Chapter Text
SOKKA
Sokka didn’t have time to deal with an injury, he really didn’t, which is why he cursed perhaps a bit too loudly and for a bit too long when he fell particularly bad on a triple axel and hurt his wrist.
It was a quiet session at least, only his sister having her own lesson nearby from their coach and Aang the other side of the rink practicing his spins.
But here’s the deal: competition season started off in just two weeks. His first competition was Lombardia Trophy, all the way in Italy as well, and he was up against Zuko, of all people.
Listen, he knew he shouldn’t hate the competition. And he didn’t. It came across as uncompetitive and as if he was just being a bad sportsman. Sokka didn’t dislike Zuko, or his family, for his skating abilities (his jumps especially were admittedly very good, but all the rest he could really work on some more), or the fact that Zuko often placed above him (because of that stupid quad flip and quad lutz). No, Sokka ‘disliked’ him because he always was just so… stuck up. He’d never talk to anyone after or during competitions, not even at the banquet! His sister and him just… sat there. Sure, Azula was much worse than her brother, she was actually rude towards her competition apparently (which Katara was part of), but that didn’t take away from the fact that Zuko just didn’t seem like a good person. Okay maybe that’s a bit overdramatic, saying he’s not a good person because he doesn’t talk to others, but you get the idea.
Sometimes Sokka saw Zuko talk to Ty Lee and Mai, two other big names in the female skating world. As far as Sokka was aware, the four trained together in Moscow, even though only Azula and Zuko actually skated for Russia. Ty Lee skated for Japan, and Mai for China, but such practices weren’t too uncommon in figure skating. As a matter of fact, Aang represented Thailand but considering the training facilities, he had moved to Canada all alone at the age of 12 for his practices, where he had met the two siblings, who both represented Canada.
Sokka quickly shook off the pain in his wrist. In just a bit over a week he’d be on a plane heading towards Italy and he had to be ready. He’d better do another runthrough of his program, just to make sure everything was how he wanted it to be. No new program ever comes out perfectly during the first competition of the season, but he could at least try.
~~
“Good luck!” Katara embraced him a week later as he took his bags to leave.
“Thank you,” he hugged her back. “Hey, you too in Slovakia, alright? Tell Aang good luck too!”
His sister’s first competition of the season was Ondrej Nepela, and so was Aang’s. It was the other boy’s very first senior competition too, and Sokka wished he could be there to support the two but it had been a conscious decision to go to Italy instead. That one had always been his first competition of the season, and he wasn’t about to break a tradition that worked for him. Sokka wasn’t superstitious or something, but changing up things that worked didn’t exactly seem like a good idea.
“I will,” she pulled away and grinned. “Looking forward to you totally beating Zuko!”
“Haha yea, me too,” he tried to sound confident.
If he won, he’d overtake Zuko in the ISU world standings, for now at least. They were only about 50 points apart, but he tried not thinking of that. Standing second in a world ranking was good as well, and with all the grand prix and championships coming up, it hardly matter who’d be in the lead now. One good grand prix and Zuko overtook him again.
But he couldn’t worry about that now, he doesn’t need that kind extra stress.
~~
ZUKO
“I’m just saying, if you don’t watch out now, the Canadian boy will overtake you in the world standings,” Azula leaned against the doorframe of his room as he was packing his bags.
“I know,” he was well aware about the fact that Sokka was a threat in that department, it was hardly ignorable.
Zuko had the jumps, he knew the base value of his program was higher, but Sokka always scored a lot higher in components, and especially skating skills and interpretation. His GOE on his jumps was often a bit higher too. Zuko had tried working on those aspects over the summer of course, but those things weren’t easy you know? He just loved practicing jumps so much more. The feeling of jumping higher, faster, putting all your power in one jump. The feeling of landing a jump only a handful of people in the entire world could do.
Azula pressed on the matter once again. “Dad wouldn’t be happy if that happened.”
“I know,” he flung a shirt into his bag in annoyance. “Listen, it doesn’t matter. I will win. And if i don’t, I just need to win my two grand prix and either European championships or World championships and I’m number one again.”
“Are you trying to explain to me how the system works?” She narrowed her eyes and pushed herself up against the doorframe to come closer. “I’ve been number one in the world standings for more than a year now, thank you very much.”
Ty Lee wasn’t even a close second, honestly. Azula had more than 800 points above her. After her, Ty Lee, Mai, Katara and Suki (in that order) all had only a tiny difference.
