Been working on a Jetko series on AO3, and the story has reached the post canon stage. Obviously, this means figuring out what Jet looks like at seventeen, and living in the Fire Nation. And it's been far too long since I last drew Jetko, so Zuko had to worm his way into the drawing too. So here they are, a couple of months after Sozin's Comet, both of them growing their hair out and figuring out how they fit in each other's lives.
Part One: The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows (Complete)
Part Two: The Price to Pay For The Loss of Control (In Progress)
The Price to Pay for Loss of Control
the sequel to The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows
Rated: T
Tags: jetko, brainwashing, angst, friends to lovers, pov zuko, post-canon, canon divergence, jet lives, protective zuko, lake laogai, angst and romance, assassination attempt(s)
Chapters: 1/?
Summary: Continuing where The Quiet Things left off, Zuko adjusts to his life as Fire Lord and tries to navigate the strangeness of his friendship with Jet, all the while yearning for what they'd once had. As time goes on and they get closer again, a reunion in Ba Sing Se threatens more than just their relationship.
first sentence of a fanfic: “What did you think I’d say to that?”
(Can be read along with this and this and this and this and this and this)
“What did you think I’d say to that?”
“…No. I guess.” Zuko forces himself to inhale a deep, steady breath like it doesn’t hurt to say it, staring at the ornately painted ceiling that suddenly seems like a wonderful decision of Earth Kingdom decorating.
A beat, then the rustle of bedclothes as Jet rolls over. “Why’d you ask, then?”
Zuko swallows hard, trying to find the words, trying to force them past the sudden tightness of his throat, trying not to flinch when Jet props himself up on an elbow, tries, tries, tries with Jet just there, watching him.
“Wanted to,” Zuko finally pushes out, the admission scraping raw out of his throat. Zuko immediately bracing himself for the castigations not to be so self-centered as he hears the words actually fall free, for the reprimands that a Fire Lord can’t be so myopic, so greedy, so foolish and selfish and—
“Oh?” Jet’s cocks his head, curious, his patchwork of scars silvery in the moonlight, and it takes another hundred or so hummingbee-fast heartbeats for Zuko to realize that nothing else is coming.
He manages a gurgling noise back.
Jet exhales a—a laughing kind of breath. “You wanted to?”
Zuko scowls, shoulders hunching and hands fisting against the coverlet. Like he’s an obstinate toddler, or something. Nothing befitting an adult in this conversation, let alone a Fire Lord, the sharp knowledge of that fact once again doing nothing to actually soothe the prickly spike of his inner flame.
Zuko startles a little when Jet’s fingers suddenly walk over the stiffly embroidered hem of the coverlet, tugging and rumpling the edge where Zuko had smoothed it perfectly flat over his chest. “You wanted dirty, scruff me, hm?”
Zuko huffs, refusing to—to be mocked like this, when he just—Jet keeps pushing him to—and it felt—he thought—
“You wanted me getting leaves all over your fancy schmancy fire palace?”
Zuko trips out of his thoughts. “What?” Zuko stares at him, baffled. “Leaves all—are you packing them in?”
Jet bares his teeth in something approximating a grin. “You want me leaving fingerprints”—Jet’s fingers suddenly flatten against Zuko’s chest, dragging over bare skin and his stumbling heart—“all over the fancy schmancy walls?”
“You—why are your hands so greasy in this scenario?” Zuko says with a frown, grabbing at Jet’s wrist. “Are you dipping your hands in oil?”
Jet leans his weight into his stilled hand and pointedly smears the other over Zuko’s chest, holding Zuko’s eyes and smirking in slow challenge. Something flips in Zuko’s throat, low in his stomach.
Maybe it’s just Jet pushing the air out of him.
“You want mud everywhere?” Jet murmurs, close now, wrapping his tongue around the words like he’s savoring them, digging his nails in. “All over your fancy Fire Lord clothes?”
“Why—” Zuko sucks in a breath, focusing on pushing his chest out against Jet’s weight. He belatedly realizes he needs to actually release Jet’s wrist to move him. “Why are you acting like you don’t take baths?”
A soft, amused noise, Jet leaning in to exhale hot against his ear and scrape a thumbnail over his nipple and pin down his bicep and whisper, “You want me to stain every seat I sit in?”
“I see you take them,” Zuko points out like he isn’t flexing his bicep just to feel Jet nails scrape against his skin. “I took one with you.”
