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You’re a bunch of kids sleeping around a campfire alone in the woods, is the funny thing. And that’s what you always have been, ever since it was just you and Katara and Aang falling asleep at night with your backs to Appa, who would shield you from the coldest of the wind. You might not be just three kids anymore, but six kids alone in the woods isn’t much better, even if one of you is the Fire Lord’s son and one is the Avatar.
You lie awake at night, shivering in the dark. Trying to remember what Piandao told you when you were training, but at the same time you can’t help but wonder what the hell he and every other adult in your life was thinking when they let a bunch of kids run off on their own to take down the Fire Lord. You wonder what your father was thinking.
Maybe there’s something to this group though, if all the adults who were supposed to save the world are either imprisoned or the ones who messed everything up in the first place. Here you all are—Team Avatar, shivering and cold and alone but alive and training and Aang now with all four elements at his fingertips. Literally: you saw him balancing a pebble and a water droplet and a small flame and a tiny whirlwind of air on the four fingers of his right hand yesterday as he sat, small and hunched in on himself, waiting for Toph or Katara or Zuko to come back and tell him what to do.
And yet never have you felt more naked than you do now, with your sword at your side and your boomerang on your back. The sword was supposed to bring peace of mind and has brought only more unease. And what does it matter anyway? Suki’s a better fighter, not officially trained with a sword but still with a better grasp of it than you, and then Zuko—swords and firebending? Leave something for the rest of you to do. Leave something for you. Leave anything, honestly. Your place here is still so small, so hard to quantify. You’ve got to stop running the numbers. You’ve been over it so many times. Let it go already, you can hear Katara saying, and she’s pulling stones from your hands, worn smooth by your touch, but you can’t relinquish them, hold on with the very tips of your fingers.
Give those back, you think, you tell her; that’s all I’ve got left.
You’re a bunch of kids sleeping around a campfire and it keeps you up at night, because any of you could die—literally, truly, seriously die, like your mom died, like soldiers die, like Yuë died—and you think you’re the only one who is afraid of this.
And that’s fine, if you can keep everyone alive. Just keep everyone together to whatever end—whatever happens with Ozai, with the Fire Nation, that’s beyond your control: that’s Aang’s destiny, Katara would say. And you’ve made everyone else your destiny—they’re not going anywhere, no one’s taking them, not unless they go through you first.
You pull the blankets of your bedroll up over your head. Stupid, you think; just go to sleep, shut up already, and don’t resurface for a long while, breathing in silence. Then you push the blankets back and look up at the sky, one long quiet look, before rolling over.
The shock that hits you when you see Zuko asleep on his side a few feet away reminds you of a long time ago, when it was just you and Katara and Aang and the face you saw at night when you thought, enemy, was Zuko’s: Zuko’s face, Zuko’s eyes. This is different though, not quite the same, and yet, like ice, shock cuts through you like a blade, one of Katara’s frozen spears. You have to catch your breath. It takes longer than it should, and you let it play itself out, forcing yourself to look at Zuko, to think, friend. Of a sort. He helped save your father; he’s here to train Aang; he might be a jerk and a tightass but he’s learned, at last, that his heart is good. His hair is long now, loose, his right hand curled around the blankets. He doesn’t sleep easily, this person, this banished prince. Fights through it like every moment hurts.
You’re very close; the fire is small, and everyone had crowded around it before falling asleep one by one. There’s nothing but embers left now, and you think—or maybe imagine—that they flare quietly, burn a little redder when Zuko breathes out, and die down again when he breathes in.
Your face is warm, very warm against the cold night air. It takes you a long time to fall asleep.
-
He didn’t stop you when you told him you were rescuing your dad. You weren’t expecting that. Hell, you weren’t expecting anything Zuko did after that—the risks he took for you, for your family, for Suki. You remember going to the cooler to let him out, your heart pounding; this was a prison for firebenders built by firebenders: they know how to handle fire, how to handle people. And you let Zuko get himself caught because you wanted to save Suki, so basically if anything happens to him, it’s your fault. You’re responsible.
You remember opening the door and thinking, oh, shit, they broke him. Zuko is motionless, his hands buried in his armpits; frost clinging to his hair. The skin around his mouth is blue. Oh, God, what if he got hypothermia or something? What if you waited too long to come get him? What if he’s dead?
And then he looks up: the bright gold of his eyes, the slow slide of his smile, and breathes out fire, and your heart catches in your chest and you think: okay, not broken, then.
-
You train with your sword every day, even in the heat, even in the rain. Suki usually helps; you only have the one sword between the two of you and Azula long ago confiscated Suki’s fans, so the two of you make do with sticks. Suki corrects your form, challenges your flexibility and ingenuity, and you try to keep up with her, to surprise her any way that you can. Her smile is bright and crooked and flashing. She’s better with defensive weaponry—the fans, her own fists—than with a sword, but she’s still keen on this.
Both of you dripping in sweat during a bout, you hold up your hands in surrender. Suki drops her weapon to the ground and puts her hands on her knees, breathing hard. You do the same, tilting your head to look at her.
“Hey,” she says, and there’s her smile you know so well, care for so much.
“Hey,” you say back, sliding into a matching grin.
She shakes her hair out of her eyes and stretches up. “You’re good. You know that, right?”
You laugh. “What?”
She points at your sword, which lies off to the side where you painstakingly laid it onto the grass so as not to be harmed. “You know what I’m talking about, don’t be modest.”
It takes you a moment to recover. “Oh, you know me. I’m the most modest guy around.” Your skin is crawling. You’re not being modest; you’re pretty much never modest. And around anyone else but Suki you might have known at once what they were talking about, or recovered better—thrown in a few pumps of your arms, a sly grin. Oh, yeah, that? I’m a natural, you know, and shown off your biceps. But with Suki—here, after struggling all day to stay on your feet, to keep your balance—now, when everything is slowly reaching the pinnacle, the end of how things are, it just doesn’t occur to you. It never occurs to you that you might be good enough for other people to notice, good enough that they’ll say it out loud and mean it.
Your chest constricts and it’s harder to breathe; you want to thank Suki somehow, tell her what this means, but there are no words for it. There are hardly any words to explain how you feel about her. You hope she can see it in your face the way you can see it in hers, because otherwise you don’t know how to say it.
