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It was a mistake to volunteer to stay behind. Jee regretted that decision when he watched General Iroh and the others disappear into the merry crowds in the harbor, and he regrets it now when he hears the uneasy knock on his cabin door and has to put his writing brush away to rub his temple.
The only other person who's stayed behind on the ship is the prince. And now he wants something from Jee, which is probably to yell at him. That's usually what the prince wants with any of them in any given moment. Jee tries to search his brain for anything he has or hasn't done over the course of the day that might have possibly provoked a new tantrum, draws a blank, and briefly contemplates the benefits of pretending no one's home.
But his candle is alight. The brat's probably seen its glow smudged under the door.
Damn.
Another determined knock confirms Jee's hypothesis, followed by three more, in no particular rhythm that he can discern, which, yeah, that's gonna be one hell of a headache.
“Lieutenant...?”
Jee turns in his chair and frowns. Astonishingly, this isn't the kind of Lieutenant that usually spells a temper tantrum. The voice is small, unsure – so much so that if Jee didn't know any better he'd describe it as almost apologetic – and if anything, the prince sounds... scared?
Besides, Jee realizes with a jolt, he's just knocked. The child never knocks. He barges right in like the entire ship is his personal playground with little to no regard for the privacy of the men under his command. That's one of his many, many horrible qualities.
Something's wrong.
Jee stands up and opens the door, out of curiosity more than anything else, and the moment he claps eyes on his child commander, curiosity bleeds into worry. Agni, the prince looks like he's just been ranted at by every single one of his venerable ghostly ancestors and then dragged back and forth through Koh's own domain on top of that, and the scary thing is, Jee doesn't think he's ever seen him like this. Not even in the early days when the scar was only just beginning to heal.
That alone is enough to frost Jee's stomach all over, and what the brat says next only adds an extra coating.
“Lieutenant,” he rasps miserably, leaning on the doorjamb and visibly doubling over as he clutches his stomach and looks pale as death itself, “I think there's something wrong with me.”
“What is it, sir?” Jee asks immediately as his mind races a mile a minute. The medic's out in port with everyone else. If the prince managed to somehow injure himself while in Jee's hypothetical care...
Tigersharks, Jee's mind conjures up helpfully along with the frightful image of General Iroh possessed by righteous rage. Great big tigersharks.
“I'm bleeding,” the prince manages in a trembling voice, which does approximately fuck all to dispel that particular vision. If anything, it makes the prospect of tigersharks that much more vivid, and so does the way the kid's gaze drops as he rests his weight against the doorway like he's hurting too much to stand up straight. Jee can see his small pale hands tremble.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Okay. “Where?” Jee demands, looking over the prince's tiny form. The scar is still healing, but it looks no worse than it has in all the months Jee has known the kid, and he can see no blood anywhere on the loose sleeping tunic or the trousers, but that doesn't mean anything. The prince could have bandaged himself before he staggered over here.
If Jee somehow deluded himself into thinking the prince would, for once, cooperate without a fuss and give him a straight answer, he is quickly disabused of that notion. Instead of explaining with all due haste like a sane person would so he can get help, the prince falls silent and gazes at the floor. Jee tries to be patient and gives him a moment to pull himself together, but when four heartbeats pass with absolutely nothing and all the prince does in the meantime is worry his bottom lip bloody and breathe heavily and look pathetic, there's only so much he can do.
“Sir?” Jee prompts when it's beginning to seem that they'll stay here locked in this stupid stalemate until they both shrivel up and die.
“I – ” The prince chokes up again, his eyes squeezing shut, and for a terrifying moment Jee wonders if he'll actually give in and cry. He's come to think that maybe the prince doesn't know how to cry. Spirits, he's not ready.
“Sir, I can't help you if I don't know –”
“Down there,” the prince says all at once, and though his voice is comparatively quiet, in the silence of the empty ship the words shoot out more like a cry.
Jee blinks. “Down there?”
