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zukosdualdao · 1 month

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i'm a worst case kid / in a plague pit town

zutara month, day 1: reluctant allies

summary: ever-slight canon-divergence in which zuko accepts katara's offer to heal iroh after feeling his too-weak, dying pulse, as his injury is bad enough zuko is unsure he will survive otherwise. not much else changes. it was never going to.

warnings: canon-typical depictions of injury, violence, and trauma responses.

other notes: title is a lyric taken from tommy lefroy's "worst case kid". starting pov is zuko's, ending pov is katara's. two pieces of dialogue are directly taken from the show.

The wind is whistling in this dry, abandoned, dead town, dead like—

Zuko does not shiver, and he does not cry.

He used to be able to tell himself things like that and mean it. When did that stop being true?

Uncle’s pulse is so faint, for a moment, he thinks it isn’t there at all. Even when he feels it, he knows it might as well not be. He might not have long at all.

Zuko hears the other footsteps approaching, their silence loud and almost mournful, but he bristles on instinct. They can’t see him like this, can’t see Uncle like this—how could he be so stupid as to turn his back on the enemy?

“Get away from us!” he shouts as he looks back. They’re all staring at his uncle’s prone form, and Zuko turns back to him, too, heaving heavy breaths. He needs to do something, but he is weak, useless, outnumbered—

“Zuko, I can help,” the waterbender insists, and Zuko wants to snarl, yell, reach for his fire, and he raises his hand to do so—and frowns.

What does she mean?

He looks back to where Uncle lies prone.

A heartbeat shouldn’t feel like that. The Dragon of The West shouldn’t go down so easily.

Uncle shouldn’t be able to seem so small and worn and fragile.

Slowly, Zuko lowers his hand and looks to her striking blue eyes. There’s no pity or malice there, he doesn’t think, she just looks… still cautious and unyielding, but sad and sincere, too.

He’s fallen for tricks like this before, though—Azula has always loved how easily she could fool him—and it feels a little like he’s standing on the edge of a steep precipice.

It would be naive to just… trust the word of an enemy. She has no reason to want to help him. He knows this.

The rest of them still watch his uncle’s maybe-dying form, but the waterbending girl stares at Zuko unflinchingly, almost as though in challenge.

Uncle groans brokenly, the noise like that of a wounded animal.

“How?”

The world is dead silent.

The prince of the Fire Nation is staring at her with tears threatening to fall from his right eye, though not the left, which is twitching lightly. She’s never before noticed how he can’t seem to open it fully due to the scar tissue set against it. She’s never had much reason to take in his features as anything more than the face of their enemy.

His gaze is still steely and untrusting. In this light, his scar looks violently red and painful. He asks after her offer with a voice that cracks, though he doesn’t seem to pay that any heed. His hair is short but growing in, and he’s traded out his Fire Nation attire for earthly green and brown robes. He looks so different from when they last saw him.

He looks so… young.

It’s all a little bizarre.

“Be careful, Katara,” Sokka insists from behind her, though when she glances back, his focus is on Iroh, a complicated expression playing on his features. Aang is staring at him, too, eyes wide and verging on teary. She doesn’t yet know Toph very well, but Katara can tell her body is rigid, her feet tense as her toes curl into the dusty ground beneath them. Toph doesn’t know that Iroh has been their enemy. But Iroh also helped them at the North Pole, and again just now against that princess, Zuko’s sister, she supposes, with her calculating eyes and strange blue fire.

Katara nods but says nothing further. If Zuko was going to make a move against them, he could have done it when his sister vanished.

They had turned away from their futile attack against her, and he’d already been kneeling at his uncle’s side.

She approaches slowly, circling to the side opposite him. When she kneels and reaches for her waterskin, Zuko nearly growls and takes hold of the edge of Iroh’s sleeve tightly, like he might try to drag him away.

“I’m not going to hurt him,” Katara says, flush with indignation. The dirt beneath her chafes her knees even through her clothing. “I need space to heal.”

“I’m not moving, so forget it.”

Katara tilts her head and looks into his eyes as he glares back. He now looks every bit the angry, hateful prince that had tracked them around the world for months, but she can see something else filtering through his expression, too, something like fear.

She almost wants to laugh at the absurdity of it. Why should he be afraid of them?

“Fine,” she allows after a moment. “Just don’t get in the way.”

He nods tightly, and at the agreement, Katara opens her waterskin. She calls the water to her and sets it against Iroh’s the right side of his chest, his robes black and charred. Closing her eyes, she calls out to his chi and focuses her energy on it. She doesn’t know if she can do it, doesn’t know if Iroh is truly too far gone…

After a few long moments, his breathing evens, and Katara sighs. Across from her, Zuko’s features soften just a fraction, but when she meets his eyes, somehow, she knows exactly what they both are thinking, united in nothing but this.

It doesn’t change anything, Katara's thoughts insist as her friends draw closer. Zuko tenses again. It can’t.

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here-there-be-nerds · 6 years

Text

Just A Room

"Do you think he'll like it?" Taako asked, probably for the millionth time just that day alone.

