#okay TECHNICALLY healer kou got kidnapped but like. hed have gone anyway

[guardiankarenterrier]

Iroh accepts, mournfully, that it's going to be a long, long time before Zuko ever feels safe again.  If Zuko ever feels safe again.  Because of that, because Iroh thinks he already knows the reason for his nephew's silence, he doesn't look closer at just how quiet Zuko has been since waking.

Iroh should have noticed.

He wonders, later, if this, too, is his fault.  If something he said while his nephew was still drifting, barely aware of his surroundings, had struck deeper than he meant it to.  If even something as simple as a well-meant shh, Zuko, shh had a hand in this.

If Iroh had somehow taken his original mistake and deepened it, rather than trying to make up for it.

(If this is the shape of the scar that Iroh left on his nephew).

#my fanfiction #atla #light a fire they cant put out #new chapter #mute zuko #warnings for... zuko #hey we're into a zuko pov chapter now #this entire fic is a vent fic and i am writing it WILDLY outta order btw #internalised ableism #autistic zuko #implied autistic lu ten #(yeah guess which one of those two Actually Knew This) #(hint: not zuko) #touch starved zuko #ptsd #the crew is fucking feral #ship to nowhere with an impossible goal? couple of these people thought that sounded good enough to them #okay TECHNICALLY healer kou got kidnapped but like. hed have gone anyway #im currently super out of order so who knows when well get there but #EVERYONE joins the gaang early #zuko #suki #toph #technically AANG joins early