Chapter Text
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Johnny asked.
They had been scoundering the Earth Kingdom looking for an herb that Johnny said would permanently dye his hair. Which had proven to be quite difficult to find without actually knowing what the plant looked like or its name. But a run in with a helpful yet skeptical local had resulted in the local selling them the dye, but not before convincing Johnny to buy a dye that would turn Johnny’s hair brown.
He didn’t hate his hair, although he had grown up hating its significance. When he was young, he had begged his mom to let him cut his hair off, at least to his shoulders, like the alphas and betas of pack, but his mom said short hair wasn’t fit for an omega of his status. Omegas weren't supposed to cut their hair because long hair was the standard of beauty for them and his mom would never let him do something that would raise questions and garner looks.
So he compromised, he kept it long, but not too long and always pulled up out of his face and out of his sight, his mom had never liked the simplicity of his hairstyles when he lived in the North Pole. He was sure she would have loved to see the styles Yuna used to come up with, they were more fitting for royalty.
“You, yourself said that I wouldn’t be able to hide if someone so much as saw a single strand of my hair. I need to dye it, ” he replied. Johnny gave him a slight nod, but Johnny’s eyelids fluttered like he was still thinking it over.
“You could just shave your head like the Air Nomads,” Jisung offered and he scoffed at the younger, Jisung’s head wasn’t even shaved.
“My eyebrows are also white Jisung, I’d have to shave those off too, and I’m not completely willing to do that, yet,” he said and Jisung gave him a devilish smile that he had grown accustomed to and he just knew Jisung was going to say something crass.
“You’re right! You’d look super ugly!” Jisung teased. Comments like those made him regret ever allowing Jisung to come with them. They should have just stolen the boys bison, it wouldn’t have technically been stealing, since she was after all his bison too. He liked the kid most of the time, Jisung was a good kid, but Jisung had a tendency to say things that angered him and he had never known himself to be someone that got angry quickly but Jisung just had that talent.
“Thanks Jisung,” he said through gritted teeth, having the urge to hit Jisung upside the head.
“I think you’d look great!” Johnny offered up. Johnny was taking this all well. While Johnny had offered to come with him, he had expected Johnny to be more conflicted about it. They had run away from their country and while Johnny's disappearance might be easier to explain, his wasn’t. It wouldn’t take a genius to put two and two together and well, they couldn’t be sure what Mark was even saying about the situation. What was there to even say? There were few excuses that Mark could make to explain his absence.
“Thank you Johnny,” he offered Johnny a smile and Johnny looked away, eyes landing on the bag the hair dye powder was in.
“We should dye your hair soon, we want to do it while there is still light out,” Johnny replied while looking up at the sky and he looked too, the sun was starting to set and it would be harder to see what they were doing if they waited any longer.
“Don’t do it in the tent, I don’t want to sleep with the smell of your herb’s in the tent.” Jisung said.
“You’re such a drama queen,” he rolled his eyes. “You don’t even sleep in the tent.”
“I don’t sleep in the tent because ‘Your Highness’ can’t sleep on the ground,” Jisung said sticking out his tongue.
“I never said that,” he said, sticking his ground and Jisungs scrunched his nose up at him.
“Stop fighting!” Johnny said with a tired expression. “Jisung, you’re helping . We have to do this right, our lives depend on it.”
Their lives did depend on his ability to blend in, especially if rumors ever did reach the Earth Kingdom that he had run from the Fire Nation. The Earth Kingdom wouldn’t just let him be, especially when holding him hostage would tilt things in favor of the Earth Kingdom. He would become a bargaining chip.
“I totally did not sign up for this,” Jisung grumbled, while grabbing the mixing bowl that Johnny was holding out to him.
The dye was a lot more difficult to make then the locals made it seem and they were left unsure if the consistency was ‘pasty’ enough. They mixed it until it seemed good enough and they didn’t think they would be able to get any better. They applied it as best as they could.
“I can’t believe we’re gonna have to do that again for your hair Johnny,” Jisung complained.
“We have to wait to see how it works out for His Highness, if it lasts then we’ll do mine,” Johnny replied and Jisung nodded.
“I told you not to call me that Johnny,” he commented and Johnny gave him a weak smile
“It feels wrong not to,” Johnny replied and he understood. To Johnny, he was a Prince, a Consort and to refer to him as otherwise must have been against everything Johnny had learned.
“Maybe, but we’re not strangers anymore, I don’t want my friends using such formalities, Jisung doesn’t” he pointed out and Jisung nodded in agreement.
“That’s because Jisung is a brat,” Johnny teased and Jisung made a shocked expression that they both laughed at.
“Hey,” Jisung protested.
