#frozenash

Though with the meta’s paler skin, they light up in a whole different way. Prettier, Zuko thinks to himself on one of those days where he’s finally got the squirming meta down and pinned underneath him. Usually he abstains from words like that — especially when referring to Cam (Agni knows, he didn’t need the ego boost), but he can’t help but think that the colors look so much more attractive on Cam than they do him.

Red is his favorite he thinks, and he’s not sure if it’s a throwback to his old life or not, but whatever the reason, he loves how deep the color looks running down the side of Camerons face. Or how it floods from his nose after a good punch and turns that white smirk of his pink, just like it’s doing right now.

They’d been in the middle of tossing each other across the room, backs against walls and spitting out insults around the metallic tang of blood in their mouths. It was merely by sheer luck that Cam had tripped on his footing and Zuko had managed to tackle him to the ground. But he hasn’t done a thing since he’s pinned him, just stares at the reds and blacks and blues. Like Cameron's some kind of broken — not to mention grotesque — painting that he's not sure he’s proud of. 

The only thing that pulls him out of his speculation is the grating voice of the man underneath him.

"And just what are you looking at princess?” Cam mouths, straining to lift his head up underneath the weight of Zuko’s palm on his neck.”Take a picture, it’ll last longer.” Zuko scowls, eyes narrowing as he tightens his grip a little. His hand was being used to anchor the asshole down more than anything, but putting Camerons windpipe under a little duress was never a bad idea. It definitely shut him up.

"I have no doubt about that." He ends up retorting, eyebrow lifting and voice detached, like he wasn’t a hairpin away from strangling someone. "In fact, I sort of have evidence proving just that, if last night is any indication. Maybe that’s the real reason Artemis wouldn’t take you back, huh? Not up to her standards?" It holds double meaning. He knows. They both do. And that — that sets Cameron off, wipes that smirk clear off his face, and if Zuko didn’t know any better he would say he was snarling at him.

Good. 

He’s satisfied and a little short of cocky until Cameron gathers the strength to shove him off, and before Zuko can even get his bearings, he’s being slammed, head first, down into the concrete floor of their dingy apartment.

Despite the thrum of pain surging through his head, instincts kick in and he tries to gather enough momentum to jump to his feet. But Cam has other plans, clamping his hand around Zuko’s throat and slamming him against the floor again just for good measure. It hurts, but he doesn’t make a noise, just takes it in and glares defiantly up at someone who could snap his neck any moment.

The sneer on the Cam’s face screams the promise of payback, but it’s not anything Zuko isn’t accustomed to by now. Who knows, maybe he wanted to be punished, maybe he was asking for it.

Doesn’t matter even if he wasn’t because clawing at his hand does no good, he’s iced up now and no matter how much he tries to scratch and pull, Zuko just can’t get a good grip on him. But the loss of air is starting to make him dizzy, so he tries kicking up at his torso to no avail. The last ditch effort of resistance only makes things worse for him; the grip on his throat is getting tighter by the second and Cameron looks crazed with the power he has over him. Zuko can actually feel himself choke around his words. It’s pathetic, but he also kind of likes it.

"What’s—" He chuckles, something raspy and weak. "—What’s the matter Junior? Can’t—" Shit, it was really getting hard to swallow." —Can’t take the heat?" And of all things he smirks. He fucking smirks and Cameron smirks right back. God, they really were a pair. 

"You think you’re so fucking smart, don’t you?” There’s no tease in his voice, no game to be played, and Zuko isn't surprised. They’d pushed each other past games a long time ago. There were no boundaries, no breaking points anymore. They’d been there, done that.

Hell, Cam had literally shoved him off a building once just to see if he could break more bones than 'last time', this was tame in comparison.

Then, just when blackness starts to crawl into the corners of his eyes and he thinks he’s going to pass out, Cameron lets go. Zuko gasps and coughs, heated hand flying to his neck to ease the pain away. But there’s no time to recover and the next thing he know’s he was flying across the room, courtesy of Cam’s more ice-bulked arm, smackdab into the wall.

"Oh no. You’re not getting off that easy.” Through the ringing of his skull, Zuko can hear Cam laughing like a hyena. Man that laugh seriously pissed him off…

—but then again, everything about him did.

Slowly he hoists himself up from the floor. Running the back of his hand over his mouth does little to wipe away the blood, but looking at it serves to get his adrenaline pumping. Looks like Cam’s playing hardball today ( not surprising since he’d brought up Artemis). The meta didn’t usually use his powers. And if he did it wasn’t for anything more than a thin layer of armor. And for obvious reasons too. Cam played dirty, but if it was an element off, the firebender would definitely win. So he used what he could while Zuko kept to the bare minimum, which was just how he liked it anyway.

