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Sokka hadn’t slept in three days, and he was starting to see things.
He glanced up at Yue, floating silently in the sky like the moon spirit she was now, and muttered, “Go away.”
This was probably her fault, anyway, but Sokka felt guilty even thinking that. He hauled himself over the railing and onto Zuko’s balcony.
“Sorry,” he said, looking up at her, “I’m just stressed.”
He sighed and leaned against the railing. Out of the corner of the eye he spotted movement; a guard. He pressed himself back into the shadows and out of sight.
Yue laughed at him. His gaze flicked up, but she was just a hallucination anyway, so he ignored her.
Instead, still crouched, he turned to look into Zuko’s chambers, through the two tall panes of glass that served as doors into the bedroom, on the other side of which were some translucent red curtains. Faintly, though, Sokka could make out a body curled up on the bed. He took a moment to confirm that it was Zuko (one could never be too careful), from the dark hair and the muscular arm atop the comforter.
He turned back around, surveying the courtyard one last time. No one there. He leaned back against the door into Zuko’s room and closed his eyes.
Despite the discomfort of the position, he fell asleep quickly.
He didn’t dream. He didn’t sleep deeply enough to, really, waking at the slightest of sounds: the insects chirping at each other, the guards’ footsteps as they made their rotations, the swishing of the comforter every time Zuko moved.
He woke just before dawn, as the sky was lightening and the whole world was cast in bluish shades, and swung himself over the railing. He climbed down quickly and headed back towards his own room, darting quickly to avoid the guards, before he determined that he’d probably walked far enough. He turned around and confidently strolled towards Zuko’s chambers from the hallway.
“Good morning, Zhen, Yeong,” he said brightly to the guards. They eyed him suspiciously, but allowed him to knock on the door, a testament to their trust in him. “Zuko?”
“Just a minute,” Zuko’s voice called, and Sokka bounced on the balls of his feet.
He felt a wave of exhaustion and swayed slightly. He had not gotten nearly enough sleep, of nearly high enough quality.
It didn’t matter. Zuko’s safety was more important.
He shook his head.
Zhen eyed him with concern. Her voice was surprisingly soft when she asked, “You alright, Sokka?”
He smiled wide. “‘Course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”
He was saved from the answer by Zuko pulling the door open. His other hand was pulling his black hair into a topknot, and he was only half-dressed, in pants and a robe that hung open. Sokka’s eyes were drawn immediately to the lightning scar that Azula had left. “Come on in.”
Sokka stepped inside and shut the door behind him.
“What’s going on?” Zuko asked, as he finished tying the topknot. He moved to tie the robe next.
“Nothing,” Sokka said, just a second too late and an entire octave too high. He cleared his throat. “I was just wondering how you’re feeling this fine morning. And if you’d want to get breakfast with me. And what your schedule looks like.”
Zuko raised an eyebrow. “Is this Sokka weirdness or a different kinda weirdness that I gotta be worried about?”
Sokka scoffed. “Please. All weirdness is Sokka weirdness if it’s a Sokka doing it.”
Did that make as little sense to Zuko as it did to him?
Zuko just shrugged, though. “That’s true.” He hummed, walking over to the vanity to insert the golden Firelord hairpiece. “I slept pretty well, actually, and I was about to meditate.”
“Can I join you?”
“In… meditation?”
Sokka nodded. If he hadn’t been so open about his disdain for meditation in the past, he’d be insulted by Zuko’s skepticism, but he supposed it was well-earned.
“If you want to,” Zuko said.
He opened the doors to the balcony - the ones Sokka had slept against - and sat down, crosslegged. Sokka sat down next to him.
Zuko closed his eyes and breathed deep, probably enjoying the warmth of the sun’s first rays of light, but Sokka didn’t bother. Instead, he checked to make sure there was no one in the courtyard who shouldn’t be. No strangers lurking in shadows.
Three days ago, a trio of assassins had snuck into Zuko’s room with the intention of murdering him, with the help of a guard who had since been thrown in prison. Zuko had received a small nick in his neck from the assassins’ blade but was otherwise unharmed.
Three days ago, Sokka was woken by commotion within the palace to learn that someone had made an attempt on the life of one of his best friends.
And three days ago, somewhere in that pandemonium, Sokka had finally realized he was in love with said best friend.
Sokka had only meant to stay about a week, but two days ago, he’d cancelled his trip back home with a messenger hawk to his dad and decided to stay in the Fire Nation indefinitely. Until he could be absolutely certain that Zuko was safe.
