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The Boiling Rock
Something shifts even before their stilted attempt at conversation on the war balloon.
Ever since Zuko and Aang returned from their adventure with the Sun Warriors, Zuko has been taller. Not really, of course, that’d be ridiculous, but Sokka has seen him rolling out his shoulders, stretching with his arms behind his head—
Relaxing.
He grows with it. It’s not just that he’s trying to talk more, trying to find a place within the group. It’s as though the flame inside of him, the recognition of a living sun on his back, the acceptance of his forever-shifted future, it’s all combined into a release of tension. And he’s holding himself differently.
Taller.
When Sokka clambers up Appa’s side after almost stepping on Momo, trying to quietly slip away to follow Zuko’s kind-of-directions to the volcano that holds the Boiling Rock, Zuko is already there, sprawled against the side of the saddle with the full force of his glare trained right at Sokka.
Sokka falls back to the ground.
Zuko’s legs had been—bent, as they sometimes awkwardly are—and for whatever reason, that’s the image that sticks in Sokka’s mind as he’s falling. Taller. He brushes the thought off quickly as the annoyance for having been caught settles in. Of course Zuko wouldn’t have let their conversation from earlier go. Zuko never lets anything go.
“Fine, I’m gonna rescue my dad,” Sokka says as he climbs back to his feet. “You happy now?”
Sokka doesn’t look when Zuko replies, “I’m never happy.”
Ain’t that the truth.
He tries to get Zuko to leave him alone, to let him do this by himself. He—he tells Zuko the thoughts that have been plaguing him since the failure of the invasion. Zuko is the first person Sokka’s told, and Sokka thinks he’ll be the only one. He hopes that Zuko will be the only one. If everything at the Boiling Rock goes to plan—well, not to plan, there is no plan—but if everything goes right, then there will be no reason to tell anyone else. And even if everything goes wrong, Sokka is hardly going to burden his little sister or two actual twelve year olds with the useless thoughts in his head. His stupid insecurities. He’s done that before, and sure, they’d been understanding and had helped him find Master Piandao, but he can’t do it again. They’re kids. Zuko, at least, is around Sokka’s age, maybe older—so Sokka feels a little less bad, and it’s not like Zuko would be comfortable enough telling anyone else, though maybe he’d be awkward enough to accidentally let something slip, and oh, spirits, why did he tell Zuko this—
Zuko listens. Zuko wants to help. He points out a flaw in Sokka’s not-plan (Appa), and he offers something better.
Sokka is stiff as he follows Zuko to the war balloon, his eyes on Zuko’s back all the way, and he tries not to be grateful. But Zuko had listened, and he’s helping.
Still, there is a small, wriggling thing in the back of Sokka’s mind. He’s going to a Fire Nation prison with Zuko, alone, without telling the rest of the group where he’s actually gone. Zuko’s adventure with Aang aside, it could all be a trick. Zuko has his fire bending back. Sokka has his sword, but he’s pretty sure fire beats sword. Zuko has trained to bend fire his entire life. Sokka’s only been training with his sword for… what, a few weeks?
He’ll have no chance.
But he has no other chance, not to right his wrongs, to get his father back. He has to take the risk.
They’ve been in the air for a while now, the sun is up and they’re both more alert, Zuko has been tending to the fire that keeps the balloon afloat. Sokka is trying not to look at him… but there’s not much else to do.
He’s really not that tall. They’re about the same height—Sokka may even be like an inch taller, when he actually stands up straight.
Sokka continuously reminds himself of this, like for some reason Zuko’s height matters at all.
It’s just that something about the way Zuko’s clothing hugs him in some places and hangs loose in others. The slope of his shoulders and the slim, pale expanse of his throat and collarbones, the almost delicacy of his wrists as he twists them to lure out his flames, and the length of his fingers despite the narrow youth of his hands—
It all adds up to make him seem tall.
Sokka chances another look, but Zuko looks over at the exact same moment. Bad, bad, bad. Sokka quickly averts his gaze to the sky, but it doesn’t last, and he’s helplessly looking back again. Zuko is toying with his hands and seems more uncomfortable than usual.
“Pretty clouds,” Sokka finds himself saying, and he’s grateful his voice doesn’t crack from his relative embarrassment.
Zuko tries to take the bait, but it’s Zuko, who is not exactly known for his skill at holding dialogue. “Yeah. Fluffy.”
