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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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[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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