(Note: Lyrics will be italicized.

Theme: Let's dwell into the relationship between two brothers that became enemies, let's explore the human and childish side that even villains once possessed. (Inserted within Canon of Book 1 + post-cannon Book 1)

Paring: Tarrlok and Noatak (non-romantic)

Word Count: 3k

Song: 'Do You Wanna Build A Snowman" from the OST of the movie 'Frozen')

~~~~~~.:oOo:.~~~~~~

It was one of those rare days that he was happy, one of those days when the snow was thick and smooth and he delighted himself in feeling the crunch of it under his boots, it was a cold but sunny day in the tundra, a day when there was no waterbending practice, no 'hunting trips', heck, it was one of those quiet times when dad was just not around.

The thought made him pause, almost knee deep in the snow. When had he started to prefer days when his father was gone? When had training become a grueling chore instead of something fun and to be proud of? He wasn't sure but at that very moment the small seven-year-old Tarrlok could not care less, not when he could hop around in freshly fallen snow without worrying about being scolded by that stern judgmental voice that told him he needed to be more like his brother.

That was something that was amiss though, so Tarrlok spun around to examine his surroundings- the snow was almost blinding as the morning sun reflected off the massive sparkling white surface and there were teenagers in the distance throwing snowballs at each other while men left to go fishing and women gathered to do laundry or chit-chat; however, their little corner of the village was silent, mother had gone get some ingredients to cook and Noatak was nowhere to be seen.

It didn't take a genius to guess where his big brother was so Tarrlok stumbled his way through the snow until he was sputtering snow into their cozy house banging playfully on the door of their shared bedroom.

"What?" Noatak's voice sounded sleepy, pasty and somewhat annoyed; then again Tarrlok would be annoyed too after a whole night training alone with father.

The younger boy bounced a little on the balls of his feet and tried to open the door but when it didn't budge he spoke into it loudly and a little timidly.

"Do you wanna build a snowman?

Come on let's go and play!"

Silence greeted his words and Tarrlok banged on the door, wondering his if brother had fallen back asleep. Only by the tenth knock did the door creak when a slightly disheveled Noatak cracked the door open and peeked out with dark pits under his eyes and a slight pallor to his dark chubby ten-year-old cheeks.

"Not now, Tarrlok." The older brother admonished. "Go play with the polar dogs."

"But Noatak…" The young one whined.

"No, Tarrlok!" The elder slammed the door rudely and childishly.

"B-But…" Tarrlok was too shocked and taken aback to react immediately but a moment later his forehead pressed to the door and little hiccups hobbled in the air when tears started pooling in his crystalline eyes.

It took less than a minute for the door to crack open again because no matter how angry or tired he was, no matter how much he wanted to hide, when Tarrlok cried Noatak just couldn't take the guilt nor could he resist the urge to rush to his little brother and make the tears go away.

"Sorry, sorry… Don't cry…" The older boy pleaded, kneeling in the half-shadow of the threshold of their dark room while trying to calm the other without actually fully opening the door. "There's no reason to cry, 'Lokki."

"Yes, there is!" The seven-year-old hiccupped louder but stared at the other with a frown.

"Why?" Noatak was taken aback by the little display of miserable anger.

"I never see you anymore…

Come out the door.

It's like you've gone away!"

Tarrlok tugged at his brother's hand wanting some proximity, a hug, a held hand or just the promise that they could play.

"Not now, Tarrlok, please." Noatak withdrew his hand with an expression too somber for a ten-year-old but that just prompted the other boy to throw a tantrum.

"We used to be best buddies

And now we're not,

I wish you would tell me why…"

Tarrlok was crying harder and pounding his little fists on the door, he was angry and stubborn but also wondering if he had done something wrong because if he had he wanted to fix it, he didn't want Noatak angry at him, the mere prospect stung him like a mantis-wasp.

Noatak felt guilt weighing as heavily on his chest just as hard as he shut the door, he wanted to comfort the little one but Tarrlok seemed about to burst into the room and at that moment he couldn't risk being caught.

Minutes dragged by while Noatak sat on the floor, hunched against the door in only his slacks, clutching his knees until the insistent pounding began to fade away.

"Do you wanna build a snowman?

It doesn't have to be a snowman…"

Tarrlok muttered to the wooden door with a little pout, voice still shaky but trying to compose himself when all else failed. He wasn't used to having Noatak shove him away when he cried, it had never happened before.

"Go away, Tarrlok." Noatak's voice was insistent and annoyed but it was also a farce, he sounded on the verge of tears himself.

"…Okay, bye…"

The dejected tone and heavy dragged footsteps as the boy trudged outside alone was a bit too much to bear and just as he was about to walk step out into the snow he heard a soft tired voice speak from the inside of the closed room.

"…No…" Noatak sighed, already regretting his outburst and opened the door again with some reluctance, forcing a smile onto his lips as he hastily gathered some clothes. "Wait. Let's build an igloo instead?"

"Ok!" Tarrlok cheered up immediately.

He was so happy to have his brother to play with again after days and days of watching the elder boy grow distant and quiet after training sessions with their father that he no longer cared about the argument or the tantrum, he was just so glad that Noatak was willing to come out of the room that he paid no attention to the purple blotches he spotted on his brother's dark skin as the other tossed on his clothes, he paid no heed because he didn't know any better and if only he had understood the meaning behind Noatak's recent tired reclusiveness and those marks he wouldn't have smiled so much or acted so wildly or pushed the other so rowdily in the snow as they began to create silly little creatures out of the white crunchy mass that soaked their mittens.