“It’s true, I thought air nomads were supposed to be nice,” Johnny commented. He wasn’t really sure if that was true, he had only ever met another Air Nomad and she wasn’t mean, but he wouldn’t describe Nayeon as nice. If anything he would describe her as a free spirit.
“Stop stereotyping my people,” Jisung grumbled. “Donghyuck hyung had a point though, you shouldn’t call him that. Maybe we should give him a different name, if anyone hears his name, they might recognize him.”
“You think I should change my name?” He mused. It was something he hadn’t thought about, although it was something he should have recognized. His name was also an identifier and he would need a cover for when they met people because it was possible they would potentially recognize his name and while there was a possibility that there was another Donghyuck in the Earth Kingdom, it was unlikely.
“Yeah, Jisung and Johnny aren’t uncommon, but nobody would dare to name their kid after royalty, even if they're from a different nation,” Jisung pointed out. “Unless they didn’t know of course, but it would raise suspicions.”
“Okay” he said slowly, looking up at the pair. “Do you have any suggestions?
“How about Minki?” Jisung offered and his breath quivered faintly at the name and he was sure at least Johnny noticed.
“That’s way too similar to his name,” he muttered, suddenly feeling in a bad mood, they didn’t need to be told explicitly who ‘he’ was, they all knew. It was a sensitive topic, he hadn’t been able to say Mark’s name out loud, and although the burns on his arm were healing well, they all knew they would scar even despite Johnny’s efforts to heal them.
“Taeil?” Johnny suggested.
“I have a cousin named Taeil,” Jisung replied and they all pondered.
A name was a big deal and although he already had one, deciding on what he would like to be called seemed difficult even if he could always just pick a new code name if he decided he didn’t like it. But changing a part of himself made his situation feel more real, like he was closing a chapter in his life, one that he still didn’t know if he wanted to revisit.
“How about Haechan?” Johnny asked, springing up from the tree trunk he had been leaning on.
“I’m from the Water Tribe,” he commented. It was not that he didn’t like it, but it didn’t seem to fit.
“I know, that's why I like it, it kind of feels like an oxymoron, you know. You’re blessed by the moon but instead of something like Manwol, you’re full sun, Haechan.”
“I agree with Johnny, I like Haechan,”Jisung said, also sounding equally enthusiastic and he didn’t have the heart to say no to them.
“Okay…” It came out a bit reluctant even though he had tried to mask. And Jisung and Johnny made the same face.
“You don't like it?” Johnny questioned. “You know you can say you don’t like it if you don’t. We’ll think of something else.”
“It’s not that I don’t, but it's all feeling like a lot.”
“Hey, I get it,” Jisung offered. “This isn’t the life you imagine, none of it was. I can’t imagine what you’re going through, but Johnny and I are here for you. I know we’ve only known each other for like a week, but I’d like to think we’re like family now.”
He appreciated the statement. It offered clarity. It was easy to think that they both loathed him, after all they all now had a constant fear of being caught. He feared Johnny would be executed for treason and he feared what could happen to Jisung. Jisung wasn’t a Fire Nation citizen and didn't technically do anything wrong, but he feared the Fire Nation wouldn’t see it that way.
“We are. We’re family now.” He offered his hand to both of them and they took them. And as cheesy as it was they held hands under the moonlight of the Earth Kingdom.
And for once he felt at home.
---
“Are you up for a healing session today?” Johnny asked over breakfast.
Johnny had constructed a makeshift spear out of a tree branch and had gone fishing early in the morning in the nearby river. Johnny had come back before he woke up and he had been surprised when he walked out of the tent to find the pile of fish that Johnny had caught and Johnny had just shrugged when he mentioned it.
“Sure,” he breathed out. It wasn’t exactly that he didn’t want to, but the healing sessions always hurt like hell and it was not something he liked to willingly subject himself to, but he knew the sessions sped up the healing time and reduced his chances of getting an infection, especially since they literally slept in the wilderness.
“We can always skip a day if it's too much,” Johnny offered.
“It’s okay,” he replied. “I don’t want to make a habit of skipping sessions. The faster I heal the better.”
They all fell into a comfortable silence as they ate. Jisung was a vegetarian and had kindly declined Johnny's fish and usually went off on his own to procure his own food even though they had offered to go with him. He felt like he should insist the next time that the airbender decided to go off alone, it wasn’t safe for them to be out alone; he didn’t want anything bad to happen to the younger.
“When do you want to start waterbending lessons?” Jisung asked. Jisung always finished first for some reason and the boy looked like he was going to get up soon. “Because I have an idea if you’re up to it before or after your healing session.
“What’s your idea?” He asked, looking over at the younger.
“You can wash your hair out, you know, using your bending,” Jisung offered. “Only if it doesn’t hurt too much to move your wrists.”