Because if Zuko stooped that low, he really was no better than his father (not that he was that far off at this point, but there had to be some divider, there had to be limitations).

So he settled for this. The feel of Cam’s nose breaking against the bone of his knuckle. The taste of blood on his palette as he got slammed against the wall again and again. Every cut — every bruise punched into his skin was a step towards feeling alive.

It used to frighten him how far he was willing to go, how far he was willing to hurt, and how much he realized he enjoyed it. But it wasn’t like he cared about Cameron. 

Or maybe he cared too much. The lines were blurred on that one and they never talked about it so it didn’t matter. 

Cameron just made him that way, plain and simple. There was no Uncle to guide him and there was no Katara or Aang to pacify him. It was just him, the meta, and the distorted anger that manifested itself inside each landed hit. And as long as he wasn’t hurting anyone besides the two of them he could pretend that he wasn’t like the monsters he’d called family. Because he wasn’t doing this to hurt anyone or for power. He was doing this because that was just how it was here. 

He was Zuko, son of Ursa. He was the Firelord. And he was a fighter. He did what he had to in order to survive and that was all there was to it.

The sounds of laughter bouncing off the walls ring in his ears even after he lands an uppercut and sends Cam staggering back. He’s heaving for breath now, lungs burning with the effort to keep up, but he doesn’t stop, keeps moving until he has the meta beneath him again with a lazy shove and stumble to the ground. Wrestling him hadn’t proved easy — damned idiot was slippery all iced up — but like hell was he giving up now, not when Cam was giving it his all and deciding to not play the coward for once.

Everything that comes next is a blur, starting with Cameron making a very, very, fatal move.

"Boy, I bet your mom would be real proud of you, huh, Firelord?" It's enough to stop his movements so that the only thing he's focusing on is the way the meta's mouth is twisted into a grin. "--Scrapping around with filth like me, grinning and enjoying it. Oh, I bet she’s turning in her grave."

"Shut up!" He roars, backhanding the meta straight across his mouth so hard that it stings. Exes were one thing, fathers another. But mothers? That was always deathwish material.

Cam doesn't stop cackling though, even when each comment is met with a punch to the jaw, he goes on until all Zuko can hear is the sound of bone against bone. He just keeps punching and punching. Blow after blow, until the meta can't get the word in.

He doesn't even know if the blood flying is from Cam’s mouth or from his own knuckles and he doesn't care. The scream though. The sudden scream that rips through the air... He knows it isn't his. And he knows why.

He could never forget the agony of someone being burned, nor the smell of singing flesh. Never. 

Memories of a room full of people and a pain so great it knocked him out all come rushing at him like a bullet and only thing keeping him tethered are the screams, loud and horrible, echoing around him. They shackle him to reality but he can barely do more than watch the steam rolling off his shaking palms.

The louder they get the more clarity comes to him until suddenly he's falling over himself trying to reach Cameron, to fix this. To take it all back somehow.

Zuko falls to his knees, hands reaching and trying to get him to stop thrashing so he can see but he's blindly violent, whipping his head around as if it can somehow stop the pain. Zuko swallows down his own panic, but with Cam a tortured mess, it's hard to fight the yearning to run. Finally, he manages to rip the meta’s hands away, but what he see's in their place sends bile to his mouth.

"Oh, God." He shakes his head, immediately denying. "No, I… I didn’t mean — " There's no finishing his sentence, there's no doing anything but looking at the damage he’s done. 

Blue. His skin was supposed to be a pale blue. It wasn’t supposed to look so--so red. And black -- God, he’d charred the flesh. And there was smoke. Like he’d tried to use his ice to fix it but he couldn’t focus long enough to get it to work. Zuko's hand flies to his mouth as he tries to contain his own urge to scream in horror. He remembers the pain from all those years ago, how it was so overwhelming and it felt like it wouldn’t ever end. And Cam, he was an ice meta. How was he awake? 

How was he alive? 

Was that what he’d looked like back when… when his father had…

He can’t breathe. God, he can’t breathe. Cameron's screaming — shrieking in pain and it's all because of him. He burned him. He burned him and he did it on purpose to hurt him and he was just like father. No better, just another psycho to add to a lineage of monsters. This was it.

This was where he was always meant to end up. 

"No. No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, I swear I didn’t mean to." But he doesn't ever get an answer save for more garbled pleas for the pain to stop. Zuko’s remaining hand jolts back, like the longer he touched him, the more risk he ran of getting burned himself. Not like it matters, nothing exists outside of those screams anymore. Nothing ever will.

And yet he still says sorry, right up until he can’t take the yelling anymore and knocks Cameron out with a firm thrust of his skull against the concrete. But that doesn't mean the screams stop for him. That doesn't mean that he still couldn’t hear them screeching in his head or that he could see anything beyond the image of burning flesh.