witchesreign | closed to Jet; showers

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closed to Jet; showers

[Within an hour into his 'training' Zuko could feel the sleeveless green tunic wrap moving with his body, drenched in perspiration and stuck to him. At first he had gone out into the courtyard to go through the basic movements of firebending without actually using any fire. Then he had stepped up his game to flips and mid-air spins and kicks, twisting his body this way and that, his mind straying to the waterbender and Jet and the fight they'd had before the Faculty members had interrupted. To anyone who'd been out there at the time must have thought he was nuts, but to Zuko. It was routine. Practice. And his mounting anger was only fueling it.

From the flips and kickspins, Zuko had taken to the training center only to exterminate under ten beasts before walking out. Simple monsters, nothing more. And what a joke it had been. So much that he had walked out and headed immediately for the showers to call it a day, muscles taut and sore.

Just as he enters the men's locker room, there's water already running in the background, the showers in use. He barely glances towards the foggy figure that can be seen through the fogged glass sides as he heads to the stall next to it. Off the tunic comes. Zuko doesn't think about it or the semi-lack of 'privacy' as he kicks off his shoes outside of a stall and steps in, closing the door behind him. He turns on the water and waits a moment before he undoes his pants and slips out of them and under the scalding hot spray with a quiet groan of approval.]

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[ Jet wasn't familiar with the concept of "weekend" before getting to Garden. Every day was a fight for survival, regardless of what it was named. There was no such thing as a day off. He's having a hard time adjusting to the easy pace of life in this world, where he isn't in constant danger and he doesn't have a colony of orphans or a city to protect. The rising sense of panic he's felt growing stronger day by day is all due to nothing more dire than tests on paper. It's frustrating.

It's also frustrating to be expected to bathe every day, certainly not customary among Earth Kingdom peasantry, but this at least he's coming to tolerate. No.

Truth is, he's coming to wholeheartedly enjoy it. While not customary, regular bathing has its benefits, and he's actually become fond of the way his fingernails look without black moons under them. That's why he's been in the shower for so long on Sunday evening; there's no nook or cranny he hasn't attacked with the tea tree soap. Several other bathers have come and gone in the time he's spent washing, so hearing one more enter is of little consequence to him. ]

[Slicking back his hair to get it out of his face, Zuko closes his eyes and stands directly under the spray, head tilted back to enjoy it against his face. He moves around just a bit, turning to put his back to the spray after a good five minutes and reaches up to massage his shoulder, fingers pressing in against the knot he can feel.

For Zuko. This is the life. Or at least is better than how he and Uncle Iroh were living in Ba Sing Se. Of course they helped with the tea shop and had their own quarters for sleeping. A place to call 'home', no matter how temporarily. But to be able to bathe daily again ... it was heaven.

And a blissful one at that, especially without the nuisance he called the Avatar.

Twisting under the spray he reached for the soap and unwrapped the fresh package. He rolled it around in his palms for a moment, lathering them up, and the fresh scent of tea tree broke through the air. It reminded him of home. And Ba Sing Se. And something else he couldn't quit put his thumb on, but what did that matter?

It didn't, not as he brought the soap to his bicep and began to scrub. Only to have the soap slip out of his grasp and hit the fogged window separating him and the other occupant.]

Damnit.

[Zuko crouches to retrieve it and straightens to resume the scrubbing.]

[ The soap smacking against the divider wall doesn't startle Jet, not in a significant way. These things happen, after all.

It's the curse, more specifically the voice that uttered it, that snaps his eyes wide open. ]

. . .

[ He turns his head to stare at the frosted glass, aware now of who is just on the other side. He has a moment, a daydream of just breaking the wall with his body, using the shattered glass to finish--
He scoffs to himself, then grins. ]

[ With a quick leap up, he fits his foot into a crevasse meant for a bar of soap, and hooks his forearms over the top of the dividing panel. He then crosses them and rests his chin on them, now looking down into the adjacent stall, one foot dangling. ]

[Zuko doesn't see him. Not at first. Only when he senses that someone's watching him shower seconds later does the firebending prince react. Slowly golden eyes lift upwards to catch and lock with brown ones. He's got one arm out in front of him, soaped up, with the bar in his hand and frozen to his shoulder, soapy water trailing down the front of his body--]

[Down those golden eyes drop to where the rest of Jet's body is vaguely outlined behind frosted glass--]

[Back up they go--]

Wh-what do you think this is?!

Don't just hang there STARING!!

