Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sokka cast a harried glance at the clock as he sifted through the mess of documents on his desk. He’d been off-kilter all morning. He’d overslept, and then barely had enough time to grab a quick breakfast with Zuko before his morning meetings began. In his haste to not be late, he’d forgotten to grab the notes he’d need for the rest of the afternoon.

Earth Kingdom politics were very convoluted, and Sokka really needed a map to keep all of the minor, somewhat self-appointed kings and queens of the major cities and provinces straight. Today’s meeting was with the liaison of one of the many Earth queens. She had taken to peace like a turtleduck to water—which was to say, she’d immediately started grabbing for previously Fire Nation occupied land almost as soon as the ink on their peace treaty with the Fire Nation was dry.

It was unfortunate for her that the Earth King of the neighboring territory had the same plan, and unfortunate for Zuko that they’d both decided that, as a neutral party, it was absolutely his business to play arbitrator. Technically, this had nothing to do with the Water Tribes, but Sokka wanted to go, if only to back Zuko up. He shuffled all of his notes into a pile and turned to leave. He paused.

There was an unopened letter sitting on the edge of his desk. It must have been delivered sometime during his morning meeting, arranged carefully where he would be sure to spot it. The bright blue wax seal at the top marked it plainly as correspondence from the Southern Water Tribe. Sokka grinned as he grabbed it, sliding his thumb under the seal. He carried it with him to the door, skimming over the top of the letter.

He stopped.

Sokka stood in the doorway for a moment, reading, and then slowly backed up toward his desk. Then he tucked his meeting notes away again, still hovering beside the desk as he read on.

Sokka, I wanted to warn you of a conversation I’ve been having with Chief Arnook over the past few months, regarding the alliance and their support of the Southern Reconstruction Project.

Chief Arnook has suggested a union through marriage between our tribes. He speaks highly of both you and Katara, but since your sister is dating Aang, he’s been asking after you.

I would never force an arrangement on you, but I would like you to meet the man, if you’re open to it. It seems like it could be a favorable match. He’s a non-bender, but Chief Arnook tells me he’s one of their most respected warriors, and participated in the defense during the Northern Invasion—

Oh, Sokka did not like where this was going. He skimmed to the end, and—

He’ll be accompanying Chief Arnook to the harvest festival in Ba Sing Se. His name is Hahn.

Ugh!

Sokka threw himself into the desk chair and scrubbed a brush so furiously over his inkstone that he had to pause to straighten the bristles. No way am I marrying that self-centered jerk— he started writing, and then… and then he paused, as the opening of his dad’s letter started to sink in. He glanced back up to the top of the page.

...regarding the alliance, and their support of the Southern Reconstruction Project...

Sokka balled up the paper and started again.

The quiet clink of a plate set at his elbow was enough to startle Sokka out of his focus, and he accidentally smeared ink over the top half of his most recent draft. Which was fine. He balled the page up and nudged it to join his growing pile of scraps. He wasn’t wording this right, anyway.

Sokka grabbed a fresh sheet of paper and glanced up. Zuko was standing at the corner of his desk, looking torn between amusement and genuine concern.

“Oh, shit,” Sokka said.

He turned toward the window and realized how long the shadows peeking through the office curtains had grown. As though in response to that thought, Zuko reached over and pinched the wick of the candle at the edge of Sokka’s desk, lighting a little flame between his thumb and forefinger. “Did I miss—?”

“An entire afternoon’s meetings, and also dinner?” Zuko asked. “Yes.” He paused, and then with a little less amusement, and a little more concern, he glanced over the surface of Sokka’s desk, which was accumulating a growing mound of furiously crumpled rejections. “Everything okay?”

Sokka hesitated, and then sighed and slid his dad’s letter across the desk.

The plate Zuko had brought him was piled up with his favorite fire picken, which Sokka still maintained was the best food the Fire Nation had to offer. Weird... they usually didn’t make it in the palace, since the cooks insisted it wasn’t fancy enough to serve the Fire Lord and the other snooty nobles. Sokka would have been devastated if he’d missed the only time the kitchens ever decided to make it. He grinned. This was why Zuko was his best friend, thinking of him even though he’d completely flaked on an entire afternoon of meetings.

Sokka kept only half his attention on the food as Zuko dragged a chair over and unfolded the letter to read. He could pinpoint the moment Zuko reached the marriage bit in the letter. Sokka might have laughed at his expression, if he wasn’t finding it so frustrating himself.

Zuko looked up from the letter. He hesitated, looking conflicted, and then set the letter down again with delicate care.

“So the problem is…?” Zuko asked. Sokka sputtered.

“The problem is Hahn is a jerk,” Sokka said, “and I don’t want to marry him!”

Zuko’s shoulders relaxed, slightly, maybe relieved that it was—compared to his usual—a very low-stakes problem to have. Zuko glanced down at the letter again, very pointedly, and Sokka sighed.

“Okay, look. Before you tell me to just tell them no… it’s not that simple,” Sokka said. “I know Dad said that he’s not going to force a marriage on me, but the Northern Water Tribe cares more about that stuff. Katara is dating Aang, so she has a good excuse to turn them down, but everyone knows that Suki and I broke up years ago. How am I supposed to tell Chief Arnook, ‘Hey, I know you thought Hahn was good enough for your very own daughter, but actually he’s garbage and I want nothing to do with him,’ without them taking offense?”

“Well,” Zuko said. “I wouldn’t... use those words.”

“It doesn’t matter what words I use!” Sokka yelled, exasperated. He swiped the pile of failed replies off the desk and into the trash to emphasize the point. “They’re going to take it as an insult, and that’s going to hurt the Southern Water Tribe’s relationship with the North, which we need, because there aren’t nearly enough waterbenders in the South Pole to handle the reconstruction efforts.” Sokka dropped his head onto the desk and groaned. “Why did it have to be Hahn? Maybe if Dad suggests someone else—”

“No,” Zuko interrupted. Sokka glanced at him, in time to catch the tail-end of a grimace. “I mean. Do you really want an arranged marriage?”

“...No,” Sokka admitted.

Honestly, Sokka wasn’t sure why the idea sat so poorly with him. Dating was fun, and he liked meeting new people, but he couldn’t imagine courting any of the other people his age that he’d met at the North Pole, even the ones that weren’t stuck up jerks like Hahn.

“Why don’t...” Zuko faltered. He stared at Sokka, but it was apparent that he wasn’t going to continue.

“Why don’t… what?” Sokka prompted.

Zuko frowned at the letter in his hands, although it didn’t look like he was really reading it. He let out a tiny sigh, and then glanced up to meet Sokka’s eyes.

“You could tell them we’re together,” Zuko said.

Sokka stared at him. Zuko looked a bit like he was expecting Sokka to laugh him out of the room.

“Nevermind, it’s a stupid—” Zuko said quickly, just as Sokka shouted:

“That’s genius!”

Zuko blinked at him, and started to smile a little, as Sokka continued, “Oh, Zuko, why didn’t I think of that? Katara got out of it because she’s dating Aang, so if we just pretend until after the harvest festival in Ba Sing Se—”

Zuko’s smile twitched, just slightly, and Sokka hastily clarified.

“I mean, I know a few weeks is a long time,” Sokka said. “But I think people would get suspicious if I said I was dating the Fire Lord but no one ever saw us like, actually going on dates, or doing couple stuff—”

Sokka paused, a thought catching up with him.

“Hey, this isn’t going to get you in trouble, is it?” Sokka asked. “I mean, I know you’re the one that offered, but I don’t want to trade avoiding a conflict with the Northern Water Tribe with a conflict for you, here. Will they care that I’m an Ambassador? Or… that I’m not Fire Nation?”

“Some people will probably care,” Zuko said, after a hesitant moment considering. “But I’m the Fire Lord. There’s only so much they can do.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to cause you problems—”

“Sokka, I wouldn’t have offered if I hadn’t already thought it through,” Zuko said, which sounded like a blatant lie. First of all, this was Zuko, and Zuko never thought things through. And second, how long could Zuko have possibly had to consider the consequences of dating him, when he’d only known about his dad’s letter for a few minutes? And even if he’d considered the possible political consequences...

Sokka squinted at him.

“And you’re not interested in anyone?” he asked.

Zuko was giving him a very deadpan look, so that must have been a dumb question. Okay, fair, they were close enough friends that Zuko would have mentioned it. Sokka threw his hands up.

“Hey, I just wanted to ask!” he said. “I don’t want you to regret it when the suitors stop coming.”

“I want them to stop. I’m only twenty, I don’t need an heir yet, and...” Zuko held Sokka’s gaze for a second, opened his mouth, and hesitated. He let out a tiny sigh and looked away. “It’s really not a problem.”

“Well… great!” Sokka said. “You can help me out with this, and I’ll keep your advisors from bothering you about an heir—for a few weeks anyway. It’s a win-win.”

Sokka pressed a knuckle to his mouth, thinking. If they were going to make it seem real, they’d probably want to pretend it had been going on for a while, but that they’d been keeping things private, and that the only reason they were mentioning it now was the marriage proposal.

It was a good enough excuse. Sokka would probably even believe it. This could totally work.

“Okay,” Sokka said, pulling over a fresh piece of paper. “Help me write this letter to my dad.”

The next morning, Sokka paused in the door to Zuko’s study and shifted the vase into his other hand to knock. He’d spent most of last night in his room planning how best to reveal their relationship to the palace.

The size of the flower arrangement was really just ridiculous, which meant that it was perfect, and totally worth waking up before his early morning meeting to go order from a florist in Caldera City midtown. They’d been absolutely delighted to upsell him, until he ended up with a vase of fire lilies the size of his torso, all bright orange and swishing jauntily as he carried it to Zuko’s study. A few of the petals brushed against his cheek, leaving a dusty little streak of pollen that he scrubbed off on his shoulder. He’d been subtly gawked at during the whole walk over, by curious servants and ministers and advisory staff roaming the halls during their breaks, but the look he received from Zuko was definitely the best, baffled and suspicious and a little mortified all at once.

Sokka grinned. Zuko stared.

“Who are those for?” Zuko asked after a long moment.

“Who are—who do you think?” Sokka swept around the table to place them in front of Zuko’s chair, fluffing the petals lightly so they fell just-so. He glanced back at him and summoned a teasing grin. A little muscle on Zuko’s temple began to twitch, and on impulse Sokka soothed the tension with his thumb. He let his hand linger there for show. “They’re for you!”

Across the table, the Minister of Foreign Affairs was doing a very poor job of hiding her absolute delight. Her gaze darted between them and the flowers like this was the best day of her life, mouth very firmly pinched to hide the startled grin threatening to take over her face.

Minister Inoko was an incorrigible gossip. At least, she was for the sort of gossip that was removed enough from her position to be fun for her, like fashion blunders and relationship drama. Any time some fresh gossip crossed her path, the whole palace would have heard whisperings by the end of the workday. Sokka knew this. It was in fact his own main source of gossip, which was exactly why he’d selected her meeting to interrupt. Of everyone Zuko was scheduled to meet today, she’d get the job done quickest.

Sokka darted a quick glance between her and the flowers before meeting Zuko’s gaze. Come on man, play along, he said with his eyes, and his eyebrows, and a quiet click of his tongue. That seemed to finally urge Zuko into reacting beyond giving him that startled rabbit-deer stare.

“Right,” Zuko said slowly. “I forgot about our—date?”

Spirits, he was a bad liar. They were going to have to work on that. Sokka mentally added it to his to-do list.

“I promised you lunch,” Sokka said. He hesitated then, and glanced back at Minister Inoko like he was just realizing she was there. “Ah. I’m sorry to interrupt. Do you mind if we...?”

“Not at all, Ambassador,” she said quickly. Minister Inoko hastily swept the papers in front of her into a pile, heedless of the fresh ink on the page she’d been writing on, now smudged across the flat of her palm. She bit the side of her cheek and added, “Please, enjoy your lunch.”

She turned to Zuko and bowed hastily, and then she was off so quickly that two of the pages from her stack fluttered to the ground in her wake. Sokka watched her go with the satisfaction of a plan in motion. Then he stooped to pick the stray pages up from the floor and set them neatly on the corner of Zuko’s desk.

“So,” Sokka said, smoothing the edge of one page. Zuko’s expression had twisted into something between tolerant amusement and annoyance, which was basically right where Sokka normally landed, and it did absolutely nothing to slow him down. “Lunch?”

It was barely past noon, and they still technically had a full workday ahead of them, so it felt a little strange to be going anywhere too fancy... especially because this wasn’t a real date. But Sokka didn’t do anything by halves, and spirits above, their first official public date was going to be a nice one. Sokka was great at dates and romance, and he had a reputation to uphold.

The server smiled warmly at Sokka as he ducked through the sunny entryway of the restaurant. The inside smelled strongly of spices and seafood. He’d found this place a couple of weeks ago and nearly cried over their clay pot fish head stew. He’d come back a couple times since then, and the food seemed better every time. Sokka hadn’t shared it with anyone yet—he’d felt a little bit like it was his secret, or maybe like he was saving it for something, but a date with the Fire Lord seemed like as good of an opportunity as any.

The owner recognized him, and she nodded a quick greeting. A beat passed, and then she did a double-take and nearly dropped her knife in surprise. Her face absolutely lit up when she realized who was following behind him.

And maybe that would be a nice little bonus to this whole fake dating thing, Sokka mused. He was always seated at restaurants much, much faster with Zuko around than he ever was alone, and usually in a nice sunny table near the window so that anyone passing on the street could see the sort of customers the restaurant’s food was able to draw. Zuko tolerated this phenomenon with mild embarrassment, and his guards tolerated it with mild disapproval, having to then pay a little more attention to the street as well.

“You know the festival isn’t for another few weeks, right?” Zuko asked, after Sokka had ordered for them both, and their server had stepped out of earshot.

“I mean, yeah, but we can’t have the day I’m supposed to be meeting a marriage match be the first time anyone hears about us,” Sokka said. “That would be super suspicious.”

“But did you have to be so… over the top?”

“I’m an over the top guy,” Sokka said.

“I guess,” Zuko allowed after a long pause. For a moment there he looked like he was going to say something else, but before he could their server was back with a plate of appetizers, which she insisted was on the house, as though the Fire Lord’s very deep pockets needed anything given to him for free. Sokka smiled and thanked her, and could practically see Zuko plotting to add the cost of it to their bill.

