, as best he can, from the beginning. Jet keeps his hands on his lap, his jaw clenched, until Zuko's done.

Zuko's afraid to ask, but has to. "Is...is that how...?" 

Jet breathes out slowly, closing his eyes. His shoulders relax, a little. "No. Wouldn't that be nice," he says, but the humor in his tone is hollow. 

"Oh." Zuko's relieved, but at the same time, can't imagine what must have happened to make Jet wish he'd died there. "What happened?" 

Jet sighs; he motions for Zuko to sit up, so he does, scooching over to the driver's seat so Jet can get off the floor. He sits in the passenger's seat, lighting up a cigarette.  

"I was almost on the other side, so I didn't land on the road. Bruised up pretty badly, though." He sighs. "Tore something in my ankle, too."

He was hurt. Had that been how his killer was able to catch up with him? 

"I didn't wanna tell you before, but...couple days before they left," he finally says, "Bee and Longshot met up with someone to get medicine. Left the truck in an alley, went to talk to her. Whole thing was maybe twenty minutes, and they came right back. That's all." He sighs, picking at a hangnail and ignoring his cigarette. "We needed pain meds better than the Tylenol we had, and couldn't exactly go to the doctor after..."

The pills, Zuko realizes; Jet's caginess when he asked before makes sense now. "Did you get them?" he asks, even though he already knows.

Jet glances up for a split second from his peeling fingernails. "Oh, fuck yeah. I spent a few days stoned out of my head. Probably why I don't remember shit about when I died."

That...would explain a lot, certainly. But — "Bee and Longshot left you like that?" 

Jet stiffens, slouches, his shoulders coming up by his ears. "I told them I'd be fine," he mutters.

"You..." Zuko has to try very, very hard not to get frustrated. "They still left." 

"Bee was fourteen, you think she needed to be taking care of me?" Jet snaps, carefully avoiding his eyes. "Like I told you. I wouldn't go with them. And they didn't have any business staying out there with me, without food or a way to drive to get any. It's better they weren't around to...to see what happened."

Then there'd be two more kids dead. Safety in numbers doesn't count for shit in that situation.

"I'm sorry," Zuko says. He reaches for Jet's hand; there's no shock this time, just the warmth of his skin. Jet tenses like he wants to pull away, but doesn't. "That's...that's rough." 

Jet shoots him a withering look. "That's rough? Really, I had no idea," he says. Still, he settles a little, rests his head on Zuko's shoulder. "I wish I'd gone home then." He swallows hard. "I was so stupid. And Bee and Longshot were pissed at me for getting in trouble, and getting hurt, and said I should have just told him, that they were tired of living like that. I should've listened." 

Zuko thinks about the look on the cop's face as he reached for his cuffs. The odd tone of his voice. And maybe it's nothing, but — "I think...I think you were at least right not to trust him."

"Maybe. Doesn't change anything."

"It might be what kept your family safe," Zuko points out. Jet shrugs, pulling his flannel tighter around himself. He looks pissed off, and sad, and Zuko squeezes his hand and wishes he could do more to help. "I'm sorry." 

"I know." Jet rubs his eyes with the heel of his hand, flicking a long piece of ash off his cigarette before tossing it over his shoulder. He sighs heavily, tipping his head back. "You know the shitty thing? I've gone over and over everything in my head, and I can't think of a thing I could've done that wouldn't have ended up sucking in the end."

"My un—" Zuko stops himself. Jet looks up at him; reaches over to nudge Zuko's leg with his foot.

"Go on. What's your uncle say?" 

"He says...there's no better waste of time than wondering what might have been." 

"What can I say? I've had a lot of time to kill." Jet kicks his feet up on the dash. "Seventeen years is just about enough to run through every possible fuckup you made." 

"In that case, mine started at birth," Zuko says. Jet snorts.

"Well, can't blame that on yourself. It's your parents' fault with that one." He squeezes Zuko's hand a little. "Can't say I'd have 'em take it back."

Warmth spreads throughout Zuko's body from the point of contact. He leans into Jet's shoulder; he can't think of a thing to say that won't come out sounding obscenely tone-deaf and offensive — I'm glad you died so I could meet you is not the message he wants to send. So he says nothing, just lets the closeness speak for itself. 

It's a little while before he gets up the courage to kiss Jet's cheek. This time there's no electric shock, but he feels sparks anyway. 

It's late when he gets back to his room, typing up all he can remember from the memory between yawns. There's something nagging at him — the cop looked familiar, but Zuko's pretty sure he's never seen him in town. Even if Jet said he never saw the guy again, he feels like he'd better check.

He Googles Lieutenant Li, Corvo and a Facebook page comes up; it's annoyingly sparse, with minimal details and only one post, dating to 2015 when he apparently updated his cover photo and profile picture for the first time. Zuko's ready to close the page and dismiss the notion when something tells him to stop and examine the cover photo closer.

It's a slightly unfocused picture, the digital timestamp in the corner placing it five years before it was uploaded. It looks like some kind of family gathering, and the Lieutenant is at the center, with one arm around a lady who must be his wife, and his other arm around a pretty young woman. She, Zuko immediately recognizes, and when he double-checks Chief Long Feng's Facebook page, that same girl is smiling from the officer's side. And sure enough, a couple posts down, there's Lieutenant Li in the wedding photos, giving her away at the altar with an almost teary look. 

Zuko groans in frustration and closes his laptop. Figures it would be another dead end — Corvo is a tiny town, of course the police all know each other. It was stupid to think anything of it in the first place. 

He finishes his notes, and goes to bed with a resolve to not think about the lack of progress tomorrow.  Instead, tomorrow he has plans — big ones.