It gets more awkward before it gets better, but when Zuko brings up his uncle, there’s a buzzing sympathy in Sokka’s chest, and they both unwind some. Zuko’s expression is just so dejected, his eyes far away as he remembers something that hurts. It’s an expression Sokka has become used to, after so many months at war, meeting all kinds of people who’ve done all kinds of things, and it’s an expression Sokka is sure he himself has worn as well. Especially recently.
Sokka comforts him.
And he keeps on his smile when Zuko mentions a girlfriend, and it makes so much sense that Zuko and Mai are—were?—together, and Sokka should have known from the moment he’d first seen her. They make perfect sense as a couple.
It feels like an active effort, though, to keep his smile on while Zuko is staring off to the side with a look of contentment—a look Sokka’s not sure he’s ever seen on Zuko’s face before—and he doesn’t know why it is an effort to keep smiling, but he knows he doesn’t like the brief moment where it feels like his throat is constricting.
I’m never happy, Zuko had said, and Sokka had agreed. But now Sokka thinks that maybe that isn’t entirely true. Zuko was, or at least could be, happy with Mai.
It’s like Sokka has been poked in the arm. A little prod from a spirit he’s never met before and that he may never really understand, because spirits don’t follow the laws of science and reason. And he doesn’t get it. He hates when he doesn’t get things.
And then Zuko’s contentment passes, swift like it had never been there at all, and he’s back to solemnity.
Sokka takes steady breaths while Zuko keeps talking, and by the time Zuko’s finished, Sokka’s pushed everything away and come back to himself. “My first girlfriend turned into the moon,” he says, because as much as that topic still hurts, at least he understands it.
It’s decided that Zuko is even more of an idiot than Sokka is. Or at least, Sokka decides this. All of Zuko’s plans are half-baked and not thought through beyond their potential immediate benefit, and Sokka wonders how in the name of the spirits this is the same guy who’d chased them around the world and ruined their sleep schedule for weeks.
Sokka’s plans are admittedly half-baked this time as well, though, and two braincells is more than one, and they’re somehow managing, both of them having brief strokes of genius just at the moments they need to.
In the closet as they change out their clothes for guard uniforms, Sokka very, very deliberately keeps his back to Zuko and stares at the wall. His heart rate picks up—he can feel it in his ears—and he fumbles with the belt.
Zuko’s, like, tall. Sokka wonders if the uniform will fit him, since he’s tall—how well it will fit him—maybe he’s having trouble putting it on—
“Hurry up,” Zuko says, and Sokka jumps. “We need to get going.”
It fits him fine. The uniforms fit them both just fine, because they’d picked out the right sizes, and they’re both the same height, dammit.
Zuko is rambling about clouds and sandwiches, a slew of words supposedly meant to comfort Sokka, but instead Sokka lets them slip by uninterpreted as he just listens to Zuko’s cadence, and Sokka is upset because his father isn’t here and because Zuko’s voice is like crackly, spun sugar, and—
And that is Suki, and whatever Sokka is unintelligibly feeling about Zuko pales and fades in contrast with the surge of adoration that hits him like a wave as he sees her.
Sokka knew this trip wouldn’t be a waste.
Zuko guards Suki’s cell from outside the door while she and Sokka reunite. The two of them are a blaze, everything they’d felt for each other in the past burning into something hot and sweet and they’re kissing again, finally, for the first time since getting through Serpent’s Pass.
She’s soft in all the right places as he wraps his arms around her, and she’s warm and she smells a bit like mint under the prisonish smell.
The moment is broken when Zuko slams a guard against the metal door, and they’re struggling just outside the cell and as much as Sokka wishes he could stay, he knows he needs to get out.
The ordeal ends with Zuko discovered, being dragged away, and Sokka has no idea what they might be doing to him while he’s isolated under the Warden. All Sokka has managed so far was a whispered platitude in Zuko’s ear (“Don’t worry, I’ll figure it out”), as if that helps anything, as if that makes anything better.
As soon as he’s able, Sokka returns to Suki’s cell and explains everything to her.
She’s startled, of course, by the declaration that Zuko is good now, but as Sokka goes on, she calms and nods. “I trust you, Sokka,” she says. “If you trust him, then I will too.”
Sokka crosses his arms and looks down, narrowing his eyes in thought. He barely has to think now, though. Yes, he has a lot banking on this, and if Zuko were to flip sides now, not only would they be doomed, but Sokka would be proven a fool once more. Another failure—first the invasion, then the Boiling Rock.