“Yes, down there!”
“Sir, I don't think I quite – ”
“From my... bits,” the prince whispers miserably. His voice sounds like Jee's just wrenched the words out of his throat with pincers.
Jee stares at him and takes a moment to see if the world will perhaps make sense again if he just gives it long enough.
“Your bits?” he repeats when it seems like it won't.
“Yes, my bits!” the prince barks, and he manages to glare at Jee even through his anguish.
Hang on. That – that can't be right. “Are you trying to tell me you're bleeding from your cock, sir?”
And if there was such a thing as negative bingo Jee would score it right now because that seems to be the entirely wrong thing to say. The prince somehow finds a way to turn even paler and shrinks in on himself like he's trying to get away from Jee and stay put at the same time, and Spirits, he really does look so terribly small. Jee has seen him out of his armor before, during training and when he visited his cabin once or twice while the kid recovered from the worst of his injury; but even months later he's still having moments of bewilderment when he's struck all over again by the fact that his current commanding officer has to stand on tiptoe even to reach up to Jee's chest.
Looking at him now, Jee has an uneasy feeling he could easily lift the child up with one arm. Jee's neck looks thicker than prince Zuko's arms.
His new commander. In-fucking-deed.
“Not exactly,” the child stammers, and now there's furious spots of color blotting his white unmarred cheek. “It's – it's not that.”
“Then what?” Jee demands, and if he sounds tetchy then to Koh with it. He's getting pretty damn scared here himself, and the prince has apparently made a vow to keep making his life unnecessarily difficult even when Jee's trying to help him. “Sir, please just tell me what the problem is.”
“My bits are bleeding,” prince Zuko stammers, and he looks redder and more miserable now than Jee's ever seen him, “but it's not... it's not my cock. I – Idon'thaveacock.”
Now, to be honest, in his panic-addled state of mind it takes longer for Jee to parse and translate that than it really should. When realization finally does dawn, however, it doesn't just dawn but goes right ahead and helps itself to a mighty roundhouse kick. Suddenly Jee remembers the odd feeling of disorientation when the General's letter spoke of a prince while he thought he'd heard some talk of a princess years ago when prince Ozai's first child was born, and he takes in the kid in front of him with entirely new eyes and notices him, perhaps for the first time.
The child is thirteen. Of course his shoulders would be narrow and his waist would be small and his voice a bit high. That's just... being a kid. But, Jee realizes now, Zuko's never showered with them. He never lets them see him without a shirt on. He never joins them when they swim in the ocean, even though he always looks like he wants to, and he –
And he's bleeding from his bits even though he doesn't have a cock.
… Oh. Oh.
Once it all falls into place, Jee takes a moment to glare in the general direction of up, just in case some deity or spirit's watching. He wonders if the bastards are enjoying the show. Of course he's the one to be saddled with this. Of fucking course.
“Sir, just to make one thing clear,” he says eventually, clearing his throat and not quite managing to look into Zuko's eyes. “You don't have a cock, but you're a boy, is that right?”
“Yes,” Zuko snarls with hot, hot conviction, and it's the first time during this entire conversation that he actually sounds like himself. “I'm a boy and don't you dare think otherwise, Lieutenant. Now can you please stop staring at the floor and help me.”
Right. Right. Because the child is bleeding from his unmentionables and he probably thinks he's dying while Jee is just standing there being useless and probably looking like a great bloody fool.
Still, there is one glimmer of hope Jee clings to before he has to succumb to the inevitable, and that is, “Has anyone in your illustrious family ever talked to you about, um... About the specifics of... About the, um, mechanics of your – anatomy?”
“No, and I don't see what that has to do with me bleeding!”
Everything, you poor stupid fuck, everything. And there goes the very last shred of hope that maybe Jee won't have to do what he obviously has to do.
He thinks he may have preferred the tigersharks after all.
“You're thirteen, sir, is that right?” he asks weakly while a healthy string of very colorful if inappropriate invectives crowds against his teeth.