“Zuko,” he said quietly. Sokka reached across the table and laid his hand overtop his slender fingers, and Zuko’s hand jumped under his for half a moment before he relaxed. Over Zuko’s shoulder the waitress did a double-take, and Zuko’s guards very pointedly looked elsewhere.

Sokka lowered his voice slightly, leaning in, “This’ll go smoother with a well-thought out plan, and then we can get this over with and break up again. And you know me. I love a well-thought-out plan.”

Zuko shifted uncomfortably, glanced aside, and licked his lips. For a second Sokka wondered if maybe he’d gone too far, and Zuko was getting second thoughts about pretending to be dating him if it meant everyone actually, you know, knowing they were dating.

But then he straightened a little, like he was gearing himself up. Zuko nodded, and Sokka let out a relieved sigh.

“Good, because we need to go over some ground rules,” Sokka said.

“Like what?” Zuko asked.

“You know, like, what you’re comfortable with,” Sokka said. “Like… like hand holding, or touching, or kissing—” Zuko was turning a little red. Maybe he hadn’t thought this all the way through, when he’d offered to pretend to date him.

Well… this was Zuko, so he definitely hadn’t thought it through. Still.

“We don’t have to do any of that if you don’t want to,” Sokka said reassuringly. “Whatever you’re cool with. I mean it.”

“I don’t want to do anything you don’t want to, either,” Zuko said after a long moment, which was such a cop-out answer, but Sokka was a good friend, so he was going to let him get away with it.

“Honestly, if you do something I don’t like, I’ll just tell you,” Sokka said. “I’d do that if we were really dating, anyway. But I’m cool with anything.”

“Okay,” Zuko said. “I think all of those things would be... fine.” He looked a little pained to be saying it, hesitating on the last word, but then again this topic was pretty awkward.

“Even kissing?” Sokka asked.

“I think… people would probably be suspicious, if we didn’t. You’re already a pretty touchy person,” Zuko said. “And I really don’t mind,” he added, when Sokka opened his mouth to insist, but are you sure?

Zuko still didn’t look totally sold on the idea, but… Sokka didn’t want to push him, or make him feel like he was pressuring him, and anyway, Sokka didn’t want Zuko to think that he was uncomfortable.

“Okay. Cool,” Sokka said.

Sokka picked up a spicy water cucumber from his plate and held it up to Zuko’s lips, his smile going a little mischievous. Zuko squinted at him, then rolled his eyes and picked up a water cucumber of his own. Zuko popped it stubbornly into his mouth, so Sokka gave up on trying to feed it to him and ate the other one himself. He chewed thoughtfully.

“So I think,” Sokka said after a moment, “that we should go on a handful of dates here in the Fire Nation, at least. Publicly, to sell the lie. That part shouldn’t be too hard. The really tricky bit is going to be when we get to Ba Sing Se.”

They were going to have to be obvious, to make it clear that the relationship was serious and Sokka was off the market. Maybe if they were really over the top, Sokka would get left alone for a while after their fake breakup, too. Being over the top meant that if everything went according to plan, the rest of their friends and family were definitely going to find out. Sokka could just tell them the truth, but… they weren’t the most subtle bunch. The more people who knew, the more likely they were to get caught in a lie, and they were really trying to avoid causing an international incident, here.

Now that he thought about it, they’d have to come up with answers for all the typical, couple-y questions, too, like how they got together and how long they’d been seeing each other. Sokka frowned, thinking about Zuko’s less-than-stellar lying abilities when he was flustered. Maybe some half-truths would be better, to make it easier to keep their story straight. They’d have to brainstorm later.

“Katara is going to be mad that I’ve been keeping secrets from her,” Sokka said. “She might be a little suspicious, actually. We’ll make sure we tell her when Aang’s around. Aang loves love. He’ll be super excited.”

Zuko nodded in agreement, so Sokka pressed on.

“We have to be careful what we say around Toph, since she can tell when we’re lying,” Sokka said. “So just—try to avoid her as much as you can. But not in an obvious way. And if she asks you any hard questions, just… deflect.”

Sokka tapped his chopsticks against the edge of his plate, smearing little drops of spicy sauce from the water cucumbers over the porcelain. He traced aimless little patterns while he gathered his thoughts. Then he sighed.

“My dad will probably want to meet you,” Sokka said after a moment. He frowned apologetically. “I mean—you’ve met, obviously. But he’ll want to meet you again, as a boyfriend.”

“And my uncle will… yeah,” Zuko said. He straightened a little, looking much more anxious than one little conversation with Sokka’s dad warranted. He took a hasty sip of his tea and cleared his throat. “I mean. It’s fine. I can… pretend.”

“You don’t have to worry,” Sokka assured him. “He likes you. If anything, he’ll be happy for us.”

“Okay,” Zuko said, though he still sounded a little uncertain. Sokka wasn’t sure if there was any way to reassure him, but before he could get the chance to try, their server returned with an entire row of plates balanced on one arm and their tea on the other arm.

Sokka reached out to help her with one of the plates, and Zuko smacked his hand. Sokka scoffed, and tried to kick him under the table, but Zuko just pulled his foot back.

“Don’t touch,” Zuko said, “you’ll mess up her balance. Unless you want to wear our lunch.”

The waitress looked—surprised, and a little grateful, so maybe Zuko was right. Sokka put his hands up in surrender, and let her unload plate after plate in front of them.

Sokka should probably pour the tea, considering he was eating with the Fire Lord. He dragged the basket of curry puffs over, instead, and stuffed one into his mouth whole.

“Was that a ‘Lee from the teashop’ thing?” Sokka asked. Zuko wrinkled his nose at Sokka’s manners. “Be honest with me, have you ever dumped tea in some poor soul’s lap?”

“Would you like to be the first?” Zuko asked, and pushed his now-full teacup toward him. “Chew your food before you speak, you animal.”

“My boyfriend loves me despite my flaws,” Sokka said, after dutifully washing the next bite down with tea. Zuko rolled his eyes, but he wasn’t… completely terrible at acting, when he smiled at him, or when he pulled out the plates to start dividing food, and put the best-looking pieces onto the plate he handed to Sokka. Or maybe it was just easy, to make a fondness for friends look like plain old romantic fondness.

Sokka took another sip of tea.

“So, how long have we been together?” Sokka asked. “It has to have started before I got the letter.”

“A few months?” Zuko asked. “We can say we’re not… sure? It happened gradually?”

Sokka shrugged.

“The fewer details the better, anyway,” he agreed.

“How about: you missed a meeting, and I asked you out when I brought your dinner to your room?” Zuko suggested. Sokka let out an exaggerated sigh.

“That’s so boring,” Sokka said. He sighed again. “But I guess we should pick something easy to remember. Okay. We’ve been dating a few months. You asked me out in the most boring way possible. You think I’m the most handsome man you’ve ever met.” He ticked each item off on his fingers.

Zuko nodded, very earnestly, and Sokka couldn’t help but laugh.

“Bring that energy to the rest of your terrible lying, and maybe we can pull this off,” Sokka laughed.

“I’m not a terrible liar,” Zuko lied.

Sokka reached mournfully across the table and gave his hand a grave pat. “It’s okay, Zuko, not everyone is cut out for quick thinking—”

“Okay, Wang Fire—”

“—and genius improv like I am,” Sokka said, ignoring him. “Honestly, you’re an open book. I don’t think you could hide your feelings from anyone.”

“Unless they were an idiot,” Zuko said. Sokka pulled the condiment tray closer, so he could spoon pickled vegetables onto his rice with one hand, the other still patting Zuko’s in reassurance.

“Unless they were an idiot,” Sokka agreed, and for some reason that made Zuko smile. “But we’ll practice!”

They’d have a few weeks to get ready. Zuko could practice his lies-by-omission. Sokka was already incredible at it, so he could help Zuko there. Then, Sokka would have to get him ready to talk to his dad and Chief Arnook, just in case they wanted to vet him.

Between that, and doing their actual duties to prepare for the harvest festival, they were going to have a pretty full couple of weeks. At least people would see them spending a lot of time together.

This was totally going to work.

They didn’t actually have to change their schedules all that much in the days leading up to the festival. Zuko was his best friend, so they already spent a lot of time together. They sparred together at least twice a week. Most evenings they ate dinner together, or unwound in each other’s chambers, or just sat together while they worked. It really wasn’t that much effort to add in a few extra lingering touches, or toss out a few obnoxious nicknames for Zuko that earned him hilarious glares, or more mild pet names that just got him indulgent huffs of protest.

They were already kinda nailing this fake dating thing.

Which, Sokka maintained, was the only reason he was so surprised when Zuko came and found him the day before they were set to leave for the Earth Kingdom, all the way in the Southern Water Tribe embassy, and settled his hands on the edge of Sokka’s desk like he was hoping to burrow through the wood if only he pressed hard enough.

“Do you want to,” Zuko asked, painfully slowly, “...go out?”

“Out?” Sokka said.

“You know,” Zuko said. He flicked a glance at the embassy staff seated at the other side of the room. Sokka followed his gaze, even though none of them seemed to be paying them any mind, and Zuko’s meaning clicked, “Out.”

“Oh,” Sokka said. He cast a glance over his shoulder, but Zuko’s offer hadn’t raised a single head, voice too low to carry across the room. He sat up straighter and said, loudly, with a hint of teasing in his tone, “Are you asking me on a date?”

Zuko went a little red in the face, but it definitely had the desired effect, earning him a few curious glances from the other embassy staff.

“I guess I am,” Zuko said. A little smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “But of course, if you’re busy...”

“No!” Sokka said quickly. A solid ninety percent of his schedule today was reviewing extremely niche budget proposals, and he could think of literally nothing he wanted to do less when hanging out with his best friend was on the table as an alternative. It was almost lunch time, anyway—if he neglected his work for the sake of building their alibi for the harvest festival, he could always make up for it later tonight. Sokka swept the scroll he was reading into a drawer and shut it with a little too much force, which earned him a chuckle from Zuko. “Lead the way.”

The Caldera downtown marketplace was bustling this time of day, but even with the throngs of eager shoppers, there was a bit of a buffer around the Fire Lord as he made his way through. It didn’t annoy Zuko, per se, but Sokka had definitely noticed that it made him a bit self-conscious, to watch the startled looks flicker across the other shoppers’ faces as they parted to let Zuko pass by.

He may not love the attention, but it was definitely helpful in other ways. Sokka clung close to Zuko’s side as they walked, and watched the interested gazes dart toward them and away as they made their way down the street. Zuko saw them, too, and shrunk a little. Then he glanced at Sokka, and seemed to remember that this was the reaction that they wanted, people gawking at them and spreading the word, and he huffed a steadying breath and walked with his head held a little bit higher.

Zuko didn’t seem to have any particular destination in mind, content to just let Sokka wander and shop, which he was absolutely more than happy to do. They combed up and down the market streets for a few minutes, ducking into whatever shops caught their eye, grazing past the pop-up stalls lining the streets with their wares, and all the while walking just close enough to touch. After a moment of hesitation Zuko reached out to rest a hand on Sokka’s back, and they walked like that the rest of the way down the street with the heavy interest of the crowd following them.

Zuko trailed after Sokka as he dragged him toward another jewelry shop, with only a vaguely exasperated look as they stepped inside. Sokka ignored him, because Zuko had no right to judge, after how long he’s stood staring at the three incredibly similar novel adaptations of the same play settled on the corner of a bookseller’s stall, grumbling at the inaccuracies, completely oblivious to the vendor’s increasingly desperate attempts to find something that suited Zuko’s tastes.

It was Sokka’s turn to oggle stuff he didn’t need, thank you very much.

Just from a quick glance at his wares, Sokka recognized the craftsmanship of an Earth Kingdom style jade artisan, the sort of thing he’d seen in passing in the Ba Sing Se Upper Ring during their time in the city years ago. There was a case filled with the most precious of the man’s designs at the back of the stall. He took one look at Zuko and went to fetch it, setting it very pointedly within reach. Sokka grinned and ducked over to take a peek.

One hairpiece did catch his eye—it was carved from Earth Kingdom white jade, the bottom of the hairpiece curling upward like wisps of smoke, coming together at the top to a lotus flower in full bloom, nestled atop a spindling cage of jade pins to fasten the hair in place. He ran his thumb over the edge of the design. The top of the hairpiece was so delicately carved that sunlight shone through the finest details of the petals, glittering like arctic ice. It really was beautiful—but also much too expensive to justify buying, considering that Sokka rarely wore his hair in the Fire Nation topknot style that would suit the hairpiece best. He set it down and shuffled over to have a look at some of the bracelets the artisan had set out, instead.

These were a bit more his speed. He picked one made of interlocking jasper beads, strung through with onyx spacers, and tried it on. Nice. He shuffled it off his wrist again, glanced at the price tag, and tried not to balk. Ah, well. He didn’t actually own that many bracelets, and this one really was nice…

“Oh, what the hell,” Sokka muttered, mostly to himself. He glanced over at Zuko, who was leaning over the case with the sort of indulgent impatience he reserved for Sokka’s many shopping sprees. Sokka laid the bracelet out in his palm. “What do you think? I think I’m getting it.”

“It’s nice,” Zuko said, with the sort of tone that said he very much did not care one way or the other. Sokka chuckled a little, considered the bracelet again, and shrugged.

He gave the shop one more quick sweep, just in case anything else piqued his interest. Then, purse a little lighter and bracelet on his wrist, he sidled up to Zuko where he was hovering by the teller and threaded their fingers together.

“Ready?” he asked. Zuko nodded.

After a while Sokka steered them away from the vendors and back toward where the street food stalls had set up. The whole market smelled of spice, sweet and cloying scents mingling with the sharp bite of chilis wafting off the cooking fires of the street food stalls. Sokka followed his nose to a stall selling some kind of kebabs with an appealingly orange sauce.

He bought two, and offered one to Zuko, partly because it was a little fun to watch people gawk at their very dignified Fire Lord eating heavily spiced meat off a stick, and even more so because Zuko wasn’t the least bit self conscious about it, in his fancy Fire Palace robes, eating street food Sokka couldn’t even identify because he’d forgotten to ask the vendor what it was called. Sokka bought a little boat of fire flakes, too, wrapped up in paper, and salad greens for them to split. With his hands full, he offered his elbow up to Zuko, who rolled his eyes but threaded his arm through Sokka’s anyway.

