Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"First came the fire

then came the smoke.

We choked

on it for weeks.

We were no longer flying,

we were just being pulled by the wind.

Living can feel like endless dying,

when laughter turns into darkening din.

Instead of breathing,

our lungs were just taking in air.

We weren’t living,

we were just there."

- me, lol

“Sokka! Sokka, come back here!”

Sokka laughs freely, sprinting down the hallway. He turns his head back every once in a while to catch a glimpse of the man behind him, who’s running as fast as he can, making grabby hands at the scrolls in Sokka’s arms.

“Catch me if you can!” Sokka calls back at him, turning the corner out into the courtyard. He runs down the grassy hills until he reaches the turtleduck pond, then stands on the shore and extends his arm out as far over the water as it can go, the scrolls still clutched tightly in his grip. 

The other man seems to have finally caught up to him, now that Sokka’s stopped running, and he stoops over with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. “I thought you were supposed to be athletic?” Sokka teases. “Or, is all of that paper-pushing Firelord stuff making you lose your touch?”

The man glares at him, but Sokka knows it’s not malicious. “Sokka, please,” he tries, reaching out for the scrolls in Sokka’s hands. “C’mon, I just need those notes so I can finalize my documents, and then we can hang out in the gardens as much as you want. Please?”

“No way!” Sokka insists, leaning further over the pond. “You’ve been working all day, just take a break. Please?” he asks, “For me?” When that doesn’t work, Sokka huffs out a sigh. It’s time to pull out the big guns. “Please, sweetheart?”

He turns toward the man, who seems to have finally given up. He’s standing upright now, his breath caught, and Sokka can see the scar on his face and the crown in his long, black hair. His robes are lightweight and red, and he’s smiling softly, all previous annoyance melted away from his expression. 

“Fine,” he says, and Sokka cheers. He sets down the scrolls on a boulder and reaches out towards the other man, grabbing onto the front of his robes. Sokka hauls him in for a kiss, and it’s sweet and soft for a moment, before he loses his balance and they both fall into the pond. 

On shore, the scrolls sit dry and crisp, ready for use. But in the pond, Sokka and his soulmate are laughing and smiling, and Sokka can just barely see a flash of blue under the collar of the other man’s red robes, before everything goes black.

~~~

Sokka awakes panting, grasping at his bedroll as if it’ll keep him chained to the ground. That was it, then, his first soulmate dream.

Sokka knows the stories, of course. His parents told him and Katara their own tale plenty of times. After you meet your soulmate for the first time, you’ll start having glimpses of your future with them, as seen through your future self’s eyes. For Hakoda and Kya, the dreams started when they were young, but they didn’t start dating until they were teenagers. Sokka knows that Katara and Aang had their first dreams just yesterday, after they pulled the Avatar from an iceberg.

And now, Sokka’s had his own. There, in his dream, was Prince Jerkface, laughing and smiling and splashing around in a turtleduck pond. 

Fuck this, Sokka thinks, fuck me.

~~~

Why can’t Suki be his soulmate?

She’s perfect. She’s everything that Sokka could’ve ever wanted. Strong, beautiful, willing to kick his ass. But one night, they lay on the beach under the stars, and they talk about soulmates, and Sokka hates that their dreams don’t line up.

“It was,” Suki starts, picking up a handful of sand, “a few years ago, that I had my first one. This rich family visited the island, I think the dad was a merchant, or something like that. They had a daughter. She was blind, so her parents wouldn’t let her come to any of the training classes, but she loved the warriors and the fans. She’s three years younger than me, I think.”

“And that night, after you met her?” Sokka prompts.

“I had my first dream.”

Sokka swallows, ignoring the prickling behind his eyes. Suki gets a girl who’s sweet and blind and who loves the warriors, someone with rich parents who let her travel the world. Sokka gets the Fire Prince.

“Will you tell me about your future?” he asks. “Is- is that okay? Back home, everybody talks about their futures, I don’t know what it’s like here.”

“Yeah,” Suki says, “I’ll tell you.”

They have two daughters, she explains, Lin and Suyin. At some point, their daughters have a big falling out, but they figure it out eventually. Suyin marries an architect named Bataar and has a boatload of kids, and Lin goes on to be chief of police in some city that doesn’t exist yet, and she falls in love with a waterbender named-

“Wait,” Sokka interrupts, “what did you say the waterbender’s name was?”

“Kya,” Suki says softly. “I- the girls were only in a couple of dreams, and the one with their kids and family was Lin’s wedding.”

“My mother’s name was Kya,” Sokka says softly.

“Was?” Suki asks. Her eyes are wide, and she reaches out across the sand to take Sokka’s hand into her’s. He nods. “Oh, Sokka.”

“It’s fine,” Sokka sniffs. “Tell me more.”

Suki talks about a future revival of the Kyoshi Warriors, how they get back to where they once were, peace with the Fire Nation, and so many other things that seem unachievable. “I- I think we’ll win the war,” she says at some point, and Sokka almost laughs. 

“Tell me about your future,” Suki asks after a while. Sokka shakes his head. 

“They’re not from the South,” he tells her. “I just met them a few weeks ago, I’ve only had one dream.”

Suki nods her understanding, and they fall back to silence. For a few minutes, everything is calm, and the only noises are the crashing of the waves and the rustling of leaves. Then, Sokka says, “What’s your soulmate’s name?”

“Toph Beifong,” Suki tells him, and they leave it at that. 

~~~

When King Crazy of Omashu finally reveals his real name to them, Sokka hears Katara swear under her breath. Aang and Bumi are busy having their own little reunion after a century apart, so Sokka grabs onto his sister’s wrist and drags her off to the side.

“What is it?” he whispers. “What’s wrong?” Both of them are still stiff from being stuck inside those crystals all day, but Sokka can tell that the twisting of Katara’s fingers is from nerves, not stiffness.

“It’s-” she takes a breath and breaks off, staring down at her shoes. “Bumi,” she says finally. “That name. I- I’ve heard it before.”

“Really?” Sokka asks, immediately on edge. “Where? Is he trouble?”

“No, no, not like that,” Katara clarifies, glancing over Sokka’s shoulder to where Aang and Bumi are. “It- I heard it in a dream. A soulmate dream.”

Oh. As close as they are, Sokka and Katara try not to talk about soulmates. It’s been a touchy subject ever since their mother died, when their father started having dreams about a future with Bato. Despite the fact that Sokka knows that Katara and Aang are soulmates, neither of them know about Prince Angry Jerk, and he’d like to keep it that way, thank you very much. 

“Was Crazy King Bumi in your soulmate dream?” Sokka asks, perplexed.

“No, he wasn’t,” Katara huffs. “It was a baby’s name. My baby’s name.”

Sokka swallows. For whatever reason, that makes everything so much more real. At some point, hopefully far, far in the future, Aang and Katara will have a baby named Bumi. Sokka thinks about Fire Jerk, and about having a baby with him, then shakes the thought out of his head. 

“I’ll bet your baby will have better hair than this guy,” he jokes, knocking Katara’s shoulder with his own. The humor lightens the mood, and all thoughts of soulmates go out the window, at least for the moment.

~~~

Sokka is awoken by the sound of quiet whimpering beside him. He’s always been a light sleeper, and now he sits up and turns over, frowning softly at the sight that greets him. Zuko is swathed in moonlight, writhing and twisting in his sleep, his face contorted into a grimace. To Sokka, he looks beautiful, even like this. 

“F-Father, please,” Zuko whimpers. Sokka’s heart breaks, just a little.

“Zuko,” he says softly, leaning down so that his breath tickles Zuko’s ear. “Zuko, sweetheart, wake up. It’s just a dream.”

Zuko awakens with a small shout, jolting up so fast that he nearly slams his nose into Sokka’s. Sokka gently pushes him back onto the mattress, then lays down and hauls Zuko into his side, his head pillowed right atop Sokka’s heart. Zuko’s tears stream down his face and slide off of Sokka’s chest, and Sokka rubs his back as he sobs, whispering soothing things into his ears. Eventually, Zuko’s sobs taper off into little whimpers, then snores.

Sokka falls asleep with a weight on his chest, but it’s comforting, not suffocating.

~~~

“You don’t have to do this,” Sokka says suddenly, trying his best to twist his neck and look at Zuko, but also keep his voice down.

“You don’t know that!” Zuko spits. “You don’t know anything!” 

“I certainly know more than you’d like me to,” Sokka says. He thinks back to his dream from last night, where Future Sokka had comforted Future Zuko after a nightmare. Father, he’d said. What in the world would Zuko’s nightmares have to do with the Firelord?

Sokka tugs listlessly at the chains that hold him to the pillar. Aang and Katara are still tied up, and the volcano is erupting, and everything is going wrong. There’s a comet that’s coming at the end of the summer, and they’ve only got less than a year to train Aang to take down the Firelord.

“He’s just your father, Zuko,” Sokka tries. Zuko’s face pales, making his scar stand out even more, and Sokka subconsciously notices that it somewhat resembles a hand. “He doesn’t have to control you.”

~~~

Where the hell did this guy get a giant poisonous rat?

Sokka dodges another strike of the shirshu’s tongue, glaring at Prince Zuko. Zuko. The name rolls around in his mind, settling there like a puzzle piece. Sokka shoves the thought away and glares harder, striking out with his club.

“Tui and La, why are you doing this?” he groans, ducking away from a stripe of fire. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Zuko spits, punching out more flames. 

“Oh,” Sokka says, “I’m sure I’ll know eventually. You know, in the future.”

For a moment, flames stop pouring from Zuko’s hands. This is the first time that they’ve acknowledged it, and the first time that Sokka’s ever said anything about it out loud, despite the fact that he’s spent many a sleepless night antagonizing over it mentally. The world seems to freeze, every noise muffled and far away as Sokka’s blue eyes meet Zuko’s gold.

The prince growls, and everything snaps back into place. Fire lights up the abbey, and Sokka shakes his head at himself, frowning. There’s a war to fight, he reminds himself. We’re on opposite sides.

~~~

Yue is perfect and beautiful and lovely, and she’s also engaged. Her fiance is a douchebag, but Yue says that she has a duty to her tribe, and she’s been having soulmate dreams since the day she was born, so Sokka won’t mess with it. As much as he wishes something could happen, they’re here for a reason, and once Katara kicks Pakku’s ass and Aang takes his master’s exams, they’ll have to leave.

When Sokka asks Yue about her soulmate dreams, she smiles softly. “It’s complicated,” she explains, “but I think I’m meant to die.”

Sokka blinks at her. “What?”

“My soulmate is La,” Yue says, like it’s the most simple thing in the world. “I don’t know if that means I’ll be lonely forever, or maybe it means that I’ll die young and go to the Spirit World, but I’ve made my peace with it. I like to think it means I’m connected to Tui, because you know what they say, Tui and La, the original soulmates. I wouldn’t want to get in the way of all that.”

This conversation leaves Sokka baffled for much longer than he’d like to admit, but in the end it all makes sense. Yue isn’t connected to Tui, she is Tui. Or, maybe, Tui is in Yue. Whatever it is, Sokka knows it’s meant to be. 

~~~

Sokka will kill a group of singing nomads, but not until their torches burn out. If it happens in the dark, how will anybody know it was him?

For now, though, he’s got to bide his time. Chong and Lily, the husband and wife nomads, are telling Sokka their soulmate story through song, and he’s about to take one of those Spirits-damned torches and set himself on fire. Chong holds out one last low note, while Lily sings something ear-shatteringly high, and Moku, the other guy, strums a last chord on his instrument.

“That’s the end of the song bruh,” Chong says, turning to Sokka. “Didja like it?”

“Yeah, sure, it was wonderful,” Sokka mumbles, mentally reeling off every swear word he knows. 

“We’ve got another one, if you want,” Lily offers. “It’s a tragic tale, about Moku’s soulmate.”

“They’re Fire Nation dude,” Moku says. “That’s, like, scary.”

Sokka barks out a laugh, despite himself. “Oh, you think your Fire Nation soulmate is scary. I bet they’re- what, a commoner or a foot soldier, maybe. A General in the army, if you’ve got it really bad.”

“Misha,” Moku sighs, “she’s got a leather goods store in Caldera City that serves a few different corps in the army. Our future looks happy, but like, totally far away dude.”

“Hah!” Sokka says, “A leather worker! And you think that’s tragic. Guess who my Fire Nation soulmate is!”

“Oh, bruh, is it, like, the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation?” Chong asks, waving his hands. Sokka’s jaw drops.

“How the hell did you get that?” he stammers. 

“Just good guessin’, I guess,” Chong says. “Y’know guys,” he goes on, turning towards Lily and Moku as he starts to walk backwards, “I think we could freestyle a song about that.”

“Oh, totally!” Lily agrees.

“Rock on, dude,” Moku says, already pulling his instrument back around his front. Chong hums a note, and Sokka gives into the urge to smack his hand to his forehead once more.

~~~

The doors to the study burst open, and all that Sokka can see over his desk is a head of unruly, black hair. He grins anyways, and turns his chair to the side so that he’s prepped and ready for when an energetic five year old catapults herself onto his lap, and when she does so Sokka catches her readily, wrapping his arms around her small frame.

“Daddy!” she squeals, “I missed you so much!”

“I missed you too, Princess,” Sokka says, pressing little kisses to her soft hair. She’s too young to wear the headpiece of the Crown Princess, and Sokka thinks that maybe she never will, if Zuko gets his way. But, for now, he still has to kiss around the miniscule topknot that half of her hair is pulled into, as well as all of the little braids that he likes to hide there. From the doorframe, someone chuckles. 

“Hello to you too, darling,” Sokka says without looking up, smiling as he hears the rustling of Zuko’s many robes and feels a kiss being pressed against his cheek. 

“Papa,” the girl in his lap says, “tell Daddy what we did today!”

Zuko straightens up from where he was pressing a kiss to their daughter’s cheek and grins at Sokka, looking proud of himself and unfairly handsome. “Well,” he says, “Izumi and I decided to ditch the Ministers of Agriculture and have a picnic by the turtleduck pond instead. We were wondering if you’d maybe like to join us?”

A grin lights up on Sokka’s face to mirror Zuko’s, and he squeezes Izumi even tighter. “Of course I would!” he exclaims, standing from his chair and shifting Izumi so that she’s perched on his hip. “Do we need to go to the kitchens to get food, or no?”

“Suki is making us a basket right now,” Zuko tells him, and they start to walk hand in hand down the palace hallways. Sokka is almost a hundred percent sure that Izumi should technically be with her tutors right now, but she’s five years old and he’s willing to cut her some slack. As for the Ministers of Agriculture and the documents sitting on Sokka’s desk, well… they can wait. 

For now, they get to be a family.

~~~

Sokka awakes silently gasping for air, just as he always does when he has soulmate dreams. It baffles him, the way that his future with Zuko seems so picturesque, and now…

They have a daughter? 

Izumi. The name fits like another puzzle piece in Sokka’s mind, just like Zuko’s did however many months ago. He mentioned Suki in the dream, so that must mean that they meet again at some point, right? Or is it maybe another Suki that Sokka hasn’t met yet.

Agni, his head hurts. It’s still the middle of the night, but Sokka knows he won’t go back to sleep, so he shimmies out of his sleeping bag and makes his way towards the edge of the cliff that they’re camping on, letting his legs dangle over the side. It’s not really much of a cliff, maybe ten or fifteen feet above the ground, but the feeling of his legs swinging there, nothing but air beneath them, still makes his heart pound.

They left the North nearly two weeks ago, and they still haven’t found Aang’s earthbending teacher. For whatever reason, Suki’s soulmate keeps popping into Sokka’s mind, and her name in particular. Toph Beifong. If she’s three years younger than Suki, that means she’s Aang’s age, so it makes no sense for her to be a master already. Although, Aang mastered airbending when he was twelve, so maybe it’s not too far off. 

For whatever reason, tonight’s soulmate dream has thrown Sokka off. Is it the kid? Is it someone named Suki being mentioned? Is it the way that Zuko smiled, so carefree and light, or maybe the way that Sokka smiled back?

