It was late, and for once, Zuko was actually sleeping.  Kouji, on the other hand, was not.  He hadn't seen Iroh in weeks, and he desperately missed the old man.  He wasn't even sure why; certainly the boy didn't miss his parents near so much as he did the Dragon of the West.  With a sigh, he slipped out of the bed and reached for his cloak.

He was going to at least see Iroh!

Or that was his plan, anyway.

He made it to the prison itself undetected, and that was when everything started to unravel.  Knowing he was going to a prison, Kouji elected not to use his bending, nor to sneak, lest he be accused of trying to free the old man.  Unfortunately, trying to walk in openly wasn't the best thing he could have done, either.

"Who's there?" a voice called in the darkness. Before Kouji could answer, the source of the voice — one of the guards — was within sight, the flame he was holding casting eerie shadows on his face. "You can't be here."

Damn! the boy thought, blinking rapidly to try to adjust to the sudden light.  "But I—" he started.

"Should be in bed, anyway. It's after midnight." The guard called something back to one of his co-workers, then grabbed Kouji's arm with his free hand. "I'll take you back to the palace."

Scowling, Kouji wrested free.  "Fine," he said.

The guard took his arm again and escorted him back to the palace, not ungently.  Kouji sulked the whole way.  Zuko was still sleeping when he got back to their room, but much more restlessly than when he'd left.  Still unhappy, Kouji shed his cloak and crawled back into bed with his brother-prince.  It took him some time to go back to sleep.

When he woke again the next morning, Zuko had already showered, gotten dressed, and acquired coffee. "Morning," he said, quietly.

"Hi," the boy replied, and yawned.

"Sleep well?"

"….."  Kouji shrugged.

Zuko frowned. "You okay?"

"Had kind of a late night," the boy allowed after a moment.

"Oh."

"You?" Kouji asked,  quickly trying to change the direction the conversation was going.

"No."

"Bad dreams?"

Zuko shrugged and stared into his coffee.

Frowning, Kouji went over to hug his brother-prince.  The teenager let him, but didn't hug back.  After awhile, the boy had to get ready for his lessons.  Still unhappy about what had happened last night, he quit the room.  The rest of that day passed routinely. No one important seemed to have heard about his late-night visit to the prison, or, if they had, they made no comment to him.

Finally, when his tutoring was done for the day, Kouji went out to see Zuko in the pomegranate grove.  The prince was lying under one of the trees, staring up at the sky.  "Hey," said the earthbender, sitting down to join him.

"Hi," Zuko whispered back, then sat up slowly.

"You okay?" Kouji asked.

"Fine. I'm fine." He scooted back to lean against the tree.

"Okay."  Sighing, the colonist pulled his hair out of the phoenix tail and let it fall loose to his shoulders.

"You?"

"The usual," was Kouji's reply.

Zuko relaxed a little. "Good."

Now that was weird.  "Why do you ask?"

"Just making sure," he said, closing his eyes.

"…okay?"

The prince seemed a little paler than normal, and he didn't make further conversation.   Something's wrong, Kouji realised, his heart sinking.  Zuko remained still and quiet.

"What's wrong?" Kouji asked at last.

"Nothing."

"Liar," the boy retorted.  "You're paler than normal."

"Am I?" He half-opened his eyes and studied one of his hands.

"And now you're dodging."

"Dodging what?"

"The fact that I'm calling you on not telling me what's wrong."

"Nothing's wrong," Zuko insisted, somewhat half-heartedly.

"Niisan," said Kouji, frustrated.

"What?"

Kouji just glared at him.

"I'm fine. Just forget it," the older boy said, sitting up a little straighter and opening his eyes the rest of the way. "See?"

"Fine," Kouji huffed.

Zuko fell silent again and, after a few minutes, pulled himself up. He wobbled a little and had to steady himself against the tree.

"…something is wrong!" Kouji yelped, rising to his feet.

"I'm fine, Kouji," Zuko insisted again, though he'd gone even paler.

"No, you're not."  Kouji walked around Zuko, trying to figure out what was wrong.

Zuko turned, clearly trying to hide something from him. "Yes, I am. Don't worry about it."

"Way too late for that," the boy retorted, scowling.  "Show me or we go to the infirmary."  And we might go anyway.

The prince considered a few seconds, then wobbled and stopped turning.

And there was what he was trying to hide — a jagged tear in his shirt, and in his side underneath, still oozing blood.

…yeah, definitely going anyway.  "Zuko?" Kouji asked, trying to keep his voice calm.

"What?"

"In what universe is being stabbed 'fine'?"

"When it is. I'm fine, don't worry about it," he insisted.

Kouji reached up and grabbed his brother-prince's wrist.  "We're getting that taken care of."

"No, we're not," Zuko said, pulling his hand away.

"It's still bleeding!"

"So?"

"So?  So!?" Kouji practically screamed.  "So, you could bleed out and die!"

Zuko was silent for a few seconds, taking this in. "Don't yell about it," he finally said, quietly. "I'll take care of it on my own, I can't get help."

"Why!?"

"I'll just get yelled at again. I shouldn't've let this happen."

"Let what happen?"

"This." He indicated the hole in his side.

"You're not saying how it happened!"

"It's pretty obvious I got stabbed," Zuko countered. "And the last time someone stabbed me on palace grounds, I should've been able to take care of it on my own, and that was eight years ago! I'll get yelled at again. I don't want to deal with that."

"You are the single most infuriating person I have ever met!" Kouji snapped.  He grabbed hold of Zuko's wrist and tried to pull the older boy after him, intending to go to the infirmary.

Zuko pulled away again. "I'll clean it up on my own, Kouji. I just… I don't want anyone to know I let it happen, okay?"