[Did Zuko just fling the soap at him? Yes. Yes he did.]

This isn't some sort of peep show!

[He's ready to drag the other male into his stall by his hair and continue that fight they had the other week. It shows as he glowers up at him with his jaw clenched and hands formed into fists.]

[ Jet catches the soap, taking a moment to blink at it with a bemused expression before returning his attention to the firebender.
Zuko might be expecting any number of reactions from Jet. He may be ready for anything from a reverse soap-assault to being spat on. And while Jet has certainly given both options some thought, he chooses instead to just grin and leer. ]

No? With all the moaning and groaning you were doing over here, you can't blame me for getting the wrong impression.

[Zuko stares at him. Did he just say...

The muscle in his cheek twitches in his growing irritation and instead of throwing a fist at the glass where the outline of Jet's hips are, Zuko turns away towards the shampoo and conditioner dispensers on the tiled wall.]

Now that you've seen it for yourself that I'm not doing anything, you can stop gawking.

Who's gawking?

[ It was most certainly a leer. ]

Oh...hey, did you know? You've got a giant bruise on your ass.

[As much as Zuko wants to really pound this guy in the face. He suppresses the urge and ignores him, rinsing out the shampoo from his hair.]

Are you going to just stare at it the entire time I'm in here?

[Pushing the hair off his face, he drags a hand down his face to clear the water out of the way. Zuko shoots him a glare over the shoulder, ignoring how hot the tips of his ears feel knowing the other male is just leering at him like that.]

....Are you done?

[ Jet feels so very proud of himself. He's found a way to make the firebender this uncomfortable without having to hit him, not even once! Surely Katara will applaud him for his good work. This isn't something that can get any of them into trouble, after all. ]

Done what, showering? Eh.

[ He shrugs suntanned shoulders and wishes for a stalk of grass to chew. ]

This is more interesting. Never seen royalty this in the flesh before.

Enjoy it while you can. It'll never happen again. [Now for the conditioner; he washes it in, rinses it out. He's still not done washing with the soap and a part of him regrets having thrown it at the other. Just for the sake of now he'll have to ask nicely for it back.

Unless...]

You planning on never taking another shower so long as we're here?

[ Jet's expression as he says it is as guileless and sweet as he can make it, enough to leave the sick, tongue-coating aftertaste of an artificial sugar. ]

[Zuko turns towards the other boy then and says nothing, just glowers up at him. His hand reaches out as he steps out of the spray of the shower to press a hand against a darker part of the glass where the soap holder is in Jet's stall.

And he concentrates on heating his hand to heat both the glass and metal, brows knitting.]

[...Well he hadn't been expecting that, really. Jet cocks his head to the side, alternating between peeking down at the hand (which may just be misdirection to create an opening for attack) and glancing at the firebender's face. ]

[Just wait for it, Jet. Just wait for it. Slight tendrils of steam begin to rise from between the glass and his hand, golden eyes lifting to catch his as a smirk slowly curves his lips.]

[ Jet doesn't like that look on the firebender's face. He doesn't like it one bit. He's so transfixed by it, and trying to puzzle out its meaning, that he doesn't even notice the steam. ]

...What the hell are you...

....You'll see. [And that's all he says as he increases the heat, concentrating it to where the lower portion of his leg is obscured by the soap holder.]

[ At last, Jet bothers to actually look down and pay attention. ]

[And the steam is rising all the more; Zuko pulls his hand away just an inch, hand entirely dry now and able to fully ignite a flame to act like a blowtorch to that soap dish, heating it and the glass more and more and more and more--]

Oh what the HELL--

I won't ask you again. [He keeps it up with the blowtorch--]

[ After a heartbeat's pause, Jet scoffs and turns his head. He's unarmed, and while the water of the showers puts Zuko at a disadvantage with his bending, he still has the upperhand. ]

You'll have to pay to fix that, firebender.

[ It's a very perturbed mumble. ]

[Zuko refuses to leave the showers without soaping himself down and off. And he has two options in getting his damn bar of soap back. Either he can blast the torch in Jet's face in hopes that he'll release it in surprise or he can go into the other's stall and retrieve it himself.

Scoffing himself, the torch goes out and Zuko steps away from the shower entirely. He picks his pants up off the ground and puts them on, already heading out of his stall in the middle of pulling them up over his hips to walk the two steps to enter Jet's.]

I really hate repeating myself.