Tui and La, this is stupid. Why can’t his soulmate be someone else, anyone else? Katara and Aang get each other, a match made in the Spirit World that seems perfect on earth. Even though they haven’t really talked about it, Sokka can tell that they’re both crushing on each other, and it’s bound to happen eventually.

“Yue, why do they get each other and I get Prince Angry Jerk?” he asks, leaning back so that his legs are still dangling over the cliff but he’s staring up at the sky.

Surprisingly enough, the moon says nothing back. Sokka groans, and decides to try in vain to go back to sleep.

~~~

Toph Beifong is Aang’s earthbending teacher.

Toph Beifong is Suki’s soulmate.

Toph Beifong is twelve years old and a chisel that takes off years of Sokka’s life, but he already loves her with every fibre of his being.

~~~

Somehow, Sokka’s stupid, firebending, jerkhole of a soulmate has an even worse sister. 

Azula’s crazy, and she shoots Old Man McTea with lightning, which, holy shit, firebenders can do that? Zuko, who has apparently been separated from his uncle and finally gotten a better haircut, looks half out of his mind when Iroh goes down, but he gets even more crazed when Katara approaches to try and heal him.

“No!” Zuko screams, “Get away from him! We don’t need your help!”

“Zuko, I can heal him,” Katara insists. Sokka wants to tell her to back off, to let him handle this, because the stupid Spirits have made it so that Sokka knows that Zuko turns to anger when he’s scared.

“We don’t need your healing,” Zuko spits, and Katara takes a hesitant step back. Zuko looks like an animal, half crazed, and Sokka hates himself for it but he takes a step towards him anyways. The prince- is he even a prince anymore? Sokka knows he becomes Firelord one day, but the Earth Kingdom robes he’s got on say differently- snarls significantly less at Sokka, and his hands don’t light up with flames, so Sokka takes that as a win. 

“Zuko,” he says softly, quietly, the way that he might talk to a sick kid or a wounded animal, “please, just let her help. She’s a healer, she can use waterbending, she won’t hurt him. Katara knows what she’s doing.”

“We’re enemies,” Zuko says, but he sounds a little frantic now, like he’s trying to convince himself that he’s fighting for the right cause. “I- of course she’ll hurt him. We’re enemies, enemies hurt each other.”

“We won’t always be enemies,” Sokka insists, his voice still low and gentle. “C’mon, you know that just as much as I do. Let her heal him, and then we’ll get out of your hair.”

Zuko swallows, and Sokka can practically see the way that his resolve cracks. “Fine,” he says after a moment, turning towards Katara. “You can heal him.”

“Thank you,” Katara says, already rushing over to Iroh’s side. She uncaps her waterskin and coats her hands, then holds them down on Iroh’s burnt skin as they start to glow. Aang watches her with unrestrained wonder, and Toph has her toes pointed toward them with a smirk on her face. Zuko watches as Katara knits Iroh’s skin back together, silently gravitating towards Sokka’s side.

“She’s good,” Sokka insists quietly, hopefully in a tone that only Zuko can hear. “Your uncle will be fine, I promise.”

Zuko nods, crossing his arms against his chest. “I’ve seen her do it, once,” he murmurs, “in a dream, I mean. I just don’t trust her.”

“I know,” Sokka agrees, “we don’t trust you either.”

Zuko nods, and they wait for Katara to finish in silence. 

~~~

Ba Sing Se is a shit show. Sokka knows this, and he thinks he’s always known this, but it’s more of a mess than he ever could’ve imagined. No war in Ba Sing Se my ass, he thinks as he walks down a Middle Ring street and sees a Dai Lee agent prowling around. He hasn’t been sleeping well, riddled with nightmares and soulmate dreams alike, and he’s practically dead on his feet as he walks through the market.

The last time they saw Zuko was when Katara healed his uncle, and Sokka will be damned, but he’s getting worried. After spending so long looking over his shoulder for the prince, spending a near month without seeing him is slightly unnerving. 

Aang earthbending his going well, at least, and his waterbending is coming along nicely too. Unfortunately for Sokka, Ba Sing Se is a city, and cities tend to lack open spaces in which he can throw a boomerang. He’s getting antsy, and all of the bending mumbo-jumbo happening around him makes it that much worse.

Once, in a dream, he and Zuko were sparring with swords. Sokka thinks about that now, and wonders when he’ll learn to use a sword. Is it Zuko that will teach him? Sokka’s least favorite thing about soulmate dreams is knowing that something will happen, but never knowing how or when.

He falls in love with Zuko, at some point in his life, but why?

~~~

Azula shows up, and everything goes to hell.

Zuko and Katara have been in prison together, apparently, and Aang looks like he’s thinking about going into the Avatar state, and Sokka can finally throw a boomerang but it’s not enough. The Dai Lee are on Azula’s side, and she and Iroh are both yelling at Zuko, so Sokka figures he might as well hop on that trend too.

“What are you even doing?” he asks, desperate and aching and so, so confused. Zuko whips around to face him, eyes wide, and Sokka thinks he maybe wants to cry. 

“I don’t know!” Zuko yells back, “Agni, do I look like I would know?”

“You shouldn’t have to!” Sokka insists. “You’re seventeen, you’re just a kid! C’mon, Zuko, you’ve seen the future! What the hell are you gonna do to get there?”

“Zuko, please-” Iroh calls, but his nephew cuts him off by throwing a fireball at Azula’s chest. Sokka gapes at him, and Zuko grins crookedly at him as he starts throwing fire at the Dai Lee. 

“What are you standing there for?” Zuko calls, out of breath. “C’mon, throw your boomerang or something. I know it hurts!”

Finally, Sokka grins back and does just as he says. As Boomerang soars overhead and into the crow of Dai Lee agents, Aang goes into the Avatar state and Katara starts pulling from the waterfall. Azula growls at her brother, looking unhinged, and kicks out a round of blue fire.

“I should’ve known you’d be a traitor, Zuzu!” she snarls. “Disgracing your country, for what? A Water Tribe peasant?”

Sokka wants to take offence to that, but there’s no time. “It’s not for him!” Zuko yells back, sweeping his arms apart from one another to dissolve Azula’s fire. Sokka can see the way that sweat beads down his face, and he can’t even imagine how oppressive the heat must be. “It’s for the future, Azula!” Zuko goes on. “Don’t you care about that?”

“There’s no reason to care about my future if I can’t see it!” Azula cackles, winding her hands up in a way that’s horrifyingly familiar. 

“Katara!” Sokka calls desperately, “Aang, he needs to get out of the Avatar state, please-”

There’s lightning in the air, and then Zuko’s throwing himself at his sister, and instead of hitting Aang in the chest like Azula intended it to, the lightning hits him in the leg. He falls out of the air anyways, but Katara’s there to catch him, and when they emerge from the water he can see that they’re both breathing.

“Sokka, what-” Toph starts, panting from exhaustion as she kicks slabs of rock towards the Dai Lee.

“It was Zuko,” Sokka says, partly to Toph and partly to himself. His soulmate and Iroh are both surrounded by Dai Lee, and they’re fighting as hard as they can but Sokka knows it’s a lost cause. 

“Sokka, Toph!” Katara yells, tearful and frightened. “We need to get out of here, now!” 

Toph immediately starts running towards her, but Sokka hesitates, looking back at Zuko and Iroh. Zuko catches his eye and tries to muster up a smile. 

“It’ll all turn out okay in the end, right?” he calls, dodging a punch. “Go without us, we’ll be okay!”

Before Sokka can respond, Toph grabs onto his arm and uses the earth to propel them into the waterfall. Katara catches them and then they’re going up, up, out of the catacombs and away from the Dai Lee, but also away from Zuko, who just put his entire life at risk to save them. 

What if this changes the future? Sokka thinks desperately. What’s going to happen now? 

~~~

Chapter Text

"i wish for your voice to fill the silence.

i wish for your fingers to fill the spaces between mine.

i wish for your head to be on my shoulder,

although i’ve never felt it there before.

i see you in every dream

yet when i wake you’re never there.

please, my darling,

make my wish come true."

- me again, babey

Zuko’s shaking, and Sokka doesn’t like it.

He closes the door to their bedroom softly, because most of the time Zuko can handle noises like that, but sometimes they make him jump. Today seems to be a ‘sometime’. Zuko’s sitting at the vanity, staring down at his hands, dressed down in a pair of loose trousers and a sleeveless red tunic. His hair is down, laying like a curtain over his back, and even from across the room, Sokka can see how his shoulders are trembling.

“Zuko?” he asks cautiously, stepping across the room in a way that he knows will allow Zuko to hear his footsteps. His boyfriend makes a quiet noise of acknowledgement, but doesn’t look up. “Sweetheart, are you with me? Are you here?”

“‘M here,” Zuko mumbles. 

“Did something happen?” Sokka asks, approaching on his right. Usually, he’s on Zuko’s left, in his blindspot, but sometimes it’s better if Zuko can both hear and see him fully. 

“No,” Zuko croaks, twisting his hands together in his lap.

“Did someone say something?” Sokka asks, kneeling down beside Zuko and wincing when Zuko flinches at the sound of his knees popping. 

This time, Zuko nods. Sokka’s hand makes it’s way to his knee and squeezes, encouraging. “We were talking about prison reform,” Zuko says after a moment. “Just the usual council, the advisors though, not the ambassadors. I- I was giving my proposal, about community service and re-entry programs, y’know, what we talked about.”

“Yeah, sweetheart, I know,” Sokka says softly, moving his hand from Zuko’s knee to soothe up and down his bare arm. 

“So I- I finished the presentation and then opened the room up for discussion,” Zuko goes on, “and part of the presentation was getting rid of the branding system.”

“Of course, love,” Sokka whispers, letting Zuko lean into him as he starts to shiver. 

“But Advisor Chee, he just- he wouldn’t let it go,” Zuko breathes. “I don’t even know why. I kept- I kept insisting that the branding system had to go, and all of the other Advisors agreed with me, but Chee just refused. We argued about it for so long that I just had to end the meeting without coming to a conclusion.”

Sokka hums, pressing a kiss to Zuko’s unscarred cheek. He knows how much Zuko hates leaving things unfinished, and he knows how Zuko hates talking about the branding system even more. 

“Would you like me to put some salve on your scar?” Sokka asks gently, tucking Zuko’s hair behind his ear. 

“Yeah,” Zuko whispers. “That’d be nice.”

Sokka kisses his cheek once more, then gets up from his kneeling position to gather the salve and a leather tie from the bathroom. He comes back to the bedroom and settles behind Zuko’s back, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. 

“I’m gonna braid your hair first, okay?” Sokka says. Zuko nods in return. Sokka loses himself in the methodic weaving of strands, curling the braid around the side of Zuko’s head so that it falls neatly over his shoulder. He grabs the tin of salve and pops off the cap, gathers some up on his fingers and brushes a few baby hairs away before he starts spreading salve along the scar at the back of Zuko’s neck.

Sokka knows that this will be the scar that haunts him for the rest of his life. Not the handprint-shaped one on Zuko’s face, or the sunburst on his chest, but the characters that were burned into Zuko’s skin when he was only seventeen, and that are there practically because of Sokka. As he rubs the cool salve into the rough skin, the phrase that’s branded there repeats itself over and over in his head.

Royal Caldera Prison: Marked for Execution.

~~~

For the first time, Sokka awakes from a soulmate dream shaking with fear, not anger. The images from the dream are still flashing in his mind; the brand across Zuko’s skin floats in front of his vision like it’s tattooed across Sokka’s eyelids, red scar tissue striking against pale skin. Sokka curses under his breath and gets up out of his bunk, opening and closing the door softly, so as not to wake Katara. He makes his way out onto the deck of the ship and starts pacing, twisting his hands together.

“What the hell are you doing up?”

Sokka whips around to see Bato leaning against the mast of the ship, his arms crossed over his chest. He finds himself mirroring Bato’s position against the edge of the boat, clenching and unclenching his fists. 

“Couldn’t sleep,” Sokka says roughly. 

“Nightmares?” Bato guesses. Sokka shakes his head. “Soulmate dreams?” Bato tries again. This time, Sokka winces and nods.

“Just- have you ever felt like something you saw in a dream was your fault?” In theory, it should be weird to talk to his father’s soulmate about this, but Sokka is well past the point of caring about that. “Like, something that you did in the present will come to affect your soulmate in the future?”

“Of course,” Bato says, chuckling slightly. “You know, I’m actually the one that introduced your parents. Kya was in line to be Chief of the village, and your Gran Gran on her side was a good friend of my father’s, so we were pretty close growing up. The night after I introduced them, I had a dream of myself and your father at their wedding.”

“Oh,” Sokka whispers. “I’m sorry.”

“What do you have to be sorry for?” Bato asks. “It’s not your fault. The Spirits had a plan for me, it was just a little bit complicated. They have a plan for you too, Sokka.”

Sokka nods. He takes a deep breath, then exhales. “Okay,” he says, “here’s the thing. Do you remember that crazy Fire Prince who attacked us at the abbey with a shirshu and then sacrificed himself for us in Ba Sing Se?”

“Of course I do,” Bato says, “how could I forget him?”

“Yeah,” Sokka sighs. “So, it’s him. My soulmate. Prince Zuko.”

Bato whistles under his breath. “Shit.”

“That about sums it up.”

“So you had a dream about something that happens to him?” Bato prompts after a moment. “And you feel like it’s your fault?”

“In the future,” Sokka says, “he has a scar. I mean, a different scar than the one he already has. It- it’s a prison brand. He gets marked for execution. And we- we’ve already looked it up, in the Fire Nation the only crime that legally gets you marked for execution is high treason against the Dragon Throne, which Zuko committed in Ba Sing Se. Because of me.”

Bato swears under his breath. “I… I don’t know what to tell you, kid,” he says, sounding sheepish. “But, take it from me, everything will turn out alright. You’re soulmates- it has to.”

~~~

Sokka hasn’t slept straight through the night since Ba Sing Se.

Sometimes, he’s up late planning, going over the schedule to make sure that everything’s in place. Other nights he has soulmate dreams and can’t fall back asleep afterwards because his head is spinning with thoughts of the future. Most nights, though, his sleep is plagued with nightmares.

He’s had nightmares before, of course. About Yue, and Aang, and Katara, and the day his mother died. Now, though, the main subject of his nightmares is Zuko.

That look on his face in Ba Sing Se, the sheepish, scared smile; it’ll stick with Sokka till the day he dies. There’s more, though, things that his subconscious makes up about what’s happening to Zuko in prison, the reasons that he will come to whimper Father, father, please, in his nightmares, and I am your loyal son. Most mornings, Sokka wakes before the sun rises, and most nights he stays up until the moon is high up in the sky.

It’s on one such morning that Sokka comes to wakefulness just before dawn, when the moon is still in the sky but the horizon is lightening at the edges. He sits up with a yawn and stretches, thinking about what he’ll do with his morning today, when quiet whimpering catches his attention from the other side of the camp.

Sokka whips his head towards the noise and frowns. It’s not Aang or Katara- both of them are still sleeping soundly, curled up on their bedrolls- which means it has to be Toph, but nightmares just aren’t like her. Sokka gets out of his bedroll and goes over to her rock tent, peeking into the entrance to see just what he expected: Toph, tucked up in her pile of blankets and pillows, twisting and grimacing as she sleeps.

“Toph,” Sokka whispers, carefully reaching into the tent and wrapping his hand around Toph’s ankle. “Toph, wake up.”

After a few more moments of coaxing, Toph shoots upright and promptly smacks her head on the top of her tent, swearing profusely. Sokka winces in sympathy. “Fucking- shit, Sokka, is that you?” Toph asks, still shaking from the nightmare and looking every bit of twelve years old.

“Yeah, it’s me,” Sokka says, squeezing where he’s still holding onto her ankle. “It’s nearly morning; why don’t you come sit with me outside?”

“I- okay,” Toph agrees, bending down the walls of her tent. They walk together to an empty part of the field they’re camping in, and Toph bends a bench out of the ground, made of packed dirt and pebbles. She flops down onto it tiredly, and Sokka does the same.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Sokka asks after a while, watching the sun break over the horizon.

“It was just a soulmate dream,” Toph sighs, leaning her head onto his shoulder.

“A bad one?”

“Kinda,” Toph says, “I dunno. Not really. I think we were fighting over something. Me and my soulmate. Our kids. We disagreed on something, and then she said that maybe I’d be a better mom if I could see my kids, and she apologized for it later, but I just- Sokka, I think she’s right.”

“What?” Sokka yelps, “Toph, no-”

“But I’ll never be a normal parent,” Toph insists. “I’ll never know what my kids look like, or their kids, or even what my soulmate looks like. It’s not fair, Sokka.”

Sokka can’t disagree with that. “I know you’ve probably heard this a million times,” he starts, “but nothing’s ever really fair.”

Toph just hums by his side, and they sit there until the sun is high in the sky and Aang begins to stir. Then, Toph bends the bench back into the ground without warning Sokka first, and he curses profusely at her while rubbing his tailbone.

