your love is my oxygen - Zuko x reader

Deep Conversations

Y/N's POV
As we got back to the shop, I pulled Zuko into the back room, "you're bleeding. Sit down, I'll be back in a sec."

He wiped his face with his hand, "I'll deal with it myself."

"Don't touch it! You haven't even cleaned your hands!"

He sighed and leaned back on the chair as I disappeared into the staff bathroom; looking around for some medical supplies. I returned about a minute later with a wet cloth, some some ointment and bandages.

I pulled a chair directly in front of him and leaned in, beginning to dab at the cut on his face, "I'm sorry that I'm the reason you got hurt."

He held eye contact with me for a few seconds before glancing away and muttering, "It's not your fault."

"How did you even know where I was?"

He pulled away from me for a moment and very bluntly told me, "Stop asking questions."

He was acting odd, secretive; I couldn't really comprehend why.

He didn't look me in the eye again, or say another word to me for the rest of the time I was cleaning him up.

"There, I'll check on it for you again after work."

Zuko's POV
That evening, we were both sat in the living room after uncle had gone to bed and she was looking really upset.

I sat down beside her on the floor in front of the sofa and sighed, "Y/N?"

"Mhm?"

I'm not really good at this sort of thing-

"Is there uh- is there something on your mind?"

-but I'll try my best.

"Not really, I've just been thinking about that poster we found before, and how surreal it is that I really am the last female air bender."

"Oh."

"And now people are willing to pay crazy amounts of money for me? That's insane."

"... do you miss your friends? The other air benders?"

She chuckled a little, leaning her head back onto the sofa, "I didn't have friends."

"Oh? Is it because of your terrible flying? Did you just... kill them all?"

And again, this is why I don't like talking to people because I say stupid things that aren't actually funny and just make other people uncomfortable-

"Nope, that was your great-grandfather."

And this is exactly why I shouldn't have opened my mouth.

"Uh- yeah, sorry... I didn't really think that joke through when I said it... wasn't funny."

But she raised an eyebrow, "I thought the irony of it was pretty hilarious, actually. Don't apologise, I don't mind. Although, if I didn't have any friends, how could I have killed them when flying?"

I was trying to think of a response when she sighed, "don't worry too much about what you say. I'm not that easy to upset."

"I see."

"I've been thinking a lot about Oogi, though. Losing him is what sucked the most of all."

"Your bison?"

She nodded, "you see, because all I can think of is the fact that he was waiting for me that entire time. He had no idea what happened, that there was no way on this planet I'd ever take him out in the middle of a storm to follow Aang. He was just waiting for me. He was waiting and waiting and I never came back, I-"

Her voice cracked and she took a moment to compose herself, trying to slow her breathing, "when the Fire Nation attacked the Southern Air Temple, I knew that the monks would've protected the bison, but always their bison first. And that means that while everyone else was trying to save their bison, Oogi was on his own. He thought that I had left him there to die."

I hesitantly placed my hand on her back, stroking up and down.

There was nothing I could say to make this better.

"Zuko, I would've given my life for him, I'd sooner jump into a volcano than leave him behind. And he thinks- he thinks that I just abandoned him! Like he meant nothing! But Oogi was my whole world! He was everything, he was-"

She took a deep breath, "sorry, I was getting a little emotional."

I didn't really know what I was meant to say, so it took me a few seconds before I said, "it's fine, it's probably better to talk about it, anyway."

I was still rubbing her back when she took a longer exhale and leaned into me, resting her head in the crook of my neck and my heart stopped.

"Thanks, but I'm alright. It'll just make me even angrier thinking about all the danger Aang is constantly putting Appa in... are you okay?"

I tried to relax my tensed body as I replied, "yes, yeah, I'm uh- I'm good."

After a few moments of just sitting there like that, she mumbled, "Zuko?"

"Yeah?"

"If you go back to the Fire Nation, does that mean you're gonna try to leave me again?"

"I-"

Hadn't thought about it... I've been lost ever since I became a fugitive. And she wasn't making it any easier.

"-I don't know what'll happen when I return home, but I won't leave you alone."

I felt her smile as she nuzzled closer to me and sighed, "okay."