Zuko led the way as they worked their way down through the market toward the docks. It was a warm day, but the breeze off the water was nice enough to chase the heat away. They settled on one of the low stone walls overlooking the pier, and Sokka could almost forget the guards hovering a few feet down the boardwalk as he turned to prop his knee up on the wall so he could face Zuko.

They ate with the sun on their backs and the wind off the water buffered by their knees, turned slightly inward to face one another. For a moment Sokka watched a few of the people wandering up the pier, and just from the way they were walking, he could tell they were trying very hard not to openly stare at them.

This was working… pretty well, actually, and it was kind of nice to get to do all the fun dating stuff, even without any of the dating dating stuff. Sokka leaned in slightly to say as much to Zuko, quiet so the guards couldn’t hear. Zuko’s face was sun-warmed and a little flushed from the heat, the ocean breeze whipping the loose strands of hair off his shoulder, and Sokka had the irrational impulse to reach out and tuck it back behind his ear. Zuko had set the food aside and shifted forward a little closer, so that their knees were almost touching now.

“Here,” Zuko said. He held out a little brown parcel in his palm. Sokka took one look at it and knew what it was, because he had the torn packaging of his bracelet from the same stall stuffed into his pocket. “It’s—I saw you were looking.”

“Oh,” Sokka said. He picked at the edge of the paper, and pulled the hairpiece free. The artistry was even more breathtaking in the full sun, where all the intricately sculpted details were more easily seen. He traced his thumb over the top of one of the petals, along the thready veins of white crystal glittering in the light. “Thank you,” he said, and really meant it, a little surprised by the thrill of emotion that settled in his chest.

Zuko glanced away, rosy-cheeked, and shrugged.

Sokka started to smile at his bashful dismissal—but then he caught sight of the guards, standing at a careful distance from the pier and staring resolutely up the boardwalk, and out to sea, and generally anywhere other than right at them, and… right. The warmth that had settled in his chest dimmed, narrowing into something dangerously like disappointment. Embarrassment washed into its place. Zuko hadn’t meant it like that, so why should he be disappointed?

And gift giving was… was a couple-y thing, so that was good thinking.

Never mind that it was… thoughtful. Zuko was a thoughtful guy, when he wasn’t too busy being completely impulsive and awkward. So of course he paid attention, and of course he was generous, or fake-generous, or whatever. Sokka’s stomach felt strangely tight, which he was firmly going to attribute to the excitement of new and expensive-looking stuff, and nothing else. He held the hairpiece up to where his topknot would sit and smiled.

“What do you think?” Sokka asked.

“I think—it’s good. Nice,” Zuko said, which was as high of praise as any. Sokka beamed and set the hairpiece down next to his knee, carefully balanced on the paper wrapping it came in to keep it safe.

Today was… actually kind of his ideal date, with shopping, and meat on a stick, lazily watching the waves crash against the shore with the breeze on his face, and the warm autumn sun on his back. Sokka stewed in that for a moment, and then turned back out to watch a fishing trawler crawl across the mouth of the bay, headed toward the docks. Sokka’s fingers flexed around the hairpiece, barely, before wrapping it up again and sliding it into his pocket. He very pointedly resisted the urge to glance at Zuko, or the guards watching their every movement, as he reached tentatively over the stone wall and rested his fingers on top of Zuko’s slack hand.

It really… Well. It was kind of a shame that none of this was real.

The lights in Zuko’s chambers were low, save for the candle set on the desk. Sokka had a stack of reports the width of his palm settled into his lap, which he prayed to the spirits was mostly stuffed with filler pages he wouldn’t have to read. Somewhere on the table in the pile of papers he’d propped his feet on was a new prototype schematic sent by the Mechanist, but even that wasn’t enough to entice his slippery focus today. He had a much more confusing puzzle to mull over.

Sokka was a reasonable guy. A reasonable, logical guy. He took the facts as he saw them. He liked his evidence. He liked—okay he was definitely, maybe even a bit over the top about it, which was why no matter how hard he tried to focus on the stupid budget reports he’d been putting off since Zuko had sprung a date on him, his focus just wouldn’t come.

Because he’d been… thinking. He cast what must have been his hundredth glance of the night over at Zuko, where he was settled comfortably on the other side of the couch, close enough for Sokka to reach out and touch—

Zuko heaved an enormous, long suffering sigh, and set his own scroll down in his lap.

“Should I ask why you’re staring at me?” he asked. “Do I want to know?”

“What, I can’t stare at my boyfriend?” Sokka asked, a little too quickly, and okay, that was kind of a dumb answer, because they were alone in Zuko’s chambers and they weren’t actually dating, but—

Zuko rolled his eyes, and turned back to his scroll.

Sokka stared at the side of his head.

And, well. He’d just started thinking, about how they were leaving for Ba Sing Se soon—Sokka already had his bags packed and waiting for him in his own room—and how they’d have to put on a good show for people that knew them a lot better than Zuko’s ministers, or their waitress at the restaurant...

And he’d been thinking: it would be strange, if they showed up at the harvest festival acting like teenagers who’d never done more than holding hands. So.

“We should kiss,” Sokka blurted out. Zuko’s gaze snapped up to meet his own, the scroll in his hands abruptly forgotten. Sokka could feel the tips of his ears burning, at the scrutiny, and at the completely unconvincing way he’d broached the subject. “I mean—what if someone asks us to kiss, and it’s really obvious we’ve never done it before, and then they’ll wonder why we’ve never done it before—”

“You think someone is going to ask us to kiss?” Zuko asked. Sokka valiantly resisted the urge to bristle at his doubtful tone, and only because Zuko was looking the tiniest bit worried by the possibility.

“No. Well, maybe,” Sokka said. “It was just an idea. It’s fine. We can just tell them you’re a private person, maybe, and you’re the Fire Lord, so they won’t question it—”

“Okay,” Zuko said, cutting him off. He clarified, “Okay, let’s practice. It’d be bad for both of us if we got caught in the lie.”

Sokka nodded, grasping onto the excuse immediately.

“Right. I don’t want to make the Fire Nation look bad,” Sokka said, angling his knees a little closer to Zuko’s on the sofa. “You’re already doing me a big favor.”

Zuko nodded, sliding just a bit closer. Sokka leaned in slightly. His plan was a quick brush of lips, just to get Zuko used to the idea...

Instead... well.

Sokka hesitated, suddenly nervous, searching Zuko’s expression for any hint of reluctance. Zuko was the one who closed the distance between them, his breath feather light over his skin for a moment before their lips brushed softly, then almost immediately firmer as Zuko leaned in. Zuko’s mouth was very warm, which he’d expected—he was a firebender, after all—and also very open, which he absolutely had not expected. Because… Sokka had kind of thought Zuko would be awkward about this, or uncertain.

Instead, Zuko cupped Sokka’s jaw and kissed him with the confidence of someone who knew what he wanted, or, or maybe someone who didn’t have enough stake to be nervous in the first place. His palms were rough, but—no, that wasn’t surprising. Zuko had never been afraid of hard work, hands calloused from hours of sword training and sparring matches.

Sokka could feel the flush rising up his neck. He gripped the edge of Zuko’s robe, the first thing he could reach, and then they were really kissing, dizzyingly slow, and langid, and no Zuko absolutely did not need the practice. Sokka didn’t know why he even suggested this, except…

Except he did, the little moments he’d pushed to the back of his mind, the warm autumn sun on his back, their fingers barely brushing, long nights sitting quietly, not talking, together with a comfortable silence stretching on and on—

—and through all of it, that tiny ache, a nervousness he couldn’t explain, a feeling he’d been, without realizing it, trying not to examine too closely.

Oh, spirits.

He was in love with Zuko.

The thought slotted into place like the final gear in one of his prototypes, and his mind began to whir. He was kissing Zuko, and he liked it, and not just because Zuko was handsome and kissing was fun—

Sokka leaned back, until there was enough space to breathe a quick sigh between them. He had shifted closer, and at some point Zuko had put a hand on his thigh, his palm firepit-warm even through the thick fabric.

Suddenly, this plan was a not a genius way to squirm out of an awkward political situation, it was—oh spirits, it was so stupid, it was a slow and painful torture. They were going to have to pretend to date. Hold hands, maybe, and kiss, and convince all their friends and family that they were together…

And then they were going to break up, because it wasn’t real.

“Okay?” Zuko asked.

He was still so close, lips still parted and looking so, so soft. He was close enough that Sokka thought maybe he could make out the lightest flush rising in his cheeks, but his eyes were dark and focused. Focused on Sokka’s reaction, because they’d been practicing. It wasn’t supposed to make Sokka’s breath catch in his chest, or warm pleasure crawl over his back, like the sun had on the pier, their fingers brushing—

He forced himself to swallow and leaned back, desperately hoping that Zuko wouldn’t notice the heat that had risen in his own cheeks.

“Yup!” Sokka said. It came out a little too high pitched. Sokka clapped Zuko on the shoulder, and then immediately cringed internally. “Very convincing, I don’t think we have anything to worry about.”

Sokka only just, just managed to clamp down on the urge to thank him. His heart was hammering, and this was mortifying enough.

Zuko nodded slowly, and when he leaned back a little to turn back to his scrolls, Sokka realized with dawning dread that the little pang that he felt curling in his stomach was disappointment.

Oh, he was in trouble. No, no... this was terrible.

“Have you packed yet?” Sokka asked, and then barely waited for Zuko to shake his head no—he already knew he hadn’t, he could see that he hadn’t gathered his bags yet—before he started sliding off the couch. “Me neither! I should go get started. Don’t want to be up all night—”

“Oh… yeah,” Zuko said, blessedly making no move to follow him, as Sokka absolutely did not make a run for it. “Okay. Goodnight.”

Chapter Text

The trains in the Lower Ring definitely weren’t large enough to handle the amount of passengers they carried on a normal work day, let alone during the harvest festival, with throngs of holiday travelers pouring into the city. There wasn’t enough room on the train for their guards to be choosy about where they sat, and Zuko was too stubborn to let them commandeer a car just for him when so many people were also waiting for a ride, so Zuko’s guards had settled for cramming in defensively around him.

At least once they passed through the denser parts of the Lower Ring the crowds would thin out. Sokka could pick out the Ba Sing Se locals from the tourists with a single glance, because all of them were standing, crammed up against the windows as the tourists talked loudly around them, very much looking like they wished for death.

Sokka was kind of wishing for death, too, but for an entirely different reason. He’d hardly slept last night after his little revelation, and the hours of lost sleep had gotten him no closer to a solution to his problem. He was steadfastly trying to ignore it now, which would be much easier to do if the Ba Sing Se Public Transit Association was not out to get him.

Sokka and Zuko were currently backed up against one of the overflowing benches, pressed together shoulder to hip. Zuko’s elbow was resting on Sokka’s shoulder where he reached over his head to hold the handrail. Sokka, for his part, was clutching the back of the seat next to him with all his might, desperately trying to not think about how nice Zuko smelled, plum blossom and spiced tea. Or how soft his hair was, still perfectly styled even after a whole day of traveling. Or how warm he was, because Sokka had noticed that he ran hot but suddenly it was all he could think about, with Zuko literally inches away from him, and Sokka could not handle it.

And he… he should have called this whole thing off the minute he realized. Zuko didn’t sign up for this. It wasn’t fair—it was, what he was doing was wrong, probably, taking advantage, maybe—

Zuko caught his hand before he could shuffle closer to the door for their stop. He leaned toward Sokka’s ear, and Sokka was painfully aware of how they must look to the other passengers, and the guards trying to give them space across the aisle, like two lovers leaning in to share a secret.

“Everything okay?” Zuko asked. “You seem quiet.”

Everything was very much not okay. This whole weekend was going to be torture, but if he admitted that, he’d be giving himself away.

“Fine,” Sokka said immediately. “Sorry, just... you know me. Thinking.”

Zuko smiled sympathetically. “You don’t need to worry. It’s only for a few days. It’ll be over before you know it.”

That awful sinking feeling was back full force, like sand sifting down his spine through his stomach, weighing him down. That’s the problem, Sokka wanted to shout. Instead he forced a fake smile, as though Zuko had just whispered something sweet to him, and nodded.

It was only for a few days. Sokka braced himself as the train rattled into the platform, but even then he stumbled slightly into Zuko’s side as it jolted to a stop. Zuko’s steadying hand on his elbow felt like a brand.

Just a few days, and then Sokka could put all of this out of his head, and get himself under control, and stop taking advantage of his best friend who was already doing him a huge favor by pretending to love him.

He could do this.

(If he kept telling himself that, then maybe it would be true—)

They had almost arrived at the Earth King’s palace, and Sokka had just started to let his guard down, thinking that maybe they would be able to make it all the way there, and into the incomparable shield of polite company, before any of their friends managed to trap them into an interrogation.

It was this complacency that had him stepping off the monorail in the Middle Ring, his rail pass already cupped in his palm for an easy transfer to the much-less-grimy (and hopefully, for his sanity’s sake, less crowded) monorail that would take them most of the way to the palace in the Upper Ring, without so much as a surreptitious glance in either direction.

Had he looked first, he might have noticed Toph standing down the platform, clearly waiting for them. Aang and Katara hadn’t noticed them, but it didn’t matter. Sokka saw Toph a moment too late, just as his foot hit the stone platform, and Toph’s head snapped up as she half-turned toward them both.

She punched Katara, pointing, and then—

“Oh, here we go,” Sokka said to Zuko. He had frozen just behind Sokka—actually, they were both blocking the door. Sokka grabbed Zuko by the elbow and steered him toward the middle of the platform before one of the other disgruntled riders took matters into their own hands.

Katara was marching over to them. Her eyes narrowed as Sokka steered Zuko aside by the arm, even though it was a totally normal thing to do when your boyfriend was rudely blocking doorways. He glanced over at Zuko and he was… actually looking kind of nervous? Which wouldn’t do. Katara was like a squid shark sometimes, he swore she could sense weakness the way Toph sensed vibrations, and if she saw Zuko was nervous she was going to wonder what it was that he thought he should be nervous about. Sokka elbowed him subtly, and Zuko tried to get control of his face.