~~~

Despite every bitter doubt floating around in Sokka’s mind, Master Piandao accepts him for training. 

The first day is brutal; Sokka spars with Fat again and again, until his entire body aches. He grips the wooden sword so tightly that it splinters in his hands, and it seems like every thirty seconds there’s something for Piandao to correct. Sokka is constantly on edge- what if they figure out who he is? What’s happening to his friends now that he’s gone?- but he keeps going, dodges Fat’s sword until the sun is setting, takes every one of Piandao’s criticisms in stride. 

“We will continue tomorrow with our training,” Piandao says, finally, when Sokka feels like he’s about to melt into a puddle on the ground. Sokka nods eagerly, glancing back at the Master as he goes to put his wooden sword away. “For now, though, we will eat dinner.”

The three of them walk in silence through the estate, and Fat holds the door open as Piandao leads Sokka into a kitchen. It’s large and clean, the workspace a gleaming silver, shiny pots and pans hanging over a four-burner stove. 

“We like to have our students help make all their own meals,” Piandao says, gesturing for Sokka to wash his hands. “Do you have much experience with cooking, Sokka?”

“Oh, yeah, I’ve got tons,” Sokka says, drying his hands on a towel. Fat passes him an apron and he ties it easily around his neck and waist.

“Really?” Piandao asks, sounding surprised. “Most of my students are almost entirely inexperienced.”

“My sister and I live on our own,” Sokka explains, taking the vegetables that he’s passed and starting to chop them. “Our mother died when we were young, and our father is fighting in the war, so the two of us have learned to be very self sufficient. Usually, I hunt and she cooks, but I cook plenty as well.”

“You’re from the colonies, you said?”

“Erm, yes,” Sokka mumbles, “definitely.”

They finish cooking the meal quickly, and as they sit down to eat Piandao says, “You mentioned your sister. Tell me about her.”

Sokka swallows the too-big bite of food he’d just taken and nods. “She’s two years younger than me, so, fourteen. She’s a bender, and she’s really good. There’s- there’s not much else that’s interesting about her.”

“Hmm,” Piandao hums. “Does she bend earth or fire? I know you said you’re from the colonies, so I figure it could be either.”

“...Earth,” Sokka says after a moment of hesitation. He’s sure that Katara wouldn’t appreciate being referred to as a firebender. 

“Interesting,” Piandao murmurs. Sokka has the acute feeling that he’s missing something.

~~~

They’re in Sokka’s favorite part of the palace gardens, sitting beneath the gnarled willow tree and watching the comings and goings of the turtleduck pond. Zuko’s splayed out on the ground beside him, head pillowed in Sokka’s lap, staring up at the swaying branches above them. The air is sticky with heat from the Fire Nation summer, and Sokka revels in the goosebumps that rise as he strokes his hand down Zuko’s bare arm.

“I got a letter from Piandao yesterday,” Zuko says suddenly. When Sokka glances down at him, he’s staring right back up, golden eyes glinting in the sunlight.

“Oh yeah?” Sokka asks. “What did he say?”

“Nothing much,” Zuko tells him. “Just the usual. He and Jeong Jeong are good, the school is thriving, and- oh! Do you remember Kira, that third year student who was really good?”

“Yeah,” Sokka says.

“Piandao’s taken her on as an apprentice!” Zuko says. “She’ll be the one to take over the estate and the school when he and Jeong Jeong are ready to retire. He’s teaching how to forge and shit- really cool stuff.”

“Oh, that’s awesome,” Sokka smiles, brushing a stray bit of hair out of Zuko’s face. “I met her soulmate once, I think his name was Lian. He’s a nice kid too, an earthbender.”

“They’ll be great replacements for Piandao and Jeong Jeong,” Zuko mumbles. Their conversation melts away as Zuko yawns and turns his face into Sokka’s stomach, all of a sudden weighed down by exhaustion. 

“You falling asleep on me, baby?” Sokka teases, weaving his fingers into Zuko’s hair. 

“Mm,” Zuko hums, “‘s so warm outside. Can you fuck with my hair some more? Feels nice.”

“Of course, baby,” Sokka says. “Of course.”

~~~

After their identities have been revealed, when Sokka’s packing his stuff up from the room that he was staying in, someone knocks on the door. He yells for them to come in, assuming it’s Toph or Aang, but when he looks up it’s Piandao, smiling slightly and leaning against the doorframe.

“Master,” Sokka says, bowing slightly. 

“Sokka,” Piandao says back. “I just wanted to congratulate you on your sword; it came out wonderfully. Most students of mine struggle with the forge much more than you did.”

“Thank you,” Sokka says, shoving the last of his clothing into his bag. Piandao gestures for them to start walking towards the front doors, and Sokka obligingly follows him out. “Master?” he asks after a few minutes, when the silence starts to feel heavy. Piandao nods in acknowledgment. “I was- I was wondering if you knew anything about Jeong Jeong the Deserter?”

Piandao freezes for a second, stops walking, before shaking his head slightly and continuing on. “When I was in the army,” he says, “Jeong Jeong and I were in the same corps. I chose not to continue with my army career after I had served the proper amount of years, but he went on. Why do you ask?”

“We met him, awhile back,” Sokka explains. “He tried to teach Aang firebending, but it didn’t go very well. I just-” he pauses, because it’s really not proper to say in a soulmate dream it sounded like you two were a Thing, “- I figured you might have known each other, that’s all.”

“We do,” Piandao tells him. “We did.”

~~~

“I miss sleep,” Aang groans. Appa groans alongside him, and Toph yells some sort of profanity from where she and Katara are sparring.

They’ve been at the rendezvous point for two days now, and Sokka’s pretty sure the four of them have gotten a collective ten hours of sleep. Four of those hours are Toph’s, three are Katara’s, two are Aang’s, and one single goddamn hour is Sokka’s.

For once, it’s not nightmares or soulmate dreams keeping him up, but nerves. He thinks about their failure in Ba Sing Se, and the brand on Zuko’s neck, and the look that Aang gets on his face when the airbenders come up. The warriors of the South make up almost half of their remaining tribe, and what if something goes wrong, what if people die, what if Sokka dies, or Katara, or Aang, or Toph, or-

Sokka yawns. “I miss sleep too,” he says, patting Aang’s shoulder in sympathy. “Although, I haven’t gotten good sleep in weeks. Soulmate dreams and nightmares are bitches.”

That catches Aang’s attention. “Sokka,” he says, looking up at him with big, grey eyes. “Isn’t- I thought soulmate dreams were supposed to be good. I don’t think I’d ever go to sleep if I thought I’d only have nightmares.”

“They’re not bad,” Sokka corrects, “they’re just confusing.”

“They’re… oh,” Aang whispers. “Is your soulmate Fire Nation?”

Just Fire Nation is an understatement, but Sokka doesn’t say that. “Yeah,” he tells Aang. They leave it at that.

~~~

It’s late. Too late for Sokka to be up, but he is anyway, sitting on the balcony and staring up at Yue. He still talks to her, sometimes, especially when he’s having a hard time, but tonight he’s just restless, unable to fall asleep.

The sound of footsteps on tile comes from behind him, and Sokka can’t help but smile. Those footsteps can only be coming from one person, and the warm arms that wrap around Sokka’s shoulders only solidify that.

“Come back to bed,” Zuko murmurs into his hair, voice rough with sleep. “‘M cold without you.”

“You’re cold?” Sokka teases, “I didn’t think that was possible.”

“Sokka, it’s winter,” Zuko whines. “How am I supposed to be warm if you’re not there to cuddle with me?”

“Fine,” Sokka sighs after a moment. He fights to get up with Zuko’s arms still wrapped around his shoulders, but he manages it eventually, and ends up just scooping Zuko into his arms and carrying him bridal-style to their bed. Zuko complains the whole way, but Sokka knows he loves it, and Sokka grins down at him as he lands on the bed with an exaggerated ‘oof!’

“You’re so mean,” Zuko pouts into the pillows, scooting over to make room for Sokka nonetheless. He slides under the covers and holds them up so that Sokka can wiggle underneath as well, and they end up with Sokka on his back and Zuko on his side, using Sokka’s chest as a pillow.

Sleep doesn’t always come easily to them, but tonight it does. Zuko falls back to sleep almost immediately, his head rising and falling minutely as Sokka’s lungs contract. After a while, the storm of Sokka’s thoughts calms, and he lulls himself to sleep by listening to the sound of Zuko’s deep, zen breathing. 

~~~

“Why don’t I tell you about my favorite prisoner?” Azula drawls, grinning wickedly at Sokka. He scowls back at her, telling himself not to take the bait. Next, Azula rounds on Toph. “Or, maybe I should tell you about my favorite prisoners.” 

Toph growls slightly at Azula, but makes no move towards her, rock hard and impenetrable as always. Sokka, on the other hand, sees a flash of the brand on the back of Zuko’s neck in his mind’s eye, and uses his sword to pin Azula up against the wall.

“Where,” he growls, “is Zuko?”

Azula just laughs. “Oh, I’m sure you know by this point, don’t you? Your little display in the catacombs wasn’t as subtle as you think. Haven’t you seen it in a dream by now? You know, father and I did the branding ourselves. He heated up the metal, and I pressed it in, for much longer than usual I might add. Zuzu just refused to start screaming.”

Sokka grits his teeth against the wave of memories that brings up, moments from dreams and from real life. “Shut up,” he says, and it sounds weak to his own ears.

“And you,” Azula adds, turning her cool gaze onto Toph, “you must be wondering about that Kyoshi Warrior. She’s a favorite of mine. Always acts like she’s too tough to give into mind games, but I’d hear her at night, calling out for you. As if a little blind girl could save her. You’re too weak; surely you must know that by now.”

“Stop it!” Sokka yells. He doesn’t care when people go digging at him, he does it himself often enough, but Zuko and Toph are two untouchable topics. 

“She’s playing with you, Sokka,” Toph insists. For once, she’s trembling too. “It’s a tactic; she’s trying to distract you. Ignore her.”

Sokka wrenches his sword away from Azula’s neck. He’s about to turn away from her and keep going forward, but then the gong sounds.

Firebending is back.

~~~

The days after the invasion are weighed down with loss. 

Nobody wants to talk. Toph and Katara don’t force Aang to train, and the only food they have at the ready is rice and jerky, but no one feels like hunting or foraging, so they eat what they have. Haru and Teo go exploring because the Duke wants to, but they come back after only half an hour, shaking their heads.

Toph hasn’t let go of Sokka since they made it out of the bunker. They haven’t talked about it, not yet, but Sokka knows that they’ll have to at some point. 

It’s a beautiful day outside, but Sokka wishes it was cloudy. The blue sky just doesn’t fit the mood. They’re all sitting in a circle around the makeshift fire pit, picking at their bowls of rice and saying nothing, and then Toph tenses up.

“There’s somebody there,” she says, standing up as she points toward the bushes. Sokka follows her lead and stands as well, drawing his boomerang from it’s holster. (He doesn’t go for his sword, not yet. The memory of the blade against Azula’s neck is still too fresh in his mind.)

Katara draws a water whip, and Aang pulls out his staff. Sokka gestures for Haru to take Teo and the Duke somewhere far, far away. “Who is it?” Sokka asks, sparing a single glance at Toph.

“I don’t know,” she says. Her feet shift on the ground, searching for familiarity. They reach a certain place, pointing straight at the center of a bush. “The heartbeat is familiar, but not enough that I can recognize who it is.”

“Who’s there?” Katara demands, swirling the water in the air around her. 

“We won’t hurt you if you don’t hurt us,” Aang calls. Sokka resists the urge to shake his head.

Finally, someone steps out of the bushes. They’re slightly stooped over, looking at the ground, and the first thing that Sokka noticies is their head of shaggy black hair. Then, his eyes trail down and he sees the red clothes that they’re wearing, short pants and a loose tunic. 

The figure looks up, and blue eyes meet gold. 

“Hello, Zuko here.”

Sokka drops his boomerang.

~~~

Chapter Text

"Say I’m good.

Say it like you want me to believe it.

Say I do.

Say I’m perfect and I’ll

Say it too.

Say we’re fine.

Say we’re okay.

Say you love me and I’ll

Say I’ll stay."

-it's still me, you guys

Sokka drops his boomerang. It makes a great clattering noise and Zuko flinches, to which Sokka flinches in return. Zuko raises a hand to the back of his neck in embarrassment, and then flinches again at the pressure against his brand, which, Sokka realises, must still be fresh. 

He can focus on that, though, nor can he focus on Zuko’s great, rambling speech, not when the prince is right there in front of him. He’s right there, and Sokka has been worrying about him for months, but he can’t do anything, can’t even move, and his feet feel like they’re stuck to the ground.

Katara looks angry, which Sokka doesn’t understand. Zuko saved us in the catacombs, he wants to say, you owe him your life. You owe him Aang’s life, the life of your soulmate. Isn’t that something? Words refuse to come out of his mouth, though, no matter how much he wants to say them. Apparently, Katara is still stuck up on the few months that Zuko spent chasing them, and she keeps interrupting his poorly put together speech with reminders of bad past decisions. 

Everything feels muffled. Sokka knows that he should be paying attention to what Zuko is saying, or maybe what Katara is saying, or maybe Aang, but all he can see is when Zuko raises a hand to the back of his neck out of embarrassment, and then flinches as he makes contact with the prison brand that Sokka knows is there. 

And that, Sokka decides, is enough. 

“Katara, lay off,” he snaps, smoothly picking boomerang up off the ground and sliding it back into it’s holster. “Zuko turned against the Fire Nation in Ba Sing Se, and he saved our asses. If he hadn’t intercepted Azula, her lightning would’ve hit Aang in the chest, not the leg, and your soulmate would be dead.” Now, Sokka starts pacing in circles through the courtyard, gesturing wildly with his hands. “It’s obvious that Zuko just came from prison, because he’s not wearing any princey clothes, and I’ll bet that if you looked at the back of his neck, you’d see a big fat prison brand.”

“Sokka,” Katara spits, “he spent months trying to kill Aang. Just because he saved him once doesn’t mean that he’s good all of a sudden!”

“Prison, Katara!” Sokka yells. “He went to prison because he saved Aang! And now, he’s here because he wants to train Aang,” -or at least that’s what Sokka thinks, because he wasn’t really listening when Zuko was talking- “and Aang needs a firebending teacher. You’re being irrational and irresponsible because you’re still butthurt about shit that happened months ago, that has since been made up for thousands of times over.”

Katara looks hurt, but Sokka doesn’t care. He’s right, he knows he’s right, and she knows it just as well as he does. Toph and Aang have both been stunned into silence, and rightfully so; Sokka doesn’t do this. He’s not a big, angry proclamation kinda guy. He only gets angry about things that he’s passionate about, and, well, a soulmate is something that’s passionate by nature. 

“He’s staying,” Sokka says, and everybody knows that it’s final.

~~~

The walk to Zuko’s room feels like it takes a lifetime. 

Every step echoes loudly off the stone floors, and Sokka feels like he can hear Zuko’s inhales and exhales. Every stupid, instinctual bone in Sokka’s body tells him to run, to comfort, when he notices the way that Zuko is shaking, but they’re ten minutes into being officially not-enemies, and he doesn’t want to push it.

Finally, they arrive. “This is it,” Sokka says, pointing towards the doorway. “You can, uh, make yourself at home, I guess.”