But that wriggling mistrust that had been there before they’d gotten on the war balloon, before they crash landed and worked together… it’s completely gone.
Sokka nods, resolute and final, meeting Suki’s eyes again. “He came here to help me get my dad back, to keep me safe. Dad might not be here, but Zuko’s still helped at every turn. I mean—he got himself captured because we took too long making out. We can trust him.”
Suki nods right back, blushing a little.
He meets up with Suki and Zuko later as they’re mopping the floors in the commons, and he lets out a heavy sigh of relief to see Zuko is unharmed. The Warden hadn’t tortured him then. Thank the spirits.
A few hours later, after they’d hatched their escape plan, Sokka learns Zuko can breathe fire. It’s unexpected and weird but also very cool and absolutely nothing else. Sokka has no other feelings about the breathing fire thing, nor about the way Zuko looked up at him after doing it, nor about the fact that Zuko perfectly executed their cooler plan—Sokka definitely has no other feelings about these things at all.
Zuko is the one who not only supports staying another day to wait for Sokka’s dad, but actively encourages him to. Suki of course chooses to stay behind with them as well (Sokka shouldn’t have expected anything different), but it’s Zuko’s idea, because Zuko knows Sokka needs this. Sokka can’t put into words how grateful he is.
When they’re back at the Western Air Temple with Dad, after a hearty dinner (courtesy of Katara) and the perfect reunion around a campfire (courtesy of Zuko) where they regale the rest of the group with what happened at Boiling Rock, and after Sokka and Suki… familiarize themselves with each other, Sokka lays awake staring at the ceiling.
Suki, curled up beside him, looks beautiful and gentle. I am a warrior. But I’m a girl, too, she’d said when they first met. He’s never understood that more than he does right now.
He sighs and rubs at his face, running through the last tumultuous leg of their escape from Boiling Rock in his head. Suki, sprinting across dozens of prisoners’ heads, scaling the wall, taking out multiple guards, and capturing the Warden, all without running out of breath. A stunt so incredible that Sokka might replay it in his mind every night from now on, so he never forgets—at least until she does something even more impressive, which, knowing Suki, will likely happen sooner rather than later.
And then Zuko, the way they coordinated without so much as a glance to take on Azula, offense and defense, Zuko standing in front to block Azula’s flames, and Sokka at his back, ready with his sword for any opening to swing. Zuko, pulling Sokka back up onto the gondola when Sokka almost fell into the boiling lake. The strength the maneuver required was more than Sokka thought Zuko had, but he supposes the man is a master martial artist, or at least a near-master martial artist, so he shouldn’t have been too surprised.
It’s just a lot. The whole day, the whole past couple days, have just been a lot.
Zuko, looking down at Mai when she betrayed Azula to save all of their lives. An act of her love for Zuko, Sokka assumes, because she and Zuko are in love.
Suki, tonight, with Sokka, everything he’s ever wanted. He thinks he could die happy right now, if the fate of the world weren’t still on the line.
Except that he can’t sleep. Because for all this reminiscing, for all this thinking, he has no idea why he is thinking of Suki and Zuko in the same breath.
The Southern Raiders
Zuko is still a complete idiot. He runs off and almost dies because he apparently has no awareness of his own mortality, or at least no respect for it—all to give the rest of the group time to escape from his sister. It’s a narrow escape, for Zuko and Azula both.
“She’s… not gonna make it,” Zuko says, voice shockingly soft, and Sokka peers at his face to try to read the emotion there. It’s difficult to read Zuko’s emotions (apart from the rage, scorn, or annoyance), but Sokka thinks this one looks a lot like concern.
Which doesn’t make any sense, because he’s looking at Azula. But then again—Sokka wonders what it would be like if Katara was trying to kill him. His little sister, cackling with glee at the concept of becoming an only child. Would he still have empathy, concern, for Katara, if Katara were like Azula?
Sokka’s mouth goes dry. Of course he would. Katara’s his little sister. And if Katara were like Azula, then Sokka might feel guilty, too. He’d ask himself what he’d done wrong to cause her to turn out that way. He’d ask himself what he could have done differently, to try to help her.
Sokka wonders if Zuko ever asks himself those questions, or if Azula was always just too far gone.
They’re split from the bulk of their group once more when they set up camp in a rocky meadow atop a cliffed island. When night falls, they build a small fire and make dinner, eating in relative silence at first until Suki cautiously breaks it. “So… Azula.”
