The Jasmine Dragon - Zukka AU

Chapter 3

~Zuko~

Oh god, what do I say now? My palms were sweating and small wisps of smoke was billowing from my hands. The moment those words had come out of my mouth, I regretted it.  "But I guess you already know me, sort of." I rubbed my hand on the back of my neck nervously. It didn't help that Katara was looking at me like she wanted me to die a horrible death and Aang was just surprised.

"Uhhh ... so, the thing is I have a lot of firebending experience, and I'm considered to be pretty good at it." he tried to smile to seem friendlier. "Well, you've seen me, you know, when I was attacking you. Uhhh ... yeah, I guess." My smile quickly turned into a grimace. I heard snorts behind me and assumed that it was Sokka and Toph laughing at how pathetic I sounded. "I should apologize for that. But anyway, I'm good now. I mean, I thought I was good before, but I realized I was bad, but anyway" I fixed my faced to look more serious. "I think it's time I joined your group and taught the Avatar firebending." 

"You want to what now? You can't possibly think that any of us would trust you, can you? I mean, how stupid do you think we are?!" Katara cried, waving her arms.  Aang next to her looked like he had some mixed emotions but decided to side with her anyways. "Yeah, all you've ever done is hunt us down and try to capture me." 

I stuttered for a few seconds to try to prove them wrong, but miserably failed and sighed as I turned around to face Toph.  "Tell them I'm telling the truth!" I hissed at her. "Guys, we should give him a second chance. He's telling the truth." Toph said calmly. "Oh yeah? And how do you know that? For all we know, he could be like Azula and lie through his teeth without flinching!" Katara spat, waving her arms around. My eye twitched as I thought about Azula and how I kind of wanted to decapitate her at this moment. 

"Don't compare me to Azula." I wheezed, trying to sound intimidating but once again miserably failing. Sokka kicked me and I glared at him in response. "You're not helping yourself, you know that, right?" he whispered to me. "It's not like you are either." I whispered back. "True," he said, earning a look from Katara. I finally looked back and saw that Katara and Aang were having some sort of quiet conversation. Toph and Sokka walked over, leaving me to stand alone. I twiddled my thumbs nervously while I waited. Something about this kind of reminded me of being at court back in the Fire Nation. 

"Fine. You can join us."