He turns to go, to leave, to get away from the one person who he’s been wanting to see for months, but a hand reaches out and catches onto his wrist, refusing to let him go further.

“Sokka,” Zuko says, his voice breaking. It’s the first time Sokka’s ever heard Zuko say his name, at least in the present, and it makes his heart shatter in his chest. 

He sounds broken. He’s not allowed to be broken, he’s Zuko, he’s the prince, and the warrior, and the guy that saved their asses when nobody expected it. Or, maybe he was those things. Now, he’s broken, and Sokka hates it.

He spins around and hauls Zuko into the most intense hug he’s ever been a part of, and Zuko doesn’t so much as breathe. Then, he hauls in a crackly breath, and everything that has ever been wrong in Sokka’s life is right again. Zuko is in his arms, he’s here, and he’s breathing, and they’re both going to be fine. 

“It’s fine,” Sokka whispers, and he doesn’t believe it. “It’s all gonna be fine.”

~~~

Spin, kick, duck, flourish. Spin, kick, duck, flourish. 

Sokka watches as rainbow fire swirls in the air, pigmented and coming straight from Zuko’s fists. The Firelord is sweating, his skin gleaming slightly in the late autumn sun, and the meteorite charm on his betrothal necklace catches a bit of sunlight and reflects it straight into Sokka’s eye. He squints at the light and turns away from it, then looks back up to see Zuko stopping his movements and bowing.

Zuko jogs over to where Sokka is sitting on the sidelines, accepting the waterskin that he offers and gulping down most of it. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and then grins brightly, ducking down to kiss Sokka’s already-puckered lips. 

“How long were you watching me?” Zuko asks once they’ve broken apart. Sokka grins up at him, not remorseful in the slightest.

“I got here right when the rainbow fire started coming out,” Sokka tells him. “You know how much I love you and your gay flames.”

“It’s not gay, Sokka,” Zuko insists, even though he’s tried to make this point many, many times before. “It’s a gift from the dragons. It’s symbolic. It’s important.”

“It’s gaaaaaaaaaaay,” Sokka sing-songs, looking up at Zuko through squinted lashes. 

“No, Sokka, I’m gay,” Zuko deadpans. Sokka chokes on his own spit and starts laughing as hard as he ever has, clutching at his chest. Zuko waits until his chuckles have died out, and then he says, “I thought you knew that?”

“Sweetheart,” Sokka wheezes, “baby. Of course I knew that. Agni, I hope you’re gay. Otherwise, there might be some things we need to talk about.”

“Why don’t you talk to teenage Zuko about that, huh?” Zuko offers, reaching down to hoist Sokka upright. “For now, we have a meeting at three, and you’ve got grass stains on your ass. C’mon, we can shower together.”

“Oooh,” Sokka teases, “can we now?”

Zuko’s cheeks darken with blush, but his eyes darken as well, and then Sokka’s being hauled through the palace as fast as he can go, giggling all the while.

~~~

Sokka wakes up with two things on his mind. 

Number one: Zuko may think that it’s not okay to have a man as a soulmate.

Number two: the cool, new, rainbow fire that Zuko and Aang have comes from dragons. 

Sokka has a headache and he’s not even awake yet. Instead of facing a day full of these new revelations, he simply snuggles deeper into his bed roll and pulls his pillow over his head, promptly going the fuck back to sleep.

~~~

“I know that you met dragons.”

Zuko whips his head around so fast that he nearly falls over, and Sokka rushes to catch him, steadying him with a hand on his shoulder. Zuko blushes at the contact, then flinches away from it, and the first point from Sokka’s dream is solidified in his mind. 

“What makes you think that?” Zuko asks, trying and failing to seem nonchalant. 

“Dude,” Sokka says. “You went to the ruins of where dragons used to live, and you came back bending rainbow fucking fire. That kinda points toward you meeting dragons.”

“I only bend rainbow fire when Aang and I do the forms together!” Zuko protests. 

“I don’t even need Toph to know that you’re lying,” Sokka says, sitting down heavily on the ground. He leans against the low wall that surrounds the training courtyard, and waits until Zuko follows his lead to speak again. “Dude, it’s fine,” he says. “I’m not, like, gonna go and slay the rest of the dragons or something like that. You can tell me.”

There’s a lot that goes unsaid there. You can tell me about the dragons. You can tell me that you’re gay. You can tell me that maybe you think you’re not gay, or it’s not okay to be gay, or you don’t like having me as a soulmate. You can tell me whatever. 

“It’s illegal in the Fire Nation,” Zuko says suddenly and without any prompting. “It didn’t used to be, but when Sozin came into power he changed the laws. Two men can’t get married, and two women can’t get married, for no good fucking reason.”

“Zuko…” Sokka whispers, but Zuko’s on a roll now, and Sokka’s not going to stop him. 

“My father, he would always call them disgusting,” Zuko goes on, “unnatural. And I- I used to believe him. I just wanted to agree with him on something, and that- it was so easy. And then I met you.” Zuko huffs out a breath, and all of the tension drains out of his frame. His voice goes soft and quiet, and his shoulders roll forward like he’s trying to shield his body from the rest of the world, like he’s trying to protect his soft parts.

“I met you,” Zuko says, “and everything started to make sense. The dreams would make everything in the future look so good, and every time I saw you it was the only thing I could think about, and then Uncle and I went to the Earth Kingdom, and it was just so normal there. This girl I met, Jin, she tried to take me out on a date, and I really didn’t want to go, but I did anyway because Uncle wanted me to. And, and then at the end of it, she tried to kiss me, so I just blurted out that I like boys, and she was just fine with it. It makes no sense! Is it just the Fire Nation? Is it just us?”

Sokka finds that he doesn’t have an answer to that. So much just got laid out there, put up like a piece of expensive art for Sokka to stare at for a moment and then remember forever. He doesn’t have anything to say, and he doesn’t think there’s anything that he can say, so instead he just reaches over and pulls Zuko into his side, holds him there until he stops shaking, until he uncurls.

~~~

As adamant as he was about going with Sokka to a prison, Zuko looks quite shaky at the idea of being in a prison. As the balloon drifts closer to the Boiling Rock, his hands get shakier, and Sokka wants to reach out and grab onto them, wants to hold him until he’s human again.

Shit. Holy shit. They’ve been on actually good terms for two fucking weeks, and Sokka wants to hold him? Tui and La, he needs to get out of his head. 

And then, because Sokka doesn’t know when to fucking stop, he opens his mouth and says, “What did they do to you in that prison?”

Zuko tenses up, and the fire that was pouring from his hands into the furnace stops flaring. “I- what?”

“Zuko,” Sokka says, grabbing onto the other boy’s wrist and tugging him down to sit on the dirty metal floor of the balloon. “I saw it in a dream. The brand on your neck. Azula told me that she and your father were the ones that did it. But I know that’s not all that happened, and I want you to tell me.”

Zuko breathes, in and the out, and his lungs are just as shaky as his hands. Sokka finally gives into the urge to hold them, reaches out and threads their fingers together. He squeezes, and Zuko squeezes back.

“Nothing,” Zuko says after a moment. “Nothing else happened. That’s the thing. Azula took me on a ship from Ba Sing Se to Caldera City, and then she and my father branded me. My father gave a speech of disappointment, as you would expect, and then they just put me into the prison that’s underneath the palace. I didn’t see either of them again. Just the guards that would sometimes give me food and water.”

“Sometimes?” Sokka’s nearly afraid to ask.

“Every couple of days,” Zuko tells him. “It- there was one guard, Ming, she told me that my Uncle was there too, a few floors up. That’s another thing, they- they would put the best firebenders further underground, so that their connection with Agni was severed. You- firebenders can feel the sun, most of the time, but if we’re away from it for too long you lose your connection. I think that’s why I lost my firebending for a bit.”

Zuko stops, taking a breath. “Other than the guards,” he says, “I didn’t see anyone. I guess I kinda thought that maybe Father or Azula would come down every once in a while to taunt me, but they didn’t. I didn’t see them after they branded me. I found out when the eclipse was from Ming, and I tried to get my strength back up so that I would be able to escape when all of the guards were at their weakest. My- my plan was to get out and escape with Uncle, but when I got to his cell he was already gone.”

“Oh, Zuko,” Sokka says, mindlessly rubbing his thumb over the side of Zuko’s hand. 

“No!” Zuko exclaims, “Not like that! He’s not dead, he just escaped on his own. I- I don’t know where he is, but I assume he’s okay.”

“You know you don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to, right?” Sokka asks. “You could just drop me off and then get the hell out of there, if being in a prison is gonna fuck with your mind.”

“Sokka, I’ll be fine,” Zuko reassures him, and Sokka hates that he’s the one getting reassured, not giving the reassurance. 

“Okay,” Sokka says finally. 

They stay like that, sitting on the floor of the balloon with their hands intertwined, for Tui knows how long, but it’s long enough that Zuko starts to doze off a bit, slumping forward where he’s sitting. 

“C’mere,” Sokka murmurs, smiling a bit at the soft little inquisitive noise that Zuko makes towards him. “C’mon, you’re practically falling asleep. Just use my lap as a pillow, I’ll wake you up when we need more fuel.”

“‘M fine,” Zuko tries to protest, even though he’s already slumping over. He ends up curled into himself with his head on Sokka’s thighs, and Sokka finally gives into the urge to stroke through his hair, toying with the silky strands. They sit like that until the sun starts to set, and they don’t once let go of their hands.

~~~

Everything goes to shit.

Hakoda isn’t here, but Suki is, and then Zuko gets caught, and Sokka practically has his own panic attack over how much Zuko must be panicking about being in prison again. They get caught again by Chit Sang, and then he’s in on the plan, and then Sokka has to watch while Zuko gets thrown around by a burly firebender and tossed into a cooler.

Hours later, when Sokka is finally allowed to let Zuko out of the cooler, he ends up getting pulled into it as another set of guards passes. They listen to the details of what prisoners will be coming in the next day, and Sokka’s heart starts beating violently against his ribs at the mention of war prisoners.

“War prisoners,” Zuko says once the guards have passed, “Sokka, it could be your father.”

“I know,” Sokka whispers. “But is it right for me to risk Suki’s freedom, your freedom, just on the off chance that my dad could be one of those prisoners coming in tomorrow?”

“It’s your call, Sokka,” Zuko says, and Sokka hates how true he makes it sound.

~~~

They stay. 

They stay, and Chit Sang gets caught, but then he doesn’t sell them out. Later that night, Sokka’s on patrol and he finds himself standing outside Zuko’s cell, pacing through the hallway. He doesn’t know what he’s debating- does he go in? Will Zuko even want to see him?- but then a noise from the cell distracts him from his pacing, and he’s pressing his ear up against the door, trying to discern what’s going on inside. There’s a familiarity to the sounds coming from the other room, and it doesn’t click in Sokka’s head for a few moments, but when it does, it burns.

(Nightmares. Zuko’s having a nightmare.)

He fumbles with the keyring on his belt until he finds the right one, then unlocks Zuko’s door and throws it shut behind him, tossing his helmet onto the floor for good measure. He doesn’t want to wake Zuko up and not be recognized. Sokka tries to think back to how he woke Zuko up from nightmares in dreams, and he drops to his knees on the floor next to Zuko’s bed, watching helplessly as his soulmate writhes and grimaces in his sleep.

“Zuko,” he whispers, “wake up. It’s okay. I’m here, you’re okay.”

“N-no,” Zuko whimpers, “please, it burns. ‘Zula, please, stop.”

He’s dreaming about being branded, Sokka realises, his heart clenching in his chest. “Zuko,” he says again, reaching out to grab onto the other’s shoulder, “you need to wake up. It’s just a dream.”

Zuko shoots up with a gasp, sitting up so quickly that he nearly breaks Sokka’s nose, just like he does in the dreams. He looks around for a moment, floundering, and then bursts into silent tears.

Sokka’s heart, which has been slowly falling apart since Zuko joined their group, disintegrates into dust. He sits on the edge of the mattress and pulls Zuko into a hug, feels Zuko’s ribs jump under his hands as he sobs. 

“Shh, shh, it’s okay,” Sokka soothes, “I’m here now. They won’t hurt you again. You got out, you’re safe. You’re safe.”

“I’m sorry,” Zuko gasps into Sokka’s chest, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about, Zuko,” Sokka whispers, “you did nothing wrong. I’m not mad. No one’s mad at you. It’s okay.”

Eventually, Zuko’s silent sobs turn into painful-sounding wails that are muffled into the leather of Sokka’s guard uniform, and then those turn into the last few tremors and sniffles. Sokka holds him through it all, rubbing his back and nuzzling his nose into Zuko’s hair, whispering reassurances that he hopes against hope might help. 

Finally, Zuko pulls away. He wipes his nose and refuses to look at Sokka, instead staring at the metal wall of the cell as he whispers out a croaky, “Thank you.”

“Hey, look at me,” Sokka says, grabbing onto his chin but not forcing his eyes forward. Begrudgingly, Zuko turns forward, but he stares resolutely at Sokka’s neck, not into his eyes. Sokka still counts it as a win. “You don’t need to thank me,” Sokka whispers, “and you definitely don’t need to apologize. I was walking past your cell and you happened to be having a nightmare. Waking you up and comforting you was just the right thing to do. We- we’re- we’re us, Zuko. I will always comfort you, okay?”

(Neither of them mention how Sokka skipped over the word ‘soumates’, which the both of them have been doing this entire time, and which they’ll definitely have to talk about at some point.)

Zuko clears his throat, then awkwardly looks up and into Sokka’s eyes (finally). “Okay,” he says, his voice soft but resolute. “But thank you anyways. I- no one else has ever done that for me.”

Sokka knew that already, but he doesn’t say it. “I’m gonna stay here till you fall asleep,” he says instead, “and don’t argue with me, we both know you won’t go back to sleep otherwise.” Zuko swallows down whatever response he had at the ready and nods. 

They shuffle around for a bit, until they find a position that works for the both of them. Zuko curls up underneath the scratchy prison blanket, facing the wall, and Sokka lays atop the sheet, his body making an arc around Zuko’s. Sokka reaches over the other boy to grasp his hand, and even though he said he’d leave when Zuko fell asleep, he finds himself staying there until the sun starts to rise, sleepless and yet the most well-rested he’s ever been.

~~~

They’re escaping, and everything is going well, until Zuko stops running.

“Zuko!” Sokka yells, “What the hell are you doing?”

“Making it so that they can’t stop us!” Zuko calls back. He kicks furiously at the leaver until it snaps, then starts running again, but the gondola is too far. Sokka’s heart is in his throat, and he thinks, this is it then, the future ends here, but then Zuko’s reaching out, so Sokka is too. He catches Zuko with a hand around his wrist and then hauls him up into the gondola, resists the urge to pull him into a hug, tuck him into the space between his heart and his ribs and protect him there for the rest of their lives. 

“You’re crazy,” Sokka says, instead of everything else that he wants to. Zuko smirks at him, the bastard, and then they watch the prison shrink away into the distance. 

Then, Azula and Ty Lee approach, and Sokka’s stomach drops to his feet. 

~~~

The day has the most unexpected heroes, and the spot that Zuko left empty in prison is refilled two times over. 

~~~

They return to the Temple and Katara nearly beats Sokka’s ass, but she doesn’t in the end because she refuses to let go of their father. Sokka watches as Suki pulls Toph into a tight hug, and knows that now isn’t the time, but soon, it will be. They laugh around the fire and share stories of their time apart, and there are a few times that Sokka catches a flicker of color in the firepit. He thinks he’s imagining it, until he realises that the fire is moving with Zuko’s shallow breaths. 

Their eyes meet across the fire, and, for once in his life, Zuko is the one who smiles first. It’s small and crooked, just barely there, a grimace to those who don’t know what they’re looking for. But Sokka grins back at him, full force, and the rest goes unsaid.

~~~

Sokka’s left hand is holding his pen and his right is gripping lightly onto Zuko’s, thumb brushing gently against the back of his husband’s hand. They’ve been working like this for hours, practically all afternoon, and it’s a shame to be holed up in the office like this when Aang and Katara’s kids are visiting, but it’s just what has to be done.