“What about her?” Zuko asks in a bitter rasp.
“She just, seemed a little unhinged, is all. Maybe more than usual?”
Sokka wonders if Suki has been questioning Zuko and Azula’s relationship just as he had been. ”I’m about to celebrate becoming an only child” isn’t exactly the kind of retort that’s easily overlooked.
Zuko just scoffs and looks at the dumpling in his hand, but he doesn’t take a bite. “Seemed normal enough to me.”
“So she’s always been that way?” Toph asks at Zuko’s side, tilting her head with curiosity.
“Mostly. But not…” Zuko sighs, and Sokka’s heart aches with it. “…not when she was really little. I guess she used to just be curious, and smart. And she looked up to me.” The last part is spoken almost in a whisper. Zuko continues examining the dumpling like it’s the most interesting thing in the world, and Sokka can tell it’s so he doesn’t have to look up at them. “But Father taught her pretty quickly that I’m not someone to look up to. And I guess that’s… that’s when she started to change.”
Zuko looks harmless like this, and Sokka’s not sure he’s ever seen that before. Even when Zuko has spoken about his uncle, or about Mai, there’s always still been that edge, that sense that at any moment he could be in a firebending stance and prepared to fight or to defend. But in this moment, as he thinks of his little sister, his little sister who could very well be a sociopath, he looks like he would never hurt a spiderfly.
“That must have been hard,” Suki says.
Zuko’s only response is to shrug. The silence falls on them again, and after a short while longer, Zuko finally takes a bite of his dumpling. He chews slowly, like it’s quite a lot of work.
Aang clears his throat. “Wow, camping. It really seems like old times again, doesn’t it?”
There’s something like an exhale within the group, and Zuko seems especially grateful. “If you really want it to feel like old times I could, ah… chase you around a while and try to capture you?”
Sokka hasn’t been paying attention to Katara on his left, so he hadn’t noticed that, while the rest of the group is relaxing again, she’s still tense. After he makes a toast to Zuko, though, and after Zuko says, “I don’t deserve this,” it becomes very clear.
She storms off, and Zuko follows her. The remaining four members of the group fidget uncertainly as they finish their meals, and then it’s time for bed. Sokka meets Suki’s eyes as they put out the campfire, and Suki gives a little half-smile, and Sokka gives a little full-smile.
“See you in a bit?” she whispers when Aang and Toph are far enough away.
Sokka nods, trying to conceal his excitement, and goes to prepare his tent.
When the tent flap pulls open and it’s Zuko in the opening instead of Suki, Sokka swallows a flower. Sokka wishes this were a metaphor. He spits out what he can of it as he sits up, not particularly liking what the dim candlelight is doing to Zuko’s face and hair, and, in turn, not particularly liking what is happening to his lungs.
It’s just, Zuko’s golden eyes are wide and worried—even the one with the scar surrounding it is wider than usual—and the flickering fires from the many candles around them create sparks of light in those eyes, and they highlight the slopes and edges and shadows of his cheeks and jaw, as well. And his hair (thank the spirits the half-bald ponytail is gone), his hair is shimmering, too, shrouding his desperate brow, and—
And is Zuko seriously talking about Katara right now?
Sokka ends up overcompensating with dramatics and wild gestures, because that’s just what he does, especially when uncomfortable.
It’s the spirit again, he thinks. The one that had poked his arm before—only now it’s prodding right in the center of his chest, and it’s shouting across Aang’s spirit bridge or something to tell Sokka exactly what is happening here, but all Sokka wants to do is put his hands over his ears and scream ”I’m not listening” like a child would.
Sokka likes Suki. Sokka thinks he loves Suki. And—and—Sokka likes girls. He’s never liked boys that way before, and he doesn’t know if that’s a thing that’s considered okay, and even if he could like boys, why in the name of the moon would he start with Zuko? And—
And is Zuko seriously asking about Sokka’s dead mother right now?
“What?” Sokka startles, “Why would you want to know that?”
When Suki eventually makes it into the tent, Sokka’s exhausted. It isn’t the conversation he’d had with Zuko about his mother that’s caused it, but what came after. After Zuko had initially left, Sokka had peeped right back out of the tent to call Suki in, but she hadn’t been outside to hear (Zuko had still been there, though, embarrassingly enough). She doesn’t show up for about twenty minutes, but those twenty minutes feel like hours to Sokka.