~~~~~~.:oOo:.~~~~~~~

Clouds shrouded the sky in greying hues and the cold gusts of air sawed into their bones, it was a gloomy windy evening when Tarrlok had the sudden desire to play in the snow again. He couldn't recall when the last time had been but the sudden sight of a pair of lovers building a snowman outside in that foreign town had kindled some nostalgic ember in him that craved to burn brighter.

When he turned eight his father had begun to push his training so much that he had come to dislike being outside in the cold surrounded by all that solid water. Two years of being constantly compared with his far more talented brother and having to often stand in the snow all night practicing forms until his toes and fingers felt frostbitten made the ten-year-old Tarrlok resent the snow because Yakone was ruthless and in his eyes Tarrlok was mediocre in the bending arts so the man forced his son to face dire consequences when expected results were not met.

But Yakone was too busy to really notice what he did right now, the family was visiting the capital for a couple of weeks, invited by an sick elderly relative of Tarrlok and Noatak's mother that was housing them at a huge but decrepit house. It was a boring place but Yakone seemed to want to lay low and took care to make himself scarce while they visited which left the boys with plenty of time to themselves, time that Noatak was once again spending shut in his quarters.

Well, Tarrlok was having none of that, he was tired of watching his brother grow cold as the days went by and he just wanted a few hours of childish fun.

He hadn't seen the older boy since the morning before after Noatak had gotten some sort of scolding from father but by the sounds he could tell the other was locked in his guest room so with a knock on the creaky white wood of the door, Tarrlok called out to Noatak.

"Do you wanna build a snowman?

Or ride some bikes around the halls?"

"No." Was the simple reply his mischievous tone received.

"I think some company is overdue,

I've started talking to the pictures on the walls!"

The younger brother complained, pointing his out his boredom with an eye roll towards a cracked framed portrait of a portly old woman with loopy braids and squinty eyes.

"…" There was a hesitant intake of breath but then Noatak spoke coldly and bluntly without even allowing the door to crack open. "Leave."

"It gets a little lonely,

All these empty rooms…

Just watching the hours tick by."

Tarrlok protested in a miffed tone, trying to conjure sympathy with traces of the manipulative skills he was starting to pick up from their father. Noatak didn't seem affected by the words, as proven by the heavy silence around them, punctuated only with the irritating tic-tock of a hall clock.

With a heavy sigh, Tarrlok surrendered at last and left, unaware that Noatak was huddled in bed, staring out the window with a pillow over his ears trying to block out the sensation of hundreds of heartbeats but it was useless because he could not really shut out something that he could not hear, it was not a sound but a sensation crawling under his skin like uncountable little insects.

Yakone's training had taught him to be ruthless and revel in his talent and the strength it gave him but the man had never prepared Noatak for the immensity of feeling all that living blood around him, all those pulsating puppet strings begging to be pulled and silenced until he either had peace again or the thirst for more power consumed him. He just wanted to go back home to their small little village where the sensation was mild and so much easier to endure thanks to the low population and as much as he wanted to go back to feeling like a kid, as eager as he was to play and hear Tarrlok laugh, at that moment the teenager did not trust himself around his loved ones with his cursed bloodbending.