The prince obviously thinks Jee is an idiot, and an obtuse one at that, but deigns to nod all the same, eyes flashing horribly. At least he's looking marginally less scared now, so that's something, maybe. Jee honestly has no idea.
He really shouldn't have volunteered to stay behind.
Still, he has, and the poor little bastard really seems to have absolutely no idea what's going on with his body, and Jee wonders what his mother was thinking – or, for that matter, General Iroh, because he has to know, there's no way he doesn't. Have none of them ever thought to sit the prince down and explain to him about the birds and the bees? Or ordered their servants to do it for them? Honestly. And now, because of their gross royal negligence, Jee is thrust down the deep end.
Like it or not, there's no weaseling himself out of this one. He has to give the brat prince The Talk.
“Okay, sir, first of all, there is nothing wrong with you,” Jee says, trying to relocate his professionalism and sound like he isn't one wrong thought away from hysterics. “Has the blood appeared out of nowhere, without any injury?”
The prince looks suspicious now, but nods again.
“And have you been experiencing any – cramps, or nausea?”
This time the nod is so ferocious the prince's ponytail swings, and the child is pulling himself up against the doorjamb, staring at Jee with such intent and fear and raw, naked hope that Jee dearly wishes for the bottle of strictly non-regulation paint stripper stashed under his bed.
“Very well. Please don't worry, sir, there is nothing wrong with your health.”
“But how can there be –”
“I will explain in time. Have you wrapped anything around yourself to stop the bleeding? Has the blood stained anything?”
“... My sleeping pants and my bedsheets. I was in bed reading about the Avatar when I...”
“I will take care of it,” Jee decides, taking charge. Someone has to. “You, sir, should go and take a shower while the crew are still out, change into something clean. I will –” None of the shops will be open at this hour, damn it. Jee frantically searches his brain for options and hopes to Agni that the whores in port will be up to trade some of their personal supplies for a bit of extra cash. “I will run up to port to fetch some rags and sponges for you to use, and then I'll explain everything.”
The prince doesn't look convinced, and, being the demon child that he is, lets Jee know in no uncertain terms. “How can you be so sure what's happening? You're not a medic, you haven't – if you haven't seen, or – ”
“I have sisters,” Jee tells him cryptically, and when that only makes Zuko's lone eyebrow climb up again, he shakes his head and implores, “Just trust me, sir, please. I am positive I know what I'm doing.”
The certainty in his voice helps, a little. Zuko spears him with one more long, long look, as if to say You'd better, or else, but eventually seems to give in to the voice of reason. “Fine,” he mutters sullenly before taking his royal person very reluctantly to the showers.
He looks small and dejected as he does, and so miserable he could give all the kicked puppies in the world a run for their money. For the first time since Zuko's shown them his true colors, Jee feels pity for the little hellspawn.
And then he shakes it off. He has a job to do.
*
By the time he returns to the ship at a brisk pace just short of an undignified run, Jee is thoroughly convinced that whores are his absolutely favorite people on Agni's green earth. And he hasn't even had sex with any of them tonight.
Carrying the bag of supplies the concerned women have positively heaped on him when they learned there was a poor soul somewhere experiencing bleeding for the first time, Jee calls for the prince and listens to check if the showers are still running. Only silence responds. Jee considers for a moment, then makes a short detour to the galley and grabs some of the cheap sour wine Cook's been keeping for emergencies. If this isn't an emergency, Jee will eat his own shoes.
Thus equipped, he sprints up to Zuko's cabin and gives it a hearty knock. He's feeling pretty damned pleased with himself, all things considered.
He waits at the door and eventually calls out, “Sir, I have some rags and sponges for you to put in your underwear to absorb the blood.” And other stuff the women absolutely insisted on giving you, including herbs for tea and underwear and three different shawls for absolutely no damn reason.
