Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Zolt felt his jacket twitch just wrong, and he darted his hand down and behind himself. The tiny wrist wasn’t a surprise, and the flare of fire - quickly snuffed out - was only marginally moreso. A quick wrench, and the kid’s whole forearm was engulfed in his meaty fist.

“Better give that back, kid.”

What was a surprise was watching the kid torch the yuan bills in front of his face.

Zolt barely had time to widen his eyes in shock when he heard a small voice yell, “Mako! Why did you do that?!”

The kid in his hand pulled, hard, and kicked the inside of Zolt’s knee, nearly throwing him off balance. Zolt released the child, but dropped into a crouch, ready to fry both ‘Mako’ and the owner of the voice.

But Mako mirrored his stance, cradling a respectable fire in both hands.

Behind him cowered a much smaller boy who couldn’t have been more than three or four years old. He was wearing next to nothing, which made Zolt look back at Mako. The only thing the older boy - a brother, probably - had that the little one didn’t was a red scarf.

And a killer glare.

Zolt smiled and snapped his fingers, holding his thumb and fingers apart, connected by a tendril of lightning.

“You’ve got a spine kid. And now you owe me money.”

“I don’t owe you shit.”

Zolt laughed, but inside, he was impressed. Most kids would be whining and crying at this point of the conversation.

He let the lightning dissipate.

“Ok, Mako. You win this one. Make sure this is the last one.”

He turned on his heel and walked away.

***

“Stay still, you little shit, or your brother is gonna pay!”

Zolt heard the wooden crash of shipping crates in the alleyway, and ran to see what was going on. He might be a little outside his territory, but those sorts of noises were never good for business.

About half a block down, a small, wiry fellow held a - what did those earthbenders of his call it? - horse stance. One hand was extended in a rigid claw in the direction of a bright purple mass with a pair of small shoes poking out one end.

“Hey, Crystal. Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”

The gang member whirled around, and the crystalline structure trapping the kid rolled off the pile of garbage down into the stream of water running down the middle of the alley. Zolt could hear the crying and spluttering from a kid who might just drown without help.

But he had to dodge as the Crystal started throwing rocks.

He couldn’t use lightning with the kid face down in the water.

“Help me! Mako’s too heavy!”

With a start, Zolt recognized the small kid - and the name he used.

And then one of the boulders hit him in the same spot Mako had kicked that time.

Zolt swore.

Why was he in this fight, anyway? He only knew these kids from Mako’s failed pickpocket attempt.

But he watched as the little one braced himself and stomped his foot down.

He’s an earthbender!

The smaller kid raised an earthen block, lifting Mako and his prison out of the water.

It was the Crystal’s turn to swear.

“You got a choice, Crystal,” Zolt growled. “You bother these kids anymore, and you’ll get a taste of what I can do to you.”

The thug barely spared him a glance before the bricks below them started to ripple back in an attempt to throw Zolt off balance.

Zolt jumped and kicked a ball of fire at the Crystal’s back, but the man fell to the ground in a dodge, splashing into the water. The ball sailed past him to crash just behind the not-Mako kid.

The kid screamed. Mako screamed.

The kid stomped and raised himself up beside his brother - out of the water.

Zolt struck.

The lightning jolted the rival triad fighter, throwing his body into seizures until Zolt dismissed the lightning.

The silence was taught.

When the thug’s unconscious body took an involuntary breath, Zolt decided to shove him out of the water. There was no need to kill anyone in front of these kids.

Today.

“Hey kid. You an earthbender?”

The small kid looked at his hands and feet, back up at Zolt, and nodded like he thought he was in trouble.

Zolt dusted off his jacket, and flared his bending enough to dry out his shoes.

“Then you best let your brother out of that cage before it suffocates him.”

The child got a worried look, but turned to the crystalline mass. Whatever noise Mako was making was getting weaker.

“You better hurry, kid.”

Clearly out of ideas, the kid just started beating his fists against the purple cage. With the mightiest slam a toddler could manage, he brought both fists down, and the cage shattered in all directions.