Besides, Sokka had a lifetime of cataloguing Katara’s angry faces. This one looked suspiciously like the time, right after they’d left the Southern Water Tribe to travel with Aang, that she’d caught him hoarding hard candies in his bag, intent not to share even though that kind of sugar was a rare treat they’d only dreamed of back home, once the trade ships stopped coming. Not really angry, just outraged that Sokka was the kind of brat who wouldn’t share.

Katara squinted at them, arms crossed as she waited for an explanation. Normally Sokka would have tried to wait her out, just to be a jerk, but he was pretty sure Zuko would crack long before he ever did, and Sokka didn’t want to risk him blowing the plan before they’d even started.

Sokka grinned at Katara and threw his arms open. It was difficult to be intimidated when he could see the corners of her mouth twitching, trying to suppress a smile. He crushed her in a hug until her toes were a few inches off the platform, and then dropped her down right next to Zuko.

“I missed you two,” Katara said. Zuko was looking more relaxed, as Katara pulled him into a much less crushing hug.

“You could visit you know,” Sokka said. He used to be able to hug Aang and Toph at the same time, tucking one under each arm, but Aang had shot up so many inches in the last few years that suddenly Sokka was the one who had to look up to meet Aang’s gaze.

Sokka resisted the urge to groan at Aang’s ecstatic, twinkling eyes. He was temporarily saved from whatever sappy speech Aang had prepared when their monorail rattled up to the platform, and they all had to shuffle inside.

Sokka realized a moment too late, when Aang and Katara sat down on either side of him like Jury and Executioner, that he should have pulled the clingy-new-boyfriends card and sat next to Zuko. Especially when he glanced up and realized that Zuko had sat down in the seat closest to the door, far enough away that Sokka couldn’t even hear what he was saying to Toph. She was standing over him with her arms crossed, holding onto nothing, with the confidence of an earthbender whose stance wasn’t going to be broken by the measly swaying of a train.

Sokka stared at him intensely, trying to will Zuko to glance over at him. When Zuko finally looked his way, he tried to scream don’t say anything, she’ll know you’re lying with his eyes. He thought he’d managed it. Probably.

Katara flicked him on the cheekbone.

“Quit staring at Zuko,” she said, and then when Sokka turned to look at her she added, “and what the hell, Sokka, why didn’t you say anything!”

Sokka had been preparing for how, exactly, he was going to lie by omission. The prospect had become suddenly much more dire, and simultaneously much easier, on the stupid sofa in Zuko’s bedroom, when he’d realized just how important it was that no one, Zuko included, knew the full extent of the lie he was telling.

“There wasn’t anything to say,” Sokka hedged. And then, because this was the other realization he’d had, in his panicked pacing over his own bedroom rug while he pretended to pack bags he’d packed hours ago, he added, “I just… really like him.”

Toph, with her head tilted toward Zuko to listen to whatever he was saying to her, didn’t even twitch in his direction, because it was the honest truth. Katara’s hurt expression softened into a much easier to swallow annoyance. For a second, it looked like his sister might say something truly embarrassing for both of them. Thankfully, Aang saved them from the possibility.

“Sokka,” he said, dragging on his arm until he turned to face him instead. “I’m so happy for you.”

The look he was giving him was so painfully earnest that an irrational guilt immediately dug its way between his ribs. He’d known, he’d been prepared for Aang to be happy for them, but it hadn’t really solidified for him until he was looking at Aang’s ecstatic face that anyone but him might be upset when their fake relationship came to its inevitable end.

“Thanks,” Sokka said faintly. “Just, uh, I don’t know, buddy. I’m not sure if it’s gonna last.”

“Sokka, don’t say that!” Aang said.

“I just mean...” Sokka said. He scrambled for an explanation that wouldn’t raise their suspicions, but that wouldn’t get their hopes up, either. This would be so much easier if he just didn’t worry about what other people thought, but the only thing worse than his sister being disappointed when they broke up, was his sister blaming Zuko when they broke up. “It’s new, you know? So I don’t know how serious…”

Katara snorted, and rolled her eyes, and okay, maybe he’d been concerned over nothing, because:

“I don’t think you need to worry about that,” she said bluntly. Sokka stared at her, and for some reason that made her roll her eyes harder. “Come on, Sokka. It’s obvious Zuko likes you. I was just surprised that you’d actually done anything about it.” She squinted at him. “And that you hadn’t told me, even though I’m your sister, and I tell you everything!”

Sokka shouldn’t mention how ridiculous her assumption was, even though the arguments were already lining up in his mind. He shouldn’t argue against himself. They wanted Katara and Aang to believe the lie, and if that meant that Sokka had to let Katara get away with being woefully, painfully bad at reading Zuko, then that was fine.

He was really going to encourage them to hang out more when this was over, though, because they were supposed to be friends, and that was just—embarrassing. She really couldn’t read Zuko at all.

“You don’t tell me everything,” Sokka said instead, because it looked like she was waiting for an answer. She sighed.

“Well, I’d tell you if I was suddenly dating the Fire Lord,” she said, and okay, Sokka couldn’t really argue that point, although that was mostly because he’d known about her and Aang probably before she had. “And you know Dad wants to meet him tomorrow—”

He’d already anticipated that, but he felt the need to whine about it, anyway.

“Dad’s already met him,” Sokka protested. As far as first meetings went, breaking you out of a maximum-security prison had to rank pretty high on the list of unforgettables.

“Nice try,” Katara said. “As a boyfriend.” She looked faintly amused. “Actually, you might want to coach him a little, so he makes a good impression.”

Sokka sighed. The monorail rattled to a stop again, and the passengers started to stand, even before the doors ground open under a sharp gesture from the earthbenders manning the stop.

“Yeah, okay,” he said, climbing to his feet.

“And, hey,” Katara said, nudging him as he went to stand. “Just so you know, I’m happy for you two.”

“Thanks,” Sokka said, trying to sound sincere. It came out a bit closer to surprised, but that was okay, too.

Aang had grabbed onto his arm, still vibrating with residual excitement. Sokka snuck a glance at Zuko and Toph. Toph was grinning. Zuko was bright red.

At least he’d managed not to blow their cover.

“Let’s get it over with, then,” Sokka said, to Katara, or maybe to the spirits and whatever had possessed him to think this was a good idea.

Their invitations had advertised an informal reception on the night of their arrival, but Sokka had been exposed to enough Earth Kingdom hospitality in his time as an ambassador to know better. The Earth Nobility loved their fancy parties, and their fashion, and generally playing a careful game of trying to one-up their guests. They’d come straight from the monorail, but Sokka had packed a more formal coat toward the top of his luggage to change into after so long on the road. Zuko didn’t bother, and had made a face when Sokka even suggested it—but, whatever, Zuko always looked effortlessly handsome, anyway.

He and Zuko often attended functions together in the Fire Nation, so it wasn’t so strange to slip into the crowded ballroom with his arm hooked through Zuko’s elbow. Sure enough, most of the crowd was dressed in expensive finery, so that Sokka still felt a bit underdressed. Zuko hadn’t even made an effort to spruce up his travel robes, though, and they’d come a long way, so Sokka was having a hard time caring. Aang and Katara had arrived earlier, so they were a little more formally dressed, but Toph had really taken the informal descriptor to heart, wearing an outfit that looked daringly close to loungewear. Sokka was happy to fall somewhere in the middle, and only earn himself a few judgemental side-eyes from the other guests.

Besides, he hadn’t seen the rest of his friends in months. Having to dodge a few stuffy Earth Kingdom nobles was worth the chance to catch up with them, now that the initial scrutiny over his and Zuko’s relationship had passed.

Even if it was only a reception to welcome those who had arrived ahead of the harvest festival, they were bombarded by guests trying to sneak politics into their conversations all night. Sokka was already tired from traveling so far, but the kind of double-talk that went on at these parties was equally if not more exhausting.

Toph had quickly grown tired of it and wandered off with a promise to bring them all a bounty of turtle-crab puffs. Katara and Aang were more tolerant, and had allowed themselves to be dragged away to speak with someone Sokka thought worked for the Earth King, but whose name he just couldn’t remember.

Every time Sokka tried to pull Zuko aside to check in, he’d just smiled at him and shrugged.

“I’d rather talk about you than their political grievances, anyway,” Zuko said, and Sokka had to agree. It was surprisingly natural, to float from conversation to conversation with Zuko at his side, even if some of the questions were shockingly invasive. Their only saving grace was the fact that the Northern Water Tribe delegation wasn’t set to arrive until tomorrow. He was not looking forward to that meeting.

The party had already started late, to leave time for any last-minute travellers to arrive, and then it had been hours and hours of fielding nosy questions from the nobility before they could make a polite exit.

Sokka was exhausted, his feet were killing him, and he wanted nothing more than to throw himself onto the nearest mattress. He scrubbed a hand over his face and yawned as Zuko unlocked the door to their room. Zuko took two steps and then froze in the doorway, so that Sokka bumped right into him.

“Oh,” Zuko said.

“What’s wrong?” Sokka asked. He squeezed past where Zuko was half-blocking the entrance to get inside.

Sokka came all the way into the room, kicking the baggage that the attendants had dropped just inside the doorway further inside, and finally saw what had given Zuko pause.

Okay, this was definitely on him. He should have seen this coming. As far as the attendant who’d been tasked with arranging such a beautiful room for them knew, he and Zuko were dating, and had been dating for some time. So...

“I could… ask for a different room,” Zuko said, eyeing the one bed with an uncertainty that was making Sokka anxious just looking at him. Sokka nudged him at a respectable place between his shoulder blades, and he finally stepped into the bedchamber portion of the room, enough that Sokka could kick the door shut.

“Well,” Sokka said, “if you want everyone in the Earth Kingdom to hear that there’s trouble in paradise, you could probably do that.”

He glanced around the room. The bed was huge. Definitely big enough for two, but Zuko had a conflicted, pinched expression on his face as he stared at it. It was making Sokka a little self-conscious, honestly, to see how fiercely opposed to the idea of sharing Zuko seemed to be.

“Do you want me to take the chair?” Sokka asked. It wasn’t even a sofa, just an armchair, but he’d slept in less comfortable places before. Zuko shook his head immediately, dispelling the idea before it could fully form.

“We can just share the bed,” Zuko said. He glanced at him. “If… that’s okay with you.”

Sokka was so exhausted, between the full day of travel, and dealing with their friends, and then attending the reception dinner, he was fairly certain he could fall asleep on the bathroom floor. Still, sharing a bed with Zuko…

Sokka’s heartbeat kicked up at the thought, and he tried not to let it show on his face. It was stupid. It wasn’t even like this was the first time they’d shared space—they’d done it plenty of times during the war—but he’d felt hyper-aware of Zuko all day. Sokka was probably going to brush his skin under the covers and instantly combust.

“Better than the chair,” Sokka said, trying to make his tone light.

“If you’re sure,” Zuko said. He grabbed his luggage from where Sokka had half-shoved it aside. Even his hands were stupidly pretty. He started pulling out bedclothes, and Sokka tore his eyes away before he could be caught staring. Oh, this was going to kill him.

Sokka was very tempted to go to the bathroom to change. Maybe he’d take a slight detour to grip the edge of the sink, stare desperately into the mirror, and beg the spirits to just take him now and save him the trouble. He didn’t do that, because it would be kind of weird for Sokka to suddenly get shy now when he never had been before. Zuko had turned his back, anyway, so that was… private enough. Sokka discarded his shirt, changed into a loose pair of sleep pants, and slid his hair tie around his wrist for safe keeping.

When he turned back around, Zuko was sitting on the edge of the bed. He was in a red silk sleep robe, loose around his shoulders but secured around the waist with a belt. The fabric pulled taught as he reached up to pick the crown from his hair. Zuko let his hair down, dark hair spilling loose over his shoulder, and combed his fingers through the strands to tease the tangles out of it.

Sokka forced himself to look away. He took a few seconds to focus very hard on pulling back the covers on his side of the bed. This was totally not a big deal. There was plenty of space. It wouldn’t be weird. Zuko was quiet as he pulled back the covers on his side, as though trying not to disturb Sokka’s mantra. He slid underneath the blankets and snuffed the candles in the room with a flick of his wrist, so that the only light left was the gentle shine of the moon casting faint shadows across the floor.

A beat of silence stretched between them. Zuko cleared his throat.

“So, how did it go with Katara?” he asked after a moment. “I didn’t really get a chance to talk to her at the reception.”

Right. This didn’t need to be awkward if they didn’t make it awkward. Sokka rolled over to face Zuko and propped his head on his hand, his hair hanging loose around his wrist. He pointedly ignored the way his heartbeat sped up as Zuko met his gaze in the dark.

“Don’t worry about her,” Sokka said. “She’s not actually mad we didn’t tell her. She’s just being dramatic.”

She was already starting to come around to the idea of them dating. Maybe Sokka shouldn’t have been quite so emotionally honest with her, considering that this was doomed from the start. Sokka wasn’t sure if he’d get the chance to fully convince her before he and Zuko ended their pretend relationship in a pretend breakup. At least it wouldn’t be awkward, since it wouldn’t be real. They would still be friends.

He could live with being friends. He’d lived with it up until now, hadn’t he?

“What about you?” Sokka asked, before Zuko could ask any uncomfortable follow-up questions that he wouldn’t know how to answer. “What were you and Toph talking about on the train?”

“Nothing, really,” Zuko said. “We just talked a little and—she was talking to Uncle, earlier. He wanted to have tea with you tomorrow, if you were willing.”

Sokka had expected some innocuous answer, like the festival or the banquet or even Toph’s vague plans for forming a metal bending school. But that made sense—Toph and Iroh were close, so she’d probably talked with him about their relationship as soon as she’d heard.

“Oh,” Sokka said. “Yeah, that’s fine. My dad kind of wanted the same thing—” Zuko had looked a little chagrined when he mentioned his uncle wanting to meet Sokka, but that was nothing compared to the alarm on his face at the idea of meeting Sokka’s dad without Sokka there as a mediator.

“It’s not a super formal thing. It probably won’t be just you two. Bato will be there, at least. Maybe some of the other men,” Sokka said. That did not look like it was reassuring him. “You can say no. He won’t hold it against you.”

“No,” Zuko said after a moment, “No, it’s okay.”

“Let me know if you change your mind,” Sokka said. “I’ll make an excuse for you.”