Because he’s thinking about Zuko again. And he’s thinking about what Suki would think if she knew what he’s thinking about Zuko. In a small loop, he works himself up into a panic, then convinces himself he’s being ridiculous—he does not have any weird feelings for Zuko—and manages to calm down, only to work himself up into a panic again shortly after. It’s not productive in the slightest.
“What did Zuko want?” Suki whispers as she crosses the tent to kneel in front of where Sokka is half-sprawled on the ground.
“Oh, you know. To torture me.” He waves it off. “The usual.”
She smiles and leans forward for a kiss.
Sokka hesitates, and she notices.
“What is it?”
He frowns and shakes his head. “I just, um. I’m not really in the mood anymore, I guess?”
Settling back again, she nods. “That’s okay. Any particular reason, or is it just a general thing?”
She really is the best, Sokka thinks. Suki is absolutely the bestest of the best. He cracks a small grin. “Nothing, really. Zuko just kinda killed the vibe.”
“Oh, I imagine he’s good at that.” She covers a chuckle with her hand.
“Definitely,” Sokka agrees with a little laugh to match hers, and he’s talking before he thinks to stop himself. “It’s just that he’s way too tall.”
Suki’s laugh is louder this time, and she doesn’t bother concealing it. “Did you just say he’s too tall?”
“Yeah, I just—I mean—why does he look like that? When did that happen? I don’t remember him ever being that tall before.” Sokka’s face is heating up. “Maybe it’s the hair? Because he never had hair like he has now before.” And that was not a sentence that made a semblance of sense, and Suki’s brow is furrowing and her smile is getting smaller. “You know what I mean? Do you remember him being tall like that?”
“Sokka,” she starts, and Sokka gulps. “Okay. First, I’ve never once noticed Zuko being especially tall?” She says it like a question, but moves on before Sokka can start rambling again. “And second, are you—are you actually telling me that you’re not in the mood tonight because… Zuko is kind of tall?”
Sokka straightens and laces his fingers together in his lap, trying to ignore the burn in his cheeks and affect an innocent expression. “Well, when you say it like that it sounds completely ridiculous.”
She nods once, eyes expectant. She’s waiting for Sokka to say more, he knows, but he knows if he tries to talk again, it’s only going to end up sounding more absurd. Worse. It’s only going to end up sounding worse, because Suki is his girlfriend and Zuko is—
“He’s just a friend,” Sokka blurts.
His eyes widen, his shoulders hitch up to his neck, and Suki’s jaw drops.
There are several beats of silence where they’re both frozen, staring at each other in shock, before finally Suki closes her mouth and starts making a weird face that Sokka cannot interpret. It almost looks like amusement, but it couldn’t be amusement, right? Sokka just—Sokka just said what he said, like it explained anything. But it didn’t explain anything—it made things worse.
And then Suki’s lips are trembling, and she squeezes them together to try to hide it, and her shoulders are shaking a little, and it hits Sokka that she might be about to cry.
But instead—
“Well, I would sure hope so,” she says, and it’s half buried in a delighted laugh. She throws her hands over her mouth again to try to stifle it, but it’s too late, and she’s only laughing more.
“What—” Sokka tries, utterly perplexed.
“Sokka,” Suki says again, pulling her hands down a little so Sokka can see her massive smile. “Do you have a crush on Zuko?”
He seizes up immediately and shrieks, “What? How could you say that?”
This is apparently exactly what she expected to hear, and she actually doubles over herself with giggles before noticing his expression.
“Oh, Sokka, honey,” and then she’s shuffling forward to close the distance between them and putting her hands on either side of his face. She’s still smiling, more gently now, and her face is as red with laughter as Sokka’s probably is with embarrassment and horror. “You know it’s okay to find other people attractive, right?”
Sokka opens and closes his mouth like a fish. “But—but we’re together! You’re my girlfriend!”
She giggles again and ducks her head. “Yes, true, but it’s not like we stopped having eyes the moment we made that official.”
“But—”
“There doesn’t need to be a ‘but,’ Sokka. I get it.”
He breathes out a sigh, and the hair around her face flutters a little from it. “You’re not mad?”
“I’m not mad.”
He can tell she means it, and the coiled knot that Sokka hadn’t even noticed was settled between his shoulder blades unravels. He swallows. “Even though—even though it’s Zuko?”
