Chapter Text
Zuko groans as he tries to find another sleep position. His back, his right side, his stomach all not working. He’s tried with a leg up and then out to the side. He’s tried pulling his hair up then leaving it down. One pillow then two, blankets on then off and nothing seems to help.
It’s humid, even in the dead of night, but it’s the Fire Nation, that can’t be the cause. After all, he’s supposed to be used to it.
The problem—he realizes—is he can’t seem quiet his mind, despite distracting himself with talks with his uncle and Aang, firebending practice, even meditating. But his conversation, or rather lack of conversation, with Sokka eats at him.
He feels anger bubble to the surface when his new sleeping position isn’t any more comfortable than the others. He deserves sleep, he deserves peace and he’s not willing to give it up. So, he throws the blankets off, grabs his robes and decides to confront the problem head on.
He makes his way to the world leaders’ chambers, not even knocking before entering.
The light is off, the moon’s light gone for the night, barely a star shining through the grey rain clouds that rolled in earlier. Despite the darkness, Zuko can find his way right where he needs to go. Thankfully, he’s been in the room more than enough to memorize its layout.
He makes it to foot of the bed, before Sokka jumps up at him, boomerang in hand. Zuko stumbles backwards nearly knocking into the chest of drawers behind him, blocking Boomerang from making an impact in his forehead. He pushes Sokka back, just far enough to give him time to quickly light the torches and candles around the room. Sokka freezes.
“Zuko? What…why…you—” Sokka starts but Zuko looks around him, grabbing the other man’s parka that of course he left in a crumpled heap on the floor and whipping it at his head. Sokka dodges it, his face even more confused than before.
“You don’t get to do this,” Zuko says motioning between them.
Sokka tilts his head to the side, his mouth downturned as he still tries to figure out Zuko’s meaning. He looks tired, his hair down, the ends just barely touching his shoulders, but his braids remain. Zuko also notices Sokka’s wearing his fancy sleep tunic, the one he only wore when staying abroad.
“Sleep?” he asks.
Zuko groans and charges forward, grabbing him by his tunic and pinning him between the large set of drawers and Zuko himself. Their faces are inches apart, and despite Sokka being strong enough, he doesn’t fight back. He just moves with Zuko. “You don’t get to come here after…after all that time…I—I was trying to be ok!”
Sokka’s face falls. “Oh…Zuko—”
“Do you even know how selfish it is?” Zuko asks, his anger flickering but not growing inside of him even though it should be. He’s mad, isn’t he? Yes. He is, it’s just their damn proximity to each other.
Being this close to Sokka has always had an effect on him. The way the air around Sokka tends to be a bit warmer, the way he always smells of ocean salt and snow, the way the fabrics of his clothes feel in Zuko’s grasp, how easily their bodies fit against one another. It all ignites in Zuko’s chest, reminding him of who they were to each other, how happy they were.
Even if they haven’t talked about anything that matters, and Zuko’s still so mad, he just can’t deny the love he’s tried the last month burying. “I mourned us—you—for weeks. I…I loved you, Sokka, and even if things were out of your control, even if you didn’t know the extent of everything Natik was doing, you—you should’ve talked to me.”
Zuko takes a stuttering breath, Sokka remaining silent. It’s surprising but so cathartic. Zuko needs him to hear him, to truly listen but his message is getting garbled in his head. His emotions are all over the place. He should’ve thought things through before confronting Sokka but he’s always been spontaneous especially in highly emotional situations.
“Do you have any idea what that was like? Spending all that time with you, trying to put you first, to be understanding and willing to end us even though I didn’t want to? Only then to be left on that dock without a word?”
The pain of standing there, waiting for Sokka to never come fights its way to the top of all the emotions swirling in Zuko.
Zuko releases Sokka’s tunic and takes a step back, though there’s still very little space between them. “I felt taken advantage of, discarded like some tool that didn’t serve its purpose, like something…unworthy.”
He wasn’t worthy enough for his mother to stay, he wasn’t worthy enough for his father to ever love him, or to stay in his Nation. He certainly wasn’t worthy of all Uncle’s love, of Aang’s and Toph’s almost instant acceptance. And for weeks, he’s felt unworthy of Sokka’s love, as if it was his fault Sokka didn’t talk to him, didn’t say goodbye.
And he’ll be damned if it doesn’t all goes back to that. Sure, things sucked before but not saying goodbye broke something very deep inside Zuko. It was as if his unworthiness finally caught up to him and Sokka, Sokka finally saw it.