Sokka knew that Zuko absolutely was not going to do that, but he had to offer. He sighed, and slumped back onto the mattress. The day’s exhaustion was rapidly catching up to him, between the low light and the warm bed. Sokka snuck a glance over at Zuko.

“I can’t believe how tired I am. All we did was talk to people,” Sokka sighed. At least their plans for the next day were to explore the festival. They wouldn’t have to pretend for anyone for most of the day, and could just relax. “Only two more days, though.”

“Yeah,” Zuko said, after a quiet moment. It was a bit too dark to parse his expression. It was probably relieved, anyway. Zuko pulled the covers up a little higher, and Sokka felt the mattress dip as he rolled away to curl around his pillow, and—

—and that knowledge, that Zuko liked to sleep curled up, arms wrapped around his pillow like he’d rather be holding something else, was going to haunt Sokka forever.

He did not groan, in frustration or anything else. He also didn’t keep staring, at the soft curtain of hair, the slight peek of Zuko’s neck where the sleep robe pulled down, even though Zuko had turned away and he could stare forever without getting caught.

Instead, he turned on his own side, just to remove the temptation, and resolutely did not think about the heat of another body under the covers, and how no matter how comfortable his bed in the Fire Palace was, this, after a long day of travel and politics, listening to Zuko’s quiet, measured breaths, was the most comfortable he’d ever been.

Sokka crushed his face into his pillow.

(Fuck.)

A warm hand brushed over Sokka’s shoulder. He grumbled and buried his face deeper into his pillow, which earned him a more insistent shake. Reluctantly, he opened his eyes. He froze, as he took in the way that Zuko was leaning over him, and then realized—he was no longer in the same position he’d fallen asleep in, he was sprawled over the entire surface of the bed, and his face was buried in Zuko’s pillow. He rolled over so quickly that he nearly fell, catching himself on the edge of the bed. Zuko huffed a quiet laugh at him. Sokka pointedly ignored the flush crawling up his neck at the sound.

Zuko was already dressed, his hair pulled into a simple style, casual enough for their plans to enjoy the festival and eat their own body weights in mooncakes. Sokka really hoped that he’d rolled into Zuko’s space after he had gotten up for the day. He scrubbed a hand over his eyes. A sleep-warm image of his arm over Zuko’s torso, a warm line against his chest, prickled at the edge of his mind. But that was… that had been a dream, right?

Sokka squinted at Zuko but… he wasn’t acting weird. He was just poking through his luggage, satisfied that Sokka was awake enough to get ready for the festival. It must have been a dream, maybe spurred on by the smell of plum blossoms still clinging to his sleep clothes. Zuko waited while Sokka quickly dressed.

He must have been waiting for him to wake up for hours, Sokka realized, when they walked outside and the full force of the mid-morning sun finally hit him. They headed back toward the monorail. The festival stretched through most of the Middle Ring, with huge sections of the streets blocked off to redirect traffic around the festivities. The decorations were visible from a distance, with the smoky aroma of the food vendors wafting even as far as the edge of the Upper Ring.

They spent a few hours wandering through the festival market, pausing to watch dancers and orators, or poking through the pop-up stalls stretching down the streets. A lot of it was meant for parents of small children, or people who were much more spiritual than Sokka, but it was entertaining to watch anyway.

“Should I get your uncle something? I wouldn’t want to bring him clutter he doesn’t need,” Sokka asked. Zuko snorted.

“Uncle loves junk,” Zuko said, so Sokka picked up a trinket from one of the woodcarver’s stalls for Iroh. He bought two paper masks that he forced Zuko to wear for a while, before they both agreed the humidity and the ill-fit were annoying, and they discarded them. Zuko pointed out a few places he remembered from his time as a refugee in Ba Sing Se, and Sokka held onto every one of them, carefully filing each anecdote away.

When Sokka was really young, the entire village would gather outside for the mid-autumn festival, if the weather still allowed it, or in the group houses, if the first coldsnap had already come. They’d spend the night eating and sharing spirit stories about Tui and La, and then hunting stories, and then eventually someone would shift into a story that would make all the men laugh, that Sokka wouldn’t understand, and his mother would shuffle him and Katara off to bed with a disapproving look.

And then their celebrations had gotten a lot smaller, and for a few years it hadn’t felt like there was much worth celebrating at all.

Sokka paused to watch as a playmaster prepared his shadow puppets. He lit the lantern with a pair of spark rocks, and then started artfully arranging his paper dolls to cast the most interesting shadows. He was already gathering a crowd, lots of children, but plenty of adults, too, because this was a new story, and many of them hadn’t heard it yet.

The Moon Spirit’s Blessing, he’d painted across the top of the stand.

“Do you want to watch?” Zuko asked.

“Nah,” Sokka said. It didn’t hurt like it used to, to be reminded of her, but they were supposed to be enjoying themselves, and Sokka didn’t want to drag the mood down with sad memories. “We already know this one.”

He gave Zuko a small smile, shrugged, and for some reason that made the corners of Zuko’s mouth turn down. Maybe he was remembering himself. It had been a pretty terrible night for both of them—

Zuko grabbed his hand. He held it awkwardly for a second, before re-adjusting to lace their fingers together. Sokka raised an eyebrow at him, but Zuko looked completely undeterrable, even as fellow festival-goers swerved around their arms, and more than one person craned their necks around to stare at them.

Sokka could feel a flush climbing the back of his neck that had nothing to do with the unseasonable weather. He shuffled closer… so they were less at risk of clotheslining someone, he reasoned, and definitely not as an excuse to press against Zuko’s side in the crowd. Zuko squeezed his hand.

“Let’s get something to eat,” he said. “I kind of miss Earth Kingdom food.”

Sokka latched onto that change of topic like the lifeline it was.

“We’re getting one of everything,” he said. “You’re buying.”

“You don’t need one of everything,” Zuko said, but he was already nudging Sokka down the road, in the direction of delicious smells. “Aren’t you meeting Uncle later?”

“Well if we’re sharing, I’m only eating half of everything, so—”

Sokka didn’t get the chance to make his case. He’d spent enough time with Zuko that he’d gotten used to his guards. He knew the usual faces, but he also knew that they refused to talk to him when they were on-duty, so usually he just tried to ignore them. Over Zuko’s shoulder, Sokka saw one of Zuko’s guards—Sing, who Sokka had always thought was a bit jumpy—tense.

That got Sokka’s attention, but then just as quickly Sing’s hand dropped off his sword, and Sokka had three blissful seconds of ignorance to wonder at the false alarm before they were being tackled from behind by an over enthusiastic airbender.

Aang was definitely too old for this, but at least he’d gotten tall enough to actually catch Sokka before he face planted. Sokka whirled around, annoyed.

“Katara!” he complained. She looked affronted.

“Me?” she said. “I didn’t do anything!”

Yeah, exactly, control your boyfriend, Sokka was going to say, but then he caught sight of Toph strolling up behind her, and he had to suppress a groan that definitely would have been suspicious.

This fake-dating thing was exhausting, and he’d just wanted a few hours to relax and pretend that nothing had changed, or… or maybe, in a quiet, guilty way he’d wanted to pretend that they weren’t pretending, but either way, he couldn’t do that with Toph around.

“You dweebs enjoying the festival?” Toph asked.

“We were just about to grab something to eat,” Zuko said. Aang threw an arm over each of their shoulders—he didn’t even have to jump to do it, what was the world coming to—and dragged them in. They weren’t holding hands anymore, but it was hard to be annoyed in the face of Aang’s over-enthusiastic grin.

“That sounds great!” he said. “We’ll walk with you!”

They didn’t end up buying one of everything, but they were making a solid attempt at it. Sokka might have enjoyed it more if he wasn’t keeping half his attention between Zuko and Toph as he read the menu of every food stall to her. At least they kept handing him delicious-smelling things. He didn’t even feel guilty about stealing bites from Zuko, because this may not have been a real date, but their friends didn’t know that before they crashed it, so he could be as clingy as he wanted.

Aang had an appearance to make as the Avatar a little bit after sunset. Zuko had dinner with Dad, and Sokka was going to meet Iroh. They only needed to make it a little longer, and then one of them could make excuses to leave. That was, if Katara could stop prying.

“When are you two going to visit the South Pole?” Katara asked, around a bite of fried dough. She wiped a bit of sugar away with her finger, and jabbed it in Sokka’s direction. “Because you know Gran Gran isn’t getting any younger—”

It wasn’t even that Sokka couldn’t answer honestly, he just didn’t want to risk Zuko noticing his answer, and how it was obviously not a lie, while also lying to his friends, while not-really-lying—

This plan was starting to feel like one of his more intense Pai Sho games with Iroh, and Zuko, annoyingly, looked oblivious to it all. Sokka took a huge handful from the bag in his hands, and shoved it into his mouth to keep from having to answer—

—and immediately broke into a fit of coughing. Sokka turned the bag around, eyes streaming, and saw that Toph had handed him a bag of extra-spicy fire flakes. Katara laughed, and then everyone was laughing at him, but at least you couldn’t answer questions when you were dying.

Zuko handed him his tea. It did nothing.

“Authentic,” he choked out between coughs. Zuko patted his back consolingly, and then with great deliberation took an enormous handful of his own. Zuko didn’t bat an eye at the spice, the bastard, but he did chuckle when Sokka shoved him.

“The first time he ever had fire flakes, he was so surprised they were spicy,” Katara said. “Fire flakes.”

“He can be pretty dumb for a smart person,” Zuko said with weary resignation, and Katara nodded along in that put-upon way, completely unapologetic about making fun of her brother with his fake-boyfriend right there, while Sokka was too busy coughing up a lung to defend himself.

“Aw, you love him,” Aang teased. He poked Zuko playfully in the side. Zuko rolled his eyes, and therefore didn’t see the warning look that Sokka was sending his way.

“Spirits help me, but—” Sokka stiffened slightly, because no, no, Zuko, don’t say it, and, shit, Toph was already tilting her head in his direction—

“I really do,” Zuko said quietly.

Sokka’s heart dropped straight into his stomach, but it was too late now. Zuko had already let the lie slip, and he hadn’t even noticed, answering Katara’s next teasing jab like nothing was wrong.

Even though Sokka knew she wasn’t actually staring at him, the piercing attention Toph was sending his way was making anxiety crawl up and down his spine. Zuko had slipped up, a little, and maybe that was Sokka’s fault for getting too lax with his own admissions, knowing that Toph wouldn’t catch him in a lie that wasn’t there, so Zuko had forgotten to guard his own words.

But maybe… maybe she hadn’t caught it, or—

Toph cleared her throat, focus settling on the space between him and Zuko, and he had a split second of true alarm—she knew, and she was going to tell Katara, and Katara was going to be so mad—and then—

Toph elbowed him, hard, in the stomach.

“I think we should leave you two lovebirds to it,” she said.

Sokka tensed, but then her words sunk in, and... Oh.

She… was covering for them. That was—less of a relief, than it maybe should have been, because why would she…?

“Come on, Twinkle Toes. Sweetness,” Toph said, nodding back the way they’d come. “Something back there smelled amazing, and you’re buying.”

For one fleeting, panicked moment, Sokka wondered if they needed a plan, but then he glanced over at Zuko, and he realized that he looked completely calm. He hadn’t even noticed that he’d slipped up. That Toph knew.

Sokka knew Zuko was a terrible liar. Normally, it was the kind of endearing that was a little bit difficult to look at directly, like being sun-blinded off freshly fallen snow. But now all Sokka could think was how extremely obvious he could be in his awkwardness, especially when he was flustered. And Zuko still had to make it through meeting his dad, and the party tomorrow—

“Sokka?” Zuko asked. He nudged him to get his attention, and Sokka abruptly realized he’d been saying something, and Sokka hadn’t caught a word. Zuko smirked at him… except, it wasn’t really a smirk, it was too soft on the edges, not at all annoyed at being ignored.

“I said,” Zuko repeated, with amused patience. “Your dad wanted me to join him for dinner soon.”

Sokka glanced up, and only just realized how late it was. Between the food, his friends, and bumping shoulders with Zuko as they wandered the midway, he’d completely lost track of time. Sokka considered Zuko for another long moment, but he really must not have noticed that Toph was onto them. And... he was anxious enough about his meeting with his dad. Sokka could see it in the slightly-tense way he mentioned the dinner, the wrinkle between his eyebrows.

Well. Toph might have caught them in a lie, but she hadn’t called them out on it. Maybe the best plan was to continue as normal, and wait to see what Toph was going to do. He could spare Zuko the anxiety until then.

(Or at the very least, until he’d returned from meeting with his dad and Bato. They could be as bad as Katara. If they sensed any anxiety, they would probably eat Zuko alive.)

“Okay,” Sokka said. “I’ll walk you to the station.”

Zuko hummed, smiling slightly. “You okay? You seem distracted,” he said.

“I’m fine,” Sokka said, and added. “You just worry about making a good impression with my dad.”

Zuko probably had been worrying about nothing else the entire day, but at least it discouraged further prying. Sokka held out his hand, and tried not to think about how right it felt, how natural, when even in his distraction Zuko took it without hesitation.

The Jasmine Dragon hadn’t changed much since the last time Sokka had come to visit. He was a little early, so he sat in one of the booths, drumming his fingers against the table and watching the couple across from him as they finished their tea. The shop was closing in another eight minutes, but they didn’t look rushed, and Iroh seemed unbothered by them taking their time. A bit of hair had worked its way free from one of the girl’s braids, and her date leaned over and swept it behind her ear absently.

Neither of them even blinked at the gesture, their quiet conversation carrying on as normal, so casually intimate. Sokka forced himself to look away as something undeniably like envy tightened in his chest. He stared resolutely at one of the paintings on the wall, instead, until the girls finally got up to leave, leaning into each other and smiling soft, private smiles on their way out.

With the lights low and the sign on the door switched to closed, Sokka trailed after Iroh, through the back and up the stairs to the apartment above the shop. He immediately led them into the kitchen, and started pulling down cups, a kettle, and a plain, unlabeled metal tin.

“You’d think you’d get tired of tea after spending all day serving it,” Sokka said.

Iroh smiled slightly.

“When you truly love something, it is impossible to grow tired of it,” he said. He handed Sokka the kettle, and nodded toward the sink.

Sokka had the distinct feeling he hadn’t only been speaking of tea. He had to turn away before Iroh saw something truly embarrassing in his expression. Something like longing scraped at the hollow places inside him, but he was growing used to it. It was easier to sit with the feeling, now that his sudden revelation in the Fire Nation had settled into a softer ache for something he knew he couldn’t have.