Her hands slide down to gingerly rest on his neck, and then she puts a small kiss on Sokka’s cheek and doesn’t pull away after. When she speaks, Sokka can feel her lips moving there. “Even though it’s Zuko.” She pulls back fast enough that Sokka jumps, and she’s wearing a sly smile. “Now that we’re—now that I’m getting to know him, I think he’s kind of cute too.” Her face suddenly turns serious. “He still burnt down my village, though.”
Sokka nods and then hangs his head, watching his fingers as they pull at each other in his lap. Suki’s hands fall from his neck, and she rests them on her knees instead. “But it’s… it’s Zuko, Suki. He’s—you know. He’s—” It’s more difficult to say than Sokka would’ve expected. Or maybe it’s just as difficult. He can’t tell anymore. “He’s a he.”
When he looks back up at her, she’s frowning at him. “I’m guessing maybe it’s different in the Southern Water Tribe? But on Kyoshi, that kind of thing doesn’t matter. Lots of my warriors are together, actually.”
“Really?” Sokka whispers. It feels like something breaks, then, in his chest. Like a dam that he didn’t know was there, and the ensuing flood courses through his body.
He actually doesn’t know how the Southern Water Tribe would respond. He can imagine the Northern one wouldn’t be very happy, but he really doesn’t care about their opinion on this kind of thing. But in the South, as he grew up, he didn’t even know it was possible. Everyone he knew in the tribe was paired as man and woman, or they weren’t paired at all.
But it’s exactly the lack of knowing, of having any idea at all, that makes him so painfully unsure. If he told them, would they understand? Would Dad understand?
“You’re thinking too hard,” Suki says, and she briefly massages one of his shoulders. “And yes, really.”
He’s trying to process all of this, but it’s a lot. He couldn’t be more grateful that Suki isn’t just not mad, but that she seems to understand, and she seems to want him to understand, too. He’s almost numb with the weight of so much newness, and it’s only then that he realizes—
“Wait, you think Zuko is cute?” His voice is aghast and he’s sure his face matches perfectly.
Suki tuts. “Don’t go getting all jealous now, or I’ll have to, too.” Her expression turns playfully fierce. “And jealousy is for the weak.”
Sokka huffs a laugh, then quiets for a second. “You know I wouldn’t—I like you so much, Suki. The Zuko, er, stuff—you know I wouldn’t do anything, right?”
She rises higher onto her knees, takes Sokka’s head in her hands again, and then places a steadying kiss to his forehead. Afterwards, she murmurs into his hair, “Of course I do. That’s why I’m not jealous.”
The following night, Zuko and Katara leave on a vengeance-fueled excursion, and Sokka and Suki finally have their romantic candlelit rendezvous.
The next day, however, Sokka starts getting nervous. Katara had been cruel to Sokka before she left, regarding their mother, and Zuko had just been a straight-up dick to Aang about forgiveness, but he’s worried about them. He doesn’t know how long a revenge mission is supposed to last. He doesn’t know how far they have to travel, or if anything has gone wrong—
“—and Zuko is a complete idiot!” Sokka finishes, throwing his hands in the air. Suki is watching him with her arms crossed. He’s not sure how long he’s been ranting for, but she stopped trying to placate him a while ago. Now, he’s just standing there, arms dangling at his sides like a fool. He notes that they ache a little from waving around so much. Spirits, how long was he ranting for?
“You’re scared,” Suki eventually says, “I get it. But Zuko’s not an idiot, and neither is Katara. They’re both incredible benders, and very capable, and they’ll be fine.”
Sokka shakes his head. “No, no. You don’t get it. Katara’s not an idiot, yeah, but Zuko really, really is. Do you know how many times he’s almost died, just since he joined the gang, doing something completely unnecessary and self-sacrificing? At least twice! Twice, Suki.”
She has the gall to roll her eyes, and Sokka scrunches up his face like he’s five. “They’ll be back before you know it. You and Zuko were gone for days getting us out of prison, and you two were totally fine when you got back, right? Katara’s much less of an idiot than you are. They’ll keep each other safe.”
Sokka knows she’s right, so he forces himself to nod. She clamps him in a hug, after, and squeezes extra tight as she says, “Your sister and your lover are gonna make a great team.”
Sokka squeals out a complaint at an octave he didn’t even know existed, pushing Suki off of him as she matches his volume with laughter.
Spirits. He’s going to regret telling her about Zuko, isn’t he?