“I know, that you not being there wasn’t intentional but I know that now. For weeks, I thought you’d realized…” Zuko’s voice drops. Those weeks were hard. Some of the hardest he’d been through, especially after seeing the Suki letters. He remembers losing himself, locking himself in his chambers, refusing to talk to Uncle. But, as always, Uncle was patient and he listened. Zuko unloaded everything and his Uncle tried to offer support and comfort, but they both knew only one person could truly give Zuko that. Now knowing the most of that pain could’ve been avoided, it almost makes it hurt more. “I felt like trash. And you could’ve stopped it, if you just…you could’ve woken me up…”
Sokka meets Zuko’s gaze again and it makes the already transforming anger and pain turn into sadness. Overwhelming, gut-wrenching sadness. The sadness he felt when he believed Sokka never wanted him, when he believed he was used, when he believed he wasn’t good enough for anyone.
Zuko closes his eyes, trying to correct his breathing and quell his ever transforming emotions. He needs to be angry; he needs to show Sokka how hurt and mad he is. But his heart has other ideas. It wants to release the pain, it wants comfort, the kind he’s grown accustomed to having, the kind only Sokka provides.
Sokka’s waiting for him to talk, he’s being so patient, but Zuko can’t find the words to describe it. The pain is so deep, that all he can manage is a broken, out of place: “why couldn’t you just wake me?”
Sokka’s reaches out and brushes away tears Zuko doesn’t even realize he’s crying.
“I am so sorry,” Sokka says softly, his voice warm and soothing despite Zuko’s anger at him and his biting words. “I thought I could fix it before you even woke up but I was so wrong.”
Zuko finally opens his eyes and this time, the vision of Sokka’s handsome face is blurred by his tears. But Zuko can still make out the red braid in his hair and realizes—despite everything—Sokka never took it out. He never even fixed it. There’s still the slight threading mistake that Zuko made when he first put it in. Sokka said he loved it, that he didn’t want it fixed because it was perfectly Zuko.
Tears drip faster from Zuko’s eyes.
Agni, he is still so in love with Sokka and Sokka with him.
Sokka’s fingers brush Zuko’s cheeks gently before tilting his face down and pressing a soft kiss to his forehead. Zuko’s breath catches, warmth he’s not felt exploding from his chest, but he keeps his face downturned, even as Sokka’s hands go back to wiping his cheeks.
“And you are worthy of so much more than I gave you.” Sokka closes the small space between them, wrapping Zuko tightly in his arms. Sokka turns his face slightly, his nose and mouth pressed against the back of Zuko’s head. “I didn’t and honestly, probably, still don’t deserve you.”
Zuko’s brain tells him to pull away, but he can’t. A small voice berating him for needing this from Sokka as he hugs Sokka within an inch of his life.
“If you’re happy here, if being away from me is better for you, then that’s...” He pauses, uncertainty building, his hold on Zuko tightening slightly. “I want to say that’s great, because it’s really great for you but I feel like coming from me it’ll sound like I don’t want you to be with me. But I do. I just don’t want you to sacrifice or compromise who you are because you deserve to be somewhere where you can be happy, with someone who makes you happy, and I can’t stand in the way of that,” Sokka says finding his way back to his original thought with confidence despite his words being slightly muffled by Zuko’s hair, “I love you and I’m with you on whatever path you choose.”
Zuko takes a deep breath. Being with Sokka got hard, and Zuko was hurt; a new start would effectively stop both of those things from happening again. But his heart, oh his heart, doesn’t even want to entertain the notion of not working things out with Sokka.
After all, during the couple months Sokka spent in reconstruction, he moved his whole life to the Fire Nation and was Zuko’s constant when all his other friends scattered to repair the world, when his own Nation was trying to undermine him at every turn. Sokka never gave up helping Zuko and Zuko knows he was difficult to deal with. It’s only because of Sokka that Zuko was able to work on himself and the nation. He’s infinitely a better person because of Sokka.
Does all of that get erased because of a couple months of poor decisions? Because Sokka was struggling?
Zuko pulls back to look Sokka in the face as the ocean blue of Sokka’s eyes search his face for answers because the silence his voice offers none. How many times had Zuko seen those eyes light with joy, darken with anger and protection? How many times had those eyes been pressed close during spars, only metal between them and Zuko? How many late nights had he awoke to those eyes above him promising safety and love? How many times did those eyes fill with tears after hard days and sometimes harder nights? How many days did he catch those eyes staring at him during meetings, or over paperwork with move love than Zuko ever thought he deserved?