“It hurts,” he answered honestly. “But I can’t just wait until my arm doesn’t hurt anymore to start learning again. I need to know how to defend myself, just in case.”
“Great!” Jisung exclaimed. “We can start whenever you want, just don’t touch your hair, that's very critical.”
“We should do it before my healing session, they tend to make me tired,” he suggested.
“Okay,” Jisung twirled off the floor, lightly blasting them with wind as he did so and Jisung gave them an awkward smile when he realized. “Wait for me here, I’m going to go gather some materials.”
Jisung ran off with a dust cloud trailing behind him. And He and Johnny were left in an awkward silence. They were awkward with each other in general, for different reasons, but Jisung always knew how to lighten the mood. Whenever it was just the two of them he felt shy around the older and Johnny seemed to struggle with erasing the line that had been previously set between the two.
It was hard to converse with Johnny because despite trusting the older with his life and vice versa, they didn’t know much about each other and he didn’t even know what would be a good conversation to have with Johnny. He could ask about basic things like pets, but small talk was just awkward in general and he didn’t want to make things weirder than they already were.
He finished his food quickly and excused himself before getting up to leave.
“Your Hi- Haechan,” Johnny called after him. It took him a split second longer to recognize the name, but when he did, he stopped in tracks and looked down at the older. “You know you don’t have to learn to bend if you don’t want to, right? You have me and Jisung.”
“I know Johnny,” he replied quietly. “It’s just that, I’ve never had the opportunity to learn and I want to.”
“Okay,” Johnny nodded. “If you decide you don’t like it, you can always tell us.”
“I know,” he said, mimicking Johnny's nod.
---
Jisung had come back with a few buckets of water and a stick. While he wanted to ask where the younger had gotten the buckets from, hoping he hadn’t actually gone out and bought them, but the alternative was any good either because he doubted Jisung had random stashes of buckets laying around the Earth Kingdom. He knew it was better not to ask questions when he wouldn’t be able to do anything about the answer and Jisung wouldn’t listen to any of his complaints. He’d leave it to Johnny to comment on it later.
Jisung had told him to stand with feet in the water and he had thought that they would be doing something in the river but instead Jisung was leading him through a breathing exercise. He wanted to complain, he really did, but Jisung was doing him a favor and it wasn’t like he had any better options to teach him.
“Breathe out,” Jisung said. “Okay, last one. Breathe in.”
He did so, even though he sort of felt like Jisung was pulling his limbs with the whole breathing exercises.
“Breathe out,” Jisung said again. “Okay good job. Now we’re gonna move on.”
He nodded at Jisung and he turned to face the younger to wait for instructions.
“I want you to close your eyes and imagine yourself bending,” Jisung guided. “It can be something simple or something that you’ve seen one of your brothers or friends do.”
He imagined himself as Mingyu, as one with the water. It was easy to picture the image when he had spent secretly and not so secretly watching his brothers bend for entertainment. Mingyu had always been his favorite to watch because Mingyu had never been aggressive for the sake of being aggressive, unlike how most alphas tended to be, but because Mingyu knew that being aggressive wasn’t the only way to win a fight.
“How do you imagine you’d feel?” Jisung asked him and his eyes fluttered slightly, the water briefly coming into sight. “I know it's weird, just think about it.”
He’d always imagined Mingyu to feel at peace, almost mindless even though he knew waterbenders were taught to be warriors and that bending was a weapon and he knew peace probably shouldn’t have been what Mingyu should have been feeling. But he couldn’t imagine Mingyu feeling any other way.
“At peace,” he muttered and Jisung hummed in response.
“Open your eyes,” Jisung said and he followed when he was ready to. Jisungs eyes seemed to look him over, like he was trying to read his mind. “I want you to hold on to that, I want you to remember that bending doesn’t have to be bad, bending can be beautiful and peaceful. Bending is what you want to make out of it, not what others want you to, Haechan.”
He nodded, swallowing the lump that had started to form in his throat at Jisungs words. He wasn’t really sure why the words had affected him so much or why it felt like something that he needed to hear and remember but he did.
“Okay now, enough of that,” Jisung changed the subject and instructed,“Stream the water.”
It was no longer as difficult as it had been the first time he had tried with Mark, but he still needed to concentrate to be able to do it. It felt unnatural almost. He was inexperienced and it had been a while since he had had a lesson.
“Good,” Jisung praised. “I was thinking you fill the buckets with water and we wash your hair by the clearing we saw yesterday. I don’t want to contaminate the water supply.”
He filled the buckets and Jisung picked them up, they walked toward the clearing and Jisung set down the buckets.