"No, it isn't okay!"  Kouji didn't even realise that he'd begun to cry.  "Why does everything bad have to happen to you?  And why do you just sit there and take it!?"

The prince stared at him for a few seconds, then very awkwardly hugged him.

Startled, Kouji froze for an instant, and then clung desperately to Zuko.

"I will clean it up, I promise, I just… things are going so well for once and I don't want to get yelled at and mess everything up, okay?" Zuko whispered.

"But… Zuko…"  Kouji looked up at him.  "It could get infected or something…"

"If that happens, I'll go to the infirmary," Zuko promised.

After awhile, the boy nodded unhappily.  "Fine.  But take care of it now."

"All right," the prince agreed, then tore a piece off his shirt to wrap it up.  Still not entirely happy, Kouji helped him.

"I'll be fine," Zuko assured him when he was done. "I've taken worse hits than this and come out okay, you know that..."

"But why now?  Why here?" Kouji asked him.

"He said I was plotting something." Zuko shrugged and eyed the tree, considering climbing up to get something. "If he came for me here, this way, it means he had enough proof to be convinced, but not enough proof to take it to anyone higher." He wobbled a bit, put out a hand to steady himself on the tree, and then frowned. "Unless that's just what they want me to think..."

Kouji blinked.  "Plotting something?  What?  Who…?"

The prince hesitated for a minute, then shrugged. "No idea," he lied, then started climbing the tree.

"You're lying again," Kouji said, following him up.

"Yep." He wobbled and nearly fell, catching himself on another branch. "Don't ask, okay?" he finished, when he was relatively steady again.

"But—"

Zuko grabbed a pomegranate, wobbled again, and this time failed to catch himself on the way down.  Fortunately, Kouji was just fast enough to soften his landing.  Equally fortunately, he didn't have too far to fall, or the softening of the landing wouldn't've helped much. He only got the wind knocked out of him.

Kouji dropped to the ground and knelt by his brother.  "Let me do the rest of the climbing for awhile."

"Yeah, okay," Zuko said, then sat up slowly. His pomegranate had gotten squished beneath him. "Dammit."

The boy shook his head.  "Check the bandage," he advised, and monkeyed up the tree, returning quickly with two of the fruits.  When he got down, Zuko was just finishing readjusting the makeshift bandage.  "Here," Kouji said, offering one of the pomegranates to the prince.

"Thanks," he replied, then pulled out his knife to cut it open.

Kouji did the same, unable to shake the growing feeling of dread that had settled over him.

Zuko seemed to notice this. "Are you okay?"

Kouji nodded, popping a few of the seeds into his mouth.

"You sure?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Okay..."

Kouji glanced at Zuko from the corner of his eye, but kept eating.  Zuko turned back to his own fruit.  Neither of them brought up Zuko's wound again.

At least, not until it was getting fairly late and they were about to head in. "He thought I was plotting something with Uncle," Zuko said, while he was steadying himself against the tree.

Kouji stared at him.  "…what?  But you haven't seen him since…"

"He sent me a note on the solstice and I went to see him to find out what it meant. That's probably why."

Kouji frowned.  "But it's been like a week since then.  So why now?"

"First opportunity? They've been watching me ever since to try and find more evidence? I dunno."

The boy's grey eyes went wide suddenly.  Unless… oh, no…

"Kouji? What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Kouji said hurriedly, turning from Zuko.  "Nothing's wrong."

"...did you go to see him?" Zuko asked, after a moment of silence, then hastily corrected himself. "Never mind, forget it. It's not important."

"….maybe?"  Kouji's voice was small.

"It's okay, Kouji," Zuko said. "This wasn't your fault. It's mine, I should've been able to fight him off without getting hurt."

"But if he used my trying to see Unc— General Iroh as an excuse to attack you…"

"Then he was just looking for an excuse and probably has been since we got here."

"But why?" Kouji wailed.

"Politics?" Zuko tried. "I don't really know, Kouji. The first time someone seriously tried to kill me, I was eight. I never really cared much about why."

This didn't really serve to comfort the boy, who threw his arms around Zuko and buried his face in the prince's shirt.  Zuko took his hand off the tree to hug him back — which proved to be a mistake, he lost his balance and they were on the ground again.

"So what do we do?" Kouji asked, his voice small and muffled.

"Nothing," Zuko replied, quietly. "We don't let him know he got to us. I don't let on that I got hurt at all. We don't let him win."

Kouji had actually meant in a more general sense, but this would do for now.  "Okay."

"Come on, we should go back in." Zuko gently extracted himself and pulled himself up.

The boy nodded and got to his feet, wiping his eyes and trying to remove all traces of his earlier upset.  The prince took a minute to steady himself, then started heading back towards the palace.  Kouji moved with him, trying to cover for any wobbliness the bloodlossed Zuko might have.  Fortunately, they managed to get back to Zuko's room without getting too many weird looks. The prince then pulled away and wobbled over to his bed, looking under it for his first-aid kit.

Kouji helped without a word, still clearly feeling some guilt over what had happened to Zuko.

Once they'd dug the kit out, Zuko unwrapped his side and dug out disinfectant and real bandages.  When they'd finished taking care of the wound in a more proper fashion, Kouji sighed.  "Dinner?"

"Yeah, I guess." Zuko pulled himself up and wobbled over to the clothespress to retrieve a clean shirt. He wrapped the bloody one around the first aid kit and hid it back under the bed.

Kouji reached for his brother-prince's hand.  "Then let's go."

The teenager accepted his hand and followed him out of the room.

Current Location: my bed
Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Arthur McBride - Spailpin
Tags: au, avatar, fanfic, sf zukoline, small flame