[Zuko looks at where Jet's foot is braced in his soap dish and sees no bar of soap. His next option is the floor, which is where his eyes drop to. With a scowl, the firebender moves bare foot to snatch it up, some of the spray hitting him and wetting his pants. He doesn't care, he finally has soap.]

[ With the soap dish now structurally unsound, Jet hops down from it to plant both feet back on the floor. He finds Zuko's addition of pants in the shower especially pointless, and amusing, given that he'd just seen the whole show already.

He puts one hand on a hip and shifts his balance to the corresponding foot. Despite the fact that he's now the only one naked, there's no sense from him that he feels self-conscious. ]

You could have asked nicely to have your soap back, instead of barging in to take what isn't yours. But then...you are Ozai's son.

[His gaze drops to Jet's hips at the movement of his hand going there and they snap back up, jaw tightening. His eyes then narrow at the barb, darkening. He really hates it when people bring up his father.]

Don't even start...

[ Ohh, now he wants to start very, very much. The urge to goad the firebender into a fight is strong enough that it almost pains Jet to quash it. ]

[ In the end, he just shakes his head, flicking water this way and that, then turns to continue soaping with the bar he's holding in his hand. ]

[Zuko's glad the other didn't continue goading him. He says nothing and watches the soapy bubbles and water trail along the curve of Jet's spine all the way down to his lower back and even lower-- he twists away quickly and exits the stall, brows furrowed deeply.]

Stupid... stupid....

[ While it would have been sweet music to his ears to hear Zuko's continuing discomfort, sadly the drone of the shower's spray is too loud and Jet hears nothing more from the other boy. ]

[ He rinses off one final time, secure that he's cleaner in this moment than he's probably ever been in his life. The faucet gets turned to off, and he steps out of the stall, towel draped over his head and shoulders. ]

[Already back in his stall and basking in the scent and feel of the tea tree soap scrubbing along his bare skin again, Zuko is completely oblivious to the other's movements until he turns off his own shower and dries off, wrapping a towel around his hips before stepping out.]

...You're still here?

[ Jet just towels his hair. ]

Public bathroom. You'll just have to deal with sharing it with commoners.

Who said I have a problem with sharing it? You've probably forgotten but I haven't exactly been living the life of the 'rich and famous' for the past few months, if not years.

[Turns away slightly to snag a towel off the shelves and begins toweling his own hair.]

[ Forgotten? Of course he hasn't forgotten. Every moment Jet spent trying to get close to him just replays in his mind, like a carousel of images better suited to a nightmare. ]

What, I'm supposed to commend you for roughing it as part of your undercover scheme? Yeah, good job, your majesty, you played the part of a dirty refugee so well you even fooled the Dai Li. Truly masterful work.

What 'scheme'? There was no 'scheme'. It was just me and my uncle rebuilding our lives from the ground up and he chose Ba Sing Se.

[The towel rests draped around his neck to hang down his chest, as he turns to fix Jet with a hard look.]

"Rebuilding your lives?" Are you trying to make me vomit?

[ Jet pulls his own towel down from his head, pausing in his scrubbing. ]

The Fire Lord sent his brother and his son in disguise to Ba Sing Se, so the two of them could bring it down from the inside while everyone was busy worrying about the attack from outside the wall. It's smart, I'll give him that. [ A brief pause.] Or was it your idea?

I guess you caught onto the explosives in the tea barrels in the back huh.

[Zuko rolls his eyes and scoffs in disgust. There's no point in arguing with this guy.]

It was neither of our idea. But not like that matters, you're too bent on uncovering the 'truth' - which isn't really the truth to begin with - and turning everyone against Uncle and I all because we're from the Fire Nation.

I was right about you being from the Fire Nation, I was more than right. You're not just any firebender.

[ The more he thinks about it, the more Jet feels that bitter sting of bile rising in his throat. He should have found some way to get the two firebenders arrested. ]

So why don't you tell me what you were really doing in Ba Sing Se, if it wasn't to tear it down from the inside.

[He doesn't answer at first, mostly because he's remembering the boat ride they shared. As guarded as he'd been towards the other boy and his two groupies, Zuko had in a sense made a 'friend'. Until said friend found out the truth about him and Uncle Iroh and attacked and--]

What you said on the boat was the truth. I am an outcast, like you. And while you might believe the Fire Lord is my father, he disowned me years ago. I was exiled and placed under my uncle's care. We've been traveling ever since.

[ Disowned? Exiled? Jet had never heard anything like that before. Surely if the Fire Lord had exiled his own son, it would have been well known? ]

[ Jet's brows draw down and knit tightly. ]

Why would...

