Chapter Text
As they neared the end of the North American tour, exhaustion seemed to settle deep into Soolong’s bones. While this tour was half as intense as the tours when they were with ZhaoWorks, they were still a lot to handle, tiring and stressful, with plenty of fuel for breaking points.
Those points manifested differently in each member—Lu Ten glared at the source of any too-loud sound, Lee took snore-heavy naps at any given opportunity, Toklo (somehow) got too competitive playing Disney Tsum Tsums, Tomkin sulked in the booth with music blasting in his ears, and Zuko tended to snap, brash and angry.
He hated that about himself. His reaction to stress disappointed his groupmates, and it sometimes made Tomkin get all closed-off, on edge, and scared. That was the worst. Zuko knew he had a bad experience in a foster home before Toklo’s family was approved to take him in. Zuko knew plenty about bad family experiences. He had gotten close to snapping that morning when his coffee sloshed over the side of his mug as the bus went over a bump on the highway. Something so small felt so big when he was so tired. He looked at the small puddle on the table, looked at Tomkin in front of him, with his eyes closed and music barely audible from his headphones. With his best friend in his heart and his uncle’s voice in his mind, he went to his bunk, closed the curtains, and turned on fucking bird sounds.
He didn’t even like birds, really, but Uncle Iroh had been really nice and made him a relaxation playlist.
“It is good after a long day to relax and commune with nature,” their manager had said with a serene smile. He had seen Zuko snap and slam the studio door, and had seen Lu Ten roll his eyes and Tomkin jump and Lee and Toklo ignore him completely. Unlike Zhao, their former manager, Iroh did not jerk Zuko to the side to give a biting threat, but gently led him with a hand on his elbow to his cozy office, making him a cup of calming chamomile tea with understanding eyes and gentle hands. The guilt had made Zuko feel sick to his stomach.
“What nature?” Zuko scoffed quietly. He didn’t like tea, but he sipped it anyway. “I can’t just take a walk in the park whenever I get mad. And we’re about to go on tour, what do you want me to do? Make them stop the bus?”
Iroh had given him a considering tilt of the head before nodding once, determined. “I will make you something to listen to, and you can close your eyes and pretend.”
He sounded so sincere and convinced of its magical effectiveness that Zuko kept trying it out, hoping to achieve the tranquility Iroh seemed to exude for just one minute. He never managed to meditate, necessarily, but trying to do so kept him in a quiet space and gave him enough time alone to calm down and regain a level head (enough to give Tomkin a whispered “sorry” and to receive the immediate forgiving hug without tensing up). That didn’t mean bird sounds didn’t suck.
A notification pinged in his ears, loud and startling interrupting the jungle rain. Aggravation twinged in Zuko’s chest as he opened his eyes with the rash intention of deleting whatever app had just yelled at him.
Twitch - now
boomsokkasokka is live: GOTTACATCHEMALL. Swipe to watch now.
It took an embarrassingly short amount of time to remember why he was getting that notification. It had been over a week ago, but he remembered seeing muscles-tattoos-teeth (plus dog) and remembered his impulsive want to see more almost immediately. Whatever boomsokkasokka was up to seemed ten times better than listening to parakeets, so, of course, he swiped.
The stream loaded to reveal a nostalgic delight—he was playing Pokemon Ruby on an emulator, one of Zuko’s favorite games from his childhood (the only game he’d ever played in his childhood). Lu Ten used to let him play on his console when he visited, both of them hiding away in Lu Ten’s bedroom to avoid the sneers and snark of their grandfather and Zuko's father Ozai. The stream also revealed a delight that held no nostalgia.
The man from the adoption stream was even more beautiful than Zuko remembered, even with his stupid gamer headset and worn Star Wars t-shirt (maybe because of the shirt that fit comfortably snug against his chest with a few holes conveniently revealing dark ink underneath). He took up half of the screen, the current battle against a wild Magikarp on the other half.
It was fate, Zuko thought. He had always related to Magikarp; floundering through his childhood and the early years of Soolong as he tried to evolve into a Gyrados. He was meant to tune in.
(Let it be known: smart as he was, Zuko was an idiot.)
There were eighty-two viewers and a good handful of them seemed to be active in the chat, but that was apparently not enough for boomsokkasokka to not notice a new person popping on. He glanced at the monitor and grinned.
“Hey! Sozz080397, thanks for tuning in to Mudkip Hour!” He was beautiful and gorgeous and had the nicest teeth Zuko had ever seen and he had just said Zuko’s name (technically) and it was too much. In a panic, he closed the app.