“I know,” he said for the third time, getting slightly, okay no, really annoyed. And where was his extra pair of gloves?
“Seems like you know a lot then,” Azula rolled her eyes. “I’m just saying you better win this thing.”
“Yes Azula, because any time I don’t win I do it because it was my intention to not win,” he rolled his eyes in response too. “Now let me pack in peace before I miss my flight and won’t even have a competition to win in the first place.”
~~
He sat alone in the plane at least, finally having some peace. His coach would only arrive around thursday so he had enough time to get used to the ice too on his own accord.
Mai was doing Lombardia trophy as well, but she had gone home to China first for a while to practice with her coaches there in the beginning of the summer. After that, she’d probably return to Moscow for a few months.
Zuko liked Mai the most out of all of his friends, which isn’t the biggest accomplishment ever really because his friends included his sister, Ty Lee, Mai and pretty much no one else. At competitions, he always saw everyone talk with each other. Almost all of his competitors seemed to be pretty good friends, but for Zuko it was just awkward. Him and the other three always stayed in their little bubble and ignored everyone. Mai and Azula because they simply weren’t interested in befriending the competition (Ty Lee on the other hand was extremely social), but for him it was different.
His father said that was the best way to win, to not befriend the enemy. Well, the competition. But that was pretty much the same thing in his father’s eyes. Azula was allowed to befriend the others because she was, and he quotes, “good at forgetting they were friends during competitions”, and his father seemed to think that Zuko wouldn’t be able to do that.
It’s not like Zuko would let his friends win if he did have them. He was a competitive person, and every competition his honor was at stake, but he knew better than to argue with his father over stupid things like friendships, especially after that one time when he was 13. He lightly touched his scar when thinking about it.
It was always a hot topic between his fans. ‘How do you think Zuko got the scar?’ People would discuss on public forums or Twitter or even Instagram. If it was up to him, no one would ever know how it happened. Still, some of the theories his fans had were rather… wild. One of the most popular one was that he fell on his eye and got a burn wound from the ice. How they think one could fall on their eye like that, he didn’t understand either. A more realistic one most people believed is that he was trapped in a burning building when he was a child, and barely got out alive. Again, how one would only hurt one eye that way, he didn’t know. But if that’s what they wanted to believe then Zuko wasn’t about to correct them.
Sometimes when his uncle came with him to competitions, he’d try and get Zuko to talk to the others, but luckily his uncle only went to the competitions within the country. Zuko prefered it when as little of his family as possible were there to ‘support’ him. The fact that his sister and him only had one overlapping grand prix (and most probably the grand prix final) and no Challenger series competition was almost a blessing in that department.
He sighed and took out his calculus book, even during competitions he had to maintain his grades. Last year had been hard, finding a balance in studying at university and skating, but this year he at least knew what he was doing. Kinda.
~~
Zuko groaned as soon as his back hit the mattress and he was finally settled in in his hotelroom. Yea, he always woke up early and he never used to have any problems with early morning practices, but after a day of travel he really wished he wasn’t in the first practice group the day after.
8am on the ice, half an hour to get to the rink, half an hour warming up off-ice. About an hour to get ready in the morning. 6 am. Another groan. Really, any other day he wouldn’t have problems with it but plane rides really wore him out.
He shuffled on the mattress, trying to find his phone that he had thrown on the bed somewhere, to read the document again.
He was one of the first on the music rotation list too, so he definitely couldn’t skip out on the off-ice warm-up before. His eyes went over the document again, too see who else was in his group. Sokka. Yet another groan.
~~
SOKKA
Early mornings really weren’t Sokka’s thing at all. It was wednesday and the men's short program was on friday afternoon so he knew he really had to go to practice, and he loved skating he really did, but he just wished it wasn’t at 8am. No one should be awake before 8 am.
Knowing coach Piandao wouldn’t be very impressed if he got there late and without a warming up, he quickly combed through his hair, brushed his teeth and collected his skates to go to the ice rink as quickly as possible.
This jetlag really wasn’t helping him either.
7:32 he read when he walked into the rink. Okay, that’s good. He could put on his skates in 5 minutes so he still had plenty of time to warm up before going on the ice. Knowing his way around from being here before, he quickly rushed to the dressing room.