It would be easier if he didn’t have to pretend, but then, he had no one to blame but himself for that.

“Thank you for the invitation, by the way,” Sokka said, after giving Iroh the gift he’d bought at the market. He really was happy to visit, and not only because Zuko loved his uncle. “It’s good to see you.”

“Of course,” Iroh said. “My nephew has always been a private person, but I am very happy to hear the good news.”

“We weren’t keeping secrets,” Sokka said. He wasn’t sure whether Zuko would have shared with his uncle if he’d had the chance, but he felt the need to defend him anyway. “It’s just—new. I hadn’t told my sister, either.”

The look Iroh gave Sokka was uncomfortably knowing. “I don’t expect my nephew to tell me everything about his life,” Iroh assured him.

Iroh paused to light the stove. “And in this case, I can’t say I was particularly surprised. From his letters, it’s clear my nephew cares deeply about you,” he continued. “He mentions you often.”

Sokka’s heart stuttered in his chest. Zuko talked about him? He quickly squashed down a little bubble of hope. Of course Zuko talked about him. He was the only one of their friends that was currently living in the Fire Nation—who else was he going to talk about? They were friends. He talked about him because they were friends, and it was… not fair, to Zuko, that he was projecting… whatever this was onto that, when Zuko was already doing him such a big favor.

Sokka swallowed and picked up the tin of tea leaves from the counter, if only to have something to do with his hands. He wasn’t particularly good at making tea, mostly because on the rare occasions where the palace staff didn’t provide the tea readily, Zuko made it for him. He had the theory down, though.

By the look on Iroh’s face when he offered to help, Sokka guessed that maybe the theory of it wasn’t quite enough. An amiable silence fell between them as Sokka shifted his freshly filled kettle onto the flame. Iroh was too nice to do more than nod encouragingly, and subtly heatbend the water to a cooler temperature when Sokka over-boiled it.

Sokka added a scoop of tea leaves to the water, mostly just following his heart on the measurements. Did different kinds of leaves need different temperatures? Sokka had no idea, so he just followed Iroh’s lead. Iroh allowed it with an indulgent smile that looked so much like one of Zuko’s that it made a warm fondness spread through his chest.

Iroh settled the tea and cups onto a simple tray, and the two of them relocated to the sitting area near the entryway. It was a nice enough night to keep the windows open, so that the sounds of the street below drifted up into the room in a pleasant din, punctuated by the occasional pop of a distant firecracker. Compared to the oppressive quiet of the Fire Palace at this time of night, where the only sounds were very deliberate, the chaotic energy of the street was charming.

“You know,” Iroh said, after the comfortable lull in conversation had stretched long enough for the tea to mostly finish steeping. “When Zuko first became Fire Lord, I worried he may find the responsibility isolating. He can be very stubborn. And of course it was the last thing on his mind at the time, but I often found myself worrying that he may allow his relationships to suffer for the sake of his nation.”

Not his nation, apparently. Just mine.

Sokka shifted in his seat. Iroh’s apartment held an eclectic assortment of art, books, and trinkets. Zuko had often teased Sokka that his shopping habits were as bad as his uncle’s. Sokka picked a weird little statue over Iroh’s shoulder to focus on, and tried to squash down the guilt rolling uncomfortably in his stomach. Iroh didn’t notice his inattention as he leaned forward to pour their tea.

“I feared that if he did not find love, he might allow himself to be pressured into a political arrangement to satisfy his advisors. He has often put his personal sense of duty over his own desires,” Iroh said. “I’m very happy to see that’s not the case. And that you’ve found each other.”

He—spirits, he was a horrible person. He was going to get Iroh’s hopes up, thinking that Zuko had found someone who would make him happy, who he could grow to love, who would satisfy the pressure of his advisors and help him shoulder some of the burden of his responsibilities as Fire Lord, and… Sokka wasn’t any of that. For as long as Zuko pretended to date him, Sokka was the exact opposite of that, blocking any real relationship before it ever had the chance to form.

The gentle contentment in Iroh’s smile as he poured their tea made Sokka’s stomach twist. He’d be crushed if he found out this was all a lie. He was probably going to be crushed when they eventually broke up, anyway, once the threat of Sokka’s arranged marriage had passed.

Iroh slid Sokka’s cup across the table to him. The smell of the ginseng just soured his stomach.

“Thank you,” Sokka said faintly.

Iroh hummed and took a sip from his cup before responding. “There’s no need to be nervous. It’s unlike you,” Iroh said.

Spirits, he was being too obvious. He took a careful sip of his tea to buy himself some time. Well. If Iroh thought it was nervousness, he probably thought it was because... Well.

He summoned a self-conscious laugh, and was a bit disturbed by how easily it came.

“Sorry,” he said. “It’s just—meeting the parents. You know.”

Iroh’s smile shifted to something much more fond, and much more gut-wrenching. Sokka’s guilt rose an inch higher in his throat. Iroh just wanted Zuko to be happy. So did Sokka. And this was going—well, too well, somehow, and Sokka was pretty sure that the feeling was going to choke him if Iroh didn’t stop looking at him like that. He cleared his throat, desperate for a distraction.

Sokka said the first thing that came to mind, “Do you want to play Pai Sho?”

Their room was dark when Sokka let himself inside, but the curtains were drawn back enough that he could still make out the vague shape lying on the bed. Sokka probably shouldn’t have insisted on a rematch after that first game—it had already been late by the time Sokka left the teashop, and the monorail was less reliable in the middle of the night.

Their obligations for the festival weren’t until later in the day tomorrow, so at the very least, Sokka probably wouldn’t regret losing the sleep. He really did like spending time with Zuko’s uncle, and once he’d gotten past the initial awkwardness, it hadn’t been too difficult to steer the conversation to a less fraught topic than their fabricated love life.

Sokka shed his jacket and boots as quietly as he could, but Zuko didn’t so much as stir when he fumbled through changing in the dark. Sokka took a moment just to look at him. Asleep, he actually looked his age, without the weight of his duties heavy on his shoulders. It was rare that he could see Zuko truly relaxed—even when they were with their friends, he was often working, or thinking about working, or generally being the infuriatingly self-sacrificing person that made him an incredible Fire Lord.

Sokka couldn’t help but think about what Iroh had said, how happy he’d been for Zuko to finally have someone to support him. And—and Zuko deserved that. He deserved someone to lean on, something real to come home to. The thought had settled as an uncomfortable barb under his ribs, carried home with him from the Jasmine Dragon, reminding him of how much he was asking of Zuko here. Sokka was suddenly, intensely ashamed of staring.

He pulled the curtains fully shut, pitching the room into darkness, and felt his way over to the bed. Zuko’s back was to him, facing the wall. He shifted slightly when Sokka climbed carefully under the covers, but he didn’t wake.

Sokka stared at the ceiling for a long time. He listened to the quiet, measured breaths beside him. Then, he rolled onto his side, a mirror of Zuko. When he closed his eyes he imagined he could still see the shape of Zuko’s body across the bed pressed into the back of his eyelids, like the halo of light that lingered after glancing too long at the sun. Sokka sighed, too loud in the restful quiet. Tentatively he stretched his arm out, until he wasn’t quite touching, fingers curled against the sheets. With just the barest hint of warmth against his knuckles, he drifted off to sleep.

Chapter Text

Zuko was already gone by the time Sokka woke up. It was strange, waking up alone, which—really, it should be more strange that he’d gotten used to not being alone after only two nights. Clearly, it was just because he easily settled back into those old air temple habits—traveling together, falling asleep to the sound of quiet breathing, and waking up to the sounds of Katara cooking or Zuko forcing Aang through morning katas—and not for any other reason.

Zuko had left him a note, at least, warning him that he would be back later in the afternoon. Sokka should have known that Zuko, workaholic that he was, would try to sneak a few meetings the moment he realized that Sokka hadn’t planned anything for the day besides the Earth King’s banquet in the evening.

Sokka spent the day sprawled out on the balcony adjoining their room. He hadn’t brought any ambassador work with him, but plenty of his personal projects had been languishing under his lack of free time. The afternoon sun was turning buttery yellow by the time the door to their room opened again.

“How’s it look?” Sokka asked, when Zuko finally returned. He held up the diagram of his newly-revised designs for an airship rudder failsafe, based on some of the conversations he’d had with Toph about how to better fortify them, considering she’d made tissue paper of the last one she’d touched. Zuko’s face twisted when he looked at it—he probably didn’t understand it, that was fine, it was pretty complicated—but he sent Sokka an indulgent, pained smile anyway.

“Good?” he said. “It looks... interesting.”

“It’s a new airship rudder,” Sokka said, pointing to the edge of the fin for emphasis. Zuko nodded, like he’d known that all along, as Sokka started shuffling papers back into their bindings. He followed Zuko back inside to get ready for their last real trial of the trip.

Sokka was thanking every spirit he could name that the Southern Water Tribe’s formal wear was more complicated than the clothes he usually wore, and that he’d needed the bathroom mirror to fix his hair, because it had given him an excuse to flee like his life depended on it the moment Zuko started untying his robes to dress.

Sokka clutched the bathroom sink and stared into his own eyes. It... wasn’t as grounding as he’d fantasized it would be.

This was fine.

And, he could do this.

And, what the fuck was he thinking?

He had seen the formal robes Zuko had brought with him. Zuko wasn’t even wearing them yet, and Sokka already felt like he was going to combust.

Slowly, he unwound his fingers from the edge of the sink and picked up the jade headpiece. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, when he’d packed it into his bags with the rest of his formal wear, but now the idea of wearing the gift that Zuko had bought him made his heartbeat flutter, an uncomfortable flush creeping up his neck, which...

...which was stupid! Zuko had only bought the hairpiece to sell the lie, anyway, so there was no reason for him to get all worked up about wearing it.

He yanked the tie out of his wolf tail and tugged his hair all onto the top of his head. It took him a few stubborn minutes to figure out how to keep it in place without any flyaway strands escaping the top knot. Wolf tails were so much more practical, but…

Sokka inspected his work in the mirror. He had to admit it looked pretty good. He allowed himself another second to brace himself—stared himself right in the eye and willed his stupid heart to behave for just one more night—and then let himself back into the bedroom.

Zuko was sitting on the bed, putting his own hair up by feel. Sokka must have startled him, because his hand slipped when he stepped out, and the entire topknot fell loosely back onto his shoulders. Sokka smirked, and Zuko rolled his eyes and quickly went to gather it back up.

“Are you too spoiled to do your own hair, now? Should we have brought an attendant?” Sokka teased.

Zuko stuck the pin for his headpiece between his teeth, and Sokka definitely didn’t stare at the way it pressed against his bottom lip when Zuko smiled at him.

“Why would I need an attendant? Shouldn’t my boyfriend do it for me?” he said.

He said it so casually, teasing Sokka even as his nimble fingers worked to gather his hair back up into place. He wasn’t being serious, Sokka knew that, but something about hearing the word boyfriend from Zuko in private made Sokka’s stomach flip embarrassingly.

Zuko had a lot more practice than Sokka putting his hair into this style. He didn’t actually need Sokka’s help, but...

“Okay,” he said. Zuko glanced up, shooting him a quizzical look. Sokka clarified, “I’ll do your hair.”

“I was joking. You don’t have to,” he said, looking vaguely surprised by the offer. His fingers twisted against the dark strands, but after a second he let his hair down again, and set the pin and the hairpiece beside him on the bed.

Feeling bolder, Sokka crawled across the edge of the bed, until he was kneeling behind Zuko, so close they were almost touching. He hesitated, and then picked up the plain wooden comb that was sitting beside Zuko’s hand.

His advisors would probably grumble at the idea of Zuko wearing anything other than his crown, but they weren’t here, and Sokka wasn’t going to tell on him. The comb was the kind of thing that could have belonged in any of a thousand people’s bedrooms, old and a bit worn on the corner where one of the teeth was chipped, and so very Zuko.

Sokka kind of loved to get little pieces of him like this.

He didn’t bother with ornamentation unless he was forced to. He smelled like plum blossom. He ate intolerably-spicy food without batting an eye. He slept on his side. A hundred little details that Sokka had been collecting.

“Do you know how to do this?” Zuko asked. Sokka realized he’d just been running the comb and his fingers through the strands, instead of actually styling it. His hair was ridiculously soft under his fingers. Zuko had been a little tense at first, maybe dreading the possibility of Sokka messing it up, but he had been relaxing by degrees as he played with his hair.

Still, Sokka was getting distracted.

“I managed my own, didn’t I?” Sokka asked, and picked up the hairpiece. It actually was a little easier when he didn’t have to do things backward in a mirror, and Zuko’s hair was longer, so there were fewer stray hairs to manage. Sokka slipped the pin through the hairpiece to hold the whole thing in place, and then leaned back to inspect his work.

“Yup,” Sokka said with satisfaction. He crawled off the bed, so he could look at Zuko head-on. “You look great. I’m incredible at this.”

Zuko eyes flicked down and back up once, lightning quick.

“You look really nice, too,” Zuko said. Sokka felt like his entire soul was on fire as he resisted the impulse to do the same to Zuko, because it was not the same. Zuko was just being polite and returning the compliment. He was only looking because he’d never seen Sokka with this style of Water Tribe formalwear—he was usually wearing his Fire Nation ambassador’s getup at important events—and the white jade hairpiece was new and very expensive, so of course it drew the eye.

“Well, we can’t have the Fire Lord’s date looking like a mess, can we?” Sokka said. He cleared his throat and then hastily added, “Should we go?”

A comfortable quiet settled between them as they walked side by side to the stairs. Occasionally a servant would bustle past them, pausing only long enough to offer Zuko a quick bow before they disappeared again. As was often the case, Sokka was the first one to break the silence, catching Zuko’s eye just as they reached the relative privacy of the stairwell.

“So I was thinking,” Sokka said. He kept his voice down, mindful of possible eavesdroppers, but also just because the quiet had been kind of nice, and he was loath to break it. “I know it’s really inconvenient, but… we can’t break up right when we get back.”