The prince waits a beat to answer. “Slide the door open and slip them inside, but don't look.”
Oh, child. Jee rolls his eyes but does as he's told, and waits for a moment before asking, “Sir, may I come in now?”
“If you must.”
Lovely. Jee pushes the door open and strides in, wincing the moment his eyes fall on the bundled-up mess of stained sheets banished into the far corner of the cabin like some dark and shameful secret. No wonder the little shit panicked.
Zuko glares up at him from the bed, but the expression is a far cry from his usual angry best, like he's too exhausted to put any real heat behind it. If anything, he looks a wrong word away from falling to pieces – or perhaps from running away altogether. A small knife with a gorgeous sleek black handle sits like a warning just by the prince's hand, and it feels like a kick to the balls to realize that it's a warning meant for Jee.
The brat prince doesn't trust him.
And then Jee realizes, of course the brat prince doesn't trust him. Why would he? Jee has never given him a reason to trust him. Sure, the kid is insufferable more often than not and Jee has never been the paragon of patience and kindness in the best of circumstances, but for fuck's sake, the little shit is thirteen while Jee is over thirty.
Over thirty, big and uncouth and insubordinate and a man who now knows that the child prince has a vagina. On a ship staffed with many other big, uncouth, insubordinate men, who might react in all sorts of nasty ways if they find out that particular piece of trivia.
Agni. No wonder the prince's tried so hard to hide it from them.
Right. Right. Time to see if it's not too late to be the grown-up he should have been from the start.
“Have you told anyone?” the prince asks immediately, as if Jee wasn't feeling quite guilty enough.
“No, sir,” he says, working his throat and trying to regain control of his face. “No one's seen me but the whores and they didn't ask too many questions.” Bless their lovely cynical-yet-overprotective selves.
Zuko doesn't seem reassured by that – his pale hand inches closer to the knife. “What will it take to ensure that you don't?”
“That I don't – ?”
“Tell anyone,” the child snaps, hostility oozing off him almost as much as fear is. “Come on, Lieutenant, what do you want in return?”
Jee closes his eyes. Once again the words He's thirteen elbow their way to the forefront of his mind, and he wonders when exactly did the kid manage to age up to forty in cynicism... and what Jee and the rest of the crew have done to help nudge him along.
“Mind if I sit down, sir?” Jee asks quietly, and regrets it as soon as he sees Zuko bristle.
“No. Stay right over there, Lieutenant, and spit it out. Do you want my quarters? Do you want bigger rations? A raise? Do you want to be taken off the night shift?”
“I'm not going to tell anyone, sir, and I don't want anything in return,” Jee says quickly, overriding Zuko because it's plain as day what kind of price Zuko is really expecting, and he wants to ease the poor bastard out of that particular misery as soon as possible. “I will give you my word if you want me to.”
The clear, naked relief which lights up Zuko's mismatched eyes drives the knife even deeper in Jee's gut. “I do,” the prince says immediately. “Swear on your Fire Lord.”
Jee does and goes all out, dusting off the proper ceremonial oath from the recess of memory and bending into the formal bow as an extra garnish. That finally pulls Zuko's hand away from the knife. The child folds into himself protectively, breathing out and watching Jee and once again looking so very, very young.
“Okay,” he whispers, small and broken. “What do I do now?”
“I'll take care of that, sir,” Jee decides, pointing to the bloodied bundle haunting corner of the cabin. “I'll take your things out to port tomorrow morning to have them washed and dried. Do you have any spare sheets?”
Zuko nods and waves his hand like it doesn't matter. His forehead is furrowed, pulling the grisly healing mess leeching on the left side of his face into taut lines. “It's something to do with my – body, isn't it?” he asks.
He sounds defeated, Jee realizes with a jab of hurt. So young and already so defeated. He's never let them see him like this, but he's letting Jee in now because he has no other choice.