Someone knocks on the door and clears their throat, and Sokka and Zuko both look up at the same time to see Azula standing there, one little girl dressed in Water Tribe blues perched on her hip, and another girl that Sokka recognizes as his own daughter clutching tightly to her opposite hand. 

“Boys,” Azula says primly, “your presence has been requested at the turtleduck pond for- erm, what is their presence necessary for?” she asks, looking towards Izumi. 

“For the picnic, Auntie ‘Zula!” Izumi exclaims, with all of the agonized squalor that a six year old princess can possess. 

“Oh, yes, of course,” Azula says, “your presence has been requested at the turtleduck pond for a picnic of the utmost importance.”

“Oh?” Sokka asks, raising his eyebrow. “And who has asked for us to be at this picnic?”

Azula grins. “Only the most beautiful ladies in all the land, Crown Princess Izumi and Lady Kya of Air Temple Island.”

“Well, darling,” Zuko says, “I think we have to go, don’t we? No one can say no to such beautiful maidens.”

Kya and Izumi giggle in the doorway, the sound chiming through the room. “Of course we’ll go,” Sokka says. The two of them stand from the desk and make their way towards the girls, and when Kya reaches out for Sokka he takes her from Azula’s arms, smirking in response to his sister-in-law’s smile. They make their way to the gardens and Sokka sets his niece back on the grass as Izumi starts running towards the base of what has become everyone’s favorite tree, where Bumi and a one year old Tenzin are playing with Mai and Ty Lee.

Sokka, Zuko, and Azula hang back, watching the kids play. Kya shakily waterbenders a glob of pond water onto Bumi’s head, and when Tenzin claps and giggles it gets blown right off. 

“I guess Aang finally got his little airbender,” Azula notes. “I’d been wondering when that would happen.”

“We all were,” Zuko says.

“I’m glad it ended up being Tenzin,” Azula adds, “I think Katara would kill Aang in cold blood if he asked her for another kid.”

“What about you, ‘Zula?” Sokka asks. “You changed your mind about having a few little firebenders of your own?”

“I’m happy being an Auntie, thank you very much,” Azula sniffs, although there’s no malice behind it. “I get to deal with the kids when they’re happy, and when they start to cry I can just give them to you.”

All three of them know that’s a lie. Even when Izumi was just a baby, Azula insisted on taking her for one night every two weeks, lest Sokka and Zuko pass out in their meetings. For a while, Azula was one of the only people who could calm Izumi down when she was crying, along with her two dads.

Sometimes, Sokka thinks about the Day of Black Sun, when Azula had taunted him with Zuko’s whereabouts. Now, as he watches the next generation of his family running around the gardens and letting out shrill shrieks of joy, his sister-in-law standing just beside him, Sokka marvels at just how much as changed.

~~~

As Sokka wakes from a surprisingly pleasant dream, the Temple starts exploding around him.

He curses under his breath and shoots up from his bedroll, already moving to gather supplies. It’s going to be a long day.

~~~

“I’m sorry.”

Sokka looks up from his maps to see Zuko standing at the flap of his tent, his hands grasped tightly together. He looks nervous, like he’s waiting for a scolding, even though he hasn’t done anything. 

“What for?” Sokka asks. “You didn’t do anything.”

“Yeah,” Zuko agrees, “but I’m about to. The apology is preemptive.”

Sokka nods slowly, setting his maps to the side. “Come sit down,” he says, patting the ground. Zuko does so slowly, cautiously, and he sits ramrod straight, in the way that Sokka expects he might sit in a royal court. “What is it?” Sokka asks, then adds, “I promise I won’t be mad.”

“Promise?” Zuko asks quietly, reaching a hand out, palm-up.

“Promise,” Sokka says, offering his own hand and waiting until Zuko links them together. In the week that’s passed since their trip to the Boiling Rock, touch has become easier between them, more casual, but they still haven’t talked about it, and Sokka doesn’t know when they will.

Zuko takes a deep breath. “I need you to tell me about your mother.”

Sokka’s heart stutters in his chest, and for a moment, it almost feels like it’s stopped. Reflexes tell him to pull away, to yank his hand out of Zuko’s and recede into himself, maybe to curl up in the corner of the tent and pretend that nothing bad has ever happened to him. Instead of doing any of these things, though, Sokka takes a deep breath in through his nose, letting it out through his mouth. He curls up into Zuko’s side (because what is a firebender for if not for cuddles) and grips Zuko’s hand tightly in his own.

“Katara and I were having a snowball fight,” Sokka starts. “Then, the black snow started falling.”

Throughout the story, Zuko is a solid presence at Sokka’s side. Sokka understands, vaguely, that Zuko’s mother isn’t in the picture either, and it’s nice to know that the hand raking through his hair and the hot breath on his neck come from a place of empathy, not pity. There gets to be a point, when Sokka is trying to describe the moment that he stumbled into the igloo and saw Kya’s body, that his emotions bring him past words, to the brink of tears, and Zuko just holds him closer, extracts his hand from Sokka’s and starts using it to rub up and down his back.

“I’m sorry,” Zuko whispers into Sokka’s hair, “I’m so sorry.”

Sokka just shakes his head. He can’t say anything, not through the tears that he’s trying so hard to keep silent, but he wants to find every way he can to insist that it’s not Zuko’s fault. He must have a reason for asking such a personal question, Sokka reasons, which makes it not-his-fault.

After Sokka’s done telling the story, they curl up together atop his bedroll. Mirroring that night at the prison, Zuko curls around Sokka, and they fall asleep like that, fitted together like pieces of a puzzle.

~~~

Sokka knows when he hears the footsteps that his attempt at hiding has been in vain. He tries to make it seem like he’s not been crying, at least, wiping his tears away and sniffing slightly, but the look on Zuko’s face when he turns tells him that he failed at that too.

Just like you failed to save your mother , a voice in his head taunts him. That’s all it takes for the tears to come back full-force, and Sokka falls forward into Zuko, who’s arms are already outstretched. 

Zuko makes soothing little noises and rubs the back of Sokka’s head, not saying anything about the way that Sokka’s fists in his tunic are definitely going to leave wrinkles. Sokka’s sure that he knows what this is about, mostly because Sokka tries to be at the South pole for this date every year, but this year politics got in the way, and the new country forming out of the former colonies, and so Sokka is hiding in a small laundry room so that no Ministers or Advisors find him, but Zuko found him anyways.

“You know,” Sokka sniffs out, “it’s been half my life now, without her. And every year that I’m alive after this, that fraction will get bigger and bigger, until I’m old and grey and ten years at the beginning of my life don’t matter much anymore.”

“That’s not true,” Zuko says softly, “Sokka, you know that’s not true. She’s your mother. She was your mother then, she’s your mother now, and she’ll still be your mother when you’re old and grey. The early years of your life will always matter, not just because of your mother, but also because you lived them.”

Sokka tucks his face into the crook of Zuko’s neck and sobs so hard it hurts. In a horrifically funny, sort of twisted way, he wonders if this is what a child feels like when they cry to their mother.

Sue him. He’s twenty years old, and his mother has been dead since he was ten, and his soulmate is the leader of an entire third of the world, and his father is the Chief of a sixth, and his best friend is the Avatar, and his sister is the best waterbender in a century, and his other best friend is the leader of an elite squad of warriors, and his other-other best friend invented a whole new subtype of bending. Sokka is responsible for un-fucking-up a whole century’s worth of fuck-ups, and he’s decided that he’s allowed to cry about his dead mother every once in a while.

(It’s okay to cry, he reasons, still sobbing into Zuko’s shoulder, because he knows that Zuko will always be there to hold him through it. They’re soulmates, that’s just how it works.)

~~~

Sokka wakes up the next morning to the feeling of Zuko sitting up out of bed. They’ve cuddled up to each other overnight, so much so that Sokka’s nose is pressed into Zuko’s Adam's apple, so Sokka tightens his arms around Zuko’s waist and tries to keep him from getting up.

“Don’ go…” he says tiredly, “you’re warm.”

Sokka slowly blinks his eyes open to see Zuko staring down at him, eyes glazed over with something that could maybe be called fondness. When he notices Sokka looking, Zuko shakes the look off his face and pries Sokka’s arms from his waist, smirking a bit at Sokka’s sarcastic cry of distress.

Despite his complaints, Sokka lets Zuko tuck him back into the bedroll, and he watches as the other boy hesitates for a moment before bending down and pressing the lightest of kisses to Sokka’s temple. Sokka smiles, and it’s not a grin, but it’s maybe the softest and sweetest expression he’s had on his face in months.

“Yeah?” Zuko whispers, looking at Sokka like he’s about to explode.

“Yeah,” Sokka says, because it’s all he needs to say.

~~~

(Little does Sokka know, Zuko had the same dream that he had the night before, just from a different perspective. It’s because of this coincidence that he’s wary of Sokka trying to change Katara’s mind about going to find the Southern Raiders.

“I think Aang’s right,” Sokka says. “Are you sure that it’s such a good idea to kill someone, when it was Mom’s death that started this whole mess? I don’t think it’s worth it, Katara.”

“Then you didn’t love her like I did!” Katara exclaims. Her hair is whipping about in the wind and her eyes are red, the perfect picture of righteous anger, but Zuko doesn’t see any of that. All he sees is Sokka, and maybe in a different world the way that Sokka’s heartbreak is visible in his eyes wouldn’t be apparent to Zuko, but it is in this world, and it makes his own heart break in turn.)

~~~

“She couldn’t do it.”

“I know,” Sokka says. He sits next to Zuko, who settled at the edge of the dock after Katara finally accepted his apology, and the two of them exist there for the time being. 

“I’m sorry I put your family through that,” Zuko rasps. He refuses to look at Sokka, gazing instead out at the rocky shoreline in the distance.

“Zuko,” Sokka whispers, “you have nothing to be sorry for.”

“Of course I do!” Zuko exclaims, whipping around to look Sokka in the eye. “It’s my fault that you and Katara got into a fight, and it’s my fault that Katara bloodbent again, and I made you tell me the story of your mother’s death, which was a really shitty thing to do, and I-”

Sokka’s sure that Zuko would’ve kept going, had Sokka not yanked him into the most fierce hug he could manage. Zuko, as if by reflex, tucks his face into the crook of Sokka’s neck and sniffles quietly. Sokka’s learned that when Zuko hugs, it’s all or nothing; either he’s stiff and quick about it, or he absolutely melts into it, and stays there for as long as humanly possible.

This hug seems to fall into the latter category.

“You know I’m a little bit in love with you, right?” Sokka says after a while, muffled into Zuko’s hair. The other boy makes a little noise of surprise and stiffens up for a moment, but then he melts back into Sokka, as if he’s trying to eliminate every bit of space between them.

“Really?” Zuko whispers.

“Really,” Sokka says, raking a hand through his hair.

“Oh,” Zuko says. “Well, that’s good, because I’m a little bit in love with you too.”

There’s still much to talk about. There’s a battle on the horizon and a Firelord to take down, and they don’t even have a place to stay for the night. But Sokka knows that everything will turn out, if not because he’s seen the future, than because he’s holding the future in his arms.

~~~

Chapter Text

“You touch me like the sun.

Somehow, you can both blind me and be the light of my life,

but maybe I’m just blinded by the love I have for you.

I touch you like the moon.

Waxing and waning, but never leaving you completely.

Our love is an eclipse,

darkness where there is meant to be day.

Because you and I are like contradictions,

never one and the same.”

-me (did you see it coming this time?)

It’s the yells coming from the beach that wake Sokka up, and he groans and rolls over, right into Zuko. In all his firebender-ness, Zuko’s already awake, and he takes Sokka’s relocation in stride, wrapping an arm around the other man’s shoulders and letting Sokka rest his cheek on his chest. 

“Good morning,” Zuko says, pressing a kiss to Sokka’s forehead. Sokka’s always a tactile person, but when he’s like this, syrupy warm and sleep slow, he sucks up the affection like a sponge, always looking for more. In this case, he tilts his chin up in a request to be kissed fully, to which Zuko obliges.

“Hi,” Sokka says when they pull apart, laying his head back onto Zuko’s chest. “Are Aang and Katara practicing already?”

“Yeah, they both woke up pretty early,” Zuko tells him, looking out the open balcony doors to where their friends are on the beach, splashing each other and play fighting with the help of waterbending. 

They’ve been on Ember Island for almost a week now, all six of them, just taking a moment away from the rest of the world. Iroh is handling the Fire Nation and Suki left Mai and Ty Lee in charge of the Warriors, so nothing was left in anything but the best of hands. Sokka’s been going non-stop for a while, and he knows that the rest of them have been too, so this little beach vacation is absolutely deserved.

If it were another day, and Sokka was another person, maybe he’d get out of bed. But today, Sokka’s on vacation, and his fiance who’s usually up and out of bed at the asscrack of dawn is laying with him, so Sokka maneuvers himself up on top of Zuko and decides that the best course of action is to kiss him stupid.

Zuko grins into it and obliges, making a shocked little noise when Sokka starts to kiss down his neck. “Don’t leave marks-” he starts to say, only to be cut off by a pair of lips on his own.

“Katara can heal anything I do leave,” Sokka whispers, breath hot against Zuko’s skin. “And anyways, it’s not like anybody would see it.”

“I hate it when you have a point,” Zuko mutters, lifting his chin to give Sokka more room to work.

After that, there’s not much talking, but Sokka doesn’t mind one bit.

~~~

It’s the yelling from the beach that wakes Sokka, and he groans and rolls over, smushing his face right into the mattress. For a moment, Sokka thinks about his future, a future where it’s Zuko that his face lands on, instead of silky, red sheets. He can hear Katara and Aang training on the beach, Suki complimenting Toph on her sandbending, and Zuko-

Someone knocks on the door. “Sokka, are you up?” Zuko says, muffled through the wood. “I brought you some breakfast, it was getting cold.”

“I’m awake,” Sokka says roughly, pushing himself up against the headboard. Zuko pushes the door open and then smiles, setting his tray down on the nightstand.

“You look like you slept well,” he says, climbing up onto the bed to sit next to Sokka. Zuko reaches over and grabs the tray, setting it on the mattress between them.

“You look like shit,” Sokka replies. He’s right; the dark circle underneath Zuko’s good eye stands out almost as much as his scar, and he looks much wearier than a seventeen year old should be allowed to look. 

“Mm,” Zuko hums, pouring out two cups of tea. The kettle has gone cold, so he holds his hands up around each of the cups so that he can warm them back up again. “I didn’t sleep well,” Zuko goes on, leaning against Sokka’s side.

“Any particular reason?” Sokka asks, gratefully taking the tea cup that Zuko hands him. 

“Nightmares,” Zuko sighs. “It’s weird being back here, y’know? The vacations that we took here when I was a kid were the only times that it felt like our family was actually happy. But now that we’re back here all of those memories come to the forefront of my mind, but then all of the bad childhood memories come back too, and it’s just- I just-”

“It’s okay,” Sokka soothes, “I get it. I know what you’re trying to say.” He drains the last dregs of his tea and then sets the cup on the nightstand, waiting for Zuko to do the same before he hauls him into a hug. “Why don’t you rest for a bit, okay?” Sokka murmurs, rubbing a hand up and down Zuko’s back and urging him to lie across the mattress.

“Sokka, it’s the middle of the morning,” Zuko protests, although he’s already snuggling down into the blankets, using Sokka’s lap as a pillow.

“You’ve already trained Aang today,” Sokka whispers, “there’s nothing else you need to do. Just take a little rest, and we can spar when you wake up, okay?”

“Okay,” Zuko says, finally giving in. Sokka weaves a hand into his hair and combs through the shaggy strands, pausing every now and then to scratch at Zuko’s scalp. Eventually, Sokka reaches the hair at the nape of his neck, and frowns at the feeling of the healed brand on the skin there, raised patterns signifying a traitor. 

Katara had healed the brand fully once she and Zuko finally started getting along, although it didn’t seem like she knew exactly what she was looking at. Aang and Sokka are the only ones who can read the Fire Nation script, and the brand is almost always hidden by Zuko’s hair, so Sokka’s pretty sure he’s the only one who knows what the brand really means.

