your love is my oxygen - Zuko x reader

The Western Air Temple

Zuko's POV
"Hey, Zuko!"

I rolled over in my bed and groaned, "what do you want, Sokka?"

"I think your girlfriend's here."

"My... what are you talking about?"

"The crazy air bender girl; Aang says that he saw her on the other side of the temple!"

I immediately jumped up, "Y/N's here!?"

I felt my heart race as I followed Sokka through the temple, trying not to get my hopes up; but it was no lie and it was no mistake, because even from a distance, I knew that the person I could see was undoubtedly her.

As she stepped foot in the temple, she fell to her knees and her hands came to cover her face.

That's when I realised, that every shrug, every joke, every single time she had laughed it off, she was trying to find a coping mechanism; she stuck around even when it was inconvenient to avoid coming back and now that she was finally here, everything had come crashing down on her.

As I stepped down onto the platform she was stood on, Sokka lingering behind, her head snapped up and her eyes widened at the sight of me, "Zuko?"

I felt my heart break a little to see her eyes stinging red with tears as she desperately wiped them away.

I sighed as I sat beside her on the ground, waiting for her to cry it out before I asked, "what do you need?"

She sniffled, "can you just go away right now?"

"What?"

But then her whole demeanour changed as she glared up at me through teary eyes, "just... leave me alone."

"But-"

"I SAID LEAVE!"

A gust of wind knocked me back as she screamed out, falling back into a fit of sobs. Her fists clenched as her entire body shook with her staggered breaths.

Before I could say or do anything else, Aang stepped forwards and pulled me back, "Zuko. Just... give her some time."

Y/N's POV
And it felt so wrong because when I looked at him, all I could see was the remains of the nation that murdered my people... the nation that murdered Oogi.

I knew it wasn't his fault, he wasn't there. It wasn't him. Zuko's not like that.

But still, being around him felt wrong, it made my stomach churn because all I could think about was Oogi, the friends I used to have here, the wild bison and lemurs that used to roam these lands.

After a little while, I heard familiar footsteps approach and I sighed, "what are you doing here, Aang?"

He sat himself down on the floor beside me and sighed, "hiding from the Fire Nation."

I laid back onto the floor, "oh, yeah? Same."

He took a deep breath before he began, "you know back when I was in the Earth Kingdom... I lost Appa."

"Oh, I'm very aware."

"I lost my senses, I was ready to do some really horrible things to the people that took him. It was probably one of the hardest things I've ever gone through... and I know this doesn't change anything, but I'm sorry about Oogi, Y/N."

I felt the tears silently roll down my face as I muttered back, "I just... I really miss him, you know? And I don't know why, but I came here thinking 'what if by some miracle, I land at the temple and Oogi's just there waiting for me' and I know that it's been a hundred years and with or without the war he'd be dead by now, but I just..."

My voice cracked and I immediately stopped talking to save myself the embarrassment of crying my eyes out in front of Aang, again.

"Zuko told me about all of the times you looked out for Appa... so, thanks for that."

I wiped my face on my sleeves as I nodded, "yeah, no problem."

"Do you wanna come and see him? We have a lemur, too. We found him at the Southern Temple."

I felt myself smile, "yeah, I met him back on Crescent Island."

"Oh, I didn't know you were there."

I chuckled, "who else was gonna get his royal hot-head out of the mess he put himself in?"

"He talks about you a lot."

"Who? Zuko?"

He nodded, "I heard from Sokka that the two of them were planning to head into the Fire Nation to break you out of prison, Avatar Y/N."

I raised an eyebrow, "actually, it's Avatar Nora, you get so much free stuff just for being the avatar, and it beats begging on the streets in the Earth Kingdom."

"Depends where you go, I went to a town once where they had a festival dedicated to me but in a 'down with the avatar' kinda way, they tried to have me boiled in oil. Not fun."

"Oh, really? Thought you'd get the five star treatment everywhere you went."

He shrugged, "apparently not."

I sighed as I sat up, "I wanted to go to the bison keeper's, but I think I'll be sick if I see what happened to it."

He placed a hand on my shoulder, offering me a warm smile, "we'll go together."

—

Contrary to what I thought it might've been, the bison keeper's didn't seem to have been impacted by the genocide, I couldn't find any sign of scorch marks or ashes.

"This was where Oogi used to sleep before we came to the South."

Aang silently followed behind me, looking around at the new scenery.

I gestured towards the scratch marks on the stone tablet beside where Oogi would sleep, "he used to leave scratches on the walls in the South, too. It was something he did if he was anxious or if I took too long to come back."

I swallowed the lump in my throat thinking about how many scratch marks Oogi could've left in the south, waiting for me to return before the Fire Nation attacked.

"Did you leave a lot?"

I shook my head, "you know how the monks were with me, it was only really when I got in trouble. I used to sleep down here with the bison on those days to calm his nerves."

Zuko's POV 
I was sat on the edge of my bed, bouncing my leg up and down when someone knocked on my doorframe, "may I be permitted to enter, your highness?"

And in that moment my heart skipped a beat as I looked up to meet her eyes, "Y/N."

She exhaled as she made her way into my room and sat beside me, "hey, Zuko."

"Hi... I'm sorry about earlier, I didn't mean-"

She held up her hand, cutting me off, "you have nothing to apologise for. You haven't done anything wrong. I was just a little overwhelmed being back here, I'm sorry."

"Oh! No... don't apologise. It's fine. I get it."

She tilted her head to the left, "you're acting weird, are you alright?"

"I'm not acting weird."

"You are."

"Not."

"You are, but I'll drop it because I missed you. How have you been?"