Chapter Text
“Zu?”
Sokka’s voice is quiet, floating away like a whisper on the evening wind.
Zuko looks up at him gently, love evident in his eyes. “What’s on your mind love?”
“I just-” Sokka pauses, wondering to himself how he should phrase this question. “I just love you. A lot. And I want you to feel like you’re able to talk to me about stuff. Like your scar. Did you know that we’ve been dating for almost a year now, and I still don’t know how you got it?”
Zuko turns so that he’s facing Sokka in bed instead of laying next to him, and considers his boyfriend’s question for a moment.
The palace is always blessedly quiet at night. Zuko had forgone the traditional Fire Lord’s chambers and instead had a room that opened up to the turtleduck pond renovated, and he likes to sleep with the windows open and wind billowing in through the sheer red curtains. Sokka sleeps closest to the door, on Zuko’s left side, and he’s always curled in a protective arc around him, as if he’s trying to protect him from the rest of the world.
Zuko loves the feeling of Sokka’s body curved around his. Relishes in it.
He loves nights when Sokka’s soft breathing lulls him to sleep, loves nights when Sokka runs gentle fingers through his hair and whispers soothing words to him after a particularly hard day, loves any night he spends with Sokka, period.
He loves Sokka.
Zuko loves nights like this, nights when they stay awake and talk in hushed voices for what could be hours, about anything and everything, until the deep and rumbling tones of Sokka’s voice lull him to sleep.
“Part of me figured that you knew how I got it.” Zuko says quietly after a minute, burrowing deeply into Sokka’s shoulder. “I don’t like to talk much about it, but I guess I had to tell the story to so many people that I just thought you knew it too. I was thirteen, and I spoke out of turn during a war meeting. Some general, a powerful Ozai supporter, had proposed this battle plan that involved sacrificing an entire front in order to win another battle. I thought it was bullshit-knew it was bullshit- but my father disagreed. He challenged me to an Agi Kai-” Sokka gasps quietly here, but Zuko continues, “- and me, being thirteen and over confident, agreed. I thought I’d be fighting the general, but when I showed up, my father was there. He wanted me to fight him, in a ritual that’s supposed to be to the death. But I refused. So, he took his hand to my face and lit it on fire. Simple as that. He banished me afterwards, but that ended up working out mostly against him, so jokes on Ozai, really.”
Sokka is looking at him like he’s hung the stars. His eyes are full of awe and respect, not of pity and sadness like so many of the people that Zuko had told his tale to before.
Sokka reaches out a hand to brush against the scarred side of Zuko’s face, tucking a few stray hairs behind his ear. “That was a horrible thing for him to do,” he whispers finally, “And I’m so proud of you for the amazing job you’ve done running your country, despite it’s actions against you. I know I probably sound like Iroh right now,” he chuckles, “But I’m proud of you, goddammit. I’m so proud of you, and I love you so much. So much. Thank you for telling me.”
Zuko smiles at him, a sleepy, sated smile, and closes his eyes in satisfaction, drifting off to sleep with a gentle ‘I love you’.