She must see it—or see something, at least—because her face softens and she draws close to you, frames your cheekbones with her hands. “Doofus,” she says quietly, and kisses you before pushing you backwards with her fingertips. “C’mon. I’m starving.”
“I’m going to get a little more practice in,” you say.
“Okay, well, I’m not making you dinner and sitting around waiting for you to come eat it,” Suki says, her eyes bright, and you can’t help but smile back at her, your chest feeling heavy and light when you look at her. She reaches out and touches the ends of your hair, just for a brief moment, before turning to pick up her practice stick and head back towards the campsite and the others. You’re lucky. You love her.
You leave your practice stick on the ground and go for your sword, heave its familiar weight in your hands. You’re stronger now than you’ve ever been, and while your sword isn’t exactly light, it feels good to wield, to hold onto. The sword is an extension of your self, and you extend it.
It’s getting dark when you finally stop going through the practice forms Piandao taught you. You sheathe the sword, wipe the sweat out of your eyes with the back of your hand, and straighten up, and that’s when you realize Zuko is watching you. The shock again: cold and still. You push it away, trod it to the earth. If you were an earthbender you’d have summoned an avalanche.
“Hey,” you say lightly; “are you adding ‘watch Sokka play with his sword’ to your list of hobbies?”
It comes out dirtier than you mean it to. Lucky for you Zuko probably doesn’t even notice. You have a feeling that sort of stuff tends to go over his head sometimes.
“I wasn’t—” Zuko sighs. “I came to make sure you didn’t overtire yourself.”
“Yeah,” you say, “because I don’t know anything about me and my limits.”
Zuko watches silently as you gather your shirt, which you stripped off a long while ago, and your sword and practice stick.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Zuko says when you straighten up again. You notice for the first time that Zuko has his own swords strapped to his side, dangling sort of pathetically from his hip. He looks frustrated, although, you think, at himself rather than you.
“Yeah, I know you didn’t,” you say, because it’s pretty easy to decipher what Zuko means to say from what he actually says when he’s busy putting his foot in his mouth. “Still fun to watch you squirm, though.”
Now Zuko blushes, which for some reason is hilarious, though you bite back your grin. It’s hard to see Zuko as who he is sometimes, his legacy; other times it’s all you can see, but here, right now, Zuko is just another kid like the rest of you, who turns red when you poke fun at him.
You hold out your arms, still vaguely sticky with sweat. You feel gross and disgusting and wonderful and can’t wait to jump into the stream nearby and float up clean. “So, what’s your verdict, Master Jerk? Did I overexert myself or what?”
Zuko scowls briefly, like he can’t stop himself, and his face is still pink. It is so strangely, annoyingly endearing. “I don’t know,” he snaps, trying to get his footing. “Do you want me to examine you?”
You stare at him. It’s so quiet now that you can hear the others at the campsite over the ridge, sitting around dinner. Zuko’s eyes widen, and he opens his mouth, but before he can say anything to ruin it, you start to laugh.
“Oh, wow.” You clap him on the back. “I didn’t think you had it in you, buddy.”
Zuko is looking down. “I didn’t—I didn’t mean,” he mumbles, and you ignore him, because this whole moment is just too good.
“I’m gonna take a dip in the stream if you want to watch me do that, too,” you say, sharp edged, and Zuko still doesn’t look at you. Maybe you’re pushing too far, but—something tells you, probably not. You’d know. You always sort of know. “Otherwise I’ll be there for dinner in a bit.”
Zuko just shakes his head as if he doesn’t even know what to say to you. Ah, yes; you love having that effect on your fellow humans. Leaving them blinking at your back. (Mostly, though, you wonder what it is about you that people find so hard to reconcile, like maybe something’s wrong with you, but—no, shove that down. Doesn’t matter, here.)
You’re heading towards the stream before you remember and turn around. Zuko is standing still. He’s a little taller than you—a little bigger—not much, though. You could probably take him. “Hey.” You gesture at his swords. “You wanted a bout?”
Zuko hesitates. “I thought maybe you’d want to spar. But I suppose you’re done for the day.”
“Tomorrow,” you say firmly.
“What about Suki?” Zuko asks. “I know she—well, she trains with you. I just....”
“Yeah, well, swords aren’t her favorite. I think she’s getting pretty tired of mine. Though she’ll probably want to try yours, if that doesn’t bother you.”
Zuko looks down at his swords; one hand hovers over their hilts. “I don’t mind.”
“Okay then,” you say, “let’s do it,” and you jog off towards the stream, because you’re really starting to reek.
-
You undress slowly before getting into the water. No matter what you might quip about being watched, it does make you uncomfortable sometimes: the thought of your body being seen. It’s not like it was for Katara, when her body was all wrong for the person she was. And it’s not like it is for Aang and Toph, either, who don’t care about trying to match any sort of expectations of who they are, who mostly don't care at all about what being a boy or a girl means. For you it’s—sometimes you feel right, and sometimes you don’t. You felt fine, good even, while you were training with Suki, and even afterwards when Zuko walked up. But now, damp and tired and sticky, you just feel wrong in a way that always comes to you in moments like these, when you least expect it.
You’ve never been able to explain it. Katara has listened, talked to you about it at length—embarrassing, right? You’re older; you’re supposed to guide her, not follow her trail. But you’re grateful for her, anyway; of course you are. Even though you never made it easy for her, she understands. Thankfully someone does, because you’re still not sure you do.
It’s like this. Sometimes you’re a boy, and sometimes you think you aren’t, maybe, like you might be a—well, a girl, you might say, though that’s—it’s hard. And sometimes you’re both. And you don’t talk about it, because it’s fucking awful and embarrassing and you don’t have the right words, but it’s there, and it’s who you are, and your sister understands and you love her for it.
You think Suki might know, too. Maybe the others. They’re all better at this sort of stuff than you are anyway. Maybe they all know. Even Zuko.
You just have to laugh at that.
-
You lie awake that night again, looking up at the sky. There are no stars, the sky clouded over so everything is dark and featureless save for the faint glow of the moon, sometimes visible, sometimes not. Your heart aches to look at it, and you push that down, smother it like you always do. It’s easier not to think.
Someone sits up in the dark, and your whole body tenses before you realize it’s Zuko. He’s quiet but you can still sense him nearby; he runs a hand through his hair, his fingertips hesitating, perhaps prevaricating, over his scar before sliding upwards over his scalp. He lets out a breath, tight, restrained, and then you sit up too.
