Work Text:
Looking for the golden light
it's a reasonable sacrifice:
Burn, burn, burn bright.
— numb, marina & the diamonds
Zuko gets up every morning at dawn. He looks out the porthole and sees ocean ocean ocean and the faint pale orange of the sunrise over the ocean ocean ocean and doesn't let himself feel despair. He gets up and undresses and redresses. He pulls the hair left on his head after the... after the incident up into its stupid little topknot. He breathes, in out in out. He counts the fastenings of each layer of clothing. Undershirt: zero. Tunic: one two three tie a knot. Armor: one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven. Pants: one two. Shoes: one two three four five one two three four five. This is how he keeps himself sane. He'd learned to do it when he was a child, when Azula was being annoying and he needed to keep himself from strangling her, when he was being annoying and his father was strangling him, when he was scared or angry or hurt. When half of his face was burnt to the bone and it was all he could do to keep from screaming and screaming and not stopping until even that hurt too much.
Some mornings, his uncle comes to his room. This is a habit, he supposes, left over from those sticky, screaming, ointment-and-bandage days, days when Iroh would rouse him each morning to clean the wounds, to change the dressings, to blot Zuko's tears away before they reached the raw skin and stung. Iroh always did it and no one else, not a servant or a doctor and not even Zuko himself -- since Zuko, of course, refused to look in a mirror, refused to raise his hand to his face and feel the bandages or the salves or the fact that he no longer was who he had been weeks ago, that his very flesh had evaporated and that what was left had melted and charred and merged with muscle and bone and hair. It was always Iroh who did it, and always with that small smile that was supposed to bring comfort to his ward but which did little to mask his own discomfort at the sight of his nephew in such a state.
Zuko was twelve years old.
Now, Zuko is fourteen, and Iroh may bring him some breakfast, if he predicts Zuko may be in a mood and unwilling to come out and face his own hideous situation. He may bring a small brewed portion of their precious store of coffee if he knew Zuko had had a rough night and a hard time sleeping. For it was Iroh, too, who was always near, always listening, always responding when Zuko screamed out in his sleep. The night terrors are becoming less frequent now, but Zuko's sleep patterns haven't much improved. He still has bad dreams, if less violent ones; he still lays awake with his mind whirling and his emotions flipping and flying and his gut clenching until he thinks he'll be sick. Some nights, he is. He still gets up in the freezing hours before dawn and wanders the ship, paces the deck, makes the crew members crazy for fear of him and contempt for him and his stupid, childish rages. He still sits bolt upright when dawn's first rays hit his eyelids and has to talk himself down from a panic, convinced that they'd missed the Avatar, passed straight by him sometime in the night when Zuko had slept. He still curls himself up sometimes in some corner and refuses to come out because he knows that if he were to see the ocean, he wouldn't be able to stop himself from hurling himself into it. He's always been a good swimmer; the cold was what would get him. He hated the cold, but he'd heard that when you die from it, you feel warm in the end. Zuko could use some warmth; up here, it was always bitterly, bitterly cold. That alone was enough to drive him mad.
He was mad. He was stark-raving, a lunatic. He knew it. He didn't care.
This morning, Iroh doesn't come, and Zuko's not sure if he's happy or not. The old man was a nuisance, and yet - and yet it was Iroh that stood by him, Iroh that cared for him. Zuko hated that, too. Hated that he needed caring for, and that it was his uncle that needed to step in and do it. And where was his father? His mother?
He shook his head. Counted the bolts in the floor, one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen. On and on until his chest deflates again. He's okay. It's okay; Iroh doesn't matter. Nothing matters. He doesn't care, can't care. He just needs to find the Avatar.
Nothing else matters.
Nothing else matters.
When he's under control, he brushes imaginary specks of something off of his front and pushes his way out of his room and into the corridor. It's narrower here than makes him entirely comfortable, so he turns left and moves quickly to deck. He dreads the cold but needs the open air, and needs to see, needs to look. He breathes, one two one two. He steps, one two one two. He's okay.
The deck is fairly empty this early in the morning. The night crewmen are growing sleepy and the day ones are dawdling in their quarters, not quite ready to get up and face the day. Annoyance clenches Zuko's intestines, anger. Those lazy sons of bitches; don't they know what's at stake here? Don't they know who's in charge?
One two. One two.
He makes his way to the front of the ship, stands at the railing, feels the bitter wind numb his skin. His breath clouds away from him and disappears; the tiny drops of perspiration that have gathered along the edges of his nose in the night remain liquid only due to the warmth thrown from his skin. Curse his blood, his body, the fire in his gut, forever tossing away the heat that should be left for him. It's hard to stay warm when you're a Fire-bender.