Jee's determination not to fuck this up skyrockets as he ignores Zuko's initial order and tentatively perches on the chair beside Zuko's writing desk. When the child doesn't react, he sighs and fishes around in the bag for the wine. They'll both need it soon if he's any judge.
“Have a drink, sir,” he says, retrieving the two cups he's also liberated from the galley.
“What?”
“A drink. It's wine, sir. Would you like some?”
“I...” For a moment Zuko looks like he's waging a fierce internal battle, but then his eyes steel over and he looks at Jee with his chin defiantly raised. “Fine. I'll have some.”
Jee hides his smile when he bends his head to pour into the two cups, and feels that maybe, possibly, he's just scored a point with the prince. It's good to remember. Perhaps it's natural that the kid would like to be treated like an adult when he's expected to lead a ship full of men as one.
He carries one cup to Zuko, then returns to his chair, which puts a nice respectable distance between them. He takes a fortifying sip from his own cup, then looks up and watches for a moment as the kid tastes the drink and struggles very hard not to pull a disgusted face.
“I'd be very grateful if you didn't mention this to the General, sir,” Jee says, trying not to smile. “He might not approve.”
“Of course,” Zuko responds a bit too earnestly, and for a moment the thrill of sharing a private secret with a grown-up who isn't his Uncle lights up his eyes so clearly Jee has to take refuge in his drink to hide the painful tug at his heart. Zuko seems a bit embarrassed by it too because he adds, “I'm not stupid” in a sullen voice that sounds much more like himself.
“Very well, sir,” Jee says formally and takes one more sip for good luck. Enough stalling. “Are you ready for the bad news?” he asks.
The prince clearly isn't ready, but nods anyway.
“All right. The bad news, sir, is that you're going to bleed like that every month from now on.”
“What?!”
“Afraid so.” It's no fun, looking into Zuko's eyes and feeling like he's just chopped the head off his favorite pet rhino, so Jee takes the coward's way out and looks to the bloodied bundle instead. “It's a cycle. It means... Well, to be frank, sir, it means your body is ready to have children. Now,” he says quickly because Zuko is opening his mouth again, probably to shout, and Jee really isn't in the mood, “it won't last forever, only so long as you're fit for childbearing, but it will happen every month of your adult life until you're old. Your body is basically building a – a place for a potential child inside of you, and when the time's up and you're not pregnant, it has to get rid of that place somehow. That's what the bleeding is. It should get more regular as you get older, so keeping a calendar and marking your bleeding days would be wise so you know when you can expect it to happen. It'll be useful for when, or if, you're ready to, uh, sleep with someone and don't want to get pregnant, too. If you do sleep with someone and you notice later that the bleeding doesn't happen when it should, well... that's the first sign you might just be with child.”
He risks a glance. Zuko is staring at him with pure, unfiltered horror, his skin a sickly pale grey in the candlelight, and his unoccupied left hand is scratching at his right so hard it's leaving angry red lines. He says nothing, so Jee forces himself to press on.
“The cramps and nausea you're experiencing are normal, or so they tell me. Most of my sisters have similar... problems when it's their time of the month. There's a special kind of tea you could drink that should help. Something hot to put behind your back or on your stomach should relieve some of the ache when it gets really bad. You could actually warm yourself up with your bending. Sir... is it very bad?”
He doesn't expect a straight answer – Zuko has downplayed the pain in his face too many times before, only to faint during training and bring everyone in sight that much closer to heart attacks. So he's pretty damn shocked when this time, the prince nods and takes a long swig from his cup.
“I could use something for my back,” he whispers, looking away from Jee.
Jee only realizes it was probably a way to get him out of the cabin when he's on his way back up, warming the waterskin between his hands with firebending. Obviously the prince would want some time to get his head around this brand new bit of knowledge. Jee can't possibly imagine what it must feel like to learn your body is basically going to betray you in the worst possible way once a month, especially for someone like Zuko, but he has a pretty good guess he'd want some privacy too.