He doesn’t jump, but you watch the line of his shoulders shift. “Can’t sleep?” you ask lightly, like you havent been up all night staring a hole in the sky.
Zuko clasps both his hands over the back of his neck, his knees drawn up to his chest. “Clearly not.”
You get out of your bedroll and stretch upwards, more for show than anything else, something to do. “Wanna take a walk?”
“No,” Zuko says, and doesn’t move.
Whatever. It’s not like Zuko’s insomnia is your problem. You gather your blanket around your shoulders and walk towards the river, barefoot despite the chill. It’s funny; you grew up in the South Pole in ice and snow, and so the cold tends not to bother you the way it bothers some of the others, but lately you can feel it seeping into your bones. The same way it did after your mother died.
You sit on a rock by the water for a little while, listening. After a moment, you hear quiet footsteps behind you. You don’t even turn around.
Zuko sits on the rock beside you, hunched over. He hasn’t brought a blanket, his shoulders left bare. You know firebenders can keep themselves warm, but it’s still strange to see Zuko so exposed to the cold. He complains about it constantly, even when the weather is fair.
He doesn’t wait long before speaking, doesn’t make any excuses. “What were you thinking about?”
You consider. “The Fire Lord.”
“Funny,” Zuko says; “I was, too.”
There’s silence then, save for the river. You stare into it through the dark. You wonder if Katara can hear the stream from so far away, whether Zuko can still feel the embers of the fire. There’s so many questions you would ask if you had the guts. Or less pride.
“He won’t surrender?” you ask when there’s been silence for a long unbroken time between the two of you.
Zuko slowly lets out the breath he’s been holding, his torso getting smaller as he turns in on himself. “No,” he says, quietly into the dark, and the two of you sit there for a long time, considering.
You can’t fathom it. For all the ways the two of you are alike—older siblings turned disappointments (to yourselves more than anyone else), with bright shining younger sisters to make up for all your failures; struggling to prove yourselves, fighting for it, feeling always, always inadequate, you because you can’t bend or be anything but who you are, Zuko because he can bend and yet it still is not enough—despite all of this, there is still this essential separation that splits a dichotomy between the two of you. Your father loves you. Zuko’s does not. And there’s a whole lot left there to say about that, and yet you can never quite find the words.
You don’t know if you could do what Zuko has done. Katara is still sometimes angry, bitter—feeling personally betrayed, perhaps, because she takes almost everything personally. But this isn’t personal, not the way Katara thinks it is; it was never about her, or Aang, or Iroh, or doing the right thing, really; it was about Zuko being a thirteen-year-old kid who looked up at his father, seeking his approval, and got something else instead: pain and bright light and a scar that won’t ever fade, even when it does.
So maybe it took Zuko a long time. Maybe he made mistakes, caused hurts along the way—but it’s not as if anyone ever told him it would be like this, that his father would abuse him his whole life and twist him up inside so that he couldn’t tell up from down, right from wrong. You don’t just shake that off even when you see what’s been done to you. You don’t just walk away from that.
“Thank you,” you say at last, because it should already have been said.
Zuko stares at you. “For what?”
“I don’t think I said it after we left the Boiling Rock,” you say. “I never would have found my dad without you. Never would have saved him. I know it was hard for you.”
Zuko doesn’t tense, doesn’t react defensively as you expected him to. He doesn’t like when people affirm how hard he’s struggled, what he’s gone through. Don’t mention it, he says, and, it’s not like I’m the only one with stuff to deal with, stop patting me on the back for finally realizing my father is a sociopathic murderer when I could’ve been seeing it all along.
You look at him. Could you?
“You’re welcome,” Zuko says at last and you sit there in the dark while the stars move above you, slowly.
-
Zuko has both of his swords drawn, his arms held out at his sides. You’re in a crouch in front of him, tensed, waiting. Suki sits cross-legged on a boulder off to the side of the makeshift sparring ring and holds up one hand to keep the two of you in your places.
“Kick his ass, baby,” she says to you, the flash of her grin, and then she lets her hand fall.
Zuko, though caught off guard, doesn’t give any ground; feints left, then right, and you have to follow the slide of his movements. He doesn’t move the way Master Piandao did, but that’s all right; you’ve been fighting soldiers of the Fire Nation all your life. Misdirection and redirection, but strength is the basis of Zuko’s movements; not like Aang, who tries to tie you up in yourself and work your body against you, or Toph who stands indomitable and unmovable; or even Suki, who you’ve trained with the most and still manages to catch you off guard. Everyone’s got a style, a way of movement. To your surprise, you can read Zuko’s better than you would have expected. The line of his body is familiar to you—not easy to combat, perhaps, nor wholly predictable, but months of being on the run from the guy has gotten you pretty tuned into his movements.
Unfortunately, this still doesn’t mean you kick his ass.
Zuko’s good. Which you knew already, obviously. (You hear Suki saying in the back of your head: you’re good. You know that, right?
Damn it, why can’t you just believe it, for once?)
You duck and roll past Zuko, parrying his blows and knocking his feet out from under him. He expects this, recovers easily, light on his feet, and you leap back up to yours, your sword held defensively. Good thing, too, because Zuko is advancing, giving no ground; the slice of the twin blades as he approaches, a new challenge.
Because you like old tricks, as Zuko pushes you backwards and staggers you off balance, you scrape a handful of dirt and fling it into his eyes. He reacts by instinct: throws one hand up and diverts the dirt from his face with a flare of fire.
Suki is on her feet at once. “What did we say? No bending!”
Zuko is breathing hard, and he scowls at you. “But cheap shots at the eyes are fine?”
Suki shrugs. “He didn’t bend the dirt into your face.”
Zuko looks as if he wants to argue further, but he doesn’t. Instead he goes back to the starting position, facing you again.
“This isn’t a fight,” he says under his breath. “It’s just a bout. You didn’t have to agree to it if you didn’t want to.”
I wanted to, you think, and say, “Old habits.”
You don’t throw dirt in his eyes again, and he doesn’t bend again, and you hold out for a long time, longer than you thought you would, but Zuko still manages to keep the upper hand.