The red braid, the long winded over detailed explanation, the rushing to come here, admittance of his failures and true willingness to be better even to be supportive if Zuko chooses to date another…it all means something big. Something important and Zuko doesn’t want to lose it. Not again.
His body reacts before his mind can make up it’s decision. His hand reaching out and grabbing Sokka’s tunic, yanking him into a hard kiss.
Sokka’s stunned at first, his lips unmoving, his hands falling to his sides but only takes a couple seconds before his arms wrap around Zuko, pulling him closer and sealing their mouths. They kiss until Zuko’s out of breath, pulling back only to breathe.
“Things have to be different,” he pants as Sokka captures his mouth again. Zuko’s hands moving from Sokka’s tunic to cupping his face.
“So…different,” Sokka agrees, moving his lips to Zuko’s neck, which Zuko grants him access to almost immediately. He turns his head to the side, his eyes slipping closed and a different heat starting to bloom.
“Sokka--” he breathes out, hands slipping into the other’s hair.
“I swear they will be,” he reassures against Zuko’s skin, “I won’t screw it up again.”
Zuko nods Sokka’s mouth moving back to his. His thoughts and feelings, his body is consumed with Sokka. It’s almost suffocating, but suffocatingly marvelous.
Sokka moves them to the bed. Zuko landing on his back with a soft thud, his robes flittering around him, baring his unclothed chest. Sokka lands on top of him, his lips roaming every inch of Zuko’s newly exposed skin. Their hands never stop touching, their mouths continuously pressed against various parts of each other.
Zuko feels his inner flame surge inside of him, his body reacting to Sokka as if none of this had happened, and for the first time in a long time he feels truly like himself. In the South Pole, he was a pushover, when he came back to the Fire Nation he overcompensated, definitely becoming a more guarded.
But this?
After standing up to Sokka, unloading all the thoughts and feelings he’s had but kept to himself? It’s the final piece of his puzzle. The reminder that he can be somewhere in between those two versions of himself, just as he was tonight, and the people he loved the most would accept and love him for it.
~~~~~
Zuko wakes from the best sleep he’s had in weeks to the soft glow of morning sunlight. Sokka’s wrapped around him, his face buried in Zuko’s hair, his chest pressed against Zuko’s back, his legs threaded within Zuko’s. It should make Zuko uncomfortable, their body heat easily as hot as the humid air around them, but it doesn’t. It’s actually comforting.
Zuko threads his fingers with Sokka’s one hand that’s dangling off his upper arm, bringing the beautifully dark skin to his lips and kissing it gently.
Sokka mumbles something, but he’s still mostly asleep, so Zuko can’t quite make it out. He doesn’t move or ask him to repeat it. Just smiles when Sokka uses the other arm to tighten his hold.
“We’re not awake yet,” Sokka repeats more clearly, Zuko snorting slightly.
“Agni has already risen,” Zuko replies, his eyes running over Sokka’s messily unpacked (or was it packed) bags. Sokka clearly was in a hurry, even being here less than 2 days nothing in his bags is neat.
Sokka groans but makes no attempt to rise, nor does he let Zuko.
“Maybe Aang will let you nap on Appa,” Zuko offers, kissing his palm again.
Sokka says nothing for a while that Zuko is sure he fell back asleep. So he keeps quiet, not minding the peaceful morning.
“I—uh—know we didn’t do a lot of talking after a while but…uh, are you flying on Appa too?”
Zuko can hear the uncertainty in Sokka’s voice and he’s only a bit thrown by it. Though, Sokka’s right. After a certain time, they did very little talking. But in the bit of talking they did do, they both agreed they still had things to work on; Sokka needing to put action to his words, Zuko to be a more honest communicator and willing to put himself first. Sure, the talk of their living situation hadn’t come up but there’s no place Zuko would want to be if not with Sokka. He supposes it makes sense Sokka would be unsure as Zuko definitely doesn't remember expressing that particular thought aloud.
He turns in Sokka’s arms, seeing his face etched in worry.
“Yes. We can send for the res—mmm—”
Zuko doesn’t get to finish his sentence before Sokka’s kissing him, resituating himself on top of him. Zuko's confident both he and Sokka are feeling joy…and maybe something else but definitely joy.
They’ll slip up; they may even hurt each other in their attempts to grow, to be better people and partners.
But they’ll do it together, unbreakable, as they were always meant to be.