A/N: edit sev7n has been found! Happy day!

Also, this is extremely belated, but I wanted to say thanks for 100 reviews! I'm celebrating with a double post. I'm sooooooooo happy you guys, you have no idea.

Firestarter

Inspired by the novel by Stephen King.

Aang

Zuko let the flame levitating above his cupped palms flicker out, but the silence in the room stretched on. Aang’s eyes darted back and forth across the room, gauging everyone’s reactions. Only Hakoda was calm, though perhaps unnaturally so, not seeming to notice the worried glances that the boys were shooting at him. His gaze wandered around the room, almost as if he had become bored of the exchange before him. Aang wondered if the man was in shock.

Only Katara’s attention was focused in one place: on the spot where Zuko had created the tiny fire in the air. She was clearly overwhelmed, and when she finally spoke, her voice came out much smaller than usual.

“All that stuff before, it really was because of you. The lights – the stove...”

Zuko remained silent, a morose expression on his face.

“Why did you do it?” she asked, her large blue eyes searching. Zuko looked at the floor, unable to meet her gaze.

“I don’t know,” he said quietly, “I don’t even remember doing it.”

“You don’t know?” Katara sounded disappointed, and her incredulity from earlier was resurfacing. “How can you not know?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Zuko,” the strength was beginning to return to Katara’s voice, “the gas burner on the stove erupted. Pots and boiling tomato sauce flew everywhere. My grandmother was in the room when it happened. Do you know how lucky it is that she wasn’t burned?”

“Yes,” said Zuko quietly. His hand rose to the remains of his left eye, but he caught himself before completing the motion and corrected it, using his raised hand to brush his hair out of his face instead. Katara looked away.

“That’s not what I meant,” she muttered.

“I should go,” said Zuko.

“Where?”

It was Hakoda who spoke, and the children all turned to look at him in surprise. There was concern in his voice, much to Aang’s relief. Whatever had come over the Arnaaluk’s father before, it seemed to have passed, and he was once again a part of the conversation.

“Are you going to leave town?” Hakoda persisted. The disfigured teenager didn’t answer immediately, deliberating over his response. He made eye contact with Aang momentarily, calculating, and then returned his worried gaze to Hakoda. Finally, he reached his conclusion.

“No,” he said at last. “There’s some stuff I need to take care of before I take of before I go.”

Aang felt a rush of relief. Zuko was staying in town, at least for a while. He was glad, not just because he was worried about the other boy, but because it meant he would have some one to turn to if his bending became a problem again. He suspected that was the very reason that Zuko had decided to stay, and it made him extremely grateful.

“It’s getting late,” Hakoda cast a meaningful look at the window. “It would be a bit ridiculous to make you set up camp in the dark when we have a room set up here.”

Zuko faltered, and Sokka took the opportunity to step in.

“And you’ve still got to work on that project with me, man. I don’t want to have to go looking for you in the woods every time I want you to get something done.”

Aang caught on, and joined in. “That’s not due for a few weeks, right? It’ll probably take a while, so it’d be easier if you stay until it’s done.”

“Err…” Zuko floundered around for some excuse not to stay, unaccustomed to the family’s almost forcible hospitality. He cast a desperate look at Katara, eyes pleading, as if begging her to reject him.

“You aren’t going to blow anything else up are you?” she asked bluntly.

“No!” Zuko squawked indignantly, betraying himself. “I mean-”

“I guess it’s alright, then, since everyone else is okay with it,” said Katara, crossing her arms in resignation.

Hakoda nodded in approval. “Then it’s settled. You can stay with us for a few weeks, and see how you like it.”

Aang remembered when he had first come to live with the Arnaaluks. Back then, he had thought that he would only be staying for a short time as well, and now his residence had been extended indefinitely. He couldn’t help a victorious smile, and grinned at Zuko encouragingly.

The teenager deflated.

“Can we not mention anything about bending to any one else, though?” he said pleadingly. “I know we’re going to be living together but-”

“Relax,” said Sokka. “Nobody is going to tell Gran.”

“She’d think we’re all crazy and she’d probably make us all drink prune juice.” Aang added, grimacing at the thought.

Catching Zuko’s baffled expression, Katara elaborated. “Gran-gran blames all strange behaviour on constipation.”