He lights a fire in his palms, cups it, tosses everything he has into it to keep it alive in the wind. His stomach turns to ice as his energy goes towards it, then his small intestine, his large intestine. He imagines all his heat flowing through his veins and out his hands and into this thing, this embodiment of what is inside him. He forces his anger into it and the flame flares up and he feels lovely and empty and numb. The air around him shivers with heat. He closes his eyes, savors it, lets out his breath until he's got nothing inside him. Doesn't take another in. This, now, is bliss - the nothingness, the looseness. The only time he's calm is when there's fire in his hands.
"Zuko." Iroh is behind him, and Zuko takes half a breath, but it's not enough. His flame goes out with a whoosh. He wobbles, his legs weak, the ground falling away beneath him and then shifting back into place.
"Zuko!" Iroh grabs him and Zuko tries to shake him off, fuck you old man, lemme go. I was bending, damn it.
Fuck. He's really out of it. The words don't leave his lips because there's nothing to say them with. Suddenly he's desperate to breathe, his lungs spasming and squeezing in on themselves, a hot band around his ribs, darkness fluttering around the egdes of his vision, his mouth gaping, his throat tight - but he can't. The air stops at the back of his mouth and won't go down. It's cold, too cold, too cold and his body won't take it in. It's like knives being thrust into his chest. He claws and writhes, struggling to get them out of his flesh. Iroh has him down on the ground in his lap, and Zuko thinks he hears him yelling somewhere very far away, but all he can see is a grey patch of the sky through a very long tunnel. All his energy, all his thought, all his power is going into breathing breathing breathing one two, o---ne, tw-- but two never comes and he can't take any more in and he's starving.
He becomes aware of the sensation of his uncle's hand on his cheek, but that is all.
When Zuko wakes up, his chest aches and his head throbs. His body is bogged down with a familiar heaviness that effectively keeps his limbs plastered to the bed. A mumbled noise emanates from his throat, a confused pained moan that perks his uncle up on his chair.
"Zuko," he says. His hands flutter like butterflies looking to land, longing to satisfy himself that his nephew is safe, to prod him and check for wounds. Zuko just repeats his noise -- "nhhggh-ghh" -- and thinks that he should start keeping tallys of how often he awakens painful and weak and with Iroh by his side, as the number is undoubtedly staggering. The crease of worry in Iroh's brow looks out of place on his usually placid features, and Zuko isn't sure whether he's annoyed or not by its presence. He must have stared blankly at his uncle for a second too much, because Iroh's expression changes to something else, something soft and adoring and -- pitying. His hand brushes across Zuko's forehead, soothing, and Zuko turns his face away, scowling, and even goes so far as to pry his arm from the mattress to swat weakly. "Don't," is all he says, and Iroh lets his hand fall away.
"Zuko," he says, and Zuko hates him for the tenderness in his voice. "You acted very recklessly." As if this was something new or unexpected.
"Leave it, Uncle," Zuko mumbles, and surprises himself at the ancient, weary quality of his voice. He wonders how the sixty-year-old beside him sounds more youthful than he. Wonders how Iroh is so resilient, so damn okay with everything. He was banished; his son was dead. Why didn't he grumble or yell or bend with such force he fainted from the sheer too-much of it all? How was he not angry?
Zuko closes his eyes. Normally, he would have left the room at this point, slamming the door on his way out, but this is the most he can manage right now, and it'll have to do.
It doesn't, because Iroh keeps talking. "Zuko, you could hurt yourself if you do not control -- "
"I know," Zuko snaps with something akin to real ferocity. Then, it drains from him as his brow wrinkles slightly, as he turns away, as he says, softly, "... Don't you think I know ?"
Iroh does, and that same sad, loving expression remains as he regards his nephew's turned back. After a long moment, he speaks again, matching Zuko's soft tone. "Rest now. And do not think your old uncle is above placing guards on your door to see that you do."
Zuko thinks no such thing, but he does think that he himself is above the pouting like a child. He's not, because that's what he's doing right now, in his own sullen, teenaged way. All he needs, really, is a jutting lip.
Iroh has moved to the door before he turns once more towards Zuko's form, still facing the opposite wall. Still turned away. He sighs, one hand on the door jam, and makes one last attempt to get through to him.
"I am here for you," he says, placing emphasis on the am , allowing no room for doubt. "I wish for you to be happy."
"Fat chance," is Zuko's reply, and Iroh closes his eyes for just a moment and wonders what he is going to do with this boy -- this fierce, determined, burned-out, scar-faced boy. What he is going to do to save him. What he is going to say to make him better.
"Good night, Zuko," is all he says.
Zuko presses his lips tightly together and does not reply.