It's so funny to think of a Rabbit having a "soft place" for little Roo.
Pointing out that "Roo calls Rabbit 'Miss'" instead of "Sir"... Well, that's quite complicated. Within my own adaptation, the character of Rabbit can function as a strange allegory for "gay person" or "trans man" or "trans woman," a very common way of referring to his queerness. And I demonstrated this through an early dialogue, where Roo first meets Rabbit, mistaking him for a female rabbit, something Rabbit doesn't bother to correct with the excuse that "the boy can call him whatever he wants" (when in reality he likes the idea of being perceived as a female figure).
For @electricbluebutterflies who requested Zuko taking care of his Firelady.
It’s rare that Zuko gets to care for Katara like she so regularly cares for him. There’s still a part of him who, at 26, is ashamed of the weakness Azula’s lightning has left him with, a part of him who wishes his wife didn’t spend time at least once a month nursing him through seizures and migraines and a full body malaise that leaves him barely able to eat or move from the bed. He feels like he shouldn’t be almost as much work as their children are if not more from time to time, and these brief moments where he does the caregiving are painful but sweet.
Today, it’s his turn to care for Katara. She looks small and exhausted in their bed, curled against him and out cold. The furrow between her eyebrows is the only thing showing her pain, the throbbing in her skull he knows all too well. Her first trimester with Kya was hard too, he thinks, rubbing his heated fingers across her abdomen gently. There’s a tiny little spark in there, something they made together. He’s just as excited the second time as he was the first. His wife whimpers in her sleep and Zuko soothes her with warm palms and a kiss to her temples. It’s hours before she wakes again.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” Zuko rasps, as Katara opens her eyes and looks around their dim bedroom. Her head still hurts, a dull ache between her eyes and a tight spasm of muscles in her neck. She grimaces and squeezes her eyes shut again. She’s tired, even though she just napped, and she’s starving but she doesn’t want Zuko to leave her side, even to ask for a servant to go to the kitchens for her. Zuko places a warm hand against her temple, leaning down to kiss her forehead.
“Ouch,” Katara grumbles, curling into Zuko’s side. His hand runs from her temple through her hair, and she feels him take the tie out. Her messy migraine bun tumbles out and over her pillow. Zuko’s hands still smell like peppermint oil, and when she whimpers, he cups them over her mouth and nose so she can breathe in.
“I hate this,” Katara whispers, pressing a kiss to Zuko’s fingers. He moves them from her face, pressing a scrap of silk to her cheek with the oil on it too, and then begins to tug her hair into a braid. Her scalp is tender but Zuko is gentle, tangling his fingers in the end of the braid.
“It’ll pass,” he reminds her, like she does for him when the pain in his body gets bad. Katara’s neck twinges, and she grunts and turns her head, pressing her forehead into Zuko’s chest and reaching blindly for his hand, tugging it to the base of her skull.
“Hurts,” she grumbles at him, clinging to him tightly, “Make it stop.” Zuko dutifully begins to dig his thumbs into Katara’s neck, rubbing slow circles into the tense, painful muscles. She hears the top of the tub of the muscle rub the Royal Physician had prepared for Zuko’s migraines being removed and smells menthol, then feels sticky lotion being kneaded into her tense muscles.
“Who has Kya,” she asks. It’s not the first time she’s asked it, but she’s too foggy to remember the answer so she asks again. Zuko’s nose presses against her temple and the lid of the tub clicks back into place. The silk sheets are cool against Katara’s skin.
“Suki and Sokka,” he murmurs, “Don’t worry.” His arms tighten around her, and Katara tries to release the tension in her body. It doesn’t work.
“Zuko,” she whispers, “will you sing to me?”
“Of course,” her husband whispers. Katara twines her fingers in his long, loose hair as he begins to hum and closes her eyes.
“I love you,” she mumbles into his bare chest.
“I love you more,” he says back, and then starts to sing again.