Aang bit back a laugh, watching as Zuko’s discomfort escalated to whole new level. He didn’t need mindreading to know that the scarred boy was wondering what he had just gotten himself into.

Much to Aang’s surprise, the remainder of the evening passed uneventfully. Kana wasted no time in putting all of the children to work cleaning up the mess from Katara’s fire extinguisher and the exploded ceiling lights. Zuko, clearly haggard, was given an exemption from chores that evening. The teenager only stayed up long enough for Kana to find some lotion for his cold burns, and then retreated to his new room shortly afterwards.

Aang, still charged with nervous energy, could barely believe that Zuko would turn in so early in the evening, but he knew it shouldn’t have surprised him. Given the scarred teenager’s lifestyle, Zuko’s sleep schedule was probably dependent on the availability of natural light, anyways.

The Arnaaluk siblings spent the rest of the night in the living room, piled onto the battered couch with their foster brother. It wasn’t a school night, so the three of them stayed up late with the television on, discussing what had happened.

Both of the siblings were nervous about having Zuko in the house. Sokka was primarily concerned about what would happen if one of the fugitive boy’s enemies discovered that they were sheltering him, but Katara felt that it was Zuko himself who presented the biggest threat.

“It’s a miracle that nobody was hurt before,” she told the boys, sitting stiffly with her arms crossed. “What if he freaks out again? We have no idea what could set him off!”

“I know,” Aang had to agree with her. “But I don’t think that he would hurt any of us on purpose. Sometimes it’s hard to…”

Sokka gave Aang a meaningful look, reminding him not to say too much.

Aang still hadn’t told Katara that he was able to use bending himself, and while a part of him wanted to share the whole story with her, he was still mortified by his unexpected dip into her daydreams earlier that evening. It would be difficult to admit that he could read minds without letting her know that he had read hers, and he didn’t know how to explain his abilities without giving away somebody else’s secrets. The fact that she was suspicious of Zuko only provided Aang with more discouragement.

“I’m worried about dad, too,” Katara said quietly, interrupting the lull in conversation that Aang had caused. Sokka nodded.

“Me too,” the teenager agreed. “For a minute I thought he was going to have another episode or something.”

“What do you mean?” Aang asked them. It was the first he had heard of anything like this.

Katara hugged her knees to her chest. “It was a while after mom died,” she said. “Dad was out of town for a few days, but he didn’t come home when he was supposed to. They found him on the side of the highway the next morning with no memory of who he was or how he got there. He mostly got his memory back after a couple of days, but it was really scary at the time.”

“He never did remember what happened to the car, though,” Sokka said sadly. Aang knew how much his foster brother liked machines, and guessed that the older boy had probably been rather attached to his father’s old vehicle.

“I didn’t know,” said Aang. He was surprised that he hadn’t heard about it earlier.

“We were still living in the States, then, because of mom’s old job, but after the incident Gran pretty much forced dad to come home,” Sokka explained. “We tried to keep it kind of quiet. A history of mental illness isn’t really something you want to advertise if you make your living as police officer, you know?”

“Bumi knows, of course. He’s fine with it,” Katara said quickly, referring to the town people’s nickname for Omashu’s chief of police, Officer Bumingdale.

It was difficult to imagine Bumi criticising anyone for being mentally unstable. The chief was a character, to put it lightly, and Aang couldn’t fathom how he’d managed to obtain a position of such responsibility. The last time Bumingdale had spoken to Aang, it had been to chastise him for staying sober at a school charity event.

“I understand,” Aang told the siblings genuinely. He could respect the fact that Hakoda didn’t want the whole town to know about his breakdown. Rumours spread quickly in a place like Omashu, and someone like Mrs. Beifong would inevitably blow the whole thing way out of proportion when they learned what happened.

The young bender understood something else as well. Earlier that evening when he had heard Hakoda’s thoughts, he had felt as if the man’s mind had closed itself. Now he realized that he had encountered some sort of mental block, one which was still keeping his friends’ father from remembering an event in the past. Aang wasn’t sure how much trust he had in his abilities, but he couldn’t help feeling a bit of excitement at the prospect that maybe he could use bending to find out what had really happened.

