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When he was a boy, Zuko rescued an injured firehawk from the royal aviary. Ozai sneered, but Ursa encouraged him. For seven days and seven nights, Zuko nursed and fed the ailing bird with a desperate, feverish love. On the eighth day, the bird was gone, leaving only a flurry of red feathers behind. Ursa tried to console him. No one can rival the sky, my sweet boy. Not even you.
He’s hardly that woebegone child anymore but some nights he wakes up and reaches for Aang, and there’s always a moment, right before his fingers touch the airbender’s flesh, when he expects to find bodiless feathers instead. Aang is always there, all warm, slender limbs and quiet breath, and the smell of his skin, like the first scent of summer grass on the wind, and sometimes the musk of sky bison fur, and always that faint note of ozone Zuko could never place but made the hair on his arms and the back of his neck rise; that startling blend of the earthly and unearthly that comprised the Avatar, that would have unsettled most people if Aang didn’t offer his usual, open-hearted smile. And Zuko would draw him hungrily to his chest, like it was all a captured dream, like he would open his eyes and find only air in his arms.
The first week after Aang is called away on an extended mission to the Earth Kingdom, Zuko hardly sleeps. He lies with his face pressed into the sheets to breathe his lover’s scent and strokes the linens like they’re Aang’s skin. He’s surly at meals and despondent in the evenings. His advisors harrumph in frustration at council meetings when they find his attention wandering. There are sly, contemptuous whispers about his peculiar relationship with the Avatar. Fire Lords throughout history have taken male lovers, but the dominion of Agni’s chosen ruler was expected to extend to all realms of life, including the bedchamber. By laying down with the Avatar, who bowed to no nation, Zuko was tainting the crown. So, the second week he forces himself to rally, to face their scrutiny and scorn head on. Throwing himself into work busies his mind, but he can’t quite stop stealing glances out the window, hoping for a speck on the horizon, for wings flying home. Aang had promised to return before the southerly winds shifted. In the moment, with the airbender in his arms, their limbs tangled together and still lazy from love, Zuko had swallowed the promise with ease. Now as the weeks lengthened he grew infuriated. Aang and his crypticisms. How was he supposed to keep track of the wind?
Zuko pestered the royal cartographer and harbor master, but they only gave him strange looks. Their knowledge of air, while more extensive than your average citizen, was mechanical and pragmatic. Aang spoke of wind patterns and air currents like they were friends, like they sang in human tongues. To everyone else, air was ubiquitous and mundane. The world was still without Air Nomads, and there were times this sudden emptiness made itself known in ways that made Zuko dizzy to contemplate.
One afternoon after a strenuous round of katas, instead of heading straight for the royal bathhouse Zuko climbed up a tree in the gardens, as high as he could go. Ignoring the gardeners’ glances of concern and alarm, he leaned his head into the wind, and allowed the sound of rustling leaves to surround him. Aang had mentioned great festivals at the Air Temples, hundreds of streaming flags, bells of brass and copper and wood, dancing in air bent lovingly by a hundred hands. He couldn’t remember much more than those simple details, or perhaps that was all Aang had disclosed. But the image stirs inside Zuko, alive and indistinct, vivid and also dreamlike, floating just out of reach.
He stays up there for a long while, the breeze easing tendrils of hair out of his top knot to wave around his face.
Another fortnight passes with no sign of Aang. Zuko sends letters to Katara in the South and Iroh in Ba Sing Se, casually inquiring of the Avatar’s whereabouts. They both saw Aang weeks ago, their letters reply, but he hadn’t stayed. Zuko briefly considers going after him before reality disabuses him of any such notion. His days chasing the Avatar are behind him, it’s true. But there’s comfort in the familiar. There are, he thinks, in the middle of another interminable council meeting, worse ways to spend an existence.
Chief Arnook has sent a delegation to negotiate trade agreements between the Northern Water Tribe and the Fire Nation, and for two weeks Zuko barely has time to think. His clean bed-linens no longer hold a trace of Aang’s scent, so he’s taken to leaving all the windows in his chambers wide open, so the clear wind keeps him company. (And so Aang might return through them, as he is sometimes fond of doing, much to the chagrin of the royal guard). Aang’s name is brought up several times during the negotiations, and not a few times Zuko finds himself tasked with speaking for the Avatar, something he arduously avoids doing. Still, it doesn’t prevent the studied glances and quiet whispers. Their relationship unsettles political figures in more than just the Fire Nation. Many consider it untoward for the Avatar to involve himself in the Fire Lord’s intimate life. Behind their suspicion and wariness, Zuko knows, are a bevy of well-heeled daughters and cousins and sisters to be offered up to Aang, to buy and bind the Avatar’s loyalties. Sooner or later a decision will have to be reached. Zuko pushes these thoughts firmly to the back of his mind and focuses on the task at hand.
The muted blue of a Water Tribe tunic gleams in a shaft of afternoon sun, catching Zuko’s eye. For a moment, it’s the same color as Aang’s riverine tattoos, the ones Zuko loved dragging his tongue over, especially the one that ran down Aang’s spine, that the last time they were together Zuko had traced with his mouth until Aang shuddered and the blue glowed faintly to life.
“No,” he tells the minister. “I do not know the Avatar’s whereabouts. I’m sure he’ll make himself available to you when he can.”
His palms burn with harsh, pointed longing. He hides them in his robes and calls for more tea.
