happy hunting!, an alternate universe forbidden love story
warning: use of coarse language and dark themes

It should have been safe—they should have been safe—but they weren't. The Earth Kingdom was supposed to be safe, but they should have known that Ba Sing Se was a gamble, especially seeing that it was overrun by Dai Li. They should have been safe, but there were loud shouts behind them and they had broken into a fierce run. The alleyway outside the dilapidated apartment building still roars with the chatter of agents searching for criminals, scouring every darkened crevice and every room in the building.

"Shit," she hisses, jumping slightly. He grips her forearms, his elbows brushing against rubble and brick, the sharp points digging into his porcelain flesh.

"Don't move," he chides.

"You stepped on my—" He interrupts her with a kiss as the door swings open. Suddenly, the wilting wooden boards between them and the two Dai Li feel sheer and the fear of their discovery rises. His lips are frozen in a half unwanted kiss, meant to distract, but his heart pounds furiously against her palm and he's grateful for her lips against his to keep the air from rushing out of his lungs. They linger too long, gaze too openly. He feels the bottom of his stomach drop out as they approach the dying wood, wrenching open the closet adjacent to their hiding place and peer inside. A tiny scuffle and they're gone.

He pulls his lips from hers and her forehead drops against his chest, his heart thudding against her hairline. "This is stupid," she laments, her breath wispy and at a volume that makes him think the voice is coming from in his head. His eyes are closed but he scowls.

"I won't kiss you anymore, then."

She nudges him and rolls her eyes, smiling slightly. "Not that, you drama queen. Having to hide is stupid."

They stand in silence, knowing that he doesn't have to say anything for her to know that he agrees wholeheartedly. He wants to blame himself, because something masochistic deep down relishes in the fact that everything wrong that happens in his life is solely his fault, but this is different. There is no fault, except the fault of law that makes their love forbidden.

"You're bleeding." Her fingers accidentally dig too far into a wound in his lower abdomen and he grits his teeth so hard that it echoes through their silence in stereo. His wrist catches hers and a sharp, jagged edge catches the bottom of his forearm. He doesn't even wince anymore.

"Don't touch it," he gingerly retracts her hand, "it's no big deal."

She lets out an impatient huff, aware of just how stubborn he is choosing to be, but she can't fight him on it, at least not at that moment. They are still hiding, they are still unsafe, and not even her anger can force her to jeopardize any of that. They stand in a series of staunch, soundless moments. He inspects the various tears of skin on his body while her blue eyes bore into him. He closes his eyes while she braids the ends of her hair, and they kiss forlornly and half-heartedly to remind themselves why they're in a condemned building hiding in a wall from Dai Li.

She pulls away first and kicks out the wooden board that hides them; he winces as it splinters into sizable pieces. "Katara," he snarls, reaching for her, but she slaps his hand away. He wrenches himself out of their hiding place without so much of a grimace of pain, but his tunic is torn in several places, stamps of blood against his ivory skin marking the locations clearly. She notices this for a moment but before she can piteously heal his wounds, he's using that vicious whisper again.

"It's not fucking safe, what are you doing? Don't be foolish," he reaches for her again, and this time she can't evade his grip. He looks at her face and he can feel his resolve breaking; she looks heartbroken, exhausted, and most importantly, like she wants nothing more than to yield to the Dai Li. He lets go of her wrist.

"I surrender," she says, and bile threatens to rise in his throat out of pure disgust.

How can she want that? "Right," he starts, his boots crunching as he steps away from her, "this is all too hard for you and you'd rather give up. Fine, give up. I don't care anyway."

She knows better than anyone that he means the opposite of his petulant statements; he does not want her to give up, but she simply has no fight left in her. "Maybe it'd be easier if it was meant to be."

"There you go again," he growls low in the base of his windpipe, the noise rattling against the taut skin of his throat visibly, "thinking about fates and destinies and the Spirits. For fuck's sake, Katara, the Avatar is dead. The great equalizer, the bridge between humans and Spirits. Dead. That wasn't meant to be but it still happened. The universe doesn't give a shit about what is and what isn't meant to be."

He knows it's a slightly low blow, all things considered. All things being that he knows how she feels about the Avatar—about Aang—and how he thought he knew how she felt about him. "Just tell me." His voice is exasperated and he wipes what feels like sweat from his hairline, back through his messy dark hair. When his hand comes away, he recognizes the scarlet tinges of blood. "If you really mean that you're done, that you'rereally done, just tell me. Not because it's too hard, not because it's too dangerous—" Something bright sparkles in his eyes, a dangerous desire for the truth. "—but because it's not worth it."

Her eyes graze the ground before she glares back at him, her tiny balled fists shaking with anger at her side. She slaps him in the chest and it seems to echo around his head. "Don't you dare turn this—"

"But that's what it comes down to, Katara," his voice is a raspy wheeze, like he is short of breath. His hand rises to his chest to coddle the bruise that will no doubt spring to life in prickles of pain sooner rather than later. "If it's worth it…that's what it comes down to."

Her fists are back at her side and her face is narrowed in frustration and anger. Nothing about her face is soft, even though she is comprised of rounded, gentle features. Everything looks sharp, edged, and dangerous because of the commotion of fury in her mind. She draws back before she attacks him, her fists in his chest and his body creaking hazardously against the weak floorboards as he lands square on his back.

He is dazed at her kiss and at the impact of his head against the floor, and while his body is worn and he should want to give in, there is a gravity in her lips that sinks into him by the laws of nature; she is up and it must come down, raining over him. She softens against him only in a kiss and when she pulls back, he sees the angry glint of tears in her eyes, like he has insulted her somehow, the fierce snarl curled against her cracked lips, the wrinkling of her nose into her wrathful, darkened blue eyes. He senses that this kiss is a lot more effective in reminding her as they scramble to their feet in a tangle of limbs, his legs trapped underneath her, his palms pressing against the floor as he tries to get up.

She sits on his legs and ignores the pained look on his face. "I love you, Zuko," there is no gentle intonation in her words, just a prideful tilt of her chin outwards; "this is worth it. It's stupid and exhausting and you're just picking up scars like it's all the rage and sometimes I really do want to give up. Everything is against this—" she gestures between them "—everything is against us, but dammit, I love you."

She finally stands and watches him get to his feet with a renewed smirk on his face. The pain drains out of him like the levels of a canal filtering water through and he nudges her towards the doorway. "You'll need a head start, get lost." He kisses her cheek and while she returns his gesture with a scowl, a casualty of having been around him too long, she obeys. He glances out of the window with his body pressed against the wall until he sees the familiar hooded figure slip out of the building and into the alleyway. He starts to work in the room and when he finishes, he throws his own hood up and makes a hasty retreat.

"Fools," the head Dai Li doesn't spare them any contempt as they stomp out the glowing embers in the floor of the apartment building. The trained earthbenders stand behind with varying expressions of anger and disgust and warped amusement.

The head agent crumples a parchment in his hands, the painted pictures of the exiled Fire Prince and waterbending master creased in his grip, their names visible at the bottom. He tosses the wanted poster down into the charred floorboards. "Secure the entire area. They're here, somewhere." The agents comply with their instructions and filter out of the room without another word.

It is only the head Dai Li agent who glowers at the destroyed floorboards, the characters glaring back at him tauntingly.

Never surrender, the top row says, happy hunting.

notes: much thanks to Lara Caspersen for betaing this for me! for now, this is a really short piece. i was thinking of starting a story with this premise but i have a lot of works i am close to finishing so just this one-shot for now. also, this is an AU with the allusion that love between benders of different elements is outlawed.