(He’s wrong. Suki spent almost three months in the Boiling Rock, she heard the screams of her fellow prisoners too many times to count. Although she has no concrete proof that Zuko has a brand, she’s pretty damn sure that if he does have one, she’ll know what it means.)

~~~

There’s a little less than two weeks until the comet arrives, and Sokka’s already worried out of his mind. If he’s not strategizing or looking at maps, he’s training with Zuko or Suki, or maybe the both of them at once. Suki teaches him how to use the fans in more complicated ways, and Zuko always has new moves to show Sokka, new ways for him to improve.

Despite all of this, Sokka tends to find himself wide awake most nights, not bone tired like everyone else is. There’s always something poking at the back of his mind, and he’s gotten so used to sleeping on bed rolls and the hard ground that sleeping on the fluffy, squishy mattress he’s been given feels almost suffocating. He also happens to have a room that faces right out at the ocean, which would normally be a nice thing, but in this case it just means that Sokka has to look at Yue for hours on end as he’s struggling to fall asleep.

One night, Sokka gets sick of rolling around in bed and he decides to gather up his maps and go down to the kitchen. He grabs a candle off of the nightstand too, and starts down the stairs, keeping his footsteps as quiet as possible. 

As Sokka rounds the corner into the kitchen, he nearly drops all of his maps. “Shit!” he exclaims, hugging the maps closer to his chest. “Tui and La, Zuko, you scared me.”

Zuko shoots him a sheepish smile from his seat at the kitchen table, looking worn through and exhausted. “Sorry,” he croaks. “You couldn’t sleep either?”

“No,” Sokka sighs, flopping down into a chair. “I just feel so restless.”

“I get it,” Zuko says, reaching across the table to grab onto one of Sokka’s hands. “Why don’t we go for a walk in the gardens? They’re always really beautiful at night.”

“Okay,” Sokka says. They walk hand in hand out of the kitchen and into the courtyard, then down towards the little path that runs through the gardens. Occasionally, Zuko tells Sokka about a particular plant, or maybe about a childhood memory, one of the good ones. Sokka in turn tells him about their adventures, the silly little anecdotes about singing nomads and swamp benders. 

Eventually, they end up sitting on the ground, leaning up against the ledge of a garden bed. Even though the grounds have been attended to in years, the flowers that were planted still bloom, and little petals tickle Sokka’s neck and he wraps an arm around Zuko’s shoulders, hauling him in closer.

“I wish we could just stay here forever,” Zuko says, nuzzling lightly into Sokka’s neck. “Maybe the comet just wouldn’t come if we never left, and then we wouldn’t have to deal with it.”

“I don’t think it’d be a good thing to live like this forever,” Sokka muses, toying a bit with the hairs at the nape of Zuko’s neck. 

“Why not?” Zuko asks. “We could just hide away from the rest of the world and never have to leave the gardens ever again.”

“If we never leave the past,” Sokka murmurs into Zuko hair, “then we’ll never get our future.”

Zuko looks up at that, staring at Sokka with one big, wide, golden eye, and another squinted milky white one. “Is it our future now?” he asks, hands twisting together in his lap.

“It’s always been our future, Zuko,” Sokka says, grabbing onto his chin with one gentle hand. “We just have to wait to live it.”

And really, how can Sokka follow that up with anything but a kiss?

~~~

Zuko’s lips are chapped and warm, and his cheek is solid under Sokka’s hand. Sokka’s other hand is woven into his hair, keeping their lips pressed together. 

They stay like that for Agni knows how long, exchanging breaths and little pecks, until the human need for oxygen rears it’s ugly head. Zuko pulls away first, resting his head on Sokka’s shoulder.

“You good?” Sokka asks quietly, the hand that’s still in Zuko’s hair raking through it once more. 

“Mhm,” Zuko mumbles, “just- just having a lot of feelings.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Sokka breathes, pressing a kiss to Zuko’s forehead. “Okay,” he says, “okay, okay, okay, just feel what you need to feel.”

After a few more moments, Zuko emerges from his hiding place, his good eye slightly glassy. “Thank you,” he whispers. 

They sit like that for a while, Zuko burrowed into Sokka’s side as they watch the comings and goings of the sea. They really shouldn’t be awake this late, because there’s training to do and strategies to plan and a battle to win, but instead of worrying about all that, Sokka and Zuko sit in the garden and pretend that the rest of the world doesn’t exist. 

“You know I’m really in love with you, right?” Sokka whispers, still staring out at the water. 

“I’m really in love with you too,” Zuko replies, smiling crookedly. 

Maybe there’s still a lot to talk about, but for now, they leave at that.

~~~

He finds her on the beach.

“Zuko’s my soulmate,” Sokka says, no preamble, no nothing. Katara whips around, her water whip dropping straight back into the ocean.

“Your what?”

“My soulmate,” Sokka repeats.

Katara stares blankly at him for a moment, before nodding. “Does he make you happy?” she asks, narrowing her eyes.

“More than anything else in the world,” Sokka tells her, and it’s the truth.

“Okay,” Katara says. She turns back to the ocean and picks up more water, so Sokka starts heading back up towards the house, his back turned towards her. Maybe, they might be expected to talk about it more, but they don’t need to. Understanding passes between them like flower petals in the wind, and there’s no reason to disrupt it.

~~~

(In the end, it’s Zuko who tells Aang.

“Me and Sokka are soulmates,” he says while they’re taking a water break, sitting on the edge of the low wall that surrounds the courtyard. Aang chokes on his sip of water, sputters for a moment, and then airbends himself dry.

“Okay,” Aang says tentatively. “Is it- are you-?”

“Yeah,” Zuko says, leaning back on his hands. He thinks of the garden and the moon and way too many feelings, and he smiles like the sun. Aang makes a startled noise, as if he’s never seen Zuko’s mouth make the shape of anything but a scowl, and Zuko chuckles in return.)

~~~

Sokka doesn’t need to tell Toph and Suki. They both see, even without sight, that Sokka and Zuko are truly a match made by the Spirits. Suki, in fact, knew about it by watching them escape the Boiling Rock. There are only so many people who’s fingers align so perfectly, and for that to happen twice in one day? 

That can only be because of destiny.

~~~

“Hey, look you guys!” Aang calls, beckoning everyone over to the steps of the courtyard. “Look at what I found!”

Everyone makes their way towards him, eager to read the paper that he’s holding. “What is it?” Katara asks, peeking over Aang’s shoulder.

“Somebody wrote a play about us!” he exclaims, turning the paper away from himself so that everyone can see it. 

“The Boy in the Iceberg,” Sokka reads off, “is the newest play written by the esteemed playwright, Pu-on Tim. This play tells the tale of Avatar Aang and his journeys across the nations, and will be put on this Sunday night by the Ember Island players.”

From his seat on the fountain, Zuko groans. Everyone whips their head around to stare at him, and Sokka has to suppress a laugh at the ridiculous look on his face.

“Agni, I hate those guys,” Zuko bemoans. “My mother used to take us to see them when we visited here- they butchered Love Amongst the Dragons every year!”

“Oh, c’mon Zuko,” Sokka chides, “it’ll be fun. We can tease each other about shit, stuff like that. And plus, I think all of us need a night out.”

“I agree with Snoozles,” Toph says. “I’m sick of this goddamn house, and I wanna see how the Fire Nation portrays me. I bet I’m a really buff man.”

“As if,” Katara sniffs. 

“We should go!” Aang says. “C’mon, Zuko, pretty please?”

His grey eyes are as wide as saucers, and, try as he might, Zuko just can’t say no. “Fine,” he huffs, “but when it sucks, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

~~~

It sucks. It really, really sucks.

Zuko’s kinda snooty about the whole thing, and he wants to act high and mighty about being right, but watching all of his mistakes played out on a stage in front of him kinda stings. There are plenty of inaccuracies (flying rabbit monkey?), and Toph turns out to be right about her character being played by a big, buff guy, but the most horrible inaccuracy by far is when Katara and Zuko find out that they’re soulmates.

The actors on stage are sitting in a poorly constructed set, facing away from each other with their arms crossed. 

“My mother is dead,” ‘Katara’ says. 

“Mine is too,” ‘Zuko’ agrees. Then they turn so that they’re facing each other and link hands.

“Prince Zuko,” ‘Katara’ sighs, “it is you. You’re my soulmate.”

“I thought you were the Avatar’s girl,” ‘Zuko’ drawls.

“Oh, him?” Katara chuckles. “Why, he’s like a little brother to me. You, Prince Zuko, are the one I love the most.”

“Our future together will be beautiful,” ‘Zuko’ says, horrifyingly monotone. “We will take down the Fire Nation so that I can rule, and you will be Fire Lady at my side.”

“Oh, Prince Zuko,” ‘Katara’ murmurs, “I really do find you attractive.”

They pull each other into an awkward embrace that’s obviously meant to seem sexual, but before it can progress further, Sokka, Toph, and Aang show up on set, Iroh alongside them.

The fight begins, and when it’s over, Zuko and Iroh are both hauled off by the Dai Lee. Zuko stiffens in his seat, so Sokka reaches out and grabs his hand, squeezing it tightly. The curtains are drawn as the second act finishes, and it seems like everyone breathes a collective sigh of relief. 

“I can’t believe there’s still another act,” Suki says, and that sigh turns into a groan.

~~~

“Daddy, Papa!” Izumi screeches, running full speed down the hallway. “Look at what I found!”

Zuko bends down just in time to catch her in his arms before she runs straight past them, straightening up and letting Sokka step closer so that he can wrap an arm around the both of them. 

“What’d you find, princess?” Sokka asks, plucking the scroll out of Izumi’s hands as she offers it to him. He reads the writing quickly, eyes going wide, and then starts full out belly laughing. Sokka shows it to Zuko, who takes one look at the art and then closes his eyes.

“I thought we got rid of all these?” he asks weakly, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Auntie Ty Lee gave it to me!” Izumi exclaims. “She said her sister was the Avatar.”

“Hah!” Sokka laughs, “Of course Ty Lee would be the one person who kept this.”

“I swear to Agni,” Zuko grumbles, “if she has more than one of these I will take it upon myself to burn each and every one of them to a crisp.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Sokka says, “I think we should frame it.”

“Me too!” Izumi chirps, “Daddy, Daddy can we please? We could put it in your office so that you can look at your friends every single day! And look, Auntie ‘Zula is one there too, and so is Grandpa Iroh!”

Zuko is one hundred percent sure that Aang taught Izumi how to do puppy eyes. And, just like Aang, when Izumi’s eyes go wide and round, she is absolutely impossible to say no to.

~~~

“You guys, look!” Katara calls out. “I found Zuko’s baby pictures!”

“This I gotta see,” Sokka chuckles, smiling at the noise that Zuko makes when Sokka makes him lift his head off of his lap so that he can stand. Now that their relationship has progressed into something more real, and now that they know all of their friends are okay with it, they’ve stopped rolling back the PDA, and in Sokka’s humble opinion,  any moment that he has to spend without touching Zuko is a moment wasted.

They all traverse over to where Katara is, holding a small portrait in her hand. 

“Aww,” Suki coos, “Zuko, you were so cute as a kid!”

“That’s not me,” Zuko says, his brow furrowed. 

“What do you mean?” Aang asks, “Those look just like you!”

Zuko shakes his head. “No, that’s- those are my father’s.”

The joy of the situation practically gets sucked up into the hot, tropical air. Sokka steps closer to Zuko, looking at the portraits from the same angle that he is. And now, he sees it; this is most definitely not Zuko.

“What-” Aang sputters, “but- I don’t- how is that the Firelord. He looks so… cute.”

“Yeah,” Suki says, “he’s just a baby.”

“Everyone was a baby once, Su,” Sokka says. “He was a baby in the picture, but now he’s the Firelord.”

“But he’s still just a person!” Aang exclaims. “All people deserve to live, and he’s a person too!”

“Do you think that really excuses all of the harm that he’s done to the world?” Zuko asks coolly. For a moment, Sokka is reminded of the Zuko from months ago, on a hunt to regain his honor. He’s changed so much since then, but he’s still the same person.

“Of course not,” Aang says, “but-”

“Aang,” Zuko interrupts him, “we’re all just people. Being human doesn’t mean that we can’t be evil. My father, and his father, and his father before that- they have turned the world into a living hellscape, and you were frozen in time for most of it. We don’t have the time to spend hours looking through baby pictures or questioning mortality, because there’s a comet coming in four days and you need to be ready to fight my father during it.”

Aang looks stunned by Zuko’s impromptu speech, but then the wide-eyed expression on his face turns sheepish. “That’s the thing…” he says. “I actually decided not to fight the Firelord during the comet.”

Sokka watches as all of the color drains out of Zuko’s face, making his scar look starker than usual. “You guys didn’t tell him?” Sokka asks incredulously, whipping around to glare at the others.

“We thought you would!” Katara says. “You guys are soulmates, don’t you tell each other everything?”

“I thought this was a team decision!” Sokka says. “Zuko’s part of the team, so I assumed that you’d run it by him as well! And just because we’re soulmates doesn’t mean we share every single fucking detail of our lives with each other!”

Zuko still hasn’t said anything. He’s staring off into the distance, like a poorly staged portrait, and Sokka reaches out to put a hand on his shoulder and snap him back to reality. “Zu,” he says, “what’s going on?”

Zuko shakes the haziness out of his eyes and goes to sit on the edge of the fountain, head in his hands. Sokka moves to kneel in front of him, reaching out to rest his palms on Zuko’s knees.

“You all know,” Zuko croaks out, “about what happened the last time that Sozin’s Comet came.”

“Sozin used it to wipe out the Air Nomads,” Aang says quietly, “in the hopes of killing the Avatar.”

“Yes,” Zuko says, “that’s right. During the time that I spent in prison, I overheard a lot of shit. The guards would talk like the prisoners weren’t there, or like we couldn’t understand them. Most of it was mundane, boring shit, but some of it…”

Here, he trails off. Sokka squeezes his knees as he tries to regain his composure, rubbing circles into the undersides of them with his thumb. Through the gaps in his fingers, where Zuko is still covering his face with his hands, Sokka can see one wide, golden eye, shining with tears.

“My father,” Zuko says finally, “is planning to use the comet to burn down the Earth Kingdom. He wants to rule the world, and to do that, well, there’d have to be no world left. That’s why you have to defeat him during the comet, Aang, because if you don’t the world won’t be there for you to save, either.”

For a moment, everything is silent. Then,

“Why didn’t you tell me?!” Aang explodes. “I haven’t mastered Earth or Water yet, and I’m hardly even close to mastering Fire- I- I’m not ready! Tui and La, Zuko, you should’ve told us! We’re a team!”

“Well apparently, I’m not a part of that team!” Zuko shouts, shooting upright from his seat on the fountain. “I didn’t tell you because I thought you were still planning to take him down on the day of the comet! If somebody had asked me about waiting until after the comet to attack, then I would’ve told them about the Firelord’s crazy plan and we all would’ve been more prepared for this shitshow. Instead, it’s becoming very apparent to me that you still don’t trust me.”

Then, he stalks off toward the beach house, just like every melodramatic character in every play that Sokka’s ever seen, but instead of it feeling overdone and staged, Sokka can practically see the hurt radiating off of Zuko in waves.

“What the hell, you guys?” Sokka spits, turning around to face the others. He opens his mouth, trying to think of something else to say, but he finds that there’s nothing there. So instead of talking, he turns on his heel and stalks back towards the house, not sparing a second look back.

~~~

He finds him in the garden. 

Zuko doesn’t cry much, Sokka has discovered. Whether it’s a side-effect of his shitty childhood or a way that he chooses not to express his emotions, he doesn’t know, but the few times that Sokka has seen the other boy cry it’s been silent and small, a single tear dripping out of his good eye. This, though- this is different.

Zuko has wedged himself into an alcove, his arms wrapped around his knees. His entire frame is shaking with the force of his sobs, and even though the sounds are muffled into his thighs, Sokka knows that they’re enough to break his heart. Every time a gust of wind blows through the gardens Zuko shivers, trying in vain to curl up tighter.