[ His own parents, he can barely remember them. But they loved him. ]

I was never strong enough. In his eyes, I was the disappointment. The weakling. While my sister showed such great potential at such a young age. She was everything he looked for in a successor to the throne.

I spoke out in a meeting; I didn't really think about it, nor did the consequences hit me until after.

[Zuko looked directly at him, gaze hardening. He didn't need to touch a hand to the facial scarring to prove his point.] The mark of the banished prince. My father gave it to me just before I was stripped of my birthright and cast out.

[ Jet doesn't know how to absorb all of that. First of all, should he believe it? It's beyond his wildest imagination, a father treating his son that way. It's also so much more information than the other boy's ever offered. Why say this now, when they're in a bathroom on some freakish metal and pu-ra-stik world, having a stand-off in the nude? ]

[ But at the same time, if he's willing to believe behavior that cruel, that inhuman, there's only one person from whom he'd believe it, and that's the Fire Lord. ]

...Then why did Katara say you and your sister were the reason for Ba Sing Se's fall?

[What better time to spill the beans than in the semi-nude.]

I don't really know what happened. It's possible that she's from after Ba Sing Se.

[Zuko lowered his gaze to the ground between them, his voice quiet:]

I betrayed both her and my uncle. Technically we were still enemies in the underground catacombs and we did fight. But Katara... right before the Avatar and Uncle burst in to break us out, she was determined and hopeful to the idea that she could heal my scar. Yet I betrayed her-- why am I even talking about this in the first place..?

[The inner conflict was beginning to show.]

[ He grips his towel in front of his body with both hands, twisting it as the familiar anger comes bubbling back under his skin. ]

She cared enough, was forgiving enough, to offer to heal that mark. All that humiliation and pain and...I can't even think of what you have to feel if you're telling the truth about all of this. [ Jet's nostrils flare. ]

She wanted to help you not feel it anymore. And you betrayed, betray her?

You don't think it hasn't crossed my mind already since I first bumped into her here!? [His own nostrils flare as he snaps back at the other boy, fists curling at his sides.]

I was so hopeful-- appreciative even-- that she who was my enemy would go out of her way to do something like that for me, of all people. The son of the Fire Lord who had raided her people time and time again.

[The mounting anger wasn't directed at Jet but more so at himself. For how foolish he'd been, for the poor decisions he'd made in the past.]

Then why the hell did you do it!

[ What more needs to be asked? ]

[ Jet throws his towel down and turns away, headed to the shelved baskets where his clothes are deposited. He suddenly doesn't feel like doing this anymore. He doesn't want to encourage any more of these thoughts, about how the Prince of the Fire Nation has been as hurt and confused by this war as he's been himself, about how Katara offered something so valuable to the other boy, about how maybe their world wasn't as black and white as he'd believed but it doesn't matter anymore because they aren't even there. ]

[ He shoves his legs into his trousers with so much force that he nearly loses his balance and has to prop himself against the shelves to stay upright. ]

Because of my father!

[Pushed to the breaking point by that question, Zuko snaps, the anger and frustration and confusion boiling over.]

Because I was conflicted towards my destiny. The need to be accepted again as the Crown Prince to the Fire Nation meant more to me than her and what she had to offer. Because my compulsive need for my father's respect and affection drove me to make choices I now regret and wish to take back-- What more do you want me to say!

[Zuko threw his arms out at his sides, voice echoing in the showers with each rising pitch.]

[ His fingers aren't shaking as they tie the knots that hold his shirt closed.

It's just the world that is. ]

That you're sorry.

[ Jet scoops the rest of his belongings into the crook of one arm, not wanting to stay long enough to reoutfit himself. His feet are still bare when he lets the door click closed behind him. ]

[Breathing heavily and thoroughly incensed, Zuko lets out a long frustrated shout that's sure to carry out into the corridors, the anger he's been bottling up inside at himself having charged his attack as he then lets loose an unstable and violent stream of fire at the door. He ignores it as it and the frame separate from the wall itself and smash out against the hallway wall, the metal dented and pushed outwards.

Where is Uncle Iroh to calm him down when he needs the kind and wise elder?

Zuko jerks his pants on, yanking away the towel, and storms out of the showers. He's so angry he snorts out small, twin flames from his nostrils, stalking to the dormitories for the remainder of the day, Jet's words playing over and over in his head.]

Edited 2010-06-24 07:52 (UTC)

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closed to Jet; showers

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30secondstomars - this is war 1/?

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