When the two Inuit children finally put themselves to bed, Aang didn’t know what to do with himself. His body was tired but his mind was still buzzing and fully alert. Eventually, he decided to get changed and get ready for bed. He knew that he would just end up staring at the ceiling, but he was already doing that on the living room couch. At least this way he would be comfortable.

He had just finished up in the bathroom and was on his way to meet his unavoidable fate when he passed by the ladder to Zuko’s room, and he was suddenly struck by an intense sensation of anxiety and guilt. It wasn’t as intense as any of the feelings and thoughts that he had experienced in previous fits of accidental bending, but Aang knew that he was sensing the emotions of the teenager upstairs.

Instinctively he began to climb to the attic, but froze with his foot on the bottom step when he realized how rude it would be to burst into the guest room without warning. When he thought about it, he had no way of even knowing if Zuko was awake or asleep. It was incredibly invasive, really, to go up there in the wee hours of the morning and start probing the older boy with questions about what was bothering him. What business did he have, monitoring everybody’s feelings when they were supposed to be alone?

Instead of confronting Zuko, Aang forced himself to return to his room. Sokka was already fast asleep, snoring loudly, ignorant of his foster brother’s entrance. In his room, Aang could no longer sense Zuko’s turbulent emotions. He decided to meditate again, just to be safe, and took a seat on the edge of his mattress, folding his legs underneath him with a deep breath.

He tried to recall the peace and tranquility that he had achieved before, but he was overtired and Sokka’s loud snores made it even more difficult to concentrate. After a good fifteen minutes of trying to visualize various objects around the room without looking at them, Aang finally gave up, flopping down onto the bed.

Too tired to meditate, not tired enough to sleep. The young bender’s mind went in nervous circles. What if he lost control again? Zuko would certainly know if Aang was unable to stop bending, and it was bound to make him uncomfortable. It would make everyone uncomfortable.

Aang’s worry doubled when he started to wonder whether or not he was really anxious or his feelings were simply a reflection of Zuko’s. He could be bending right now, without knowing it.

At three thirty in the morning, he was still awake. He gave up on sleep and started wandering around the house in aimless circles. In the kitchen he poured himself a glass of water, and in the living room he watched a television program that he really had no interest in until his eyes stung so much that he couldn’t look at the screen anymore. He returned to the bathroom and brushed his teeth a second time, unable to think of anything else to do with himself. It was in the bathroom that the twelve-year-old’s eyes settled on the medicine cabinet.

At first, he thought that he would try to knock himself out with a bit of night time cold syrup, but when Aang started sifting through the contents of Kana’s expansive first-aid kit, a box with a cloudy night sky on it caught his attention. It was marked as a sleeping aid.

Aang wondered if the Arnaaluk’s would notice if any of their medication vanishing out of the cabinet. It was unlikely.

The directions on the back indicated a recommended dose of two tablets, but Aang decided to play it safe and only take one. He didn’t usually have bad reactions to anything, but the pills were intended for adults, which Aang was not.

After taking the pill, Aang crept back to his room and lay down. He didn’t expect it to kick in right away, but after a while he started to give up on falling asleep, and allowed himself a bit of self pity.

He missed Gyatso. When he had been very young, the old man had taken Aang on a long drives in the car whenever he couldn’t fall asleep. Gyatso was usually very conscious about protecting the environment, but Aang found nothing more soothing than the warmth and vibrations of a vehicle in motion. They had done it many times when Aang had been in the process of adjusting to life with his new guardian, when the pain of losing his parents had been the most acute. These thoughts led Aang to wonder where his old guardian was and what he was doing. He was still thinking about it when the sleeping pill he had taken started to work its magic.

Aang didn’t notice falling asleep. His dreams were dizzy and turbulent. In one of them, he was stretching himself out as far out as he could go, reaching for something far away. Something was out there, warm and familiar. Disoriented, Aang extended himself towards it, desperately searching for something to anchor himself with.

He missed.

His grasp settled around something cold and unpleasant.

He knew immediately that he had made a terrible mistake, but he also felt certain that the thing he was searching for was nearby. He was stretched so thin that if he let go, he would certainly snap back to where he was, like a broken rubber band, so he held fast.

Almost six hundred kilometres away, Azula tore her attention away from her glossy red nail polish and wondered, for the briefest of moments, if she had sensed someone bending.

(A/N: Let this be a lesson to you, kiddies. Don't do drugs.)