Sokka tries to make his approach as obvious as possible, lest he upset Zuko even more. He settles down next to the other, crossing his legs, and reaches an arm out to pull Zuko into his side, resting his chin atop Zuko’s head.

“Hey,” he says quietly, and that’s all it takes.

Zuko unburries his head from his knees and practically throws himself at Sokka’s chest, sobbing and sobbing and sobbing. His hands grapple at the back of Sokka’s tunic, looking for something solid to hold onto, and his entire body ends up almost entirely in Sokka’s lap, shaking like a leaf in the wind. 

“Shh, shh,” Sokka murmurs, “there you go, just let it out. I’m right here, love, I’m not going anywhere. You’re okay.”

Zuko shakes his head into Sokka’s chest, but he can’t bring himself to say anything. He cries for so long that Sokka wonders if he’s ever even cried before, and then he starts to get worried about dehydration.

“Hey, hey, keep it together,” Sokka whispers, brushing a bit of hair away from Zuko’s flushed face. “You’re gonna pass out if you don’t drink some water.”

Zuko sniffles quietly, then nods. “Sorry,” he says after a moment, his voice even raspier than usual. “You didn’t have to stay.”

“Of course I did,” Sokka whispers. “Of course I did. Now, c’mon, let’s get you a glass of water and then we can talk about what’s got you so upset, okay?”

Sokka stands up and then reaches down to help Zuko to his feet, securing an arm around his waist when he sways slightly. Zuko screws his eyes shut against what Sokka assumes can only be a wave of dizziness- the combination of dehydration and sitting for so long is bound to give Zuko a headache.

They walk together into the house, then towards the kitchen. Sokka can hear Suki and Toph sparring in the courtyard while Aang and Katara go for a swim, so he knows that they should be able to get a glass of water from the kitchen without too much hassle. When they do reach the kitchen, Zuko sits gingerly atop the counter while Sokka fills a cup, and then they go upstairs and into Zuko’s bedroom.

Once Zuko’s settled against the headboard, surrounded by a mountain of pillows, and Sokka’s made sure he drank at least half of the water, Sokka slips under the covers next to Zuko and sighs, drinking in the other’s warmth. Zuko sets his glass down on the nightstand and leans into the contact, laying his head on Sokka’s shoulder.

“You ready to talk about it?” Sokka asks after a while, rubbing circles into Zuko’s collarbones.

“Sure,” Zuko sighs. He takes a deep breath, holds it, and then exhales.

“I used to look a lot like my father.”

~~~

“I had his cheekbones, I think, and his jawline. My eyes have always been my mother’s, though, and she got them from her grandfather. For young boys in the Fire Nation, we keep a phoenix tale, instead of a topknot. Topknots are for when kids come of age. But, anyways, the nobles and servants and shit always told me that I looked just like my father had when he was a boy, and I- I just- that’s all I really wanted, I guess.”

Zuko stops talking for a moment, so Sokka nuzzles his temple, encouraging him to go on. “Take your time,” he whispers. “I’m listening.”

“He used to tell me that Azula was born lucky,” Zuko rasps. “That she was born lucky, and I- I was lucky to be born.”

Sokka makes a wounded noise in the back of his throat and holds Zuko even tighter, pressing kisses all over his head. Zuko curls up tighter, practically in Sokka’s lap.

“I hate that Aang has a point,” Zuko sniffs. “He’s the Firelord, but he’s also a human, and he’s the Firelord, but that doesn’t stop him from being my dad. He wasn’t- he was never really a father to me, not in the traditional sense, but he wasn’t always so bad. I remember, we were here once, and we were on the beach. Lu Ten was teaching me and Azula how to swim in the ocean, and I saw this blowfish-crab about to get picked up by a bird. I dove in to save it, but I really wasn’t all that good at swimming yet, so I got pulled under. Everyone but my father was distracted, so he jumped in and saved me.”

Zuko sighs. “He’s always been him, y’know, but that doesn’t stop him from being my father. And the idea that he has to die for the world to be righted again- it’s just kinda complicated to take in.”

“I get it,” Sokka says. “Well, I mean, not really, but I can try to understand. Your relationship with your family has always been complicated, and this is gonna fuck it up even more. You’re allowed to be scared, and confused, or whatever. You can feel whatever you need to feel.”

“Why are you so perfect?” Zuko mumbles. “I don’t deserve you.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Sokka whispers. “We deserve each other. Isn’t that the whole point?”

And maybe Zuko would respond, if he wasn’t asleep against Sokka’s chest. Sokka just smothers a laugh and wraps his arms tighter around the other, settling down for a nap.

~~~

Chapter Text

“There’s nothing warmer than the blush in your cheeks.

There’s nothing brighter than the smile on your lips.

There’s nothing more alive than your heartbeat under my hand.

In short, my darling: I burn for you.”

-me, for the last time :(

The smile slides right off of Sokka’s face as he turns the corner, practically running into Aang. Aang is scowling, which immediately sets off at least thirty different alarms in Sokka’s head.

“Woah, woah, woah,” he says, “what the hell happened to you?”

“Zuko and I got in a fight,” Aang grumbles. “He’s just so- urg. I can’t talk to you about this, you’ll just take his side.”

“Wait, Aang-” Sokka protests, but Aang has already rounded the corner. Sokka curses under his breath and turns around as well, heading for Zuko’s study. If a fight has Aang as riled up as he is now, then Zuko’s bound to be at least three times more upset.

Sokka forgoes knocking as he opens the study doors, nodding courteously at the guards as he goes. Like he suspected, Zuko is sitting behind his desk with his head in his hands, silent tears running down his cheeks.

Sokka hurries to the other side of the desk, crouching down beside Zuko’s chair and gently prying his hands away from his face. He wipes the tears from Zuko’s unscarred cheek and then kisses his hands, which are salty from tears.

“What happened?” Sokka whispers. Zuko looks up at him, cheeks blotchy with emotion, and sighs. 

“It’s stupid,” he sniffs. “Really, it’s-”

“Hey, hey, none of that,” Sokka interjects, “if it’s upsetting you like this, it’s important.”

“It’s just-” Zuko mumbles, then takes a deep breath and clears his throat. “Aang keeps pressuring me to finish the new school curriculum, and he’s right, it does need to be finished, but it’s taking so damn long, and it’s not my fault. But Aang won’t bother the Minister of Education, or the Chancellor of Finances, or Ambassador Chua, who was supposed to get me the goddamn research on the Earth Kingdom Tribes months ago. He just keeps bothering me.”

Sokka huffs out a breath and presses a kiss to Zuko’s forehead, considering. Zuko is Sokka’s soulmate; they have a connection that’s unlike anything else in the world, as do every other pair of soulmates out there. But Zuko and Aang- they’re best friends, a different kind of soulmates in their own right. They’re all close, of course, but Zuko and Aang are closer with each other than they are with anyone else, which means that when they fight, it digs down deeper.

But, they’re Zuko and Aang. It’ll all work out in the end.

“You’ll be okay,” Sokka murmurs. “You just need to tell Aang what you just told me. He’ll understand, Zu, I promise.”

“Are you sure?” Zuko asks, looking up at Sokka with those heartbreaking, wide eyes.

“Of course, sweetheart,” Sokka whispers. “Of course I am.”

~~~

It’s three days to the comet, and Aang is gone.

Sokka and Appa land on the beach, and he scowls at the sight of everyone else’s disappointed faces. “I take it that none of you found Aang either?”

“Nope,” Toph says. “Twinkle Toes is gone.”

“We don’t know that!” Katara protests. “He has to be somewhere.”

“I didn’t mean he was dead, Sugar Queen,” Toph says. “Quit jumping to conclusions.”

“I feel like now really isn’t the time for arguing,” Zuko interjects weakly. “If Aang isn’t on Ember Island, then he must be somewhere else. So, we have to find him, preferably before my father burns down the Earth Kingdom.”

“Zuko’s right, you guys,” Sokka sighs. 

“So?” Toph asks, turning toward Zuko with her hands on her hips. “What’s the plan, Sparky?”

“What?” Zuko exclaims. “Why’re you asking me?”

“Hate to break it to you babe, but you’re kinda the resident Avatar hunter of the group,” Sokka says, playfully elbowing Zuko in the side. 

“What?” Zuko says again. Then, “Wait, did you just call me babe?”

“C’mon, lovebirds, we don’t have time for this,” Toph groans. “Sparky, Snoozles is right. You have the most experience in hunting Aang out of all of us. So. What’s the plan?”

Zuko looks like he considers it for a moment, and then a crooked grin cracks across his face. “We need to get to the Earth Kingdom. I know a guy.”

~~~

June is maybe even scarier now that she’s on their side.

As they walk into the bar, she throws a man over her shoulder, elbows another in the spleen, and catches her teacup without spilling a drop.

“Remind me again why we’re in a seedy Earth Kingdom tavern?” Katara asks, as if it’s not already clear.

“June,” Zuko says. 

Toph’s face lights up with glee. “I don’t know who this June lady is, but I like her.”

June herself takes a sip of tea and sighs, apparently noticing their group as they start to walk towards her. “Oh look,” she says, “it’s Prince Pouty. Where’s your smelly grandpa?”

“I’m not a prince anymore, actually,” Zuko says, plopping down into a seat. “And he’s my uncle, not my grandpa.”

“Sure, kid,” June sighs. “What do you want?”

“We need your help finding our friend,” Katara tells her. “He’s missing, and Zuko said you’d be able to help us find him.”

June hums, taking a sip of her tea. “Okay,” she says, “let me get this straight. From what I heard, you turned traitor, went to prison, busted out, and joined the Avatar. Now, you’ve lost the Avatar and you need me to find him again?”

“Yes,” Zuko huffs. 

“And you’ve worked stuff out with your girlfriend, I take it?” June adds, gesturing to Katara. 

“She’s not my girlfriend!” Zuko protests, overlapping with the sounds of Katara’s own upset. 

“He’s my boyfriend, actually,” Sokka smirks, wrapping his arms around Zuko’s shoulders. Zuko pretends that he’s annoyed, but Sokka feels the way he relaxes into the contact. June’s eyes soften imperceptibly, and then she looks away. 

“Okay then, lovebirds,” she says. “I’ll help you find the Avatar.”

They all head out to the stables, where Nyla, June’s shirshu, is napping. June lures her out with a piece of meat and then Katara gives June Aang’s glider, which she holds under the shirshu’s nose. Nyla sniffs it and paces around for a while, before whining and laying her hands over her snout. 

“What does that mean?” Zuko asks, his hands curling into fists by his side. Sokka wants badly to rub his hands up and down Zuko’s arm until he relaxes, and then twine their fingers together tight, but he knows that now is not the time. 

“It means your friend’s gone, buddy,” June says, clasping her hands together. 

“What do you mean, he’s gone?” Sokka asks. “Like, he’s dead?”

“No,” June sighs, “we’d be able to find him if he was dead. He just doesn’t exist anymore. A real head-scratcher. Sorry, better luck next time!” She turns to go back into the tavern, but Zuko calls out. 

“Wait!” he says. June turns, hands on her hips. “Wait, I know someone else who could help us.”

June takes in a breath of air, looking up towards the sky. She exhales, looking back toward them. “Alright, Princy-poo. Show me what you’ve got.”

~~~

They land near the breach in the wall of Ba Sing Se, and decide to set up camp for the night. Katara and Suki settle on top of Appa, Toph makes herself a rock tent, and Zuko and Sokka curl up on Appa’s tale, bundled underneath a few thin blankets. Zuko’s made himself into a ball of limbs and nervousness, hugging his knees to his chest, so Sokka wraps around him from the outside, as if his body is a shield.

“You okay?” Sokka whispers, nuzzling into the soft hair behind Zuko’s ear. 

“No,” Zuko whispers back. “Sokka, I’m really scared.”

“What for?” Sokka asks. “We’re going to see your uncle, Zuko, no one’s gonna hurt us here. We’re safe.”

“He won’t want to see me,” Zuko insists, flipping over so that his forehead is resting on Sokka’s collarbones. “The last thing I did to him was send him to prison, and then I wasn’t even quick enough to bust him out. I- I’m just- he’ll be disappointed.”

“Zuko, what?” Sokka asks, incredulous. “He went to prison and you did too. You both went to prison for a good deed, and the last time he saw you, you made a choice that changed your life for the better. He has no reason to be disappointed in you.”

Zuko makes like he’s about to respond, but then the ground starts rumbling beneath them. Sokka curses under his breath as he shoots up and draws his sword- is it really so much to ask for a good night’s sleep?

~~~

Sokka walks with Zuko to Iroh’s tent, gripping his hand as he hesitates before the tent flap. 

“You have nothing to worry about,” Sokka whispers, drawing Zuko close. He wraps his arms around the other and presses a kiss to Zuko’s forehead, and when he pulls away Zuko drops his face into the crook of Sokka’s neck. 

“Sokka, I’m scared,” Zuko whimpers, his voice cracking on the last word. He sounds every bit seventeen and nothing more, and it makes Sokka’s heart break, just a little bit. 

“There’s nothing to be scared of, sweetheart,” Sokka murmurs. “I’ll wait out here the whole time, okay? I’ll be right here.”

“Okay,” Zuko whispers. “Okay,” he says again, sniffling a bit. He pulls away from Sokka’s shoulder and tilts his chin up, so Sokka closes the small distance between them and presses their lips together. It’s short, sweet, but it’s become a familiar comfort in the past few days, so Sokka lets it linger a moment longer. When they pull apart completely, Zuko squeezes his hand, so Sokka squeezes back. Then, Zuko’s slipping through the tent flap, out of sight, and Sokka settles down on the ground to wait. 

~~~

He must doze off at some point, because Sokka blinks awake to the sight of Master Piandao looming above him. 

“Master,” Sokka says, scrambling to his feet. He scrapes together a messy bow, wincing at his own improper etiquette. 

“Sokka,” Piandao rumbles. “Please, there’s no need for such ceremony. I’m here so that we can talk as equals.”

Sokka clears his throat, making an effort to stand up straighter. “Of course, Master.”

“I’d like to thank you,” Piandao says, drawing Sokka up short. 

“For what, Master?” Sokka asks. “If anything, I should be thanking you.”

“No, no,” Piandao says, “I owe you a great debt. Sokka, if you hadn’t come and trained under me, I may have never reconnected with my soulmate. It’d been too many years, too many decades, since the two of us had last spoken, and the time that you spent with me helped me to realise that we drifted apart for no good reason in the first place. Recently, we’ve gotten back in touch, and I have you to thank for it.”

Sokka opens his mouth, closes it, then opens it again. He imagines that he must be putting on a good impression of a floundering fish. “You’re welcome, Master,” he says after a moment. “I had no idea that I had that impact on you.”

Piandao nods, and they stand in silence for a moment, long enough that it’s starting to become awkward. Then, Piandao says, “Prince Zuko spent many months at my estate. I know him well.” Sokka nods, because he doesn’t know what else to do. “His soul is fragile, Sokka, but I trust that you can treat him well.”

With that, Piandao bows, so Sokka bows back. Then, the old master is walking off into the darkness, and slipping into a tent that Sokka is quite sure he saw Jeong Jeong ducking into just a few hours before.

~~~

The sun is nearing the sky when Zuko finally ducks out of Iroh’s tent, tears etching a path down his cheeks but a smile on his face nonetheless. Sokka shoots up from where he was half-asleep on the ground, a tentative grin making it’s way onto his own face.

“It went well?” he asks, reaching out for Zuko’s hand out of pure instinct.

“So well,” Zuko responds, and they fall in step together, making their way through the campground. Sokka leads them to the tent that he claimed as his own earlier in the evening, and they settle down on the same bedroll, curled together.

“Nothing I need to know about?” Sokka murmurs eventually, half asleep again and nuzzling into Zuko’s throat.

“No,” Zuko sighs. “It went perfectly.”