He thought it was for the best, he thought he could handle having Tarrlok angry at him if that meant he was protecting his little brother from himself just like he had endured his father's wrath as a child just to keep the focus off Tarrlok, hoping that if his father deposited more effort in training him to be the perfect son and weapon of revenge then the man would overlook his youngest son and let the boy off easier. It was never a truly successful tactic but it helped and Noatak would count all his winnings without complaint.

~~~~~~.:oOo:.~~~~~~

It had been so many years, so long since Noatak had finally snapped. He had taken all the abuse because it meant protecting Tarrlok and he was convinced that it was making him stronger but the moment Yakone forced them to bloodbend each other and turned on Tarrlok for his rebellion, Noatak decided he had had enough- why should he listen to a man that for all intents and purposes was weaker than him? Why should he let that evil wretched man control him and his fate? Why should he endure a life he hated if in the end he could not even protect his brother? Why should he be the weapon his father desired instead of following his own wishes?

That now distant day he had decided to take control of his life, which was the one thing he craved most, that day he had left and asked Tarrlok to join but when the little brother refused he was confused, as well as feeling betrayed after all he had done for the boy so he left the other behind and let everyone believe he was dead as he forged a new identity and chose to be reborn to fight the one thing he believed had destroyed all the good in his life- bending.

When he found out Tarrlok had become a Councilor he was both proud and then disgusted by the corruption he saw, he didn't wish to have to fight his little brother but he knew that after becoming Amon and declaring war on Republic City, sooner or later, he would to equalize Tarrlok and when the time came it had been painful to see that recognition and betrayal in the other's eyes but he did his best to protect his brother, even if it meant locking him up in a cell to keep him away from the battle.

Tarrlok had never truly understood Noatak's intentions or any of his actions for that matter, he had never been able to read the older brother or figure out his mysterious thoughts and he wished they had been honest to each other, he wished that had stayed close friends instead of drifting away into bitterness by the wedge their father jammed between them, maybe that would have made things different, maybe they would have taken a different path and not become enemies.

Amon's loss in the war was unexpected but the fact that the man chose to run away with the ex-councilor when exposed instead of stubbornly raising havoc for the sake of revenge was even more surprising. What was not unforeseen at all was that Tarrlok would try to kill him in that escape boat, in fact Noatak welcomed the gesture seeing as he had lost everything and the guilt of his actions, the failure, the pressure of what he had become, was too much to bear anymore.

It was with some degree of shock that Noatak realized that his brother intended to destroy them both, perhaps he too felt that he had nothing left or maybe he just didn't think he could win against the equalist in any other way but as the flames exploded around them like an expanding cloud of heat and death, the man once known as the infamous Amon decided that he could not allow his little brother to die, in a flash his instinct took over his morals and he used the bending he hated to save them from certain destruction.

Now Noatak wondered if he had done the right thing as it seemed he always made the wrong choice in every step of his life even when he meant well. 'The road to Hell is paved with good intentions', he remembered hearing once upon a time and now more than ever he thought it was the truest thing he had ever been told.

Sitting there and looking down at Tarrlok's comatose body that had been motionless on the prison's hospital bed for weeks was the most agonizing thing he knew, even more so than his own burns and broken bones or the terrifying, but not unwelcome, lack of bending that the court had decided to bestow upon him as punishment.

The former councilor's right arm was gone, his eyes were blank and blind, pus-filled burns and swelling disfigured everything Noatak ever knew about the younger man, every inch of skin seemed blistered, charred or marked somehow under the many layers of white bandages that eerily reminded the equalist of the snow back home, the white landscape in which they had grown up in together, the frozen flakes that surrounded him when he abandoned the one person he cared for the most.

Noatak just wanted to see Tarrlok as he used to be again, as that young boy with a big heart and a clumsy disposition, the boy that liked to play in the snow even after all that training had made the mere presence of water an irritating reminder of their father… He knew it was impossible and he blamed himself and his abandonment for how twisted and corrupted Tarrlok had become to the point of slowly following in their father's footsteps, Noatak thought he should have protected him better, he should not have cut his ties so completely, but at the moment he just wanted Tarrlok to be alright again, he just wanted his brother back now that he had nothing else.

"Please, I know you're in there…"

The equalist's low shaky voice murmured to the unmoving body before him, hoping, as always, to stir something and convince the other to awake.

"People are asking where you've been.

They say 'have courage', and I'm trying to…

I'm right here for you, just let me in."

Noatak's hand closed over Tarrlok's remaining one as it had for so many hours of so many days already and he had to pause for several long ticking seconds because if he didn't his voice would crack from the sheer effort of holding back his tears.

"We only have each other,

It's just you and me.

What are we gonna do?"

With a shuddering breath he folded onto the bed, still clinging to Tarrlok's single injured hand as his face buried into bed sheets and bandages that soaked up his tears and choked his sobs. He didn't remember ever having cried this way in his entire life but it made him wonder more than ever how he had stooped so low and how he had so effectively destroyed his whole life with his cold warped view of the world… And all he wanted, all he asked for, was for Tarrlok to wake up and recover whether the younger man forgave him or not, whether there was still any affection between them or not.

"Do you wanna build a snowman…?"

The question slipped out in soft hiccups, more out of reflex and nostalgia than anything else but he kept asking it and apologizing until he thought he felt a small twitch of fingers under his own, just a small little flurry of motion that appeared to press a button to reset his whole existence…