Chapter Text
The impact was quick and entirely too painful.
He had held consciousness for nearly twelve minutes after it all was over, lying flat on his back, glass and mechanical components all sprinkled around his broken body like discarded confetti from a very sad party. It was a whopping eleven minutes longer than it took to wind up there in the first place.
Twelve minutes isn't that significant amount of time. Even with being distinctly aware of the smell of burnt rubber and asphalt; nerves throbbing in time with the blaring horns. It is, however, long enough to make some startling life realizations and recollections.
Like, how when he was thirteen he'd borrowed ten dollars from Gran-Gran and had only paid back seven of it.
Like, how he hadn't bothered to clean up his portion of the shared apartment before leaving that morning, because he told himself he'd head home at a reasonable time to get it done that night; acutely aware of the three coffee mugs sitting next to the sink.
Like, how when he spoke with his dad last, it had just been a rush of information as he ran down the sidewalk, late for a lunch meeting; so preoccupied trying to dodge passerby’s that he hadn't ended the call with a simple and quick 'love ya' like he normally would have, instead just hitting the red button from his end like a douche.
Now, some twenty yards away from his own motorcycle and the busted up sedan that sent him flying, body broken in various and unknown ways, he had both plenty of time to recall all of these things, and yet still not enough to reflect on them as his mind came in and out of focus of the people shouting around him.
He was disoriented and fading, and with all his might he tried to focus his breathing and attention on a single object to keep from dipping out from reality forever.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to look at from a prone position in the middle of the 10. But, there were also worst scenes to die to, he supposed, because the sky was painted technicolor; the reds and oranges of the day bleeding into the purples and blues of the night.
Vaguely, he thought of the smell of sunscreen and saltwater and sting of sunburnt skin instead of gas fumes and road-rash. The feeling of someone removing his helmet didn’t seem real, either, and it brought with it the sensation of calloused fingers running through the short hairs at his scalp.
He was slipping, and the red and blue lights that were creeping closer accentuated the colors of the sky in a dizzying affect, so he closed his eyes unwillingly, only to save from retching and drowning in his own bile. He swallowed hard, chest erupting in more pain, and there was the definite taste of blood mixed with something sour, like regret.
Thankfully, Sokka passed out shortly after that and before he could replay the stupid argument he’d had with Zuko over takeout the previous night.
----
The next thought that he was conscious of having wasn't immediately associated with pain or guilt, but with an immense amount of confusion about why he couldn't open his eyes.
Later, once he was home in his own bed, it would make sense that the drugs had prevented him from 1) opening his eyes and 2) freaking out about the inability to open his eyes. But, as it was, he was just numb and confused and still slightly nauseous.
He could hear the sound of a fan set on low, and the beeping of his own heart somewhere close to his ear.
Confused, blind, and senses foggy, Sokka felt the distinct warmth of irritation bubbling in his chest. Yet he didn’t know exactly why or how to place those feelings, so they escaped him in the form of a moan that seemed distant and unfamiliar.
From somewhere nearby, the sound of a chair scooted across linoleum and something solid and firm squeezed his forearm.
"Sokka?"
Forcefully, with all of the will he could muster, his eyes pulled apart like adhesive from a strip of used tape. And that's when the pain hit.
Blinding and hot, the tears involuntarily sprang to his eyes from the fluorescents overhead. The world spun and he shut his eyes away from the too bright room as his stomach lurched violently, made him gag, and then he was sputtering. The motion sent a new wave of pain through his ribcage and he ended up immobilized by a fit of coughs.
"Shoot," Katara said. Because it had to be Katara. He’d known that voice for twenty-five years, drugs and pain and retching be damned if he couldn’t recognize his sister. "Dad, the lights!"
The room went dark from behind his lids, and Katara was saying something in a soothing tone as he caught his breath. It took a little while, but eventually he calmed down, pain shooting out from every part of his body, but determined to actually be able to see again.