You’re sweaty, tired, your hands slipping on your sword hilt, and you shake a few stray strands of hair out of your eyes, trying to keep your gaze on Zuko. He advances towards you again, one more time, and when you reach out to parry, you misjudge the distance, and one of Zuko’s swords cuts the back of your hand.
You don’t drop your sword, which is something, but you do say something that Katara would kick your ass for and hiss, bringing your hand to your mouth. Zuko’s eyes widen and he holds up his hands as Suki leaps up again to shout at him.
“I didn’t mean—” he starts to say, and you are so sick of hearing it, so damn sick; you drop your sword right where you stand and tackle Zuko across the midsection. His swords fall useless into the dirt and you wrestle him down, try to pin him, but he reacts faster than you would’ve thought.
“Sokka!” you hear Suki say, but you ignore her; you don’t care, you’re going to kick Zuko’s ass because he won’t stop sitting in silence around the campfire and he still lets Katara ‘accidentally’ drench him with water while she’s practicing her bending, like he deserves it, like he doesn’t deserve to talk to any of you, like the only one he can speak to is Aang because Aang is the Avatar and has judged Zuko worthy—or unworthy—who the hell knows anymore; but you’re going to kick Zuko’s ass, because you’re sick of it.
On second thought, you might be spending too much time with Toph these days.
Zuko fights back, grappling with you, and flips you over hard and knocks the breath out of you. He has your wrists pinned to your sides, but not your legs, and you manage to upend him, rolling after him in the dirt. Your hair has come loose into your eyes, and you ignore it.
The fight is brutal, fierce, and short. Zuko tries to get to his feet—to stop the brawl, maybe, you don’t know—but you get to him first. You knock him over backwards and force his wrists to the ground on either side of his head and lock his hips in place between your knees, wrestling him absolutely still so that he can’t get free. He tries, struggling for a moment, before he gives up, breathing hard and glaring up at you, dark hair in his golden eyes, the pulse of his wrists under your hands.
You look down at him, panting. Asshole, you think, but without malice. Zuko looks more confused than angry, and you’re trying to figure out what he’s thinking before you realize, distantly, that Suki is calling your name.
She puts her hand on her shoulder. “Think you got him, tough guy,” she says wryly. “You can let go now.”
You let go of Zuko’s wrists and sit back, resting your arms on your knees. Zuko sits up slowly, pulls one hand through his hair, rough. He doesn’t say anything about the rules, doesn’t say anything about how you just wrestled him bodily to the ground and pinned him under you, just sits there, staring at you.
You blink, not quite sure where to look. Your head is spinning.
“I’m going to the river,” you say, and you leave.
-
Suki follows you sometime later, but you’re not annoyed to see her. She slides into the water next to you and starts, methodically, to dump handfuls of it onto your hair.
You shake the water out of your eyes. “Hey.”
“Hey,” she says, smiling at you. “Let me see your hand.”
You offer it to her, and she examines it. “Eh, you’ll live.”
“Wow, thanks,” you say. “I had no idea you were taking healing lessons from Katara.”
She slaps you on the shoulder gently but says nothing.
You float together in the water in silence for a while, before at last Suki shakes her head. “So what was that all about?”
You shrug. “Dunno.”
Suki sighs, loudly. “Really?” She moves in the water so that she’s in front of you, her hands on your shoulders, her face very close, her ankles twining around yours. “You’re usually so aware of this sort of thing.”
“And what’s that,” you ask grumpily.
“I’m not gonna spell it out for you,” she says. “But you have to, to me, before you do anything. Got it?”
You stare at her, completely bewildered. “Okay,” you say, because what else is there to say?
She sighs again, draws closer. “Zuko’s confused about why you attacked him out of nowhere.”
“I didn’t attack him,” you say stoutly. “We were sparring.”
“Yeah,” Suki says. “And then you tackled him.”
“Combat is confusing and unpredictable. Tactics change.”
“You are so stubborn. Are you going to talk to him?”
You feel a slight twinge of regret, or maybe shame. “Probably.”
“Well, that’s something, at least.” She kisses you on the nose. “Don’t say anything stupid.”
What the hell does that mean?
-
You corner Zuko before nightfall. He’s sitting off by himself after spending the last few hours training with Aang. You sit down next to him without announcing yourself, sprawl alongside him and look over his shoulder at what he’s holding. You see, just briefly, that it’s a portrait, but he stuffs it into his pocket before you can see anything else about it.
“What’s up, man?” you say, and feel, inexplicably, so absolutely useless.
“Nothing,” Zuko says. He’s silent, hesitates, and then adds, “Is your hand okay?”
You show it to him. “All healed. Katara fixed it up in about two seconds flat.”
“Oh,” Zuko says. “Well, good. She’s good.”
“Yeah.” You draw away from Zuko, suddenly aware of how close you brought yourself and how warm his shoulders are. “Sorry I wasn’t a very good sparring partner.”
Zuko frowns. “What?”
You shrug, gesturing aimlessly with one hand. “You know, sorry about what I did. I didn’t really—well, I guess I shouldn’t have tackled you. Um, I was just frustrated.”
Zuko just keeps looking at you, not saying anything, not reacting.
“You’re too hard on yourself,” you blurt out. “So I thought, I don’t know, I didn’t really think. But I thought maybe if I could get you to react somehow, or fight me like that, then maybe you’d be—less hard on yourself. I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense. I’m a terrible practice partner. I’m sorry. I guess this is why I’m not a bender, huh? No self control.” You laugh.
Zuko is still frowning. “You—” He stops, hesitates, and starts again from a place that seems to make more sense to him. “You weren’t a bad sparring partner. It was a challenge to fight you. I enjoyed it.”
You don’t really know what to say to that. It’s not, to say the least, what you were expecting.
“And you don’t have to be a bender to be good at training,” Zuko says, clearly becoming more and more bewildered as he thinks about what you’ve said in full, and you wish you hadn’t said any of it. “And—you attacked me because I’m—hard on myself? What does that even mean?”
You don’t know how to explain. You just keep looking at him, the gold of his eyes, the outline of his scar, the tense set of his hands. He is so frustrating, but it’s not his fault; he’s hard on himself, but that isn’t either. And you’re hard on yourself too. Maybe that’s why you were angry, because you don’t want Zuko to think about himself the way that you think about yourself.
“You belong here,” you finally say. “With all of us. That’s—what I wanted to say.”