He knocks, waits a beat and walks back into the cabin to see the prince already in bed, curled up on his side with his back to the door. His hair is loose and spills in black strands over the pillow and his skin glows pale in low candlelight, which trembles with the kid's breath. The cup, half empty, sits by the mattress.
The kid is trying to hide it from Jee, but he's overcome with emotion. Jee can taste it in the air, which hangs immobile and soup-thickwith Zuko's frantic, trembling fire. Slowly, he approaches the bed and crouches beside it, asking quietly, “Sir?”
The prince sighs, low and shaky. He doesn't turn to look at Jee.
“Sir, I brought you a waterskin.”
“My mother was going to tell me all about – this,” the child whispers, his hands curling on the pillow beside his gaunt, tired face. “She tried. I told her I didn't want to hear it, to tell me later when I was ready. Three days later she was –” he breaks off. The sliver of scarred eye squeezes shut.
Jee waits a moment longer and then prompts quietly, “Sir?”
“What else do I need to know?” Zuko asks, finally turning onto his back to look at Jee. “I want you to tell me everything, Lieutenant.”
“Everything?” Jee feels his frowning eyebrows pulling the skin of his face tight. “Sir, I'm not the best person to speak to. I could tell you about things related to sleeping with other people, but for the details, you'd be better off talking to the medic when he gets back... or to your esteemed uncle,” Jee finishes, pleased with himself for this flash of inspiration. “I know a thing or two but I don't have any children and I've never been married.”
Zuko pulls a face that manages to be half disgusted and half scared. “I can't talk to Uncle about any of this! He'll want to talk to me about – love and stuff – and I really don't want to hear it.”
That, Jee can understand. He's been on the wrong end of the General's more bawdy moods in the past and he remembers – kind of – what it's like to be a teenager and have to talk to adults about this stuff. Especially family. The memory alone is enough to make him shudder.
“And the medic?” he asks, grasping at straws.
“I want you to tell me, Lieutenant,” Zuko insists quite inexplicably. “The medic makes everything sound so... dry. And he treats me like a baby. You don't. I need to know what else is there about this body I'm gonna be stuck with.”
This body, not my, eh? Jee rubs his face and presses his eyes, hot with exhaustion, closed for a moment.
You can do this, old boy. You've come this far, might as well go all the way.
“Very well, sir, but sit up first and put this behind your back,” Jee says, warming up the waterskin again and pushing it at Zuko. “I could see if I can make you some mint tea too, if you'd like.”
“No, I don't want any tea, just tell me.”
Jee looks at him, into his young pale face, and wonders where the hell to even start.
And then he notices the protective way in which Zuko is clutching the quilt over his chest and gets an idea.
“Have your breasts started to grow yet, sir?” he asks carefully.
For a moment, Zuko looks like he might start shouting at Jee after all. Then he falls back against the pillows, deflated, face blotched with red. “A bit,” he mumbles. “It doesn't show under the armor but – ”
“Have you been binding them when you're not wearing armor?”
“Yeah.” Zuko pulls the quilt up to his chin.
“Using what?”
“What do you think, Lieutenant?” the child snaps, bristling again. “Bandages. What else is there?”
“All right, then that's another errand for me to run tomorrow.” Jee sighs, changing position in the meantime because his legs have started to go to sleep. He sits down cross-legged on the bare floor beside the bed and fixes Zuko with the sternest look he thinks he can get away with. “Do not use regular bandages, sir. They're inflexible and will disfigure not just your chest, but your ribs, too.”
“Then what should I – ?”
“The current fashion among Earth Kingdom women is to bind their breasts with special undergarments,” Jee says. “Those are designed to fit them and to conceal their breasts at the same time. It's catching on in the colonies and I'm positive I can buy some of those undergarments for you in port tomorrow.”
From the way Zuko's lips thin into a tight line and his fingers dig into the quilt, he's not exactly ecstatic about the idea. “But those are... girl clothes,” he whispers miserably. “I don't want to wear girl clothes. I'm a boy.”