Tentatively, he ventured to crack one eyelid. Without experiencing any immediate and new pain, he let the room come into full view, and then introduced his other eye, too.
It was Katara grabbing his arm like a vice. She was half hovered over the bed, braced with her unoccupied arm against the sheets, like she was ready to perform CPR should he start flat-lining.
Bato was at the foot of the bed, looking equally unnerved, and from behind him, Sokka could see his dad positioned at the light switch on the wall.
"Hey," she said.
It took a few tries, voice raw from smoke inhalation and unusually tight for unknown reasons. But, eventually, he managed his own “Hey.” And because awareness was a bitch and couldn’t just leave well enough alone with the fact that he was alive, he started to pick up on things; like the shaky sigh his sister let out, and the distinct wetness clinging to her cheeks and, oh… Shit. "Are you crying?"
"No!" But she was already wiping with the sleeve of her sweater under her eyes. “I just can't believe that you made us worry like that," she said when she was done, not looking at him directly, but eyes darting his way from under her bangs. “Of all the stupid things you’ve done…”
And, there it was… The Lecture.
The Imiq family cure-all for emotional avoidance.
Sokka was about to call bullshit, defend himself because the accident was not his fault – like, even if he'd been able to swerve into the next lane (which, he hadn’t been able to do, thank you), he still would have lost the rear of the bike, or hit someone else. It wasn’t like he'd had a particularly grand time almost dying, Katara – But, luckily for his broken vocal chords and his new found sense of mortality, his dad swooped in to disarm his children.
"Katara," he warned, stepping up next to her to lay a hand on her shoulder. To Sokka, he asked, "How're you feeling, son?"
Which, to everyone in the room seemed like a pretty weak question, because the answer was so obvious. So, he gave an obvious answer in return, "Like I got hit by a car.”
The laugh that came from his dad was on the breath of relief and he looked softer than Sokka could ever remember is father’s face being. In fact, he had to wonder when his dad had gotten so old, what with the bags under his blue eyes and the gray almost completely replacing his brown hair. Even his dark skin seemed more tired and drawn than he could remember.
"Well, then you're feeling pretty on point," he said.
Sokka was sleep and drug addled, and felt like vomiting, but he was alive and relatively well and he had his family around him – in all honesty, he thought that he was doing good. All things considered, that is.
"How long was I out?" he asked.
His dad crossed his arms, then uncrossed them, and eventually opted for sitting down in the chair Katara just vacated. "It’s Wednesday," he said as an answer. It had been Monday the last Sokka could remember. “Do you want the damage report now or later?”
Everything hurt, so Sokka really had no point of reference to gauge what was damaged and what wasn’t. “Well, my head hurts pretty bad. Concussion?”
"Slight concussion,” he confirmed.
Katara had released his arm at some point and was sitting at the foot of the bed, holding herself purposely away from his legs. “No more brain damage than was already pre-existing," she supplied. "The helmet probably saved your life."
Even if it wasn’t the law, Sokka would still have worn the damn helmet, regardless, because that’s what they were made for: To save lives.
He didn’t dispute this fact, it just was and he was more than happy to put the proper gear on if it meant possibly (and now, actually) ensuring his head didn’t crack like an egg in the case of an accident.
Both his dad and Bato were both avid motorcycle fans, and so, by extension, it only made sense that Sokka would grow up with a similar addiction to riding small engine machines. Hell, he didn’t even own a car because, though his job as a structural engineer paid well, when gas teetered between three and four dollars he rather have the full efficiency of the motorcycle. Plus, lane splitting was legal in California, and traffic was infamous.
So, to his dad he said, "Glad you drilled safety gear into our heads as kids.” And to Katara, “Brain’s so big it would cushion itself, though."
Bato was the only one to laugh, grabbing the foot of the bed and giving it a few taps that shook the entire frame, mattress and all. “There he is – cocky as ever. Boy’s going to make a full recovery, Hakoda.”
Sokka must have gone pale, because Bato backed off quickly, shooting out apologies.