Of course, all the other guys were there already judging by the amount of bags. Why couldn’t Sokka be a morning person? He rubbed his eyes one more time and put in his headphones to get in the zone, walking to the place where everyone was warming up.
Then, he spotted someone. Of course Zuko was there, he was literally one of the competitors, but still. For a second, a tiny bit of nervosity went through his body before setting that aside quickly. Come on Sokka, focus!
He started slightly jogging around, trying to stop his eyes from drifting to Zuko, who sat on the ground, doing some stretches. Has he always been this flexible? His arms looked more muscular too, and so did his legs. He probably had worked out quite a bit over the summer. In fact, Zuko had become quite a handsome man over the past few years. Not that Sokka noticed such things, obviously.
One of the biggest mysteries in this sport was still how Zuko had ever gotten that scar on his face. It always was a major elephant in the room, and from what he’d seen online, Zuko’s fans were really dying to know too. Sokka almost felt bad for the guy. Zuko had quite protective fans honestly and if he didn’t want to share his private life then well, they were still athletes and nothing more. They didn’t owe anything to their fans.
That had always been weird to Sokka. Having fans. It’s not like he was a celebrity really, and only a select few people would probably recognise him in the street, but the sport had grown so much over the years and he had really gained some dedicated fans with fan accounts and everything, which kind of weirded him out but it was nice to see at the same time. And most of his fans were really talented. Every time he got fanart or saw photo edits, he made sure to save them on his computer.
Zuko had more fans though, which he definitely wasn’t jealous of. The other had gained over a million followers on instagram and twitter, which he rarely posted on (not that Sokka sometimes checked said accounts, obviously), while Sokka only had around 500K which was admittedly still a lot, and it was very flattering but still.
But fans being involved isn’t always pretty, Sokka himself had received hate comments from fans from other skaters countless of times, which he could deal with. The other skaters probably had gotten said comments from his fans too, even if he had said multiple times during press conferences to please not do that. He had gotten a lot more comments from his fans or skating fans in general though, telling him how beautiful his skating was and about the fact that he was apparently rather handsome, which flattered his ego even more.
It’s the price you pay for becoming famous, he supposed, not that he had ever become an athlete for fame. No, he loved his sport with his whole soul. The attention he had expected, a lot of people watch the sport lately and it’s really one of the main ways to keep the sport alive, and he loved getting attention too if he was being honest. Figure skating without people watching would be kinda pointless. You put on a show every competition for a reason. And so Sokka was still grateful for every teddy bear he got thrown on the ice after competitions, most of which he donated to local charities before going home. It’s not like he could just carry 3 bags of stuffed animals with him, and the charities could use it a lot better than he could. Most skaters did this, and fans knew that too, but it was the thought that counted.
Anyways, back to the topic of Zuko. Yes, Zuko may be one of the most famous male figure skaters of this time, and Sokka could definitely see why. His looks were a good bonus. At least he hoped Zuko’s fans saw them as a bonus and were fan of him because of his skating first and foremost.
~~
Practice had been hard, to be honest. It was almost like he couldn’t get used to the ice and he popped so many jumps, but at least his spins and steps were okay.
Most of the men had already left the changing room and the next group were already on the ice, when Sokka noticed Zuko and him were now alone, which was awkward kind of, except that Zuko didn’t seem to notice the awkward atmosphere at all.
Zuko seemed pretty much in his little bubble like always, cleaning off his blades and minding his own business. Should Sokka try to speak with him? Maybe he just was bad at conversation? Or he was too scared to befriend others? He had managed with Ty Lee and Mai, but they actually skated at his rink too. They’ve probably known each other for years.
And so his non-existing impulse control and non-existing brain-to-mouth filter got the best of him.
“Hey, you’re Zuko, right?” Okay now that was a stupid question, of course that was Zuko! They’ve both been skating against each other before they even became seniors! Seriously, what was he thinking?
“Uh, yea?” The other blinked at him, clearly confused by the sudden conversation.
Sokka really should’ve thought that ‘let’s speak to Zuko’ thing through. “So uh, ready for this competition?”
“Why do you want to know?” Zuko sounded defensive. Did he think Sokka was trying to look for weak spots so he could take advantage of them? That’s not even really possible in their sport!
“I don’t know, I just thought…” yea, what did he think? He wasn’t even sure himself. “You don’t seem to have too many friends here.” Ah yes. That’s gonna work. Just tell him he doesn’t have friends, how could that ever go wrong? Seriously, Sokka really should’ve thought this through.