The Ember Island Players
Sokka and Suki come back from the town on Ember Island, leisurely strolling through the arches of Zuko’s old family vacation home to get to the courtyard. The rest of their group is there, in various states of relaxation and casually talking, and Sokka stops in his tracks while he’s still under the shadows of the building.
Suki pauses too, her fingers twisting the rolled up poster in her hands as she looks over at him before following his gaze.
Zuko is slouching on the steps of the central fountain, shirtless and—“Sweaty,” Sokka mutters like an imbecile.
Sokka’s seen Zuko like this before, multiple times while at the Western Air Temple teaching Aang firebending, but not since he’s had his… revelation.
It’s something to behold. He’s rubbing at the back of his neck and at his hair with a small towel, completely oblivious to Sokka’s wandering eyes. Sokka feels a little guilty about it, actually.
And then Suki falls against his side, the back of her hand on her forehead as she fakes a swoon. “He’s just so taaaall,” she cries, but keeps her voice down. Probably for the sake of the last dredges of Sokka’s pride.
“Shut up,” Sokka hisses anyways, turning red again.
Suki bubbles with more laughter, because she clearly takes an immense amount of pleasure in Sokka’s misery. But he finds himself laughing too as he snatches the poster from her hands. He uses it to point at her face and says, in what he’d hoped would be a threatening tone but comes out more like a whine, “Never mention this again.”
And then he runs out into the courtyard, saying, “You guys are not gonna believe this: there’s a play about us!”
A minute or so later, Sokka files away the knowledge that Zuko presumably likes theatre.
Zuko doesn’t seem to have any idea why Aang would want to sit next to Katara.
“Isn’t that just so endearing?” Suki pouts on Sokka’s shoulder, but the expression is a bit sinister.
“Shut up,” he urges for the second time that day. He’s picking up on a pattern here, and he’s not enjoying it in the slightest. That doesn’t stop him from grinning as they take their seats, though.
When Zuko’s character shows up on stage, Suki takes the time to whisper in Sokka’s ear, “Wow, is it just me, or is that actor kind of tall?”
“Shut up.”
During the confusingly romantic portrayal of Zuko and Katara in the crystal caverns beneath Ba Sing Se, Suki leans over to whisper again—no doubt something or another about Katara being competition, so—
Sokka puts a finger to her lips. “Don’t you dare.”
Zuko is taking the play harder than the rest of them. No one is really enjoying it at this point, except for Toph probably, but Zuko seems viscerally dejected, shuttering himself during his scenes in the play, and shuttering himself on the floor of the hallway during the second intermission. With one leg kicked out and an elbow resting on the other’s knee, and with his hooded cloak drowning his upper body, and as he stares down at the floor from behind his hair, it’s clear he’s incredibly bothered.
Sokka knows it’s the stuff about him and his uncle. Zuko had brought it up on the war balloon that one time, and he’d also brought it up a couple more times in the evenings around their campfires. His betrayal of his uncle eats at his core.
Sokka hates seeing it, but he also doesn’t know what to say, either. Zuko did betray his uncle. Sokka already told him on the air balloon that his uncle is probably still proud, and beyond that he doesn’t know what more to do.
And besides, Suki will end up making some silly comment later, which isn’t that bad but Sokka is going to pretend it is until she stops (he doubts she’ll ever stop), and as far as the play is concerned, Sokka has his own concerns. The jokes, specifically.
So he leaves Zuko to Toph.
Toph isn’t exactly the person Sokka would pick first when it comes to helping someone with emotional baggage, but maybe her tough-love approach towards affection is exactly what Zuko needs.
When they all reunite again for the third act, Zuko’s scowl has lessened, and he and Toph stand side by side, closer than they probably would have before.
Zuko… dies. It’s abrupt and not as intricately-done as a lot of the other scenes have been, but there’s a tangible horror between all of them as the rest of the audience breaks into uproarious applause and cheers.
They all look towards him, and Sokka is too distracted to notice Suki this time—
“And to think, you never got to tell him you love—”
He playfully throws his elbow back at her, and she catches it with ease and with a giggle.
Later that night, when they’re all gathered around a small fire like usual, Suki asks Zuko about Love Amongst the Dragons. And while he stumbles adorably through a barely coherent summary of what Sokka thinks is supposed to be a plot, Suki wraps her arms around Sokka’s shoulders and they share a short, smiley kiss.