Archive of Our Own ^beta

His face is on fire. He's screaming and burning and all he wanted to do was tell his father the truth about himself and now he's burning.

"Zuko?"

His throat is raw and the hand on the back of his neck is pressing him down and he's scared and he's dying and his father wants to kill him and he's. Still. Burning.

"Zuko, it's not real."

Of course it's real. It has to be. Dreams don't hurt this much. How does someone know his name anyway? The only person he's told yet is Mai and this voice sounds nothing like her, but it also sounds familiar, like he can remember who it is if he tries, but he doesn't want to try because he's melting now and it hurts to try and hurts to breathe and it hurts to think and it hurts to not think. He's fucking Burning.

"Easy Zuko, you're chasing the RABIT. Er, try and focus on my voice man. That might help. I've got you, okay?"

He feels a hand grasping his shoulder. It's like they're standing in front of him. That hand is familiar. That voice is familiar.

Jet.

"Yeah. It's me. I've got you baby."

There's a hand on each shoulder and he's not burning so hard and he blinks. His face is pressed against a stovetop. His vision is filled up by his copilot. Both at once. Neither at all.

He knows he needs to get out of here now, knows there is an out. He clenches his jaw and pushes through.

Zuko blinks hard and the waveform collapses. Jet is in front of him, an uncharacteristically soft look of concern on his face.

"Um, sorry about that." Zuko forces out a small chuckle.

Jet's soft expression lingers for a moment before settling almost artificially into something more relaxed, more familiar. "It's fine man. Better it happens during diagnostics than deployment. Don't sweat it." He holds the back of his neck and avoids eye contact for a second before continuing. "We're done now. You wanna come with me and find some junk food to eat?"

And it's weird because Jet and Zuko aren't really like that. They spar and they train and they get in the robot and fight and they fuck, but they don't really just hang out for the sake of it much. Still it's not quite weird enough to make Zuko feel defensive and angry, so he just nods. Fuck knows he needs some greasy calories in him after that shit. (Maybe Jet knows that.) (Maybe he doesn't and it's not as big of a deal as it feels.)

It feels so confusingly natural to walk at his side and casually chatter about nothing while coming down from it all. Jet keeps glancing over with something of that soft look from earlier, but Zuko has to be imagining it. (It's not like that between them.) (Could it be?)

They get food but the place doesn't have seats so Jet drags him to some random bench to eat together. The sky is a dusky purple with no stars visible and the air is still as they feast.

Once all the food is gone, they just sit for a while. Jet looks like he wants to say something. Zuko blinks expectantly at him, not wanting to carelessly break the fragile silence between them himself. They don't talk about the deep shit. It's not like that between them. A nod of acknowledgement, a challenge to a spar, an invitation to stay the night, that's what they offer to each other as intentional, unspoken means of comfort.

It's not like Zuko hates their current... arrangement. Not at all. He never felt a painful, bone-deep yearning to become "more," to try and romance Jet with flowers and sweet nothings like they're in a hallmark movie. They're happy with what they can give and take from each other. It isn't exactly the framework of a "proper" relationship, but that's fine, that had never even felt like an option with Jet.

But... The look that keeps coming back to Jet's face. It stings of a possibility.

Jet looks like he wants to say something and Zuko wants him to say it, comfortable silence be damned. The offer in his eyes promises Zuko to hold Jet and be held in return, to look at each other's rough edges and tell each other why they're okay now, why they're safe now. The idea sounds nice, even if the reality seems impossibly far off. It makes him want to smile, having to fight to keep his face still while he waits.

Jet starts to say something but his whole body hesitates, cuts himself off before the word is even recognisable. He slumps back into the cold, hard bench and looks up at that sky. Maybe he doesn't know what to say, maybe he doesn't know how to say it, maybe Zuko's completely wrong about it all. Whatever it is, Zuko doesn't want to rush anything out of the other if he's right.

The silence remains unbroken. They'll keep taking what they're comfortable with and giving what they can in return for now. Maybe it will turn into something different, more intimate, eventually. Maybe it won't.

Zuko will hold this dusky sky, this comfortable silence, these greasy fingers clasped together, that warmth leaning into his side with his precious memories. A possibility can mean more than anything sometimes.