Zuko didn’t exactly look like he appreciated the comment. “I have Mai and Ty Lee and my sister?”
“Yea but I mean, except for that,” Sokka tried talking himself out of it, “and sisters don’t really count as friends.”
“I guess you’re right,” he said, clearly not caring about it, looking back down at his skates in his lap.
“I just thought we could become friends, you know?” Sokka said before he could even think about it. Did he? He had always thought Zuko was pretty stuck up and annoying, but he was also intrigued to get to know the guy a bit more. They had skated against each other for years now, and he barely knew anything about the guy. The only thing he knew very well was his distinct skating style and choice in music, except for that really nothing. And everyone that had watched Zuko skate for about 2 minutes knew that.
Zuko thought about it for way too long, not moving or saying anything, and Sokka debated whether he should just take his skates, apologize and leave because he had clearly made it awkward as fuck. This was a mistake.
“We can’t,” Zuko said in the end, the expression on his face unreadably.
Now that was kind of weird. And rude. “How do you mean, we can’t?” It’s not like Sokka had just confessed some secret crush he had been having or something like that, he just asked to be friends! What’s the big deal?
“We simply can’t,” he took his bag and stood up quickly. “see you around I guess.” And he left.
We can’t. Maybe Zuko was even more stuck up than he had thought. There clearly was a reason other than Zuko just being awkward or bad at conversations as to why he hadn’t made any friends yet in the field. Jerk.
Still, Sokka was more intrigued now than ever. He was gonna get to the bottom of this.
~~
ZUKO
The fact that Sokka had initiated a conversation with him was unexpected, to be honest. The fact that he had asked to be friends was even more unexpected. Zuko had almost said yes, let’s do that, but he couldn’t even if he wanted to. Not that ne wanted to. No, he can’t throw away his career for friends. What would Azula say? What would his father say?
It was weird either way, with Sokka having been his rival for the past few years now and the only interaction they’ve had before was a couple of handshakes during award ceremonies. Oh, and they followed each other on Instagram, but Sokka never liked his posts so that’s that. Not that he actively checked whether the other liked his posts or not. Zuko barely used Instagram anyway, and twitter even less. Only to post one picture after every competition and a couple here and there during the off-season, only because his fans seemed to really like it. Sokka on the other hand posted something pretty much every day, ranging from his food to him at the gym to pictures of him and his friends to posts about figure skating. None of which Zuko liked in return.
~~
In the end, Zuko ended up losing the short program with a small margin.
“You need to make this better in the free skate,” Azula had said, no nearly yelled, over the phone. She often called after his short program, especially if he had skated badly. Zuko wasn’t sure whether it’s her way of giving a pep talk or just pushing him down even further, but more often than not it actually worked. He did quite well under pressure most of the time. Zuko loved the feeling of winning so much, or rather hated the feeling of losing so much, that it encouraged him.
“It was just a small stumble on the quad lutz, if I hadn’t I would’ve been first!”
“And a stumble on the axel, Zuzu,” she said.
“Don’t call me that!”
She ignored him and said, “look, your axel should’ve gotten minus three in GOE, you’re lucky the judges only gave you minus one and twos. And mistakes on the axels really aren’t acceptable anymore at this point in your career.You got overscored too and you know it.”
He knew that as well, obviously. And he hated it when that happened. Zuko hated being overscored, because it would always start fanwars on the internet with people over-analyzing every move he did and hate messages from other skater’s fans, mostly Sokka’s he noted, as if it was Zuko that had graded himself rather than the judged.
And he himself didn’t think it was fair either. He couldn’t blame skating fans for calling out bad judging, he would be too if he wasn’t in this.
Over the years he had gotten used to hate messages, ‘you should just quit skating, you’re so overscored in comparison to Sokka and your sister is much better anyways’ such things. Well, strictly speaking she wasn’t, he guessed. His sister did quad salchow yes and triple axel, and she was the only woman in the field to do the salchow and one of the only two to do the axel. But Zuko could do all quads (except for quad axel which no one in the field did anyway). He was very much aware he had the advantage of being a man, and that he wasn’t the only one with those jumps. Jet could do quad lutz too, although less consistent than him, and Chan had a better quad flip than he had. Azula often scored higher in program components, well not really because women’s PCs only had a 0.80 factor while men’s had 1, but if they’d be on the same scale, she’d score higher either way.