Zuko’s looks away quickly, downwards. His right hand clenches, then opens. “Thank you,” he says at last, and then nothing else.
It’s then, as you’re looking at him—the tired slope of his shoulders, the uneasiness of his hands in his lap, the downward slant of his gaze—that it hits you all at once, what Suki was trying to make you realize. You remember pinning Zuko down—how it felt good, not because it was violent or because you’d won, but because you had Zuko’s hands in yours and were looking down at him and he was looking up at you and there wasn’t anger there, maybe curiosity, maybe—
You leap to your feet. Zuko looks up, blinking, and you try to recover yourself. “Uh, sorry. Just remembered I had somewhere to be. Haha, um, see you later, man,” and then you get out of there as fast as you can, leaving Zuko in bewildered silence.
-
“Suki,” you hiss, grabbing her by the arm. “I have to talk to you.”
“Finally,” Suki says. “You are lucky you’re cute.”
“Hey,” you protest, and then let it slide because you have bigger things to deal with at the moment. “How did you know?”
“You are so obvious, lover boy,” Suki says, squeezing your fingertips.
“But—but—” You flounder helplessly. “But—it’s Zuko.”
“Yeah,” Suki says. “He is kind of an enormous jackass. You have terrible taste in guys, Sokka.”
And there it is: right in front of you, impossible to avoid any longer. “And you—you’re okay? With this?”
Never mind if you are okay with this, because you still don’t know how to think about it, at all. Focus on Suki right now. Think about the rest of it later.
Suki sighs. “Oh, Sokka,” she says. “Haven’t we talked about this?”
And you have, but that was after the Serpent’s Pass, when Suki told you about a girl in the Kyoshi Warriors who she had been seeing on and off until she met you, and wanted to see again, and you agreed. It surprised you, actually, how little you were bothered—not bothered at all. It didn’t change anything between the two of you. You still loved her and she still loved you, and—somehow, that was simple. That was undeniable, and still is.
You’re holding her hands, looking down at them in yours. It’s still hard to understand, though. “I don’t know,” you say. “I don’t—I never—Katara would never think this was okay.”
“So?” Suki asks. “You’re Sokka, not Katara. What is good for Katara is not necessarily good for you or for me. I love you, Sokka, and that won’t change, and neither will us unless we change to accommodate—I don’t know, someone else—” she flounders a little now, blushing; “—not Zuko,” she adds quickly, “but you know what I mean. You should probably work out whatever is going on with you and that boy before you get in another fistfight with him.”
You scowl. “It wasn’t a fistfight.”
She pats you on the shoulder. “Sure it wasn’t.”
You think about leaning in and kissing her, but somehow that seems weird in this moment. “Can I kiss you?” you ask, because that’s just how you are sometimes.
“You’d better,” she says, and leans in, standing on tiptoe.
-
Now that you know—sort of—what’s going on, you have no idea what to do next. Suki’s the one who kissed you on Kyoshi Island, and Yuë—well, you don’t want to think about her. But this is different, so you don’t know what to do. You can’t just sidle up to him and ask if he wants to hold hands—no, not hold hands, something not completely embarrassing, damn it. Zuko has a girlfriend, or an ex-girlfriend technically, but their break up was messy and not exactly Zuko’s choice, and you’re pretty sure he still cares about Mai.
Which is fine, maybe, because you’re still in love with Suki, and it’s not like you’re in love with this jerk, just—confused, or whatever. Damn it. Why did Suki have to do this to you?
But she didn’t do anything. She just pointed out what’s been there this whole time, and you’re pretty annoyed that she saw it before you did. You’re off your game. Gotta get your swag back.
So—for some completely inexplicable reason—you decide to talk to Aang about it. He’s a good kid, right? And he probably knows Zuko the best, so it’s not like a completely unfounded idea. Except that it completely is.
Aang is sitting cross-legged, meditating, when you approach him a few days later. His hands balanced on his knees, fingertips pressed together. After nearly a year, you know better than to interrupt him when he’s like this, so you just sit down next to him and wait it out, learning patience or whatever other bullshit that Aang is doing.
After a moment—not long—Aang opens one eye and looks at you. “Hey.”
“Hey. Communing with the spirits Avatar-style?”
“No,” Aang says, “I was talking to Roku,” and that’s unsettling enough to get you to stop joking around.
“Oh, yeah? What’d he have to say?”
Aang shrugs. “He thinks we need to get moving, but he won’t say it that simply.”
You blink at Aang for a minute. He’s uncharacteristically somber, and he doesn’t move out of his meditative stance but his shoulders droop, the line of his neck bent. You put your hand on his arm.
“Hey, buddy, don’t worry about it. We got this, Roku knows we got this, and nothing’s gonna stop us once the time comes. We’ll get there. Okay?”
Aang flashes you a bright smile, looking once again like the twelve year old that he is. Kind of. “Yeah. Thanks, Sokka.”
“No problem,” you tell him, and you get up to leave, because what you were going to ask was stupid anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.
But Aang reaches up and snatches you by the wrist with his thin hand. “What did you wanna ask me?”
“I didn’t say I was gonna ask you anything.”
“I know,” Aang says, and he pulls you down beside him. “But you were.”
Yikes. A creepy Avatar thing or maybe just a creepy Aang thing, since the kid is pretty intuitive for his age, and way more tuned in to this sort of thing than you are. “It was nothing. It’s not a big deal.”
“Come on, it’s not like I’m doing anything.”
You struggle for a moment, then give in. “I just—I was just thinking about, you know, Zuko—not like, thinking about, haha—” oh for the love of everything, shut up; “—and I wondered maybe if you had any ideas, sort of, for how I could—I don’t know—make him feel better about being here.”
Aang’s face lights up. “Good idea! Let me think.” He ponders for a minute, tapping his chin. “Well, he likes it best when I stay absolutely quiet and do exactly what he tells me to when we’re training, which...I never do. Oops.”
Don’t talk to Zuko and do exactly what Zuko tells you to. Somehow that’s not quite the advice you needed.
You get to your feet, resigned. “Thanks, Aang.”
Aang nods absently, still thinking. “Does Zuko think I talk too much?”
“Nah,” you tell him. “He loves every word.”
Aang beams.