“He might, if you don’t break him more, first,” his dad says, motioning for his friend to hand him the chart hanging by him on the frame. He probably needed his glasses, so he doesn’t bother reading what’s there. If anything, he just holds it like the diagnosis might change suddenly as he rattles off the physical damage. “Three cracked ribs —“ which explains the trouble breathing — “Left leg is broken. They did surgery and put in a few screws —“ which is why Katara is almost standing from her seated position at the end of the bed. His dad makes a face, looks at Katara as if unsure, before he continues, “A broken clavicle,” he says, motioning to his own collarbone, before finishing with, “And a whole canvas painted with road burn."
“Your right eyebrow probably won't grow hair back where they had to do the stitches," Katara says, almost apologetically.
He reaches up cautiously to feel the tape covering what must be the cut above his eye.
Sokka would be lying if he said he wasn’t at least a little vain. He likes his face, is all. But he wasn’t too upset by this news.
Some hardware in his body and a badass scar? All in all, not so bad for getting hit at nearly 70mph.
"If that's the price for being alive they could’ve shaved the whole thing off,” he says and means it.
He doesn’t even dare asks about his bike, because he already knows its trashed. Instead they fill him in on what’s happened in the last day and a half, but it doesn’t take long for him to realize that he won’t last much longer in casual conversation. He can feel himself slipping, eyelids getting heavier than there were only moments before.
His dad makes the call to leave under the guise of being stuck at the hospital for nearly two days and needing to at least shower.
Bato’s the first to head to the hallway, turning in the doorway to Sokka and saying, "You had us all pretty worried, kid.” It’s a distant sound now, and he knows he’s about to give in to sleep with or without his current audience present.
His dad leans down, touches their foreheads together like he used to do when he would leave for deployment for months at a time, and tells him that they’ll be back in a little while. Katara’s squeezing his hand the whole while, before she, too, gets up and heads to the door.
He’s losing consciousness again for the second time in less than forty-eight hours, but this time he’s fairly certain he’s going to wake up form his nap. His family is almost out the door when Sokka realizes something critically important, and he is practically shooting up from his slouched position and yelling out for his dad like he had truly reverted to being a kid again.
Three heads poke back into the room, all wearing matching looks of concerns.
"Yeah?"
Sokka isn’t conscious enough to articulate his life flashing before his eyes and all the pent-up regrets that it had brought as he thought he was dying, but he does manage to get out a quiet, albeit slurred, "Love ya. All of you."
And maybe his dad understood what his son was unable to convey, because he let out a long sigh and then smiled at his eldest child like he hung the moon. "We love you, too.” And then everything goes dark around the edges, and the door is closed to his room.
Later, after both the best and worst cat nap in his entire life, there was a constant rotation of visitors. Aang showed up with Toph, both of which ditched their afternoon lecture in favor of harassing him about his various scrapes and bruises, and both staying for over an hour before Sokka shooed them away so that they didn’t miss another class.
Suki came by after, alone, and Sokka is eternally grateful because she is the one person he can really talk to, and he doesn’t even care when a few tears slide down his cheek, because Suki won’t judge him for it. She stays for nearly two hours and only leaves when a gaggle of co-workers swing by to bust his balls about nearly being obliterated by a Kia Soul.
Katara and his dad come back sometime between the nurse rotation, Aang now in place of Bato, and they stay all the way until the trio is kicked out by the floor nurse and told that they could come back tomorrow, but that visiting hours were over.
There are so many people to stop by, in fact, that later that night, after being woken up by one of the nurses so that she can pump more drugs into him and change his crusty bandages, she asks Sokka if he’s someone famous.
He laughs at that and feels an immediate pool of warmth flood his chest. Everyone has to wonder that when they die, how many people will show up to their funeral. It’s not a thought of narcissism, he doesn’t think, more so just whether or not the people you fill your living life with are there because they want to be, or out of convenience. Sokka got a little peek at the attendance list for when he really dies, and it has everyone he would want to be on there.