“Because it will be suspicious,” Zuko guessed. He shrugged, with a casual glance aside, and said, “I don’t mind, so—”

“Right, so I was thinking—” Sokka said at the same time. They both stopped, and Zuko gestured for him to continue. “I think I’ll go home for a couple weeks.” Zuko faltered, missed a step. Sokka glanced at him sideways and added, “I haven’t visited in a while, and this way we don’t have to keep faking.”

Sokka had put a lot of thought into it, and his motivations were only a little selfish. If he went home for a few weeks, it would give everyone time to forget about their act before they’d left the Fire Nation. Once there was some distance between them, it would be easier to separate amicably and put the whole ordeal behind them. It wouldn’t be fair to Zuko, for Sokka to drag this out any longer than he needed to, just because… because he liked this, even if it wasn’t real.

Zuko had offered this arrangement to help him. He hadn’t agreed to Sokka’s feelings, and that was… it already felt dishonest, and Sokka was torturing himself, and that was with less than a day left before they could stop pretending. Any longer than that, and…

No. Some distance would be good.

“Oh,” Zuko said quietly. He looked caught off guard, like he’d expected Sokka to say something else. “That’s—yeah, that’s a good idea.”

Zuko agreeing shouldn’t have felt like a rejection, because it was his idea, but his heart still squeezed uncomfortably in his chest. He just had to keep reminding himself that the distance would make things easier. Stopping now, so Sokka wouldn’t have to put himself through any more of the agony of Zuko pretending to love him, was just a nice bonus.

(And really, it would have been more selfish to keep pretending, or to insist that Zuko go on a few more dates with him.

Sokka knew that it would be more selfish, because that was what he desperately wanted to do.)

Zuko frowned, like a thought had just occurred to him, and even more quietly he added, “And you’ll be coming back?”

Sokka smiled, and bumped their shoulders together, in the same friendly way they always did. The urge to lean further into the touch was barely an ache in his chest.

“Someone has to make sure the Southern Water Tribe gets ours,” Sokka said. “You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

He felt Zuko relax through the contact of their shoulders. Zuko smiled, and rolled his eyes, but he looked undeniably relieved to hear it. Sokka knew that he was a damn good ambassador, and it would be hard for the Fire Nation to replace him. He also knew that wasn’t why Zuko was smiling, and…

Yeah. Friendship could be enough. He may not be able to get exactly what he wanted, but he could still have this.

Sokka had just stuffed another turtle-crab puff into his mouth, when he caught sight of a familiar face in the crowd. He nearly choked, and that was enough to draw Zuko’s attention away from the woman he was politely listening to, at least long enough for Sokka to get a sympathetic pat on the back.

“Oh, no,” Sokka coughed, once he was safe from death by finger food. Now Zuko was really looking at him. His previous conversation partner didn’t even seem bothered—she just drifted back into the crowd. Sokka almost wanted to grab her and drag her back, as ineffectual a shield as she would probably be.

“What?” Zuko asked.

“It’s Hahn,” Sokka said. As though speaking his name had tempted the spirits, Hahn chose that moment to turn toward them. Sokka wheeled away, resisting the urge to hide his face behind his hand, and settling for half-hiding behind Zuko instead. He glanced back out of the corner of his eye and wilted a little. “And that’s just… great. He’s coming over here.”

Sokka had figured they were going to have to talk eventually, but he’d kind of been hoping it would be with the rest of the Northern Water Tribe delegation, maybe with his dad and the other warriors...

“Fire Lord Zuko,” Hahn said, tersely polite. He didn’t even try to bow in greeting, the proper way to greet a Fire Nation dignitary, let alone the Fire Lord. He at least offered a Water Tribe greeting, arm outstretched. Zuko’s guards watched them like a hawk as Zuko clasped his arm amicably. It was only when they were mid-handshake that Hahn turned Sokka’s way.

“Sokka. You look good,” he said, which, gross. Sokka thought that Zuko’s eyebrow might have twitched slightly, but he was perfectly poised as he extracted his hand from Hahn’s grip. “I was just speaking with Chief Hakoda about how the Southern Reconstruction Project is coming along.”

Sokka remembered very clearly how little Hahn had thought of the Southern Water Tribe when they were teenagers, and how little he’d thought of Sokka by extension, but he wasn’t certain if Hahn remembered.

From the way he was looking at him now, his opinion had apparently changed. Now that the North was looking to form an alliance with them, maybe Hahn had decided that a southern chief’s son was finally worthy of his time.

Sokka thought back to his comment about wanting to marry Yue for the perks of being related to the chief and, somehow, managed to not gag. Behave, he reminded himself. Maintaining their alliance with the North would only help them, giving them access to waterbenders to speed along construction, especially during the winter months. He wasn’t about to ruin that here.

“Yeah, well, Dad’s been doing a great job,” Sokka said. It had only been a few years since the end of the war, but the Southern Water Tribe was already barely recognizable compared to the village he’d grown up in.

“I’m surprised you’ve managed to find the time to see the progress for yourself,” Hahn said. “You seem like you’ve been... busy.”

From anyone else it might have been an innocuous comment, but coming from Hahn, it felt like a pointed barb toward Sokka’s living in the Fire Nation. Even though he was doing important work as ambassador, and was supporting his tribe in every way he could. As though frequently traveling to the South and working remotely between, rather than living there full time, somehow made him less dedicated to his people—

Oh, Sokka hated this guy. He got under his skin just as much as he had when they were teenagers, back when he was still engaged to Yue. Last time, his argument with Hahn had literally come to blows.

He was definitely too old for that now, but the thought was tempting. Instead Sokka just grit his teeth, but before he could say anything snappish he was stopped by a feather-light touch on his back.

“Sokka has been heavily involved in the reconstruction efforts,” Zuko said. There was the slightest edge of indignation in Zuko’s voice, but Sokka doubted anyone but him would hear it. Sokka glanced at him, touched but not surprised that Zuko was coming to his defense.

If Hahn noticed he’d offended them, he made no show of it. He flagged down one of the servers. Sokka was privately relieved for the distraction, so that he could pause to squash his annoyance down. The server was carrying a tray of amber colored honey wine balanced between her hand and her shoulder. Hahn helped himself. Remembering their conversation days ago in the restaurant, Sokka let the server hand him his glass.

The wine was probably the sweetest thing he’d ever tasted. Sokka watched Zuko take a sip out of the corner of his eye, amused by the flicker of disgust on his face before he rapidly blinked it away. Zuko wrapped both hands around his glass like the extra support might help keep it away from his mouth. Hahn seemed unbothered, draining half of his glass in one swallow—Sokka could give him the benefit of the doubt, that maybe he was nervous talking to them, but Hahn was a jerk, so he wouldn’t.

The glass did have the bonus of occupying Sokka’s hands, which was good, because he could use the gentle reminder not to try to strangle him.

“That sounds difficult, being so far away all the time,” Hahn said.

Sokka took a sip of his awful wine to keep from snapping. He was behaving, Sokka reminded himself. He was not going to cause an incident.

“Not really, if you know what you’re doing,” Zuko said without missing a beat, and Sokka nearly spit out his drink.

Hahn was looking at Zuko like he was trying to decide if there was an insult hiding behind Zuko’s deadpan. By the subtle tics in his expression he was definitely leaning toward yes—

“Mind if we interrupt?”

Sokka whirled around at the sound of his dad’s voice, beaming.

“Dad!” he said. Sokka let himself be pulled into a hug, grateful for the distraction. “There you are! I can’t believe you met with Zuko before me.”

“You were invited,” Dad pointed out. “It’s not my fault you had better places to be than saying hello to your old man.”

Over his dad’s shoulder, he could see a line of blue gathered in front of a very overwhelmed King Kuei. So, it looked like most of the Southern and Northern Water tribe attendees were still making their introductions with the Earth King.

Chief Arnook leaned in to say something to Hahn. Normally Sokka would have taken his distraction for the blessing it was and sprinted for safety, but he wasn’t quite so heartless as to abandon Zuko to both his dad and Chief Arnook without backup.

“I see you’ve met Hahn,” Dad said.

With what Sokka thought was truly incredible restraint, he managed a polite smile and said, “We’d met before, actually.”

...or maybe his smile wasn’t quite as polite as he was going for, because his dad’s expression flickered from surprise to something like amusement, barely noticeable. Zuko subtly pinched him, and Sokka tried on another expression that hopefully looked less like an Ember Island actor’s.

Chief Arnook and Hahn, at least, didn’t seem to have noticed. Sokka turned to Chief Arnook to change the subject.

“Chief. It’s been a while,” Sokka said.

“It has,” Chief Arnook said. “I hear congratulations are in order.” His attention flicked very briefly to Sokka’s hair, and he flushed as he remembered the extremely expensive crown he was wearing, as obvious as anything.

“Thank you,” Sokka said. “I’m sorry we couldn’t come to an arrangement, but I hope we can still work toward something mutually beneficial for our tribes.”

“Of course,” Chief Arnook said. He looked understanding, despite the proposal falling through before it had ever gotten off the ground. Sokka thought, with a hint of petty satisfaction, that he saw a muscle in Hahn’s jaw twitch.

He’d only been trying to avoid an arranged marriage, and spending so much time with Zuko had been as much fun as it was excruciating, but getting to shut down the guy who was probably trying to marry Sokka for the perks was so, so satisfying.

The chief continued, “We’ve already received your plans regarding the reconstruction project. It seems more than fair.”

Sokka certainly hoped so. He’d spent more than one sleepless night working out the details in a way that he thought Chief Arnook would actually agree to, without being so unfavorable to the Southern Tribe that it ruined the point of asking for aid at all.

(He’d ended up making a few promises on Zuko’s behalf, and then asked very nicely for him to sign off on them afterward—)

“I told Chief Hakoda this at our dinner already, but Sokka is incredible at what he does,” Zuko agreed easily.

Sokka smiled, embarrassed and also a little curious what, exactly, he and his dad had talked about. To be fair, he and Iroh had talked about Zuko too, but... he was definitely going to pester Zuko to find out what they’d said about him later.

Zuko slipped his hand behind Sokka’s back, pulled him in until they were just barely touching. Sokka started to lean into it, froze and then—and then remembered that he was allowed to lean into it, he was supposed to.

“I couldn’t ask for a better partner, truly,” Zuko said. Sokka glanced at Zuko, at the small tilt of his lips.

Wow, Zuko may not be the best liar at times, but that clearly didn’t extend to his acting skills. If Sokka hadn’t been in on the scam, he really would have thought Zuko meant it. Zuko was speaking to all of them, but it was his dad who caught Sokka’s eye.

I like him that look said, as plainly as anything.

And I’m happy for you, Katara had said earlier.

Sokka did not flush, but it was a near thing. He mustered his very best casual tone.

“Anyway,” he said, sounding actually very flustered, and not casual at all, damn it, “we should talk to more than just my dad, don’t you think, Zuko?”

Sokka grabbed Zuko’s arm, and pointedly ignored the way Dad’s eyes were twinkling in poorly-concealed amusement at his expense. He said goodbye to Chief Arnook, and not to Hahn, and definitely not to his dad, who was still laughing at him.

Zuko attempted an awkward bow as Sokka dragged him away, and then followed along after him.

“Was that okay?” Zuko asked, once they were out of earshot. “I didn’t—did I make you uncomfortable, or...?”

“No, you were great,” Sokka said. He pulled them up beside a table of finger food, and swapped his wine for a bite, just to occupy himself. “Really, I mean... thanks. For what you said.”

“It was the truth,” Zuko said firmly. He grimaced slightly. “And that guy was a jerk. I can see why you didn’t want to marry him.”

“I’m just glad Chief Arnook didn’t seem offended by the rejection,” Sokka sighed. He was also glad that no one had seemed to suspect anything, although Sokka was going to have to chalk that up to Zuko’s surprisingly good acting skills. “We should probably…” he glanced around. “Talk to some people? To sell the lie a little more.”

What he really needed was someone that didn’t know either of them, or maybe someone who wouldn’t care whether they were acting suspicious or not. Where was King Kuei? He was about as oblivious as they came, and he might keep anyone else from trying to talk to them—

“Do you want to dance?”

The question startled Sokka out of his thoughts.

“To—sell the story,” Zuko clarified. He pointed toward the dance floor, to the couples sweeping across the room, as the band behind them played out the last stanza of a slow song Sokka didn’t know. It… wasn’t a bad idea. No one could talk to them, if they were dancing.

Zuko offered Sokka his hand as the last few notes of the song trailed off. For the Fire Lord, he was perfectly poised, as he always was at these sorts of functions. But for Zuko, the offer was uncharacteristically bold.

Up close, Sokka could see the edge of nervousness in his expression as he slid his hand into Zuko’s. A couple weeks ago, Sokka might have teased him about it, but right now Sokka’s heart was trying very hard to beat out of his chest, and it was all he could do to swallow and nod and let Zuko lead him out to the dance floor.

The next song began to pick up, and Sokka could see the way the Earth Kingdom nobility perked up, so he assumed it was one they recognized. Sokka didn’t know this one, and Zuko wasn’t much of a dancer, either—the Fire Nation was not particularly well known for its dancing, in general, and despite the many courtly functions he was obligated to attend as Fire Lord, he’d never really had the time to dedicate to learning. But the tempo was slow, and though the song wasn’t a love song, the way the dancers swayed around each other made something warm and wistful rise in his chest.

Sokka might have made a mistake in letting Zuko lead, but still, between the two of them they were agile enough to sort of follow along with their neighbors until they got the hang of the steps.

The other party guests might have been watching their every move, or they might have been entirely alone in the room, and Sokka wouldn’t have known the difference. They turned, and their fingers brushed as the partners briefly separated to spin around the room, mingling with the other dancers. If that little parting touch felt electric, like Zuko had shot him straight through with lightning, coming back together again felt like stepping into a storm.

His arm tingled where it brushed Zuko’s shoulder.

Zuko’s hand was a brand on his waist.

Sokka dared to glance at Zuko’s face and saw that he wasn’t even looking at him—he was looking at his feet, and that alone was just so fucking endearing that Sokka had to squeeze his eyes shut, take a breath, and get ahold of himself—

Zuko stepped on his foot, and they stumbled, off a half-step now from the other dancers. He wanted to laugh, but then Zuko shook his head, cheeks flushed pink, and flashed him an apologetic smile, and suddenly Sokka could hardly breathe past the warm affection swelling in his chest.