In a stronger panic, he quickly reopened it.
Muscles-Tattoos-Teeth (Plus Dog) was still in the middle of frowning, saying “—should stop scaring people, huh, guys?” when sozz080397 rejoined, and he interrupted himself with a charming laugh. “Sorry for spooking you, bud, welcome back.”
Zuko’s cheeks were still burning, even the tip of his nose felt like it was tingling from embarrassment, but he didn’t close out again. Instead, he laid down and propped his phone against the wall of his bunk, watching a beautiful boy play a children’s game and feeling more relaxed than any chirping bird had ever made him. He didn’t realize how long he had been watching until Lu Ten tapped outside his bunk with a quiet “Knock, knock.”
Suddenly flustered and feeling caught in the act, Zuko closed Twitch and locked his phone, not wanting Lu Ten to see his new fascination. “Uh—yeah?”
Lu Ten pulled back the curtain and squinted at him suspiciously, obviously praying that he hadn’t caught his cousin in a much more compromising position. “We’re about to have the Dinner Conversation. You have any preferences?”
Zuko always had preferences. He slid out of bed and left his phone behind.
Zuko’s preferences were outweighed.
“Zuko, my dude, babe,” Lee had argued, “We’re in Mexico for two more days before we go back to a place with approximately zero authentic Mexican restaurants for another six months, I want us to be so sick of it we don’t even notice.”
He pouted over his empanadas instead of the pad thai he had been craving and silently crafted a list of recently acquired information in his mind.
Muscles-Tattoos-Teeth (Plus Dog) was named Sokka, judging by the people in the chat who addressed him with enviable familiarity. His dog seemed to love him as much as Sokka loved Puck, and had wormed his way into Sokka’s arms to act as a sixty-pound lapdog mid-stream. Sokka had just hugged him indulgently and peppered his head with kisses and wiped the slobber from Puck’s returned licks with a grin.
Though it was not necessarily new information, it was important to note that Sokka was charming. He had the best voice for storytelling and a barking laugh and sharp canines that would show up in Zuko’s dreams. There was nothing particularly special about the stream (other than it was Zuko’s first, and aren’t firsts always memorable?), but it was enough for Zuko to know that, without a doubt, he would answer the next notification like a siren call.
“Oi, oi,” Tomkin said, pointing a churro at him. Zuko took an obliging bite with a hum of thanks. “You’re thinking.”
“Some of us can.”
Tomkin rolled his eyes and took his own bite, cinnamon sticking to his lips. He talked with his mouth full with the sole purpose of making Lu Ten’s eye twitch. “You good?”
Zuko felt simultaneously touched and embarrassed; they all looked at him with genuine concern, wanting him to be okay and not just to see vulnerability. Lee, especially, looked at him with earnest eyes as he waited for his answer.
Lee had replaced him and he would have never cared about Zuko being “good” for anything, other than wanting to know if there were any weak spots that would hurt more than usual if they were pressed. Zuko visibly relaxed at Lee’s expression, face still baby-round even though he would bite anyone who suggested so.
“I’m good. I rested.” I calmed down, they know Zuko means.
Tomkin locked ankles with him under the table and chomped happily at his churro, satisfied. Lu Ten looked at him with such familial warmth that Zuko had to look away. Lu Ten’s eyes were always the color of protection, just like Uncle Iroh’s.
“Thanks,” he muttered, taking a large bite so he wouldn’t have to say anymore.
✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩
Sokka stretched his arms up after ending the stream, spinning lazily in his desk chair. Still on his lap, the lug that he was, Puck huffed at him sleepily but remained stubbornly put. While he didn’t beat the world record by any means, that 5:25:08 speedrun of Pokemon Ruby really took it out of him. With a groan, Sokka heaved Puck off his lap, rolling his eyes when he flopped onto the floor dramatically, belly begging to be rubbed. Sokka was a sucker and gave in, Puck’s tail thumping slowly.
“You’re super smart,” Sokka considered. “Think I can teach you to write so I don’t have to do this essay?”
Puck woofed quietly in happy refusal.
“Yeah, thought not,” he sighed and grabbed his laptop and a heavily-marked (out of stress, not out of interest) copy of some stupid classic European romance tragedy war yadda-yadda novel. He was in his second year of community college, wrapping up gen eds before applying to as many fancy colleges as possible with the hope of getting a reputable architecture degree that would come with some similarly fancy networking opportunities.