He was pretty sure that Katara would write back asking why this attempt was different from the previous six, and Sokka didn’t have an answer. All he knew was that he was terrified for Zuko, and of losing Zuko, and for himself, if he lost Zuko.
He didn’t want to lose anyone else he loved.
He glanced over at Zuko’s tranquil expression. Zuko really was beautiful, in a well-muscled sort of way; a form built for firebending, sure, but swordfighting too, with surprising strength and agility. And the longer Zuko’s hair got, the more Sokka was tempted to try and weave some Water Tribe-style braids into it.
Zuko huffed. “It’s hard to focus with you staring at me.”
“Sorry.” Sokka looked away.
He tried to just stare at the landscape, but he was easily bored, and the landscape wasn’t changing.
He stood and started wandering around Zuko’s room, picking things up to check them out and setting them back down again. A cinnabar vase on the bedside table. A gold ring with a ruby, set atop the vanity. The many, many robes in the wardrobe.
“Sokka.” With a sigh, Zuko stood. He took the golden hairbrush out of Sokka’s hands and set it back down. “Are you sure you don’t want something?”
Sokka shrugged. “I just wanted to spend the day with my friend.” He borrowed a move from Toph and punched Zuko’s shoulder, much more lightly than she would have. He hoped it would distract Zuko enough to let it slide again.
Zuko blinked. After a moment, he said, “That’s nice, but I have stuff that I have to get done today?” He shifted into a surer, more confident version of himself - a subtle transformation, but one which Sokka enjoyed witnessing - and added, “Why don’t I meet you this afternoon to spar? Just after lunch, around one?”
Sokka opened his mouth to protest, but what could he say? That he needed to be with Zuko every moment of every day, because otherwise he was terrified that someone would kill Zuko?
Even to himself he sounded clingy. He remembered Suki’s admonishments when he’d tried to protect her, her insistence that she could take care of herself, but this was different. Suki hadn’t had people specifically targeting her like Zuko did.
Zuko clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll see you later.”
And before Sokka could figure out how to stop him, Zuko had left and Sokka was alone in the Firelord’s chambers, feeling very small and very powerless.
---
Sokka spent most of the day bored and anxious, a terrible combination that resulted in him spending too long practicing swordfighting in the hot sun, until he got nauseous and dizzy from dehydration and overheating.
Occasionally, black snow would drift down from the sky and coat the grass, but Sokka shook his head and kept going. It was only a hallucination. Sokka’s mom had died a long time ago, and there was no use in racing to save her.
When Zuko arrived to spar, he won every round easily. Which was normal, but there was usually slightly more ambiguity as to who would win.
“What’s up with you?” Zuko asked. He paused. “Wait, have you not had lunch yet?”
“All I can think about is meat,” Sokka said, and he was pretty sure he drooled slightly. All the better to sell the joke.
This was something he could do: whatever he was feeling, however uncomfortable or upset, he could turn it into a joke.
Zuko grinned. “So if I were to mention, say, roasted komodo chicken-”
Sokka gasped exaggeratedly. “And you had us all convinced you’re not evil anymore!”
Zuko stepped back, laughing. “Do you wanna get something to eat?”
Now that he thought about it, Sokka hadn’t had anything to eat all day. “Yeah, alright.”
Zuko hummed and sheathed his swords. “You do need every advantage you can get.”
Sokka shoved him. “Excuse you, I am a swordbending master. You just happen to be freaky good at everything. It’s unnatural.”
“Everything?”
Sokka counted it off on his fingers. “Swordbending, firebending, sneaking into fortresses, tea-making, pulling off those stupid fancy Firelord robes-”
He was flirting with, well, flirting. Better pull it back a bit.
“-but oddly not the hairstyle.”
Zuko frowned, touching his topknot lightly. A few strands had come loose while they sparred. “You don’t like it?”
“No, no, it’s not bad. You look fine! I just can think of a few hairstyles that would look better, that’s all.”
“Like what?”
Sokka fiddled with his own wolftail, mock casual. “Oh, I don’t know, something a bit manlier, befitting a warrior…”
“I think I’ll stick with this, thanks,” Zuko said, smiling.
“Suit yourself.”
The thing was, when Sokka was actually with Zuko, it was easy, like this. It wasn’t until Zuko left his sight that Sokka’s chest began to tighten and his pulse would pick up its pace.
Sokka spent the rest of the day pacing outside Zuko’s various meeting rooms, straining his ears to listen and check that Zuko was still okay inside. He hid when the doors swung open, though; he’d learned from Suki that he had to be more cautious about letting the person know they were being protected.
