Summary: The scarred boy is staring into his half-eaten dinner looking like death itself. There's a vacancy in his gaze, a starved and hungry look to his eyes. He's seen that face - one that's got no hope left, no purpose. Jet's seen that face in the mirror a thousand times.

Inspired by Recognition by WhirlyBird70 on Ao3

This is like an AU where Ozai never gave Zuko the bargain 'capture the avatar and you can come home' (even if it wasn't much of a bargain and just an excuse to keep Zuko out of his hair) and so Zuko just... feels so lost because he has no drive and no purpose.

Zuko spent most of his banishment at sea with his crew (who some chose to also come to Ba Sing Se) as they wandered around the world. With no goal to cloud his judgement, the reality hit him harder and quicker than it did in canon.

Ya so enjoy, I did write this in an hour so between classes so idk but I hope you like it anyway!

The scarred boy is staring into his half-eaten dinner looking like death itself. There's a vacancy in his gaze, a starved and hungry look to his eyes. He's seen that face - one that's got no hope left, no purpose. Jet's seen that face in the mirror a thousand times.

It's hard to find meaning out here, far from home with the knowledge you can never go back. They're all refugees on this ship. They only have what's on their backs.

The old man travelling with the scarred boy simultaneously makes Jet want to go to him, spill all his troubles to the man as if his very presence alone can help him, but he also can't help but be wary.

Old men have that effect, Jet realises.

The scarred boy, as if he can sense it, tilts his head towards Jet and suddenly the sheer size of the scar is made obvious. Rugged and red and angry, crawling across half his face, deforming his skin into creases and wrinkles that look painful. He can't even open that eye properly, which explains the odd tilt to his head. It's impaired his vision.

The boy stares at him, hollowed out cheeks and gold eyes. And there's so much Fire in that gaze, Jet almost wants to puke.

The anger that boils inside of him fizzles out nearly as soon as it surfaces.

He thinks of the old Fire Nation man that Sokka stopped him from killing, thinks is Gaipan, and he looks at the scarred boy's face - burnt and hollow and hurting as much as Jet - and the writhing anger fizzles out to nothing.

The boy's frowning at him, almost looking concerned and Jet shoots him a quick smile, a wink, and turns his gaze to his shoes.

He's realised lately that what's good and bad aren't black and white, but are instead many shades of grey.

He would have dismissed the boy and his uncle, wanted to kill them before because they are nothing but rotten Fire but now all Jet can see is that burn and it's shape and the size and a firebender would have had to give that to him. Another of his own kind would have given that to him.

People like this, Jet realises, are just as much victims of the war as he is.

Jet keeps his eye on the boy with the scar. He reasons to himself he is just making sure they truly are on their side, that they're not going to set them all ablaze.

(He knows it's not true. He knows that this is all they have. The way the old man looks at the boy when he's not facing him, full of worry. The way the boy looks like he's one wrong step away from screaming.

He didn't want to believe it, but he's heard the rumours of what happens to traitors with Fire in their blood, and as he looks at the boy's face, those rumours are starting to make sense.)

"So," Jet says once he has the boy - Li - a little off to the side, leaning over the rail and out of sight of the other refugees and most importantly out of the old man's hearing range.

"Never thought I'd see someone from the Fire Nation running from his own people," he lets it hang in the air and he turns bodily to face him.

Li meets his gaze but there's no anger, no snarling, no fire or death. There's just Li and the bags under his eyes, the deeply ingrained fear of a world that wants him dead and the longing for something more.

"Are you going to hand me over when arrive? Throw me overboard?"

"No," Jet says, the amount of conviction in his voice surprising him. "I'm going to do nothing."

"Why?" Li immediately hisses out, and there's that rage, bubbling under the surface.

"I… I realised some things recently," Jet says. He turns himself so he's facing into the ship, his back leaning on the railing as he thinks of Gaipan how close he came to becoming a murderer.

"Turns out right and wrong a not as clear cut as I thought, and plus, everyone deserves a second chance at life, right?"

Li sighs, as though everything is too hard and reaches a hand down over the railing, letting the waves splash up on his fingers.

"You're weird," Li grumbles and for the first time in what feels like a thousand lifetimes, Jet laughs.

He tells Smellerbee and Longshot. Tells them that the boy with the horrible scar and the old man are Fire. Smellerbee looks at him, her gaze unsure, worried, like she thinks Jet's just going to snap and if there was any lingering anger it's gone now. She used to look at him like Jet knew everything, like he'd pull them all through hell a thousand times over. Now she looks at him like Jet is a bomb waiting to blow.

And that hurts him more than anything.

"He's like me," Jet says, forcing himself not to turn and look at Li again, to not look at the scar, the lack of… anything in his eyes, like this is the end of his life instead of a new beginning.

"He's an outcast. He's hurting."

Smellerbee smiles at him then - just a soft quirk of her lips, but it's enough to make Jet's heart swell. He'll get better. He's still angry and hurting but now it's a little more clear where he can direct it.

Li and the old man, Mushi, might have Fire in their blood, but the fact that they are where they are now, means that they are never going home.

The War has hurt all of them, and the Fire Lord is the one that deserves to suffer.

There are many things about Li that are confusing, Jet notes as he watches him walk around the tiny tea shop, balancing a tray of tea as he delivers it to the table opposite Jet.

He walks with the surety of a fighter, of someone's who's been through trauma after trauma after trauma. Li's whole life has been an upward battle.

More than that, Jet wonders how long Li's been on ships. On the ferry, Li had steady feet, even under rocky waves as they raided the kitchen. He looked up over to the shoreline, and at the waters that surrounded them and told Jet it would be another 30 minutes before they arrived. And 30 minutes later, they landed. Jet counted the minutes. Li looks at the water like it's where he needs to be, and gazes into the sun as if the heat itself fuels him.

He's been at sea for a while then, perhaps the last few years. Jet wonders how suffocating it must be to end up in Ba Sing Se. No open waters, no salty wind - just walls and walls.

Jet wonders how much he hates it.

Li doesn't talk much about anything. But Jet somehow manages to befriend him anyway. It's different from his relationship with Longshot and Smellerbee, he barely knows Li but at the same time, he feels like they can understand each other on a level that he's never had before.

"It was easier when I was angry," Li says to him one night they sit up on the rooftop of Mushi and Li's tiny apartment and Jet has never felt more understood in his entire life than in that moment.

"It's easier to shut everything out," Jet says.

Li is looking up the stars like they can spill all the secrets of the universe. "It's not gone," Li continues.

"It's just different," Jet finishes for him.

Li tilts his head to face him, he looks exhausted as Jet feels and that feeling hits him again - how much Li doesn't look like he should be here, chained down to the oppressive walls of Ba Sing Se where there is no war and yet war has ruined them both.

"I nearly wiped out an entire village," Jet says suddenly. It's a test, a stupid test to see how Li will react, to see if Jet can really just be around him.

Li scrubs roughly at his scar, as though he wants to tear it right off his face.

"I got banished from my own country, we all have our faults, Jet," Li says.

Li bumps his shoulder roughly against Jet's, and Jet hates Ba Sing Se. He hates the how people ignore the war, are treated like trash because of class when it's entirely out of his or anyone's control what family they're born into and how much coin they have, how he feels like a prisoner.

But with Li, Jet thinks, they just might be able to make this work.