He hadn’t been as smart as Katara (or as applied, as his dad had said) and had paid a lot more attention to his high school hockey career than his grades. Katara had gotten into Harvard, early admission, full-ride scholarship plus a stipend, the whole shebang. Sokka hadn’t… applied, anywhere, because he didn’t know what he wanted out of life or what he wanted to study or where he wanted to go and he was smart enough to not force himself into something he’d start to hate one month after he couldn’t do anything to change it without starting all over. Instead, he followed his little sister to Boston (to Cambridge, but whatever), and worked his ass off at a locally-owned coffee shop where he made great tips and got a free meal each shift.
He realized when he was scrolling through his photos in search of a niche meme that he did have an interest that he could turn academic. Every so often, he’d hit a streak of pictures he had taken of historic houses, interesting public spaces, unique designs that added something extra to whatever they were—it all pointed to architecture. He wasn’t positive about what he wanted to go with, but he was leaning to structural engineering to put his math brain to use, or historic preservation to professionally obsess over old buildings.
All of this to say—he had to write an essay, and he didn’t want to, but he would.
Maybe after a snack.
✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩
The Mexico City concert had been one of their worst in a while. Mexico City Arena had been one of the venues that sold out within a minute of tickets going on sale, and it had been packed to the brim with twenty-two thousand fans who had been so excited to see them, so welcoming and enthusiastic and loud, and the only thing Zuko felt Soolong had been able to offer in return was technical problems and his voice cracking and broken mics and his voice cracking and messed up choreography and his voice—
“Zuko,” Lu Ten said from the door connecting their hotel rooms, his voice low and serious. “It’s okay.”
Zuko didn’t look away from the window, arms wrapped around his knees, curling into himself on the too-stiff armchair. “No, it’s not.”
“It is. It happens. And you know no one cares as much as you.”
“Twitter cares.”
“One percent of Twitter cares. The other ninety-nine percent are fans raving about the show. Ninety-nine percent of those are raving about you, because other than that tiny, tiny second, you kept us from drowning tonight.”
Zuko studiously ignored his stinging eyes and the lump in his throat. “I made it worse.”
“You didn’t.” Lu Ten was always too kind to him. Zuko wished he would just yell because sometimes making him feel worse was the only thing that made him feel better. Fuck what his therapist said about kind words and healthy coping mechanisms.
“I did. ”
“You—” Lu Ten said with a small smile, coming close to sit on the arm of the chair and pulling Zuko into a comforting half-hug. “You were incredible. Who else could do that?”
That was performing a purely acoustic solo after a major malfunction disconnected the live instruments and backing tracks from the arena speakers. Between Soolong, their staff, arena employees, technicians, and everyone else who ran backstage to figure out what, why, and how, it had been a frantic buzz made all the worse by the screaming audience, suddenly plunged into silence that they met with the routine chants that celebrated the group.
Hearing their names—Lu Ten, Toklo, Zuko, Tomkin, Lee, SOOLONG—yelled at top volume by thousands and thousands of people only made the group feel at a guilt-ridden loss, until Zuko stopped, blinked at the floor, blinked at them, grabbed his mic, and walked back on stage.
It had been an emotional performance of one of their more underrated songs—an emotional track that focused more on smooth vocals rather than setting up a scene for an intricate MV or intense choreography. It took them all by surprise, the group and the crowd. As Zuko approached the second chorus, the boys had sprung into action, rushing to join him on stage. Lee and Tomkin pretended to swoon into one another as they came over to join him, Toklo had swung an arm around Zuko’s shoulder from one side, and Lu Ten had done the same from the other. It was then, when his campfire voice was tucked between theirs, that it had cracked, barely audible but definitely there. Lu Ten had seen Zuko’s panicked eyes even though he did his best to keep his face performance-neutral, and he had known that Zuko had a long night of self-flagellation ahead of him.
Zuko shrugged and stayed silent.
“You did great,” Lu Ten said firmly. “We have to be up early for Buenos Días, will you try to get some sleep?”
“I guess.”
“Oh, you want me to make you tea?” he teased.
“I’ll try to sleep, I don’t want tea,” Zuko said with a childish pout.
Lu Ten peered at him for a moment before giving him a warm grin, ruffling his hair. “Fine, prove it. In bed with you.”
Zuko heaved out a put-upon sign but conceded, abandoning the armchair in favor of the bed. “You're not my dad,” he muttered into the pillow, no fire behind the words.
“I’m sure as hell not,” Lu Ten laughed, squeezing Zuko’s shoulder like his own father used to do for him. “Night, Zuko. You did great today.”
Zuko didn’t smile and didn’t nod and didn’t believe him, but he did close his eyes. Lu Ten watched him fondly for a moment before going back to his own bed. For now, that was enough.