Okay, sure, that wasn’t the lesson he maybe should have learnt, but it wasn’t that Sokka didn’t trust Zuko to be able to take care of himself. It was that Zuko shouldn’t have to worry about it, on top of running a nation that he had to alter at every level, and defusing tense relations with the Water Tribes and the Earth Kingdom, and fielding concerns about his ability to even perform his job given his youth and his inexperience.
Besides, Sokka loved Zuko, and Sokka tended to lose the people he loved. Ones he should have been protecting.
So he spent the day secretly tailing Zuko, and when Zuko went to bed that night, Sokka climbed up to the balcony again and kept watch.
---
Sokka bolted awake to the sensation of falling.
He hit the ground, and Zuko stood above him, upside-down and concerned.
Sokka blinked. It took him a moment to piece together that Zuko had opened the balcony doors, and Sokka had fallen into Zuko’s room. It took another moment to remember that he wasn’t supposed to be there. The fact that Zuko was shirtless helped with that bit of the puzzle.
“Hey, Zuko,” Sokka said, and his voice was rusty. He cleared his throat and wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth.
“Any particular reason why you’re yelling outside my window at three in the morning?” Zuko asked.
Sokka stood up, dusting himself off as an excuse not to look at Zuko. “Would you believe I saw a crazy-looking bird?”
“No,” Zuko said. “Seriously, Sokka, what?”
Sokka heard laughing behind him, and he turned and shot a glare at Yue. This was really not the time.
Zuko sighed. “Is whatever you’re trying to do something that can be accomplished in the morning?”
A yes or no question. If Sokka said yes, Zuko would send him away. “No.”
“Do you have to do it out on my balcony?”
“Uh…” A no would, again, get him sent away, but the answer wasn’t a strict yes. “Somewhere here.” He gestured to the chambers.
“Can you do it more quietly?”
“I wasn’t quiet before?” How loud could he have been? He was sleeping .
Zuko glared at him. “No. You weren’t.”
“I’ll try to be quieter,” Sokka promised.
Zuko yawned. “Do it wherever, then, but I’m going back to sleep.”
Sokka watched as Zuko stomped over to his bed and collapsed face first with a groan. After a second, he resituated himself so he was properly under the blanket.
Sokka himself tried out a few spots around the room, and found that from the floor he couldn’t see Zuko, and the ottoman in front of the vanity really couldn’t be slept on…
“What now?” Zuko asked, voice muffled by the pillow.
“I can’t see you.”
Zuko peeked out at him, his eyes narrow. “Wait. Are you trying to guard me?”
“Uh…”
Zuko let out a very long sigh. Then he shuffled over on the bed and patted the empty spot beside him.
Sokka hesitated, but. Zuko was offering. And there really wasn’t anywhere else to observe from.
So he set his boomerang and his sword on the bedside table and climbed into the bed next to Zuko.
“We are going to talk about this in the morning,” Zuko said, and being half-asleep just made his glare fiercer.
Sokka nodded mutely.
He thought it’d be hard to get to sleep with his crush in the bed next to him, all shirtless and beautiful and warm, but Sokka barely remembered lying down on the soft mattress before he was out.
When he woke, the bed beside him was warm but empty.
Sokka jolted upright, searching frantically for Zuko. If something had happened-
“Here,” Zuko said, from where he was doing his morning meditation on the balcony, and Sokka’s pulse immediately calmed.
For a moment, he debated pretending that nothing was going on - the infinitely more comfortable option - but Zuko was stubborn. Sokka would have to talk about it eventually, or avoid his friend forever.
With a sigh, Sokka crawled out of bed and walked over to Zuko. He sat down and put his legs through the railing to dangle over the edge.
“I’m okay, Sokka,” Zuko said.
“I know that.” Logically, anyway, even if there was an ever-present instinct that told Sokka to protect at all costs. An instinct left over from being hunted for a year, with his baby sister and the avatar - both more important to the world than he was - after spending two years as sole protector of his tribe.
“Then what’s going on?”
Sokka hated talking about his feelings. For a long time, Katara had been the only person he could talk to about them, and she was already in so much pain from losing their mother. He couldn’t burden her with his feelings, too.
“I just…” Sokka waved his hands around, but that wasn’t going to help communicate anything. “I’m really tired of losing people I love.”
Zuko made a choked noise.
“Love like a friend!” Sokka said quickly.
“Right.” Zuko’s voice was strained.