Zolt whipped his arm up to protect his face, but when he brought it back down, the kids were still there, clearly scared about what Zolt would do next.

“Looks like you both have spines. And now you both owe me your lives. Come on. Old Lady Yun is gonna be feeding you, but we better hurry.”

Once his back was turned, he heard Mako say, “No.”

Zolt pinched the bridge of his nose briefly, and turned back around.

“I saved your life. Come with me, and I’ll teach you how to save your own.”

By the time he got back to the street, he had two new shadows.

Chapter Text

The bell clanged and quieted behind what she hoped would be the last customer of the night. Outside, dusk was falling, and the lamplighter had not yet gotten to their block, if he even would.

The new stool’s balance felt good under her feet as she rocked back a little. “Tan, can I put out the closed sign yet? You wanted me to sweep and take out the trash.” It was so hard to sit still with no one in the shop, but she knew he was counting on her to watch the front door.

It had only been a month or so, and she still wasn’t too sure about this arrangement.

Tan had paid her twice already, and with the solstice tonight, he’d told her to expect a gift, though she couldn’t quite tell why.

So she rocked back and forth a few more times before giving up. She slammed the feet of the stool down and slid off, looking around for the sign she just knew was in the cabinet somewhere. He rarely hung it up, preferring to let customers come in the middle of the night if they wanted.

“It’s a good way to build up a reputation,” he had told her. “If people know they can come here at any time, they’ll come when it’s easy, too.”

The memory of him ruffling her hair felt almost as good as it had that night.

Her hand had just found the sign, fallen down on the outside of the cabinet, behind some gross spiderwebs, when she heard a clack on the pastry counter behind her. She yelped and whipped around, getting her right arm jammed between the cabinet and the wall, her hand pushing even further into those nasty cobwebs.

And she lost her grip on the sign. Tan was standing there with a smirk on his face, like he had spooked her on purpose.

Grumbling, she wriggled up from the floor and ran to the back to wash her hands, leaving him behind trying to get her attention.

She opened the faucet and stared at the water running cold and clear over her hands. She cupped her hands and sipped the water just to taste it. Her cold, wet hands felt so good on her face. She turned the faucet off and picked up the cloth to dry her face.

In the mirror, she saw the top of her head, so she turned back around. It was so high, she had to push up to her tiptoes and lean up even to see her own eyes.

“Yu Jin, you finished in there? The soup won’t stay warm for much longer,” Tan called.

The way her eyes widened in the mirror kept her looking until her hands started to hurt. She dropped the towel and went running back out through the red curtains.

Her feet tried to make her slip as she came around the corner, but she held onto the fish barrel and it was ok. On the other side of the counter, Tan pushed a bowl over, and pulled the stool out so she could sit on it at the end, near the bottom of the stairs.

The smell of the soup filled her nose. “Is that red bean soup? I thought you didn’t like it.” She pushed her spoon in and swirled the soup like he had shown her. The steam she could see made it seem like it was pretty hot. She slurped at her spoon and the warmth felt like she had just poured it down her throat.

Tan wasn’t eating, though. She frowned up at him.

“Why aren’t you eating?”

He gave her a little smile, then pulled a plate from the far side of the cash register. There were two big rice balls, one green and one pink. And around them were a bunch more of each color.

She didn’t remember ever seeing rice that wasn’t white before, so she looked up at him, her face scrunched up, trying to figure out what was going on.

“My mom made tangyuan for me and the old man a few times when I was really small. I had to ask Yi over at the chemist to get his wife to make these for us.”

Yu Jin looked up at him, but he was looking down. She wasn’t sure why, but she thought he looked sad. So she slid off her stool and got close enough to give him a hug.

She felt him jerk like he was surprised, but then he knelt down beside her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders.

get away get away get away

She pushed his chest and kind of fell - anything to get away from him.

The stairs!

up up up up up

At the top of the stairs, she was still going so hard she was still on her hands and knees, trying to get to her spot.

He never went in her spot. He promised.