Well, all but one. But after feeling disappointed every time the door opened to reveal a new face that wasn’t who he immediately wanted to see, he had rationalized why he shouldn’t get his hopes up. After all, a hospital was probably the last place in the world that his roommate would want to be for numerous reasons.
He doesn’t stop to think about that for too long and instead lets the new morphine drip take his mind away from thoughts entirely.
----
The next time Sokka wakes up, it’s to sunlight hitting his eyes. Someone had turned the florescent overheads off and pulled the curtains open, and the natural light pools onto the bed at just the right angle that he can feel the warmth seeping back into his skin.
Sokka lets himself soak in the rays like a cat. He’s not comfortable by any means, but he feels comfort from the tingle of heat and his general aliveness.
The room is noticeably quiet, all of his many visitors from the day before are gone, but the chair next to his bed is fully occupied.
The absence of any electronic device in Zuko grasp is surprising. It's a foreign look, one that he isn't sure he's seen in the almost decade since knowing the other man. One that he’s positive he hasn’t seen in the last four years of them living together.
Zuko isn't looking at Sokka. Instead, he has his head bowed, elbows propped on the bed, hands clasped together, and fingers steepled at his hairline. If Sokka didn't know any better, he would have thought that the other man was praying.
Sokka can’t see the scar from their positions, and unlike how his dad had looked twenty years older when he’d been at his bed side, Zuko looks like he’s all of sixteen again, but without the angst and fury of real sixteen-year-old Zuko.
And as much as Sokka would love to just leave the peaceful moment as it was forever, he’s also a selfish prick, and Zuko is more than a day late to mourn the almost-loss of his best friend, so he has some explaining to do.
Sokka clears his throat, and Zuko's head snaps to attention, quickly forgetting his new found religion in favor of wringing the sins out of his hands.
Instead of laying right into him, Sokka finds himself having a similar conversation to the one he’d had with Katara yesterday.
"Hey," Sokka starts.
Zuko’s facing him fully now, scar plainly visible. The crease in-between his brows is back and all semblance of helplessness gone as his golden eyes dart everywhere on Sokka’s body but to meet his own eyes. "Hey," he says, finally, voice rougher than its usual gravel, like a cross between disuse and overuse. Obviously, the other man hears this, too. He clears his throat, tries something else to break the tension that Sokka isn’t quite sure why or how it’s even there. "Your dad and Katara just went down to the cafeteria to get coffee. I told them I'd wait with you," he explains, like an explanation is even needed for his presence; like Sokka hadn’t been waiting to see him since yesterday.
Sokka nods along, anyway. "Sorry for being boring company," he says.
Zuko fiddles with the end of the wool blanket on Sokka’s bed, darting his gaze down to the busy work of his fingers. He shrugs, quickly saying, "You're not. You make faces in your sleep.”
The words must have been an absent thought in his mind, because Zuko freezes, still doesn’t meet Sokka’s eyes, and only resumes when Sokka asks, "Is that so?"
He shrugs again, sighing heavily through his nose. "I mean, it's probably the drugs, but..." He lets the blanket drop back against the side of the railing and leans further back into the stiff plastic of the hospital chair. "Yeah," he ends, lamely.
There’s something more suffocating than burnt rubber and oil lingering in the air, and Sokka, for one, is not here for it.
Well, he technically has to be physically here for it, because he, unlike Zuko, is kind of on the receiving end of treatment for his injuries. But if Zuko wants to be weird about whatever he’s being weird about, he has no obligation to stay. Shit, that’s probably the whole reason he’s acting strange, he feels obligated to be there now.
So, Sokka gives him a logical out. "Aren't you supposed to be at work?"
Which, of course, because Zuko’s a stubborn little shit he blatantly ignores. "I called out," he says almost too casually.