“Good, sweetheart,” Sokka sighs. “That’s so good.”

~~~

“Uncle, you’re the only person other than Aang who can defeat the Fatherlord,” Zuko says during breakfast, when everyone’s sitting around the campfire. “It has to be you.”

“No, Zuko,” Iroh insists. “If I take down Lord Ozai, then history will see it as a move made in vain, a brother killing a brother in a grab for power. It is my destiny to work with the Order of the White Lotus and reclaim Ba Sing Se for the Earth Kingdom.”

“And then you’ll take your rightful place as Firelord?” Zuko asks. He sounds painfully hopeful. 

“No, Zuko,” Iroh says again. Zuko visibly crumbles. “It is you who must become Firelord. It is your destiny.”

Sokka takes a seat next to Zuko on the ground, raising an arm for the other to curl under. Zuko does so with a disappointed sigh, tucking his chin into Sokka’s shoulder. “C’mon, Zuko,” Sokka murmurs, “we both knew this was gonna happen.”

“In the future,” Zuko huffs. “The far future.”

“The future is upon us,” Iroh says. “As is our destiny. Zuko, you must go to Caldera City and defeat Azula. Master Katara will go with you.”

“What about us?” Sokka asks, looking up at Iroh over Zuko’s head. “What’s our destiny today?”

“Sokka, you, Toph, and Suki must go to the airship base that the fleet will be taking off from,” Iroh tells him. “It is located on the shores of the Earth Kingdom, about a day’s journey from here. You three must take down the fleet while Aang fights Firelord Ozai and Zuko and Katara take down Azula. Then, the White Lotus will liberate Ba Sing Se, and the war will end with the comet.”

Sokka nods. They all finish eating breakfast and then prepare to split up, and as Sokka finishes packing up his tent he sees Katara by the campfire, filling up her waterskin. He walks toward her, sitting down on a log by the fire without saying a word. 

“Be careful, okay?” he whispers after a moment, staring into the dwindling flames. 

“I will,” Katara says simply, “and you’d better be careful as well. I want everyone home in one piece.”

“Okay,” Sokka croaks. Katara drops her waterskin, heedless of the water that spills onto the ground, and pulls him into a fierce hug, her nails digging into the back of his tunic. 

“I love you,” Katara chokes out. Sokka feels the wetness of tears hitting his shoulder, and tries to keep back emotions of his own. “Please, try not to die. And try to keep Aang from dying while you’re at it, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Sokka huffs brokenly, clearing his throat in vain. “Yeah,” he says again, “Katara, I love you too. So much. And please, please, just- don’t let Zuko be the hero, will you?”

“I will,” Katara says. They hug each other for a moment more, reluctant to let go, but eventually they do. Sokka wipes his eyes and holds his arm out, and Katara sniffles but takes it. They clasp hands, forearm to forearm, and then they part. 

~~~

Sokka’s pacing through the campsite, fiddling with his boomerang, when a warm hand clasps around his shoulder. He turns, only to be pulled into a hug, nearly breaking his nose with how hard it smashes into Zuko’s head. 

“Hey,” Sokka croaks out, wrapping his arms tight around the other. 

“Hi,” Zuko whispers in response. 

“Do you really have to go?” Sokka asks. He knows it’s childish, but he wants and he wants and he wants, recklessly, for Zuko to stay. 

“I do,” Zuko says. “I don’t want to, but I do.”

“Please, be careful,” Sokka whispers. He inhales the familiar smell that wafts from Zuko’s hair; jasmine tea and ash and heat, and a little bit of something that’s just Zuko. “You’re not allowed to die, okay? We need our future.”

“I won’t die,” Zuko promises, “I’ll be careful. You have to be careful too, m’kay? I just- I love you, Sokka, you know that, right?”

Sokka huffs out a breath, ruffling Zuko’s hair. “Yeah,” he breathes, “yeah, sweetheart, I know that. I love you too.”

They hug like that for a while, as if the world isn’t spinning around them, and then Sokka grabs onto Zuko’s chin and tilts his face up so they can kiss. It’s tame, mostly just a meeting of lips, but Sokka tries to pour as much of himself as he can into it, lest it be their last. 

When they part, Sokka kisses lightly around the rest of Zuko’s face, ending with a kiss to the ridges of his scar. Zuko sighs and sags in Sokka’s arms, pressing one last kiss to his lips before they pull away. 

“Be safe,” Sokka says, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Zuko tells him.

It’s enough. It has to be.

~~~

In it’s own, twisted way, the comet is beautiful.

It flares across the sky in a burst of color, and if Sokka wasn’t so distracted with planning an airship slice then maybe he’d take more time to appreciate it. As it is, Sokka’s heart is in his throat and as he, Toph, and Suki look on, Aang comes into view. 

“He came back,” Suki breathes, clutching tightly to Toph’s arm. Toph’s fingers are curled into the fabric of her tunic, and the easy affection, the clinginess between soulmates, it makes Sokka ache for Zuko, just for a moment. 

“Of course he did,” Sokka grins. Despite everything, seeing Aang makes him smile. 

~~~

There’s a moment, when Sokka thinks that Suki has died. He watches half of the airship fall away and he cries out in anguish, because that’s his best friend, his best friend, and now she’s-

“Sokka, you have to keep going!” Toph calls out. “She’s not gone, she’ll come back! I know it! C’mon, we need to keep going!”

Sokka shakes his head (how could he have forgotten?), and then they continue. Not for long, though, because they’re just two kids against twenty Fire Nation soldiers, and Toph can’t see outside of the airship, and Sokka’s got nothing but a sword and a boomerang, so they end up falling before Sokka catches them on another airship. 

He chucks his sword at one soldier, then his boomerang at another, and then all that’s left is him, hanging there and holding onto Toph for dear life.

“I don’t think boomerang’s coming back, Toph!” Sokka calls. Is he imagining it, or are Toph’s fingers slipping through his?

For a single, horrifying moment, Sokka thinks he’s going to die.

Boomerang doesn’t come back, but Suki does.

~~~

(Katara’s acting frantic, like she thinks Zuko’s going to die. Zuko, on the other hand, is perfectly calm.

“Katara,” he croaks, looking up at her teary face, “Katara, it’s okay. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Zuko- Zuko I can’t- you don’t know that!” she stutters. “I promised Sokka that I’d keep you safe.”

“And I promised Sokka that I’d keep you safe,” Zuko tells her. “I’m not going to die, Katara.”

“How can you be so sure?” Katara demands. Her face is illuminated by the blue light of her healing water, not the golden glow of the sky. The comet is gone now, ashes left in it’s wake.

“There’s still the future,” Zuko says. “There’s always gonna be the future.”)

~~~

Sokka sees Katara and throws himself at her, broken leg be damned. She catches him with a sob, holding on tight.

“Are you okay?” he gasps, not letting go of her even to look for injuries.

“I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m not even scratched,” Katara gasps out, grappling with the back of his tunic. “Sokka, what the hell happened to you?”

“We went airship hopping, it’s just a broken leg,” Sokka says, “it’s no big deal. I’m still alive, we’re all still alive.”

He pulls away from her, and Aang takes his place in a flash. Sokka turns away out of respect, letting them have a moment between each other. Suki appears by his side, letting him lean into her, and Toph is there as well, still gripping onto Suki’s bicep like she’s been doing since the blue light overtook the orange.

When Katara and Aang part, Katara leads everyone to a bedroom, where she says Zuko’s resting. “He… listen, guys, he got hit pretty hard,” she tells them, hesitating outside the doors. “I don’t know if he’ll be awake.”

“Katara, what happened?” Sokka asks, his brow knit.

Katara swallows. “Azula used her lightning,” she says. “She was aiming for me,” she says. “Zuko caught it,” she says. 

She says and she says and she says, but Sokka doesn’t hear. He doesn’t hear past lightning, and then he’s running as best as he can, ripping away from Suki’s hold and tearing the door open to see Zuko, his Zuko, laying pale and small in a palatial bed.

“Oh, Yue and La,” Sokka mutters, freezing in place. He barely notices the way that Suki slips her arm back around his shoulders and guides him to the bed, but at some point he finds himself sitting against the pillows, Zuko’s clammy hand resting in his own. Aang and Katara go to put Ozai in the palace dungeons, and Suki and Toph say something about finding extra beds, but then it’s just Sokka, and Zuko, and silence.

Tears drip silently down Sokka’s face. One of them slips off the tip of his nose and catches in his cupid’s bow, and it tickles but Sokka doesn’t itch it. He feels like he’s paralyzed. This isn’t the end, he knows that, but everything is making it look like it is, and if it weren’t for the occasional wheezing breath then he wouldn’t know that Zuko is even alive. 

But he is. He has to be. Because there’s still the future. 

~~~

Sokka watches with mournful eyes as a guard strikes a training dummy in the courtyard, his fingers aching at his side. All he wants to do is train, go out there and hit something with his sword, grind the hilt of it against his calluses until they burn and burn and burn, but he can’t because his stupid leg is acting up again. 

The council meeting was a mess today, and Sokka’s got enough pent-up anger to kill a man, but it’s hard enough for him to walk right now, what with the way pain is shooting up and down his thigh. He refuses to use the cane that Katara gave him- he won’t, he’s twenty seven, not seventy two- and he’s trying his hardest not to limp as he walks back to his quarters. It’s working quite well, actually; no one who doesn’t know him well will notice that something is wrong, and he’ll make it to his quarters no problem, easy peasy, as long as nobody stops him. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, walking around without your cane?”

Aaaaaaaand, busted.

Sokka stops walking with a sigh, refusing to look behind him. A warm arm comes and wraps around his waist, taking some weight off of his leg and squeezing at his hip bone. “Hello to you too, darling,” Sokka sighs, begrudgingly leaning into Zuko’s warm side. 

“You idiot,” Zuko spits, not unkindly, “I could see you limping from a mile away. Are you trying to hurt yourself?”

“Zuko, I’m just trying to walk back to our rooms, it’s really not that far,” Sokka protests, holding back a groan as they start walking again. “What was I supposed to do, have someone bring the cane to me?”

“I would’ve gotten it for you, Sokka, you know that,” Zuko sighs. “I don’t like it when you’re in pain.”

Stupid Zuko and his stupid emotions, making Sokka feel stupidly guilty. “I know, sweetheart,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

“I know you are,” Zuko says. “You don’t have to be. C’mon, I’ll walk you back to our rooms and make you some hot towels, that should help with the pain.”

Sokka grins. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re the best?”

“You, once or twice.”

~~~

Sokka must’ve drifted off at some point, because when he wakes the room is dark, and there’s a head resting on his shoulder. He can see the outline of two beds placed haphazardly in the free space of the room, Toph and Suki silhouetted in one, Aang and Katara in the other. Zuko’s warm breath is gusting onto his collarbone, a thousand comforts all at once. 

The sound of lip smacking draws Sokka out of his head, and he looks around to see, well, nothing really. It’s still dark, but the noises sounded like they were coming from close by, so Sokka tilts his head down as much as he can and catches a glimpse of light. 

“Sokka?” Zuko croaks out, his face blurry in the darkness. 

“Zuko,” Sokka breathes, “oh, thank the Spirits. You’re okay.”

“Yeah, idiot,” Zuko chuckles quietly, “of course I’m okay, your sister healed me. I woke up for a bit a while ago- your leg?”

“It’s broken,” Sokka tells him, “but it’s really not too big of a deal. It’ll heal easily. You, on the other hand, got hit by lightning. Care to explain? Because I could’ve sworn that I told you to be careful.”

“You also told me to keep Katara safe,” Zuko mumbles, already half asleep. “I had to listen to one of them, and keeping her safe was much more realistic than being careful.”

“Whatever you say, babe,” Sokka sighs. “Get some sleep, alright? I love you.”

“Love you too,” Zuko whispers, and then he’s out like a light.

~~~

Sokka sees them from down the hall, standing out just as starkly as he does in their Water Tribe blues. Bato towers over his Dad just like he always has, but Sokka himself is approaching Hakoda’s height, and the distance between himself and his step-dad doesn’t feel as far as it once did. 

“Sokka,” Hakoda says. The sound of his voice is like coming home. 

“Hi Dad,” Sokka says as he reaches them. It’s slow going with his crutch, and as much as he’d like to throw himself into their arms he can’t. Instead, he practically falls into Bato’s chest and lets Hakoda wrap his arms around the pair of them, and they stand like that for a moment, catching their breath. 

Sokka doesn’t know when exactly he started crying, but it seems to have happened and he can’t make it stop. Bato and Hakoda don’t protest, in fact they only hold him closer, and Sokka blubbers and sobs about Tui knows what. 

(It must be something about this hug, being protected instead of being the protector. Even if Sokka can let his walls down when he’s around Zuko, he feels the necessity to be the parent of the group, to make sure that Aang eats and Toph sleeps and Katara takes a break. It’s different with Zuko and Suki, but also the same in a way.)

“-this is ridiculous, and I don’t know why I’m even crying, and I shouldn’t be bothering you with this and I’m sorry,” Sokka says, muffled and mangled and probably inaudible. 

“Sokka, it’s okay,” Hakoda chuckles, squeezing him tighter. 

“Zuko’s my soulmate,” Sokka says, because apparently he has no fucking filter when he’s crying. 

“We know, son,” Hakoda tells him. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Sokka stands there and he cries and he’s okay, because for once he’s being hugged instead of doing the hugging, and he’s in his fathers’ arms, and he’s okay. 

~~~

On a balmy summer’s day, in the middle of a volcano, Sokka stands and watches his soulmate get crowned as the Firelord. That, for one, is something that Sokka from a year ago never thought he’d experience. 

Zuko gives some speech about growth and peace and a new era, but Sokka isn’t really listening, he’s just watching. Zuko looks old and young at the same time; the Firelord’s crown belongs, in Sokka’s mind, to the Zuko of the future, but the youthful smile and messy hair belongs to the Zuko of now. In reality, though, Sokka knows that they’re just the same person. 

The coronation ends and the party after it drags out for hours, until the sun has sunk down low in the sky. Sokka barely gets a moment alone with himself, let alone with Zuko- apparently, everyone and their ostrich horse wants to talk to the teenage war heroes. Eventually, though, his arm starts aching from the weight of his crutch, so Sokka slips away from the party and into the palace, towards the bedroom and he and Zuko have been sharing these past couple weeks. When he gets there, the door is already open, so Sokka hopes against hope that maybe Zuko has beat him to it.

There’s no one in the bedroom though, so Sokka sighs and hobbles his way into the bathroom, washing up for the night and changing into a lighter tunic. When he emerges, the balcony doors have been opened and there’s a light breeze flowing through the room and a figure leaning against the railing, swathed in red and gold. Sokka props his crutch up next to the bed and hobbles to stand next to Zuko, leaning his head onto the other boy’s shoulder. 

“Hi there,” Zuko says. He’s taken off his pointy Firelord armour and is dressed down in just a tunic and pants, so his shoulder is soft and warm and just perfect for Sokka to be laying his head on. 

“Hello, sweetheart,” Sokka murmurs. “Did you like your party?”

“Not in the slightest,” Zuko sighs. “I’d much rather have spent my evening with you. I’m sure this Firelord business is gonna be all parties and meetings and generally unpleasant things.”

“We’ll make it pleasant for each other, baby,” Sokka says. “We can gossip after meetings and dance together at parties, all that good shit. It’ll be fun.”

Zuko turns toward him, his tunic ruffling in the breeze. “You don’t have to stay,” he says. “Please don’t feel like you have to stay just because I want you to.”

Sokka smiles softly at him, reaching out to pluck the crown from his hair. Zuko lets him, and Sokka sets it aside so that he can run his fingers through the soft locks, tucking some strands behind Zuko’s ears. 

“Zuko,” he says, “I’m staying for me. Not for you, or for anyone else. I’d go home if I wanted to, I promise, but what I want right now is just to be with you.”

Zuko huffs out a breath like he’s about to protest, but in the end he says nothing, just 

smiles. They stand on the balcony for a while longer, swathed in dusk and gold and warmth, untl Yue starts rising in the sky. That’s when Zuko slips under Sokka’s arm and supports him as they hobble towards the bed, and then they slip under the covers and situate themselves until they’re comfortable. 

“I love you,” Zuko says, his breath tickling the skin of Sokka’s neck. “I love you,” he says again, “so, so much, Sokka.”

“I love you too,” Sokka says, once, in every dream, in a thousand lifetimes.