The red curtain nearly fell on top of her, but she got under it and curled up on her blanket in the corner. She pulled her knees up to her chest, backed into a corner.

Breathing was so hard.

so hard

The rocking felt different than it had on the stool downstairs. But it felt good, so she kept doing it.

It sounded like the stool scraped on the floor, then she heard kind of a quiet thump on the floor that she didn’t understand. She kept rocking until it was quiet again.

When she moved her right hand to pull the black curtain so she could look down, it felt wet on the back. It was too dark to see, so she rubbed it against her cheek.

It was wet, too. So she rubbed her face real hard, then opened the curtain just a little.

Below her, Tan was sitting on the floor, his knees up kind of like hers, his face bent down into his hands. She watched him rub his hands up and down his face, then roll to his left and push to stand up.

He picked up his spoon and stirred his soup, but he just left the spoon in the bowl. She watched him pick up the plate and place it in a tray he pulled from someplace she couldn’t see. He added his bowl to the tray, then walked over to the blue icebox. The door opened, and he must have put the tray inside because he wasn’t carrying it when he turned around.

He looked sad again.

The next thing she knew, she was standing on one of the last stairs, looking at his face. On this step, she was almost as tall as him. He stood still, and then he said, “Are you alright? I’m sorry I scared you.”

She waited, but he didn’t say anything else.

“I won’t ever do that again. I’m sorry.”

Her hands flew wide and…

She fell against his chest. His hands came up behind her, but he only pressed his hands lightly on her shoulders, not all the way across her back. It was easier to breathe.

His voice sounded funny when he said, “If you need to leave, I won’t stop you.”

She tried to pull away, but stumbled a little, and had to step down. He caught her elbow, but didn’t even wrap his fingers around it. He just gave her something to lean on.

She waited for him to say something, but he took too long.

“You put the food in that icebox. Is it cold already?”

A few minutes was all it took to hang up the closed sign, turn the lights down low, and reheat all of the soup. Tan came over to the table in his room at the back of the store, and placed two pink and two green tangyuan in her soup. “Lucky four for you, and for me.”

She stared at them, not quite sure what to do.

He spooned one up in his soup and chewed it. His face lit up, and he swallowed. “That one was cabbage. What do you have?”

Yu Jin looked back at the four little dumplings swimming in the soup, and decided she could be brave. At least a little.

She spooned up one of the green ones (they looked less scary than the pink ones), and took a tiny little bite. She pulled the spoon away and looked at the filling, and decided maybe it was meat. She glanced up at him and his goofy little smile. She put the rest of it in her mouth, then had to work hard to chew it.

But it tasted nice, so she ate another.

Tan smiled again, and set his spoon down in his bowl. He twisted at the waist, and bent down below the counter where she couldn’t see what he was doing.

When he straightened, he was holding a wide, flat box. The red paper was sharp and bright, and it had some writing in gold on the top.

“What does that say?” she asked, pointing at the words.

“Dongzhi Festival. No one ever gave you a solstice gift before?”

She felt her eyes go wide.

“This is for me?”

He smiled and nodded, pushing it closer to her. When she just kept looking at it, he chuckled and pulled the lid off with both hands.

Inside was something in green fabric with gold stripes. She frowned, not understanding what she was looking at.

Tan’s big hands reached into the box, and pulled it up. He gave it a little flip, and pushed his fingers up inside to pull it into a new shape.

“I thought with the weather getting colder, you might like a cap to wear when you go outside.”

She took it from him and settled it on her head.

It was kind of like when he ruffled her hair that one night.

“Thanks,” she said, looking back up at him. “Why?”

He shrugged. “Mom said it was a tradition to give a gift at the solstice, back where she came from.” He kind of snorted. “I don’t even know where that was.”

And he looked sad again.

Yu Jin got up from her chair and wrapped her arms around his neck.

“It’s ok. We can make our own traditions now.”

He pulled her shoulders close.

“Yeah, it’s a good time for a fresh start, so we’ll be ready for the new year, right?”

She nodded into his shoulder, squeezed, and pulled away.

If his eyes were a little wet, she would never tell.