-
As it turns out, you end up sort of following Aang’s advice by accident in that you don’t talk to Zuko for the next few days. It’s just—every time you see him, it’s easier not to talk to him. It’s stupid, but you’re nervous and you don’t want to talk about it. Thankfully Suki doesn’t pry, and no one else seems to notice, except maybe Zuko, who doesn’t try to join you in sparring practice again but sometimes watches from the sidelines as you and Suki fight hand to hand and Katara and Toph bend projectiles for the two of you to dodge or block.
Honestly, you can’t help but think: what’s the point? Zuko’s not going to—well, even aside from that, it’s not like this would even work. You’ve never dated a guy before, even though you’ve thought about it, and you’re pretty sure Zuko hasn’t, and he has Mai, and he’d probably never even think about you like that anyway, because you’re—well, you’re you. Isn’t that what all of this has been about?
So like: why bother, right? Just ignore it and maybe it will go away and everyone can move on with their lives and no one ever, ever has to know about this annoying, embarrassing, dumb, useless crush you have on the prince of Fire Nation.
Yeah, there you go. Great plan. You’re a genius.
-
Except then something happens that you really didn’t expect, which is that Toph notices.
“So,” she says; “trouble with you and Sparky?”
You round on her, knowing it’s useless to hope she doesn’t sense the way your heart starts racing. Damn prodigy earthbender kid. Why the hell do you have to be surrounded by tiny prodigies all the time anyway? “What are you talking about?”
Toph shrugs. “Oh, nothing I’m sure,” she says, and crosses her arms. But apparently she can’t let that stand for long, because then she adds, “Suki told me. Kind of.”
You splutter. “What—Suki—since when do you and Suki even like, talk?”
“We talk,” Toph says defensively. “Anyway, that’s not—” She trails off and punches you on the arm, because she’s Toph. “I came to see why you’re ignoring Zuko and why he keeps moping all over the place, because it’s really starting to bother me to have to try and cheer him up. You know I’m bad at that. No one wants that.”
Baffled, you just let her talk, not quite sure what she wants you to say. She continues though, quite patiently; she’s good at getting people to talk even when they don’t want to. But only when they should. Damn it.
“Anyway,” Toph says, much louder now, “what I’m trying to say is, would you just talk to him again, or something, because he thinks he did something wrong and that you hate him now.”
You stare at her. “Why would I hate him?”
“Don’t look at me,” Toph says. “I don’t pretend to know what goes on in Sparky’s head. I’m just telling you what I know.”
“Why, though?” Sokka asks. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this.”
She looks as if she’s about to punch you again, and then she reconsiders. “Seriously?” she asks instead.
And—well, okay. Maybe you do know. “Thanks, Toph.”
“Sure thing, Snoozles,” Toph says. “And make sure you don’t muck it up or me and Suki are gonna kick your butt.”
And if that isn’t terrifying, you don’t know what is.
-
Because you are predictable and also an idiot, you still don’t do anything that day, too preoccupied with figuring out what to actually say that you don’t say anything. But now that Toph’s pointed it out, you do notice the way Zuko sneaks glances at you across the fire, during dinner, later when you’re cleaning your boomerang. His face shielded, expressionless. Which he’s very good at, the concealment, but you’re also good at reading people, and you can see the doubt there, how he doesn’t talk much to anyone but Aang or Toph and broods, silently, by himself after nightfall.
Drama queen, you think, which is perhaps fair, but then again, so are you.
So instead of saying anything, you go to bed, and as per usual you can’t fall asleep, and neither can Zuko.
You realize after a long while that he’s sitting upright, his arms wrapped around his knees as he stares into the fire. It’s dying but still giving off enough heat to keep those nearest to it warm—which happens to be everyone but you and Zuko. Zuko is trembling slightly, and it takes you a strangely long moment to realize that he's shivering.
Oh—what the hell, man. Seriously? You sit up, wrap your bedroll around yourself, and inch over to Zuko. He looks at you, blinks once.
“Budge up,” you tell him, and he does, as if without thinking about it; and you slide beneath the blankets with him and pull yours over the both of you.
He’s just looking at you, though he swallows, the slant of his mouth in the distant dark firelight.
“Better?” you ask; and he nods, silently.
Dumbass, you think, but so terribly, awfully fondly that you consider slapping yourself in the face. Maybe Toph will do it for you. She’ll definitely do it for you. You’ll ask her. Later, though.
Zuko stops shivering, slowly. But he keeps his distance from you: just enough space between the two of you to prevent you from touching at any point. You don’t move closer, because you haven’t said what you want to say yet, and he probably doesn’t even want to touch you anyway. Why are you doing this again?
“So, um.” Your face feels hot, and you can’t make it stop; “I’m not mad at you.”
Zuko blinks. “All right.”
“And I haven’t been ignoring you,” you continue, more quickly, “or at least not on purpose, I was just nervous.”
“Nervous,” Zuko repeats.
“Yeah. I didn’t know what to say.”
“And now you do?”
“Not really.” You laugh awkwardly. “Listen, I—have to be honest with you, even though I really, really do not want to be right now.”
You trail off then, looking away towards the others, who are all sleeping soundly and seem very far away in this moment.
Zuko waits patiently. He’s too good at being silent and waiting.
You scrub a hand over your face. “This was a dumb idea.”
“Just tell me,” Zuko says, quietly, and then he laughs. “Trust me, it can’t be anything worse than what I want to say.”
That makes your heart speed up a little, and also makes your stomach feel like it’s trying to forcefully expel itself from your body. Wonderful.
“All right, then.” You dig your teeth into the corner of your lip. “Can we go somewhere else?”
Zuko stands, and the two of you return to the rock beside the river, bringing the blankets with you to ward against the chill air. Zuko throws the blankets over both your shoulders and you try not to think about how close he is, because in about two minutes he’s going to run very damn far away.
“All right, so,” you say. “What I wanted to tell you.”
You swallow. Look up at the sky. The stars are distant, faint, the moon just a tiny sliver but there. Both you and Zuko have your hands braced on the boulder you’re sitting atop of, and, on impulse, you slide yours over to cover his.
He looks down at this, then up at you, and you can’t read his face.
You shrug, embarrassed. Zuko’s hand is warm, for all that he was shivering a few minutes ago, and his knuckles are rough. “I’m not mad at you, and I’m not ignoring you, and I don’t really know what to say except that—that I kind of want to kiss you right now, and I think that’s what my problem is.”
