Chapter Text
Time: 13:22
Music: Dancing on the Highway - Elliott Smith
Ch01 MP3 (Right click download, normal click stream)
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Thanks to paraka for hosting
It isn't hard to make the spirits angry. Sokka manages to do it inside a volcano.
They've all gotten themselves tied up, bound against a pillar in the Fire Temple, and Zhao seems to take special joy in squishing Zuko against Sokka's back.
He knows it's probably Zhao trying to punish Zuko, rather than vice versa, but Sokka still feels distinctly punished.
"Every time you move," the prince says, squished-sounding, "your pointy elbow goes right into my jaw."
“It's not pointy!” Sokka snaps.
“You're not the one getting jabbed with it.”
“All elbows are pointy!” he says. Then, just for good measure, he turns so his elbow is pressing into Zuko's cheek.
Zuko curses him, trying to wriggle away.
“You guys,” Katara says, sounding very tired. “Can we not?”
“He started it,” Zuko says.
“I started nothing,” Sokka says. “I just finished it.”
“With your pointy fucking elbow.”
Sokka jabs him again.
“Ugh!” Katara says, thunking her head against the pillar.
—
When Roku blows the temple apart, the floor ruptures down the middle, leaving Sokka and Zuko stranded on the wrong side of a glowing crack, getting wider all the time.
“Fuck,” Sokka says, and Zuko grabs a fistful of his shirt. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“We're gonna jump,” he says.
“ We are not going to jump,” Sokka says. “ You are going to jump and I am going to laugh at your stupid fiery death.”
“I'm a good jumper,” he says, scowling.
“Not that good,” Sokka says.
The gap is already ten feet across, Sokka guesses, and getting wider all the time. A huge orange bubble, luminous, pops; it sounds like a dragon snapping at them.
“Okay, so you have a better idea?” Zuko snarls.
“Yeah,” Sokka says, and snatches his arm. “Come on, we're going down.”
“Down ?"
“Big word, I know,” Sokka says. He pulls them down a spiral staircase, cut into the face of the volcano itself.
“So what, we're going into the heart of the volcano?”
“We're going to take the only path that isn't actively falling apart, yeah,” Sokka says.
They stumble down for a while, black foul-smelling smoke beginning to swamp them, filling the corridor the stairwell enters into.
“You're going to kill us,” Zuko says, but his voice sounds weak. When Sokka turns, he can see how white the prince looks, his face and neck shining with sweat. He's biting his lip.
“You would have already killed us,” Sokka says dismissively, but he takes Zuko's hand. No point getting lost in the smoke; no point, either, in not knowing where his enemy is in the dark. “So come on.”
It has to come up again. Sokka's seen the way the temple works, noticed the design as Shyu led them down. Symmetry is important; everything functions in sets of two. If there's a staircase on this end, leading down into the corridor, there must be another at the other end, leading up. The only question is where it goes.
Well, and whether they'll survive to see it.
Zuko tugs at his hand, yanking him down.
“Hey!”
“Listen,” he says hoarsely. “We stay low. You see how this works, with the smoke?”
Sokka does, now that they're on the ground. The air is clearer here.
“And tie your shirt around your head, like this,” Zuko says, demonstrating. “Over your mouth. Protect your breath.”
“You're not as dumb as you look,” Sokka says begrudgingly, shrugging off his shirt.
“I hate you,” Zuko says, with a flash of teeth.
—
He feels, rather than sees, when they hit the second staircase. He fumbles at the step with his hands.
“Cmon,” he wheezes. “Up.”
It's exhausting: the smoke, the suffocating heat. Zuko's face, through the blackness, looks pink, like he's roasting alive. Sokka probably looks just as bad.
Halfway up the stairs, he falters.
Zuko nudges at his leg.
“What happened to up ,” he says.
Sokka just hunches over, choking.
“Don't be stupid,” Zuko snaps. He slings Sokka over his neck and keeps climbing.
“How are you this strong?” Sokka asks, dizzy.
“Nothing else to do,” he rasps. “It's a fucking ship.”
—
The corridor at the top ends in a gleaming red light. For a moment Sokka thinks they're doomed, that the passageway empties into lava. Then he makes out the shape through the haze.
“It's a shrine,” Zuko says, and spits out something black.
“A shrine to what?”
Zuko waves his arms.
“To what else? The volcano.”
“You guys build shrines to fucking volcanoes ?”
“What's your point?” Zuko asks, tense.
“It's a blob of hot rocks that farts,” he says. “That is literally it.”
“It's not a blob of hot rocks,” Zuko snaps. “It's Kojin.”
“That just makes it a blob of hot rocks with a name,” Sokka points out.
“You're infuriating.”
“You're antiscientific!”
“You think you know so much, but all you know is how to be condescending,” Zuko hisses.
“Gee, that doesn't sound familiar.”
There's a moment of silence while Zuko stares at him, eyes gleaming. Then he shoves Sokka hard.
“Just got that one, huh.”
“You know, fuck you,” Zuko says, shoving him again. “I should have left you to die.”
“Honestly?” Sokka says, shoving back. “I'd rather be dead than spend any more time with you.”
You two , a gravelly voice says, are exasperating .
Then the corridor splits with white light, and everything is gone.
—
When Sokka comes to, he's spread out on a patch of gray sand, and everything is too bright. He rolls over and coughs up a wad of ash and salt. His whole throat is bitterness.