“I know.”
“You need to do better in performance tomorrow too,” she noted. He’d gotten 40.86 in components today, while Sokka had gotten 45.78, but at least his base value of the program was higher, that’s the only way he even made the gap less big, with Sokka getting 47.07 on technical scored and him getting 49.59. Frankly, it wasn’t the all time best skate for either of them. Far from it.
“It’s the first competition of the season,” he said as defense.
“That’s no excuse.”
She was right. It wasn’t. And he was going to win this competition.
~~
“Hey,” Mai said when he opened the door to his hotel. They hadn’t seen each other before the competition and had only sent each other some ‘good luck’ texts before the skates.
“Hi,” he opened the door more so she could pass. “You did really well.”
Mai had completely skated clean and was leading with about 7 points now.
“Thanks, I wish I could say the same about you,” she was never one to sugar coat things anyway.
“I’m gonna make it up in the free,” he assured her.
“I know you are.”
~~
SOKKA
Sokka had lost the lead he had in the short program and was in second, with Jet close behind him. Bummed about the fall on his quad toe loop, he re-tied his skates for the award ceremony. Both Zuko and Jet had landed their quad lutzes, but Jet had fallen on a quad loop while Zuko had literally skated clean and broken the world record which, wasn’t that big of a deal considering the records were reset at the beginning of the season because of changes in rules and this was one of the first competitions of the season, but still. He had won with a good 15 point margin as well, 290.07 versus Sokka’s 275.18. It was a tiny bit humiliating, if he was being honest, but how was he going to compete with Zuko if the other was gonna pull off a clean quad lutz and flip?
Zuko had also clearly worked on his skating skills over the summer, his program components only being half a point below Sokka’s this time. To be fair, if Sokka hadn’t fallen his components would be much higher too but he had so there’s no point in ‘if’s.
“Congrats,” he heard Jet’s voice say, “you did pretty well.”
“You too,” he replied. Sokka and Jet weren’t exactly friends, not after what he had done with his sister anyway, but they were still good sportsmen who congratulated each other obviously, and talked from time to time. He didn’t need any scandals or people telling him he’s just jealous of other people’s success.
“Zuko’s gonna be pretty hard to beat this season,” Jet noted, “he’s improved a lot over the summer.”
“Wait ‘till I pull out that quad loop I’ve been working on. Then it’s over for you both,” he slightly laughed. Yea, he had been working on quad loop over the summer and he was planning on doing it during his first grand prix, if everything went well.
“Wait till I get my quad lutz consistent, then it’s over for the both of you two too.”
~~
“In third, representing the United states of America: Jet!” The announcer said through the microphone, and Sokka clapped. With Jet on the ice doing his greetings, Zuko and Sokka were alone for a couple of seconds which was honestly awkward. Not that it had been the first time, but every time Sokka saw the other he cringed thinking about the conversation they had shared in the dressing room a few days back. And Zuko wasn’t even clapping for Jet! What’s that about?
“In second, representing Canada: Sokka!” He quickly shoved those awkward memories to the back of his brain and put on a big smile, steppings on the ice and doing a couple of bows. Some of the fans had held banners with his name on it, which was really cool he had to admit. He firmly shook Jet’s hand before he quickly stepped on the podium smiling and waving one last time.
“And in first place, representing Russia: Zuko!” The crowd went fully wild, which was fair enough considering the program he had pulled of.
Zuko looked good in red, he had to admit, although the past few years he had always had either red or black, or a combination of the two, costumes in competitions. Maybe it was like a lucky charm or something like that.
Okay, Zuko definitely got more muscles over the summer. He watched as Zuko quickly stepped on the carpet and stuck out his hand to shake Jet’s. His fingers were long and slender, Sokka noted.
Zuko walked over to Sokka, careful to not trip and stuck out his hand to him as well. “Congrats,” Zuko said quietly. This was the first time he congratulated Sokka out loud during an award ceremony rather than just a simple handshake, weird.
“You too,” he grabbed Zuko’s hand. Zuko’s hands were always really warm for having skated without gloves and standing next to the ice rink for a long while. Fixating on the warmth, Sokka suddenly realized he perhaps had grabbed on to Zuko’s hand for a bit too long, and that the other hadn’t even pulled away, which was also weird.
Zuko stepped onto first place and Sokka vowed that next competition, that spot would be his.