Zuko’s eyes widen again: large, and gold, and bright in the dim light of the sky. He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t pull his hand away either, just looks at you like he’s trying to read your expression, trying to pull it apart.
You cough awkwardly. “Dumb, right? I thought I should tell you so you could know that I don’t hate you. In fact, I really don’t hate you, haha. But, uh, that’s all I wanted to say. Sorry about holding your hand in the moonlight.” Damn it. “I’ll go back to the camp now.”
You stand. Your heart is pounding very quickly, the way it did after Suki kissed you on the cheek that first time while Kyoshi Island was on fire, the way it did the first time you dressed in the Kyoshi Warriors’ uniform, the way it did the other day when you wrestled Zuko down and held him fast. But—whatever, right? No big deal. You’ll get over it probably.
But Zuko’s fingers tighten around yours, and he pulls you back down. “No,” he says, and nothing else. His free hand comes up to the back of your neck, pulls you in close, and then he kisses you: on the mouth, hard, tilting his head and pressing his fingertips into the nape of your neck and you can’t do anything but respond, open your mouth to his.
His hand slides from your neck to your shoulders and then your collarbone and then up again, along the line of your jaw, and his thumb brushes over your cheekbone, gently, and you shudder, just slightly, and kiss him back properly.
After a moment—it feels like forever—he pulls away.
“You were saying?” Zuko says smoothly; but his breathing is uneven, and his face flushed.
“I think,” you say, “I’ve said it all.”
“Well, then, I’ll say something.” He’s still holding your hand against the rock, and he pulls it up into his lap, puts his other hand around yours as well. Your face feels like it’s on fire. “I’ve wanted to do that since—I don’t know when. Since we were at the Boiling Rock, maybe.”
You stare at him. “That’s ages.”
Zuko flushes. “That’s not ages, that’s only a few weeks, and I—” He recovers quickly. “You can’t make fun of me for that, you’re the one who just got me out here in the dark to tell me you wanted to kiss me.”
“Okay, fair,” you say. He’s rubbing his thumb along the back of your knuckles, and it’s hard to think. “Just to check, but—you and Mai—?”
“I think Mai is rather angry with me at the moment.” Zuko swallows. “But we’ve talked about this. As I assume you and Suki have talked about this. And—Mai’s dating Ty Lee, actually. If you didn’t know.”
Your mouth drops open. “What?”
“Yeah.” Zuko looks flustered. “And I think she’s made out with my sister.”
“Yikes,” you say.
“Yikes,” Zuko agrees, quietly, and then he leans into you again.
You let him, because you want him to, and because it seems easier than actually doing other things with your mouth at the moment, like speaking, because you’re having great difficulty actually finding the words you want to say right now. This time you pull Zuko close, threading your free hand through the long hair on the back of his head, soft, digging your fingernails against his scalp. He’s warm, and leans into you, and he kisses you like he doesn’t want to stop, and somehow you don’t have anything to say, not even to yourself, that could ruin this.
If you survive this stupid war, you’re gonna get Suki and Toph something awesome for being the best wingmen—wingfriends?—ever.
-
The house on Ember Island is huge, empty, and quiet. Most of the others spend their time outside on the sand, in the water, training or meditating or planning. Because that’s where you all are now—the Fire Lord has to be defeated by the end of the summer, and summer is ending. And so is the quiet, the solitude, the tranquility found even in hunted exile, because at least then there were still certain steps you had to take before reaching this point: now you’re here, and the next step is only, win.
And of course, survive. Even more important.
Toph and Suki have taken to training together (worrying, very worrying, you don’t need those two becoming unstoppable best friends, or maybe you do), and Katara and Aang are almost always deep in some sort of conversation about who-knows-what (you don’t want to know, at all, because Aang won’t stop making googly eyes and you love the kid but Katara is your younger sister and they’re both kids, honestly, what the hell—whatever, focus), and so the upside of this beach house, then, despite it being the arbiter of your impending possible-destruction against Fire Lord Ozai, is that it gives you plenty of privacy to do whatever you want with Zuko. That is, if you can find him.
You aren’t used to big houses; you had only the tiny shelter in the South Pole, built by hand from snow. The beach house echoes; your home never did. And the floor doesn’t mark the fall of your feet in the same way, doesn't change underneath you. You poke your head into every room, looking for Zuko; somehow you know he’s here and not outside wandering. He doesn’t tend to wander the island; he is, after all, the only one of you who’s been here before.
You find him finally on the upper level, sitting on his knees in the middle of a large room. The master bedroom perhaps. He’s looking at something in his hands, and he doesn’t react when he hears you, stays still.
You sit down next to him. “Hey, jerk.”
The tug of an almost-smile. “Hey.”
“What’re you looking at?”
He hesitates for just a moment and then hands you the frame. It’s a portrait, looking more aged than it should, because it can only be perhaps a decade old. It shows Zuko and Azula as children. Azula is smiling, brightly, and Zuko isn’t, but there’s a different sort of light in his eyes.
You trace the frame. “Aw, look. You were cute.”
“’Were?’” Zuko asks, raising an eyebrow.
“You heard me.”
Zuko pushes you away, lightly. “Screw off.” He takes the picture back, looks at it for another long moment, and then sighs and sets it aside.
“Sorry,” he says. “I know I’m not very fun to be around at the best of times, never mind here.”
You lean against him and slide your hands around his shoulders, then down, pulling him close to you. “I think you’re fun to be around.”
“Everyone knows you’re the fun one.”
“Granted. That makes you the cute one, then.”
“Are you here for a reason or just here to talk at me?”
“Well, I do love that,” you say, “but I can be here for other reasons, if you shut me up maybe.”
Zuko turns his head and does, kisses you. His hands are braced on the floor and you still have your arm around his shoulders. Kissing him isn’t like kissing anyone else, which is probably a dumb thing to think about and true about kissing anyone, but you think about it anyway. You’ve never kissed a boy before, and it’s not a big deal in that sense, not to you—you who don’t even want to think about what being a boy or a girl means half of the time—but it’s still a fact of it. You like it; you like kissing him; you like him. Pretty simple, huh? And it still sends your stomach into knots to think of it.
Zuko pulls away after a moment, sighs, and leans against you. You can feel his eyelashes along the line of your neck, and you dig your fingers into his shoulder.