Ah. Jee sighs and steels himself to deliver some hard truths. “Be that as it may, sir, it's the only thing I can think of right now that will do what you need it to do without hurting you too much. I could... I could see if I can find something plain and not too frilly.”
Zuko stares on ahead, obviously trying to contain whatever he's feeling inside, and Jee is somewhat amazed to see that he would try at all. That's not the shouty fuse-like-an-apple-stem demon child he knows...
But then again, he doesn't know this child at all, does he.
“Sir, they won't be girl clothes if you wear them,” he tries.
“That's not the point,” Zuko mutters.
“Still, think of your health. You... You won't be in any shape to fight the Avatar when you find him and your ribs are disfigured because you didn't want to wear the proper undergarments.”
That transparent attempt at misdirection earns him a stormy glare, but then the prince appears to consider his words seriously and Jee sends a quiet thanksgiving prayer to the Spirits. When in doubt, Avatar. Jee never thought he'd ever be grateful for his commander's terrifying obsession but there you go.
“Fine,” Zuko huffs eventually. “I will tell my Uncle to pay you back for all expenses.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Now, what else do I need to know?”
Bugger. So he won't be getting out of this one. Jee buys himself some time by going over to pour himself and Zuko more wine, then swallows down the pained sigh building up in his throat, relocates his professional talking-to-officers voice, and slowly launches himself into stilted and awkward explanations about fucking and where children come from and precautions and hygiene, as much as he knows from his few encounters with women, from his mother and sisters and from the men he met in the military who shared prince Zuko's predicament. The child listens to him with the same unsettling ferocity he displays whenever someone mentions the word Avatar and pulls disgusted faces from time to time, but he doesn't ask any questions, and by the time Jee exhausts both of them, he is back to looking absolutely fucking miserable.
“I hate this,” he whispers in a small, tired voice, glaring down at his body stretched out under the quilt. “Men don't give birth. Men don't carry children. I'm a man. I shouldn't have to deal with any of this.”
Jee is seized with an absurd, suicidal notion of reaching out to pat his hand. He keeps his own hands firmly to himself and squashes the urge to sit on them for good measure. Better not risk having one of them bitten off.
“I'm sorry, sir, but... maybe there's a purpose to it,” he tries lamely.
“That's what Uncle says,” Zuko says, sounding unimpressed. “He says everything happens for a reason and that I was meant to be this way. I don't believe him. I don't want any of this.”
“Maybe someday – ”
“I'm tired, Lieutenant,” Zuko tells him suddenly, sliding back down on the pillows and turning his back to Jee. “I want to sleep now.”
Jee sighs and gets to his feet. “Of course, sir. Goodnight.”
He is almost at the door when a hoarse, quiet voice reaches out to him with a tentative, “Lieutenant?”
He stops and looks over his shoulder. “Yes, sir?”
“You didn't act surprised to learn about... the way I am. You just accepted it. I didn't – I expected a different reaction.”
Jee risks a smile. “You're not the first man with this problem I've ever met, sir. You're not alone in feeling the way you do. There are men out there who do bear children, or women who can sire them.”
There is a pause, and then the sheets rustle when Zuko turns to look at him, healthy eye big and glistening in candlelight. “Really?”
“Really. I will tell you about them some other time, if you like.”
Slowly, Zuko nods. Jee lets his smile grow.
“Goodnight, sir.”
A contemplative silence follows him out. Jee closes the door carefully and stands there for a moment, listening for sounds both within and without.
There's nothing. In the cabin Zuko is very, very still, and no one else seems to be back from port yet.
Jee listens for a heartbeat longer, then slowly retreats to his own cabin. He ignores the paperwork he was going to catch up on before Zuko chose to knock on his door and dives instead for the paint stripper under his bed. He feels that, given that he's just explained sex and childbirth to a thirteen-year-old descendant of Agni, he's fucking earned it.