The song was slowing down, but Sokka’s heart was beating faster and faster. Zuko was looking right at him now. He was—so fucking good at acting, the weight of his gaze was enormous. And, oh, what was Sokka doing? This was too much, and Zuko’s hand was still on his waist and it felt like the warmth of his fingers was burrowing down to his bones, boiling his blood, searing his skin.

What was he thinking, coming here, letting Zuko look at him like that, when he had no idea how Sokka felt—

He couldn’t breathe.

Zuko’s smile dipped just slightly, a hint of uncertainty flashing in his eyes.

“Sokka?” he asked.

“I’m just… excuse me,” Sokka said, a little breathlessly.

The song wasn’t quite over, but it was winding down enough. Pulling away from Zuko felt like dousing a fire in him, like wandering out into the dark. Zuko watched him go, looking lost, but Sokka’s head was swimming too much to reassure him. He tried to make some excuse, but the words died somewhere in his throat. He shook his head, managed a truly unconvincing smile, and fled.

Sokka spotted Toph across the room, very pointedly hovering with one of the service staff between her and the throng of Earth Kingdom nobility that seemed to be trying to politely catch her attention. She was obviously pretending to not notice them, which worked great for Sokka, because he absolutely could not wait.

She looked relieved when he caught her by the elbow, if only to have a good excuse to get away from the other guests. Katara had insisted on a no causing a scene rule at the start of the party. Toph had expertly haggled her down to a no causing a scene before the afterparty rule, which wouldn’t be starting for another hour at least.

Toph grinned at him for half a moment before he started dragging her out through the door.

“Snoozles, what...?” Toph tolerated another few feet of man-handling, enough to put the door to the service corridor between them and the rest of the ballroom, before she shook him roughly off. “Okay, okay, enough. What’s your deal?”

“Toph, I have a problem,” Sokka said. The look she gave him was decidedly not sympathetic. One might even call it pained. She scrunched her nose at him and crossed her arms.

“Is it the kind of problem I can throw a rock at?” she asked, sounding not at all hopeful.

“It’s an emotional problem,” Sokka said, “so not unless the rock is a metaphor—”

“Then why are you asking me?” Toph interrupted him.

“Because, it’s about Zuko,” Sokka said significantly, trusting her to get his meaning. They hadn’t exactly acknowledged that fact that Toph was in on their little ruse. In fact, she had been shockingly discreet—Sokka didn’t know she’d had it in her. She was the only one he could talk to.

“Okay, and...? What about him?” Toph asked finally. Sokka took a deep breath.

“I think I love him,” Sokka said. Toph had her face tilted toward a spot just over his shoulder, obviously waiting for more.

“Yes?” Toph said.

“No, I mean. I think I’m really in love with him. For real.” She was clearly not getting it. Sokka wanted to pull his hair out. “And I really appreciate you keeping the whole fake dating thing secret but—”

“The fake what!” Toph shouted.

Sokka flinched at the volume, imagining all the nosy Earth Kingdom nobility just on the other side of that door, and resisted the urge to slap a hand over her mouth only because he was pretty sure she’d crush him if he tried. He settled for shushing her, hastily, hands waving in front of her face wildly enough that she could sense the motion.

“Toph, keep it down! Do you want the whole Earth Kingdom to know?” Sokka said.

Sokka was expecting a lot of things, but he never would have prepared for how suddenly dangerous Toph’s expression went, as she snatched a fistful of his collar. She yanked him forward, hard, so that he almost stumbled into her.

“Does Zuko know you're faking?” she hissed at him.

“What? Of course he does! It was his idea!” Sokka said. “And anyway, the problem is that he knows. And... doesn’t know? But, it’s not really—ugh!”

“You’re not being super clear here,” Toph said, but she was relaxing by degrees, and looking significantly less murderous than she had a moment ago. Now she just looked deeply done with this conversation. “Maybe you should try explaining it to me. Preferably with complete sentences.”

“My dad and Chief Arnook were talking about arranged marriages,” Sokka said. “Zuko and I were just pretending so I could get out of it, but… I thought you knew already.”

“How was I supposed to know?” Toph asked.

“You...” Sokka said. “But. You can tell when people are lying. And when we were at the festival…”

He trailed off, because Toph was shaking her head, hands pressed together over the bridge of her nose. She heaved a sigh.

“Sparky was right. You have to be the dumbest smart person I know,” Toph said. “Because if either of you were lying, this is the first I’m hearing about it. And no offense, but you two are pretty terrible liars.”

“But our heartbeats…” Sokka said.

“I mean yeah, your heartbeats were a little...” She waved a hand, vaguely, as though the shape she drew in the air was supposed to mean anything. “But nothing weird. Aang and Katara’s heartbeats do that all the time, whenever they get… you know. Oogie.”

“Then why were you so weird when you left us at the festival?” Sokka asked. “I thought you were… hinting that you knew.”

“I left because I actually like festival food, and I wanted to keep it down,” Toph said. “You two are seriously cute to the point of being gross.”

This whole time, he’d thought that Toph was covering for them.

But she hadn’t even known, because according to Toph, Zuko was telling the truth.

But Zuko had said—

And that meant—

Oh… he’d just panicked and ditched Zuko in the middle of a party, in the middle of a dance, even, without a single explanation.

When he hazarded a peek back into the ballroom, he could see that Zuko was surrounded by people, all vying for his attention. They’d likely swooped in the moment Sokka left his side. He looked… tense, and unhappy, but like he was trying very hard to be polite enough that no one noticed, and Sokka hated that that was his fault.

He couldn’t just walk over there and drag Zuko somewhere private—he knew exactly what they’d assume he was doing, and Zuko didn’t need the scandal—but they couldn’t exactly have this conversation with a hundred curious ears around them, either.

“Will you help me get Zuko alone for a second?” Sokka asked. This conversation couldn’t wait.

“I reserve the right to mock you both about this forever,” Toph said. “You’re lucky I’m not shouting it from the rooftops right now.”

“We appreciate your discretion,” Sokka said.

“And I need you to understand that the next time you come to me with a stupid problem, I will be throwing a rock at it,” Toph said. “So make sure it’s something you actually want a rock thrown at, hm?”

“Fair and reasonable. You’re the best, Toph,” Sokka said.

Toph crossed her arms, thoughtful for a moment, and then nodded with satisfaction. She flicked the wrinkles out of her robes with one swift motion and spun on her heel toward the ballroom.

Sokka expected her to stomp into the conversation and drag Zuko away. Instead, she swept into the group of noblemen with a perfect bow. From where he stood by the opposite wall Toph’s voice was too quiet for Sokka to overhear, but after only a few short words she had their polite attention. She lightly touched Zuko’s arm, urging him back toward the exit, and Zuko’s face flickered with relief. By the time he had carefully edged out of the crowd, the Earth Kingdom nobles seemed more than happy to fold Lady Beifong into his place, without so much as a single crude word or complaint.

Huh. The woman contained multitudes.

Sokka waited about thirty seconds after Zuko had disappeared, and then he scurried after him.

Zuko looked a little lost when Sokka caught up to him, casting his gaze around the hallway curiously, so Toph must not have explained why she’d shuffled him in this direction. Then he caught sight of Sokka, and he shifted to looking distinctly annoyed.

Annoyed was not a great emotion to build a romantic confession on, but Sokka was going to work with what he had.

“I can’t believe you ditched me in the middle of a dance,” Zuko said grumpily. “Those ministers had been waiting to get me alone all night…”

Sokka grabbed his wrist. Zuko trailed off. He was looking less annoyed, more concerned really, which was also not a very romantic emotion, but was probably an upgrade.

This hallway was not private enough. Sokka stepped aside to allow a servant to squeeze past him with a tray full of empty glasses, and then gave Zuko’s arm a little tug.

“Can I talk to you?” he asked, effectively turning Zuko’s concern into poorly-concealed panic. He let Sokka tug him along a half-remembered series of turns until he found the hallway leading to the garden.

“Is everything okay?” Zuko asked, quietly so no one would overhear. “Did someone realize…?”

“No! I mean, kind of,” Sokka said. He took a deep breath. “I was talking to Toph.”

“And… what did she say?” Zuko asked, after a pause that Sokka was just now recognizing as suspicious. His face was so openly neutral. Yesterday Sokka might have thought he was just confused, but now he thought he recognized it for what it was, which was Zuko trying not to give himself away.

Sokka desperately hoped it was that, and not the other option that the anxious, overactive part of his brain kept wheeling back around to, which was that Zuko knew what Sokka was about to say, and he was bracing himself to have to turn him down.

“So, I haven’t been completely honest with you,” Sokka said, before he could lose his nerve. “And I should have been. I mean, I feel bad about it, although maybe its okay because you weren’t being honest either—”

“Sokka,” Zuko said, sounding strangled. “What are you talking about?”

Just say it.

“Zuko, do you like me?” Sokka asked. “As in, you’re not pretending?”

“Oh,” Zuko said. A conflicted expression flickered across Zuko’s face, almost too fast for Sokka to spot it before he’d mastered himself again. His shoulders tensed, the uncomfortable sort of stance he took when he was making an active effort to not fidget. “Did Toph…”

Sokka nodded. Zuko genuinely looked like Sokka had punched him. Sokka squinted at him, trying to parse the look in Zuko’s stunned silence. Was he making that face because Sokka was right, or because Toph was an idiot, and she was going to make Sokka look like an idiot, and make Zuko uncomfortable all at the same time—?

“I’m… sorry,” Zuko said, looking pained.

Oh.

Sokka felt the last bit of hope he’d had melt into nothing. It sank straight through him, with an awful sweeping disappointment that clung heavy and uncomfortable to every part of him.

He flushed. This was—so humiliating, it was the wet-socks of feelings, and Sokka was never going to recover—

Zuko squared his shoulders and insisted, “I never meant to make you uncomfortable.”

Sokka paused, and pushed back on the impulse to start moping, just a bit, because that… that kind of sounded like...

“To make me...?” Sokka sucked in a breath. “Wait, so Toph was right? You really do like me like that?”

Zuko cringed. “Well, yes, but—”

Sokka surged forward and kissed him before he could second-guess himself. Zuko made a surprised sound, but he didn’t pull away, or even really hesitate. He just parted his lips and leaned in like it was the most natural thing in the world. They fit together so perfectly, Sokka’s hands framing Zuko’s face, Zuko’s arms wrapped around Sokka’s back. His left thumb brushed the soft hairs at Zuko’s temple, and he made a soft sound, tilting his head into his touch. Sokka pulled back slightly. Zuko was just staring at him in wide-eyed wonder. His chest hitched when Sokka slid his hands down and soothed his thumbs over the planes of his cheeks.

“Was that… are we practicing?” Zuko asked breathlessly.

“No,” Sokka laughed, giddy and light. “Zuko, trust me when I say you do not need to practice. This one’s for real.”

“Oh,” Zuko said, and flushed so deeply red that Sokka was going to lose his mind. Zuko leaned forward again slightly, and Sokka met him halfway. It was sweet and chaste and much too short, and when Zuko pulled away again, he looked almost embarrassed.

“I think—the first one was real, too,” Zuko admitted.

A bit of Zuko’s hair was tugging loose from his hair piece, a victim of Sokka’s enthusiasm as he leaned in to kiss him. He reached up and tucked it behind Zuko’s ear. He looked adorably flustered, a stark contrast to his severe and regal attire, and with the bright flush in his cheeks he looked the same as he had after talking to Toph on their way into the city. Sokka’s stomach flipped, because… Zuko had been talking about him, hadn’t he?

“What did you and Toph actually talk about on the monorail?” Sokka asked. “When we first got here?”

Zuko looked startled for exactly one moment, and then he just looked vaguely nervous, but not… not in a bad way. He was smiling, fingers curled absently around Sokka’s shoulders, like he’d forgotten they were there.

“She asked if I was serious about you,” Zuko said, looking faintly embarrassed. “I told her… that I was excited to spend the festival with you. That was true.”

“Is that all?” Sokka pressed.

“No,” Zuko admitted. “I told her that I was in love with you.”

Sokka grinned. He was aiming for teasing, but all he could manage was unbearably, embarrassingly fond. Zuko smiled at him and it felt like his first breath of air in days, all the weight of his worries and longing melting away. He slid his hands down from Zuko’s neck, gripped the fabric at his shoulders.

“We’re so stupid,” he said. “Zuko, I’m in love with you, too.”

Zuko swayed slightly with the words, as though they’d struck a physical blow, and the absolute awe-delight-relief that flashed across his face was the last straw. He couldn’t help it—he laughed, the sound ringing out too loud in the empty garden, because Sokka was feeling the same damn feelings and they were so stupid.

Sokka clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle the sound, shoulders shaking. The last thing he wanted was some servant getting curious and interrupting, but, spirits, he couldn’t stop laughing. He felt like he was going to float away. They’d been so worried, and all for nothing. Zuko was rubbing his hand in small circles on Sokka’s shoulder, smiling patiently, as Sokka finally got himself under control.

“Remember how I said I was going to go home for a couple of weeks?” Sokka asked. He waited for Zuko to nod, and said, “I’m still going to go.”

Zuko tensed, just slightly, and started to lean away. Sokka fingers flexed against the fabric of Zuko’s robe, and that gentle touch was enough to make him go still.

“You should come with me,” Sokka said. “We can go on dates, real ones, and we can hold hands like we’re a couple of dumb teenagers, and we can mean it this time. I can finally show you all the progress we’ve made in the South, and… and Dad already likes you, and Katara will be there. She already said I have to introduce you to Gran-Gran for real. We can get a do-over on the whole thing—”

Sokka was starting to ramble, he knew it, but the look on Zuko’s face was so soft he couldn’t even bring himself to feel self conscious. Zuko took Sokka’s hands in his own, warm and calloused and a perfect fit.

“Of course,” Zuko said, like there was nothing in the world that would dissuade him. His voice sounded so steady, his expression unbearably fond. “And then we’ll come back, together.”

“Yeah,” Sokka whispered, hardly able to breathe past the warmth swelling in his chest.

They had to go rejoin the party soon, before someone noticed they were gone. Knowing the Earth Kingdom nobility, tongues would be wagging, anyway. Even with Toph covering for them, stealing away into an empty garden—it was only a matter of time.

Well, Sokka thought, as he slid his hands up Zuko’s forearms, his biceps, around his back, pulling him close until their lips were just a breath apart…

They might as well give them something to talk about.