The monk’s yellow and orange robes are the first thing Zuko sees. Aang sits in lotus under the open bedroom window, his staff resting against Zuko’s desk, his face lighting up when the firebender walks in. He glides into Zuko’s arms, giving him no time to unravel the knot of fear and frustration and longing in his chest before his breath grows muffled in Aang’s shoulder, hands drifting to his slender waist. Aang winces, and Zuko’s palm comes away damp and sticky.
“It’s nothing,” Aang says, lips hovering over Zuko’s.
Zuko stares at the dried blood on his fingers. “Doesn’t look like nothing.”
“Just a run in with some pirates...,”
“Why didn’t you stop and see a healer?” His voice is sharper than intended, but it’s a relief to have an outlet for his inner tumult.
“Zuko, I’m fine,” Aang protests with a tired smile. But he doesn’t complain when Zuko lays him down to examine the wound. A scimitar cut, not deep enough to really do any damage, but still of concern. “I was distracted,” Aang says, answering the unasked question about how his attackers got close enough in the first place. Zuko, busy freeing Aang’s torso of his robe so he can clean the wound, at first barely hears him. “It was time to come back, like I told you.”
Zuko’s hand, now holding a rag soaked in cool water, pauses over the ugly cut. A flood of emotion too swift and strong to capture tightens his throat. Wild happiness clashes with worry and shame. Because he had wanted Aang to hurry back at any cost. Had even resented him for his absence. Aang’s hand drifts over his neck, light and loving, making him shiver, his head leaning into the touch like into wind on a clear summer day. “Idiot,” he murmurs, resting his cheek on Aang’s thigh. Aang’s smile, sunny and knowing, cuts Zuko in half. This thing between them can’t continue. The Avatar can’t belong to any one nation, and he certainly can’t belong to the Fire Lord. He has enough wisdom now to understand this, though it aches like a knife.
The turtle-duck hatchlings form an eager line, pecking at the grains in his hand, some of the more rambunctious ones tugging at his sleeve. Aang watches him with a gentle warmth that makes Zuko flush. He’s smiling, but his grey eyes are soft and unfocused, far away. Zuko knows him well enough not to ask. There were parts of Aang even his closest friends couldn’t fathom. His smile might signal a happy memory, or one devastating enough to break grown men in half. He empties the rest of the grain into the pond, causing a chaos of little honks and fluffy squabbling among the hatchlings, and goes to sit beside Aang. The monk lays his head in Zuko’s lap and they sit in tranquil silence. It’s just after dawn and the gardens are empty, Zuko having given the gardeners the day off, so they could have some privacy.
“I went to the Air Temples again,” Aang says, running his fingers over the grass. Zuko waits in silence for him to continue. “I flew around by myself for a bit. It was a little lonely, but nice. Is that weird?”
“Why would that be weird?”
“I don’t know,” Aang says, avoiding his eyes. “I have so many people that love me, and I’m grateful. But...,”
“Nothing can rival the sky.”
Aang looks at him in surprise and something else, something like joy. “That sounds like something the monks would say.”
“Sounds like ? Shouldn’t you know? Being a monk and all,” Zuko said, prodding him gently.
“Sometimes, I can’t remember,” Aang says, and Zuko’s heart snags on the quietness in his voice. “I’m just one airbender, and I spent a lot of time throwing fruit pies and playing airball.”
Zuko considers this, and the words bloom from somewhere deep inside him. “Maybe that was their gift to you.”
Aang blinks, and for a moment Zuko is worried he might have misspoken. “Sifu Hotman, we might make a monk out of you yet.”
“You know I hate when you call me that,” Zuko says, but there’s a smile in his voice as their lips meet. The kiss is unhurried, yet hungry. They always touch like this, like thieving time.
“You brought them back to me, you know,” Aang said. “The airbenders, the boys I used to play with. Those early days, when you were chasing me down, sparring in weird locations.”
“Me? My form is nothing like an airbender. I was always tripping over my own feet fighting you -,” his face warmed even now at the memory of his desperate blasts of flame against Aang’s fleet-footed movements, always dancing tantalizingly out of reach. “You’re so...graceful. Even when you’re fighting,” Zuko said, thickly.
“No, you’re definitely a firebender,” Aang laughs, fingers grazing his lips. “It was more...a feeling. Being chased, having to run, having to be quick on my feet - that’s basically life at an Air Temple.”
Zuko says nothing. Trust Aang to pull a silver lining out of some of the darkest chapters in their life. But deep down, he feels the tug of truth. Those wartime days, running after each other, fleeing from city to city, destiny on their heels - they were lost and desperate, true, but they were also free.
He tugs Aang’s hand. “Come on. Let’s climb this tree.”
“Sure!” he says, and before Zuko can blink he’s up and risen through the air, landing lightly on a branch. Zuko clambers up on his hands and feet, calling out insults. He settles beside Aang, suddenly uncertain about the branch holding both their weight.
“Don’t worry, that’s why you always climb trees with a master airbender,” Aang says, sliding an arm around his waist.
Zuko cracks a grin. “I should find one then."
Aang leans on his shoulder, his posture easy and boneless as though they’re in a bed instead of a tree branch of dubious strength. Watching him, something inside Zuko is soft and full and searing, too sweet to last, too perfect to die.
The air, cool and clear, rustles the leaves around them like bells.