"Yes, love, I think he'll love it." Kravitz said, trying to catch Taako's shoulder but the elf was back at fixing the pillows for the billionth time that day. "I know you're nervous..."

"I'm not nervous! I'm so chill, kid's blessed to stay here." Taako chattered, trying to control his ears from twitching and giving away his emotional state.

"I'm nervous too." Kravitz admitted.

Taako looked up from his project, chewing at his bottom lip. Okay, so he might be nervous. This wasn't some dungeon crawl or a big bad he could magic missile. This was a whole life in his hands he could ultimately fuck up royally. Anyone had the right to nervous about that but it was to late to bolt and he wouldn't even if he could. Enough people bolted out on Taako, enough did that to Angus too. He wasn't going on that list.

"Alright, alright." Taako surrendered, holding up his hands palms out. "I just want it to be nice."

"I know, darling." Kravitz said soft, he was always so soft so gentle. "Angus will love the room you made him."

Kravitz regretted it as soon as Taako's face plummeted, somehow that had made things worse as the elf whirled around to face the bedroom that was made up for the worlds greatest detective.

"Shit...shit! You're right! I did make it, I should have given him a blank canvas! Something he could make his own!" Taako spiraled, whipping out his wand, preparing to wipe away the decorations and decor.

A cool hand rested over his wand hand, a firm presence pressing against Taako's back as an arm wrapped around his waist. The familiarity of it soothed out his anxious nerves, warming him as lips brushed against his cheek.

"Sweetheart, you don't have to change it." Kravitz spoke quietly although they were alone.

"But...but!" Taako tried to argue. "I don't want to be another thing to impose myself on him. He'll keep it like this if he thinks it's what /I/ like. It won't be /his/ space, it'd be /mine/." He stressed, getting swept away in his own past.

"It'll be easy to explain that away, that he can make any changes he wants." Kravitz countered. "If you'd like maybe we can take out a few things, but I can sense that full wipe spell you're charging. Seeming have prepared nothing might not be very welcoming."

"Shit..shit, shit you're right. Fuck." Taako muttered, leaning back against his husband sighing. "This is stressful as fuck, are we really made for this?" Taako asked, he side glanced at the reaper. "No, you are, homie you got this shit down. I'm a disaster waitin to happen."

"You'll be a great father." Kravitz assured, turning the elf in his arms. "We both are, together. Angus is excited beyond measure to become part of our family and we are going to make mistakes but we will also learn from those. He's a great kid already, we're not going ruin that. Not sure we can."

Taako side, avoiding that piercing gaze, knowing he'd be done for if he did. Why couldn't Kravitz just let him wallow once in a while? The sap. But it was one of trillion of reasons he loved the man. The bard with a scythe.

"Watch me." Taako mumbled, but spoke up before Kravitz could argue. "I know, I know, gods, I feel better about this like in a month or whatever. This is just Taako now for a while." It was said as if it were some save point where Kravitz could bounce out or something but he never did, probably never would, but old habits and fears are one thing Kravitz couldn't reap. But oh it was on his list anyway.

"That's fine." Kravitz assured, honestly, genuine, sappy as hell. "Just allow me to attempt to soothe you and it'll be fine."

"Don't hold your breat- well I mean I guess if anybody /could/ it'd be /you/. Well you got me there, dontcha bone boy?" Taako snarked, laughing at the smug smirk on his husbands face.

"I'll take that win." Kravitz said, lightly kissing Taako's forehead. "Are you ready? It's time to go pick him up, if he's not already outside our door."

"I think so." Taako said quietly. "Kid's gonna go batshit when he finds out you got him all those Caleb Cleveland books. I swear, I'm gonna be surrounded by nerds."

"Out numbered even." Kravitz countered.

"Ah fuck! This was a trap! A trap the whole time! You tricked me into this so you could nerd it up with the kid!" Taako protested as Kravitz lead him out of what would from now on be Angus' room.

"You caught me, but it's too late, you're ensnared and there's no escape." Kravitz teased.

Taako made a grand show of sighing and groan at the misery now placed upon him. Stropping along as Kravitz lead him out of the house to collect Angus from his campus dorm at that dumb Lucas's school.

"Fiiiiine!" Taako gave in dramatically, as was he nature. "But you better make it worth my while."

"Oh I will." Kravitz said and pegged him with a look, simplistic and to an outsider might be seen as somewhat flirty, but to Taako, oh he knew the promise in those eyes.

"Shit, Krav, we could just make a kid, damn." Taako muttered, glancing away but knowing the flush in his cheeks were giving him away.

"Lets gather this one first." Kravitz insisted and they both had a small giggle over themselves.

Nerves were a funny thing, but when the worlds greatest wizard/chef and the emissary of Death herself decided to adopt the worlds greatest detective, nerves were bound to come up. Fancy titles didn't erase an orphan who didn't find a family until after a hundred years running from the apocalypse or a man who has only walked among the living for the past few years.

But a few broken things can come together to make something special, they've done it before and they could do it again. They /would/ do it again. This was the ending they have earned.

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