Which is weird, because Zuko doesn’t “call-out.” Zuko eat, sleeps, breathes, and functions for little other reason than to work. In fact, the other man’s tendencies to over-extend and over-work makes the average workaholic look perfectly rational. There is no calling out, or vacation days, or sick days, or late arrivals, or early leaves… Not for Zuko Sozin, the youngest COO of Sozin Inc. after his father’s overdue incarceration and his uncles’ new management style.
For some reason, the heart-rate monitor picks up its pace next to Sokka, and the two men look over at it in unison. Sokka pretends that the device is inconsequential to their current conversation. “You're taking off for me?" he asks, dumbly. "You didn't even call out when you had the flu and I had to haul your body off the kitchen floor.”
"Yeah, well..." Zuko shifts, picks at a non-existent hang nail, brings it to his mouth to bite at -- it is the most unhinged move Zuko, king of presentation and manners, has displayed openly in a while. Sokka tracks the movements like the man of science he is, but it doesn’t help him solve anything. “Consider this a thank you for the flu-thing, then,” he says around a mouthful of thumb.
He’s not in the right mind to play detective right now. Sokka has a headache forming behind his eyes, and if he spends much longer trying to dissect Zuko’s strange mood, he might pass out.
Instead, he drops the work conversation and plays his cards safe by asking, “How's Tui?"
Tui is a Cockatoo that ventured into their apartment one day nearly three years ago, and never left. They had put up FOUND posters all around town, but after two weeks of dead-end leads and no owner coming forward, Sokka had come home with a probably too large cage and all the accoutrements in the bird section of their local pet store. Zuko almost disowned them both. Something about not having enough time with work and school, and the fact that Tui mimicked an array of annoying sounds.
So, officially, Tui was Sokka’s. But secretly, Zuko loved the damn bird just as much if not more than Sokka himself.
"Good," he says. "I took her out of your room and set up her cage in the living room. She wouldn’t stop beeping and I thought she might be lonely.”
"Of course," he says, finding himself nodding along to Zuko’s words yet again. "You know you can just let Katara take her, if it's too much trouble." He doesn’t mean it and he knows Zuko would never do it, anyway. But they’re playing a weird game of distance right now, so he makes the suggestion.
"I don't mind.” Is the natural response that Sokka is expecting. Then comes the less expected, “I think we both need the company.” And Zuko looks him in the eyes, finally. His jaw works for a few seconds, like he’s trying to grind away the next few words, but they slip out, anyway. “The apartment is kind of empty feeling right now.”
Now this, Sokka could work with. Because Zuko is like a porcupine. He’s sharp and rough and far scarier on the exterior than he is on the interior. He’s always on the defensive, always quick to disarm you with words or, on the few occasions that Sokka’s witnessed it in a necessary moment, physically. He likes to keep people at arms length and emotionally distant, but – and Sokka is almost positive that Zuko doesn’t even realize this – he needs people. He needs his uncle, Sokka knows. But, he also needs friends to joke with, and companionable silence over tea. He’s lived with the other man for four years, so Sokka feels like something of a Zuko expert, and he could flaunt it without shame.
“Are you saying that you miss me?" he asks, smile threatening to break his face.
Zuko huffs, turns away again, throwing a dismissive hand over his shoulder. "Don’t flatter yourself.” Too late, Sokka thinks. “I'm just saying that your absence is noticeable." Zuko brings both hands together again, wrings them thoroughly, and then glances at Sokka. “If anything, the apartment is more orderly without you. There’s no coffee cups in the sink, and the toothpaste cap isn’t halfway down the drain each morning.” It comes out in a rush, and Sokka isn’t even offended as he continues on, “And it's quieter – but if I hear somethinf in the kitchen at 2 A.M. I actually have to get up now, because I know it’s not you. So, like, that’s inconvenient.”
"I must be dead.” Because even if Zuko is still trying to find new ways to blame Sokka for bothering his life, he hears the truth behind the words -- "Zuko Sozin actually cares about me!"
If he wasn’t bound to a hospital bed by an IV and tubes aplenty, Sokka would have done something stupid with as much giddiness that was pumping through his veins.