“Alright stream the water and let it flow through your hair, but don’t let the water fall.” He looked at Jisung questionably. “It’ll teach you control and focus.”
He did as he was told and Jisung watched him meticulously. It was harder to let his hair soak in the water than he thought. Jisung told him to move the water around and occasionally water droplets would get on his skin and Jisung would instruct him to focus.
“Alright that water is now dirty. Drop it in the dirt and do the same thing again with clean water,” Jisung told him. Washing his hair took longer than it would have if they had just washed his hair in the river, they had to go back to get more water and Johnny had helped carry the buckets back to the clearing after he had seen them come back to the campsite Johnny stayed and they were both now criticizing his technique.
He let out a huff, what did a firebender and airbender know about waterbending.
He didn’t voice his annoyance outloud but he was sure that Jisung caught on to it eventually and the younger seemed to be entertained by it.
“The water looked clean on that last one, but do it one last time for good measures,” Jisung instructed.
He followed Jisung’s orders and did it again. And once he felt like he had soaked his hair for long enough and efficiently he dropped it in the dirt and waited for further instructions.
“Good job,” Jisung told him. “You didn’t get a single droplet on yourself that time.”
He impulsively looked at his arms and at his clothes and realized that Jisung was right, he hadn’t gotten water on himself and he smiled at the realization.
“What was different that time?” Jisung asked, with an obnoxiously knowing smile.
“I got the hang of it?” He guessed and Jisung's smile grew impossibly bigger.
“Yeah, but you also weren’t thinking about it as much, you trusted yourself,” Johnny offered and he nodded.
“Johnny's right, but it wasn’t what I was getting at,” Jisung said. “Think about it and let me know what you come up with.”
---
“We don’t have to do this if you’re not up to it,” Johnny told him.
His arm had hurt more than usual after the waterbending lesson. He had previously been limiting his arm movements and had barely used his wrist and even though it had only been a week, his range of motion had seemed to have become limited. The lesson had only served as a reminder of how limited he actually was. He was lucky his dominant arm was the one that had been injured, but it didn’t stop the pain from throbbing when he had come down from the adrenaline that waterbending always seemed to produce in him.
“You say that alot,” he commented. “ He used to say that a lot.”
“I can stop if it makes you uncomfortable,” Johnny offered this time and it made him smile because it was exactly something Mark would have said.
“It's okay,” he murmured. "They're just words, no need to get hung up on them."
He knew it wasn't the right thing to say. It wasn't a fair thing to say when Johnny was trying and he needed to be more considerate. He needed to talk about what happened, he owed it to Johnny, but he also knew that Johnny wouldn't rush him and today was not the day that he would lay his feelings and emotions down for Johnny to see. Maybe someday he would, maybe that someday was tomorrow, but he knew he needed to.
“I’m fine to do the healing,” he continued.
"Okay." Johnny stretched his hand out to him and he slowly placed his arm in Johnny's palm. Johnny's grip tightened slightly and Johnny warned, "This is gonna hurt."
And it did.
The pain seemed to get worse with each session and he wasn’t sure if it was because it actually did hurt worse or if it was because he anticipated the pain, he knew what it felt like and yet he didn’t know because it felt like the first time every single time. It felt like he was back in the corridors of the palace and Johnny had grabbed his hand for the first time and he had been confused before he felt pure agony.
But now he tried to last as long as he could because unlike the first time, he now knew that although Johnny was intentionally hurting him, this pain was meant to heal him.
“Stop,” he whimpered out when he couldn’t take it anymore and Johnny let go quickly.
“I’m sorry,” Johnny apologized just like he did each time and he smiled like he had each time after the first.
“It’s not your fault,” he offered, leaning back against the trunk of the tree that they were currently sitting under. “I think I’m going to go lay down in the tent a bit.”
“Take your time,” Johnny encouraged. “Come out whenever you’re ready. We can always decide where we're going next tomorrow, if you’re not up for it today.”
One of the first things they had agreed on was to always keep moving, to not stay stagnant in one place for precautionary measures. They had been camped in the same spot for two days now and while it was a good spot, being by fresh water was always best, it wasn’t exactly the best idea to stay here much longer.
“I will.”
Johnny pushed off the ground and turned towards him. Johnny offered him a hand and he took it without hesitation and Johnny helped him up.
“Your hair looks nice, by the way,” Johnny expressed and he grinned to himself mostly. Johnny was walking ahead of him and the older wouldn’t be able to see it.
“You guys did a nice job,” he complimented even though he hadn’t actually seen what he looked like now. He had only caught a few glances of his reflection in the river. But his hair hadn’t been dry or styled then and it wasn’t like what he had seen had been an accurate representation of the finished product.
“We did,” Johnny laughed.