When his eyes adjust to the light, he realizes the lump next to him is Zuko, facedown in the sand.
“Fuck,” he says, turning the prince over. He may hate the guy, but being stranded in the middle of nowhere without a ready source of fire isn't too appealing.
Zuko's white as bone, but he's breathing.
“If you’re unconscious,” Sokka warns, “I’m leaving you behind.”
The firebender rolls over, spitting out seawater.
“You look like a drowned koala-rat,” Zuko says faintly, wiping his mouth.
“Yeah, well, you look like a drowned koala-rat with a ponytail.”
Zuko kicks him in the shin, then goes still. He has a funny look on his face.
“Did you feel that?” he asks.
“Yeah, buddy, you kicked my leg,” Sokka says, rubbing it.
“No, I mean…” Zuko trails off, making the funny face again, then shakes his head. “Whatever,” he says, getting to his feet. “We should walk the shore. Figure out whether this is an island or a peninsula.”
“Didn’t know you cared so much about geography,” Sokka says mildly.
“If this is an island,” Zuko says, “we’re going to die.”
Sokka finds a sudden interest in geography.
—
The first time it happens Sokka thinks it's a heart attack.
“We should split up and meet back here,” he says. “Walk ten minutes out, then turn back. We’ll cover more ground that way.”
Zuko nods, his face impassive. Sokka turns on his heels and gets about two paces away before gasping.
It’s a sharp, unpleasant tug in his heart, like someone is yanking on a string. He wheels around with tears in his eyes, only to see Zuko on his knees in the sand, doubled over.
“Fuck,” Sokka whispers. “What was that?”
Zuko is breathing hard. He shakes his head: I don’t know .
Sokka limps towards him—it seems like Zuko needs help more than he does—and the awful sting gets fainter, less like a cardiac emergency and more like an upset stomach. Zuko lowers himself down onto his back, moving gingerly, like an old man.
“Did you eat anything weird?” Sokka asks.
Zuko grimaces.
“What kind of question is that,” he rasps. “I was unconscious. What could I possibly have eaten.”
Sokka muses for a moment.
“Could be dysentery.”
Zuko groans and rolls over, planting his face in the sand.
“Maybe we need fresh water,” Sokka says. “I have a bowl in my pack. If I scoop some from the ocean, can you boil off the salt?”
“Yeah,” he says, muffled. “Knock yourself out.”
Sokka starts trotting toward the shore. Immediately the pain winds him. It’s worse than before. He bends over, clutching his chest. When he turns back around, he can see Zuko twitching in the sand.
“Okay,” Sokka says through his teeth. “Maybe no splitting up today.”
—
It takes a while to figure it out—the shape of the problem, its parameters. It seems like they can only get a few feet apart before the pain hits; Sokka’s not inclined to experiment with what happens after that.
“I think,” Zuko says slowly, “we may have angered the spirits.”
Sokka scoffs.
“Spirits are bullshit,” he says.
“Okay,” Zuko says, “so what do you call this?”
He waves his hand generally at them both, the state of them. Zuko is still on his back, half-incapacitated; Sokka is sitting up, but hardly better off.
“There’s a rational explanation,” Sokka says.
Zuko arches his eyebrow.
“Uh huh,” he says.
“There is,” Sokka insists. “Stop that. Don’t smirk at me.”
“So what is it,” Zuko says, smirking.
Sokka thinks for a moment, wildly.
“Static… electricity,” he says.
Zuko bursts out laughing.
“Okay, okay, I get it,” Sokka says, ears burning. “It’s a working theory.”
“Doesn’t a working theory need to work?” Zuko says, wheezing.
“If you think you’re so smart,” he says, “why did the volcano guy do it?”
“Well,” Zuko says thoughtfully, “I think he hated us.”
Sokka slumps back on his elbows, staring at the sky.
“At least half his judgment's good,” he says.
—
“So,” Sokka says finally. “How fucked do you think we are?”
“Pretty fucked.” Zuko rubs his face, looking very tired. “We should find Uncle,” he says. “He knows all about the spirits.”
Sokka laughs once, darkly.
“Uh huh,” he says. “Sure, lead me straight to the Fire Nation ship, Your Majesty.”
Zuko flares up.
“It's not a trick!” he protests.
“Like I trust you far enough to throw you.”
“You couldn't even throw me if you wanted to,” Zuko points out, gesturing at the foot or so of space between them, the limits of their tether. “Anyway, what's your bright idea? Take me to the Avatar?”
Zuko's smirking pretty contentedly, and Sokka has to admit he has a good point. He can't exactly go back to Aang with an idiot bounty-hunter attached to his hip.
“Say we go to your uncle,” Sokka says slowly. “How do I trust you? Either of you.”
“You can’t,” Zuko says simply.
“Ringing endorsement.”
“I'm just being realistic.”
Zuko is looking down, tracing patterns in the sand. His face looks oddly soft like this, his eyes turned away. For a moment Sokka can believe he's just a kid like them.
“You can't trust me,” Zuko says. “And I can't trust you. So we're fucked and we're going to stay fucked, unless one of us decides to go for it anyway.”
Sokka settles down on his back, against the warm sand, and tries not to doom-spiral.
“Yeah,” he says. “Let me think about it.”