"Stop being stupid," Zuko says. But there’s a blush coloring his cheeks that does not go unnoticed by Sokka.
Sokka leans back into his pillows, fixing Zuko with a shit eating grin. "Well, hopefully they'll let me out of here soon so I can fill the void in your life.”
Zuko doesn’t even miss a beat before he says, "The doctors said you'll be in here at least another day.”
The thought that Zuko knew about what his doctors were saying took him by surprise. To Sokka, Zuko had just gotten here. It couldn’t be that late in the date, if the sun was any indication. It probably was only a little after visiting hours had begun, and yet…
He disregards it quickly, instead choosing the easy way out. "Well, at least I won't be keeping you from your beauty sleep. Maybe you'll actually be able to go into the office and be nice to people."
"Well, I mean, yeah that'd be nice, but I’m out of the office until next Wednesday,” he says. Sokka was still a little lost, but if the accident was Monday, and yesterday was Wednesday, that meant today was Thursday. “I’ve been working from my laptop,” he interjects quickly, probably sensing Sokka’s complete and utter confusion. “And I figured you’d need help at home once you get released.” That wasn’t helping the confusion, Zuko. The man in question sighed, gave a forced smile, and then tried a different tactic. “I brought you by some stuff.”
Zuko hauled Sokka’s backpacks onto the bed from the floor. It was a good distraction, because Sokka loved stuff and Zuko knew that.
He wasn’t a hoarder (yet) but even when he traveled, he didn’t pack light. Being awake without some familiar items was bound to drive him crazy if he was expected to stay bed ridden for another day.
Sokka gave his friend a wary look, before taking the bag and rifling through it like it wasn’t just a bunch of his own belongings.
It wasn’t much. Some clothes– presumably because the ones he’d been wearing upon entering the hospital had been surgically removed form his body – just some sweat pants, his favorite Pink Floyd t-shirt from The Wall, a plain black hoodie. Then, he reached the good stuff: There was his laptop and charger, the book from his bedside table, a variety of every snack from their cabinets at home, and what looked like Zuko’s old cell phone form two years ago.
Sokka hadn’t even had a chance to think about it yet, but it dawned on him that his own phone must have ended up getting destroyed in the accident. It had been in his leather jacket’s pocket, but after summersaulting through the air and doing a dozen rolls on the pavement, there was no way it made it out alive.
He turned the phone over in his hand, pressed the power button, and saw it was Sokka’s background picture from his own phone – a group picture off all their friends from high school. “Your memory card was still good, so we put it in this one so you’d have some way to communicate with the outside world. We can get a new phone once you’ve healed up some more.”
Suddenly, Sokka felt the overwhelming need to cry again. That sour taste was back in his mouth, and, for some reason, he was both incredibly sad and incredibly happy by the fact that Zuko knew him so well. He sniffs dramatically, pretends to wipe a tear that was very close to actually falling from his eye, and turns to Zuko, clutching his backpack to his chest. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you,” he jokes.
But he means it, truly.
Zuko’s looking at him like he wants to say something. Sokka can see the confliction working itself out behind his eyes, his mouth opens, shuts, and he's chewing the inside of his cheek. “Yeah, well. Me neither,” is all he ends up saying.
The lack of… Well, he isn’t really sure what – but there is a clear lack of it happening and it's Sokka’s turn to feel conflicted, like maybe he needs to say something.
Almost dying changes a man, after all. And now Sokka wants to say everything that’s on his mind. But, right now he’s not sure how to explain to his roommate that he thinks he wants to kiss him when doesn't even understand the sudden urge yet himself.
Katara’s voice echoes from down the hallway, and the bubble they were in bursts too quickly to figure out all of the questions bouncing around in his head. Sokka looks away and Zuko jumps out of his seat like he’s only just realize that he's sat on tacks. They don’t look at each other as Katara and his dad enter the room, but Sokka can just catch Zuko mumbling under his breath, “Just try to not die again and we’ll be even.”