“You’re one of my best friends, Zuko,” Sokka said, and that much was actually true. “And I’m really scared.”
Zuko’s expression softened.
“What would make you feel better?” Zuko asked, resting his hand on Sokka’s shoulder.
“Can I sleep with you? I mean-”
“Okay, but I’m not sure how that’ll help.”
“-not like, sleep with you, sleep with you. Just sleep next to you,” Sokka clarified.
“Oh.”
“Wait, did you just say okay?”
Zuko’s cheeks went very pink. “Well, I knew you meant-” He stopped. “I don’t know why I’m trying to lie. I’m not good at it.”
Sokka couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of him, and Zuko groaned, laying back and putting his hands over his face.
“Please forget I said that.”
Sokka grabbed Zuko’s wrists and hauled him back up again. Zuko’s gaze wouldn’t meet his.
“Hm, no,” Sokka said, tone light and teasing, and he leaned forward, fingers still wrapped around Zuko’s wrists, but Zuko would have to lean in, if he wanted to.
Zuko leaned in.
The second their lips brushed Sokka released Zuko, and Zuko’s hand immediately cupped Sokka’s jaw; Zuko’s lips were soft and warm and slightly dry, and at first they were both gentle, neither of them pushing. As far as first kisses went, the only thing that made it extraordinary was the ache Sokka felt in his chest, that good kind of ache when everything is heartbreakingly perfect and beautiful.
Then Sokka’s tongue brushed against Zuko’s bottom lip, and Zuko opened his mouth. The hum that he made as Sokka slipped his tongue inside reverberated through them both.
“I love you,” Sokka said, when they broke breathlessly apart, certain that the confession was a mistake.
“I love you, too,” Zuko said. He kissed Sokka again, and neither of them wanted to pull away. After a moment, though, Zuko pressed his forehead against Sokka’s, and whispered, “Wait.”
Sokka made an inquiring noise.
“I just wanna make sure that we’re not moving away from talking about your fears, if you need to talk about them more,” Zuko said, opening his golden eyes. “I want you to feel safe.”
Sokka shook his head. “It’s not me I’m worried about.” Sokka had long ago made peace with the idea that he’d die very, very young, but that was probably a separate trauma.
“Is this…” Zuko hesitated. “Is this about your mom?”
“Kind of?” Sokka said. “Yue, too, I think.”
“The moon girl?”
Sokka nodded.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t feel comfortable, but if you want to, I’m here,” Zuko assured him. “And it wouldn’t be a burden.”
Sokka sighed, and for the first time, he told someone what had happened during the Siege of the North. How he’d promised to protect Yue. How he’d failed. How she’d had to give her life to save the world.
Talking about it was painful, but Zuko was a good listener, even though Sokka was sure that as Firelord, he had other things he needed to be doing.
Telling the story wasn’t enough to make the fear go away, either. Sokka still felt guilty for all the people he’d failed during the war, including her, and he was still absolutely terrified that someone was going to kill Zuko.
Then, because he was already confessing and it came easily, Sokka admitted that he’d been following Zuko the past four days.
Zuko just laughed.
“How do you feel now?”
“Tired,” Sokka admitted.
Zuko hummed. He pulled away from Sokka and stood, and for a moment, Sokka was afraid that Zuko was going to brush Sokka’s fears aside and go right back to work anyway.
Instead, though, Zuko told the guards that he was going to take a day off. He didn’t bother to respond to their protests as he shut the door again.
Sokka stared at him.
Zuko climbed into bed. He patted the mattress beside him. “Come on.”
Hesitantly, Sokka climbed up next to him.
“You need rest,” Zuko explained. He tucked his body against Sokka’s, chest to chest, legs tangled, his head on Sokka’s shoulder.
Zuko’s breathing evened out in the time it took Sokka to process what was happening. That Zuko had listened to him, had understood that listening wasn’t enough, and was taking action, now. Taking an action which contradicted his extraordinary work ethic and devotion to his country. Specifically to help Sokka.
Sure that Zuko was asleep already but needing to say it, Sokka said, “Thank you.”
Zuko hummed. “Thank you, too, for trusting me.”
That wouldn’t be the end of it. There was more for Sokka to unpack, more that they’d have to do. They’d have to figure out how Sokka could travel back to the Southern Water Tribe without Zuko and still feel okay, how Sokka could have a similar conversation with Katara and his dad - the people he feared most for - without feeling like a burden, and how to get rid of Sokka’s nightmares, if they even could.
But slowly, slowly, for the first time since he was a child, Sokka was starting to feel safe.