“I didn’t want to come back here,” Zuko mumbles, muffled.
“Yeah,” you say; “I figured as much.”
He laughs quietly, self-aware.
“What are our chances, do you think?” you ask, because you can’t help yourself.
“Please,” Zuko says, “please, don’t bring that up right now. I can’t think about it anymore. Just—please, don’t.”
Fair enough. You put your other arm around him and pull him to the floor alongside you, your arms wrapped around him so that he’s pulled close to your chest. He sighs again, turning his head towards you, and lets you pull him down and hold him there against you.
You lie there together on the wood floor, uncomfortable and comfortable all at once. You can feel Zuko’s pulse. Toph told you—accidentally, and denied it afterwards—that that’s how she falls asleep at night: listening to everyone’s heartbeats against the dirt. You wonder whether she can tell everyone’s apart, if she knows whose is who just by sound alone, by rhythm. You think you could tell, given the chance; the taste of copper, the sound of water. The fingerprint of everyone’s pulse.
“Why are we doing this?” Zuko asks you quietly after a long moment.
It takes you by surprise. “Do you not want to?”
“You know that’s not what I mean.”
For once, you really don’t. “Well, explain, then.”
“I mean—” Zuko flounders. “Why this, why us, why now, why....” He curls one hand around your wrist, tightly. “I tried to hurt you.”
“Yeah, well, I tried to return the favor a few times,” you say. “Not very well, but I did try. And that was a long time ago. We all did things we regret.”
Zuko swallows. “Why me?” he asks, finally, and you don’t know if you can answer him.
“Why not you?” you say instead.
His face is flushed. “You know why not.”
And you do—but only because when you flip the coin, it’s the same thing you’ve been asking about yourself. You can’t leave room for this anymore; you have to bear down, dig your heels into the dirt, answer yes when you wonder whether you’re good enough, and not because it’s what anyone else wants to hear but because it's what you want to hear: what you deserve to hear from yourself.
You can’t give that to Zuko; that’s his job. But maybe you can make the path easier to follow. Maybe you can give it to yourself.
“If you want me to say ‘yeah, you’re right, just kidding about all this’ and stop being with you, I’m not gonna do that,” you tell Zuko, and then reconsider. “Unless you want me to.”
“You know I don’t.”
“No, I don’t know,” you tell him. “I’ve never heard you say it.”
He lets go of your wrist. You can tell he’s struggling with this, but he’s the one who brought it up, the one who keeps worrying over it, like pushing a broken tooth with his tongue.
“Why are you doing this?” you ask.
Zuko blinks back at you, like he wasn’t expecting this, like he didn’t expect to have his own motives questioned; as if they were undeniable, unquestionable.
“Because,” he says, slowly, “I like you. But that’s—that’s too easy. I don’t know why I like you, but I do.”
“Is that not enough?” you ask, gently.
“I don’t know,” he says. Shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
You lift his hand so that it is splayed flat against yours, the outlines of your fingers against each other. “It’s enough for me,” you tell him. “You’re enough. This is enough.”
He swallows. Ducks his head again, curls into you like he’s hiding from the words, what’s left to say. It doesn’t matter. You think, maybe, he understands as much as there is to understand—which is that life doesn’t always make sense, and it doesn’t have to, and that caring about people is both simple and complicated, and thinking about it too much takes up space best put to other uses.
“I like you too,” you say, because it might as well be said. “Very much. To embarrassing amounts. Toph hasn’t stopped teasing me since we got here.”
Zuko snorts. “Romantic.”
“I thought so.”
You kiss the top of Zuko’s head, tenderly, surprising yourself even as you do it. He smiles against your neck.
“Sap.”
“Maybe,” you admit. “I don’t like hiding what I feel, much.”
Zuko tenses, just slightly. You wouldn’t have noticed if he weren’t all cuddled up against you, but he is. “I don’t know how not to, sometimes.”
“That’s okay,” you tell him, and then don’t know what else to say. “That’s okay.”
After a long time, Zuko sighs once more and tries to sit up. You let him, but only so you can drape yourself over his shoulders when he does.
“Sokka.”
You open your eyes and look up at him. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Zuko says. He swallows. “I just—I might—I might not be what you’re expecting.”
It takes you a long moment to realize what he means. “I don’t mind,” you tell him. “I’m probably not what you expect, either.”
“No,” Zuko says; “you’re really not."
-
You survive the war. All of you—every one, even though it’s close. And Aang wins.
You didn’t see that coming. But you’re not complaining. And Aang and Zuko standing in front of the crowd together, side by side, declaring a new age of peace is about the best thing you’ve ever seen.
Toph is crying, though she hides it well. You’re the only one who notices. Katara is beaming. Suki slips her hand into yours and smiles.
-
Zuko is walking out of the council chambers when you sneak up behind him and slide your hands around his waist. “Hey, Fire Lord Jerk.”
Zuko doesn’t even react. You’re pretty sure he’s hoping that if he ignores the name, you’ll stop using it. You won’t. “You weren’t at the meeting,” he says.
“Yeah, sorry. Had other stuff to do.”
“Something more important than serving as advisor to the Fire Lord?”
“I’ll serve you properly later,” you tell him. He flushes bright red. “Which now you’ll have time for, since I figured out how to get you to myself for the rest of the day.”
Zuko looks resigned. “What did you do?”
“Nothing! Nothing bad, anyway. Just got Aang to agree to take care of all the stuff you had to do later so you and I can run off together.”
“You’re awful,” Zuko says. “I’m trying to lead a nation and you want me to spend the afternoon doing nothing with you.”
“Not nothing,” you protest. “You’ll be with me. That’s not nothing.” You kiss his shoulder again, then turn him around to face you properly.
“If you really have to work, then you can,” you tell him. “I have stuff I could be doing too. But I’d rather spend time with you now that we have the chance.”
“We could do our work together,” Zuko points out.
You make a face. “Or you could agree that this super romantic gesture I’ve made by tricking Aang into taking all your work for the day is a great idea and come with me.”
It’s hard for him; you know it is. That’s why you always say what you’re thinking, what you feel. You watch him struggle with it from the outside as he considers what to say, what note to hit.
He meets your gaze: bright gold eyes, the dark of his lashes. He takes your hand. “Okay then,” he says; “let’s do it.”