“You want me—” Jet’s knee nudging over his hip, toes scraping over his knees. “—leaving footprints on the tables?”
“Why would your feet be on the—and you can just clean them,” Zuko huffs, chest tight and fire flipping as he fights the urge to reach down for that knee. “You take baths, I couldn’t get you out this morning, I was almost late, why—"
Jet suddenly laughs. “They’re so nice and warm when you’re in them, Lee.” His swings himself astride Zuko’s waist so suddenly that Zuko can only grunt under the shift of his weight and reflexively grab onto his knees—oh, nice—to keep them from landing anywhere they shouldn’t. “You trying to sweet talk me into another one?”
Zuko coughs a little, confused by the sudden shift in Jet’s tone and also distracted by the sudden press of bare skin against his own, thighs and calves and ass and—
“You know you just have to ask, hot thing,” Jet practically purrs, shaggy hair falling around his face as he tilts his head on a way that would probably be coquettish on anyone else but on him just look feral. Zuko doesn’t understand how he can still look like he’s tonguing at a straw of wheat when there’s nothing in his mouth.
Zuko is going to stop thinking about it, though, considering where Jet’s—yeah.
“Why suddenly so shy?” Jet murmurs, tone low, heated. “You can shout loud enough to clear the trees.”
Zuko doesn’t know whether it makes him burn more or less hot with embarrassment to know that Jet isn’t referring to sex.
“All you have to do,” Jet whispers, dragging his thumb over Zuko’s lips, “is tell me what you want.”
Zuko swallows, hard. “I did.”
Jet stills over him. Zuko struggles not to hold his breath, to ignore the twist of his fire and stumble of his heart as Jet finds his eyes, Jet’s thumb still pressed to the bow of his lips and Jet’s gaze shadowed with the moonlight at his back.
“I have responsibilities,” Jet finally says quietly—says seriously. No taunting murmurs and teasing flirtation and sultry, coy glances. The words as plain and naked as Zuko suddenly feels, as Jet so rarely ever, ever is.
“I know,” Zuko says back, just as stripped bare.
Jet’s face is opaque, would be unreadable even if it weren’t backlit, Zuko knows.
“People rely on me.”
Zuko takes in a long, shaky breath. “I know.”
“You asked anyways.”
Zuko closes his eyes and manages in a bare whisper, “Yes.” And it was selfish, selfish, selfish, always in the end he’s so selfish, he never seems to actually—
Jet is suddenly against his lips, his left hand sinking into Zuko’s hair, tugging, the right pressing wide-spread over his chest, like Jet is trying to force the gasp out of him, trying to swallow it down. “Ask me again, Fire Lord,” Jet breathes back into him, with teeth. “Ask me to come back to the Fire Nation with you again.” Jet’s body settles heavy over his. “Tell me what you want, Zuko,” Jet whispers so softly he more feels it against his lips, in the race of Jet’s heart against his skin, so softly he almost wonders if he imagines the words, “Let’s find out what I’ll say.”
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
chapter one of the flame to a vapor sequel is out! featuring Jet not having a good time on a boat, and Zuko not having a good time in the Fire Nation <3
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Past Jet/Zuko - Relationship, Jet/Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka & Zuko (Avatar), Lu Ten & Zuko, Past Sokka/Suki
Characters: Zuko (Avatar), Jet (Avatar), Sokka (Avatar), Suki (Avatar), Aang (Avatar), Katara (Avatar), Toph Beifong, The Gaang (Avatar)
Additional Tags: Pre-Relationship, Mutual Pining, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gay Zuko (Avatar), Zuko (Avatar) Needs a Hug, Protective Sokka (Avatar)
Summary:
“Did Jet just...die?”
Sokka glanced at him, “You know, it was really unclear,” and turned his head back to the show.
Zuko couldn’t bring himself to pay attention after that. Jet and him had ended badly, but Zuko had never wanted him dead. In fact, before Jet went off the deep end, Zuko was almost positive he was in love with the confident freedom fighter. He had always known the relationship was going to end badly, with him being an ex-fire prince and all, but Jet just couldn't be dead.
or
Zuko learns of Jet's death. The Gaang tries to comfort, but Sokka gets it.
Thinking more about the Zuko dies and becomes the Blue Spirit idea, and what it might be like to be a spirit that lost its purpose; a river spirit whose river has long since dried up. How it might be to step into that role, how lonely and jarring that might be.
