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Sokka never meant to leave Zuko.
They grew up. Zuko spent a lot of time working and learning and being a part of something so much bigger than either of them could really comprehend. Sokka grew to resent that Zuko was growing bigger than himself.
Sokka never meant to leave Zuko, but he did. He has a lot of regrets, and that one is at the top.
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They first met in high school. Zuko was angry back then, with good reason. His whole life had been pulled out from under him, and somehow he had come out the other end alive. Scarred and emotionally repressed, but alive.
Sokka was always good at fixing things and his friend, Aang, was always good at befriending the underdogs. Zuko fit into their ragtag group, like a puzzle sliding perfectly into place.
Sokka didn't fall in love with him until much later… Well that's not quite true. He fell in love with Zuko slowly and he didn't even realize it until one day he looked over at Zuko, humming some overplayed pop song in the passenger seat of his car, and thought, well shit.
Everything after that was surprisingly easy. They had already been accepted to the same college and the scary life decisions that came after that wasn’t scary when he had a whole person by his side always.
He has seen love in all the movies and this was nothing like that. In movies, there would be ups and downs, fights with tears and sex and complications. This was like… his love with Zuko was like always coming home. It didn’t matter how stressed they both were, whatever struggles they were going through could be solved and were solved together.
After he left, we wondered if maybe they should have fought more. Being in love felt like home, until it didn’t, and Sokka didn’t fight to bring that feeling back.
But Zuko didn’t fight either. He wonders if Zuko has his own regrets. He never really thought he would find out, but life always has a way of surprising you.
His mom, and his sister now that she has deemed herself wise beyond her years, used to always talk of fate. They had imagined fate as strings, everyone was connected in some way, shape, and form by winding strings. His mom said that the string connecting her to their dad was a straight shot, right to the heart, but it got a little frayed when Sokka came into their life and frayed once again with Katara. Katara ate up her musings of fate, Sokka always wondered how frayed someone’s heartstrings could get before they break.
In his mind, fate is like a clock. On the outside, a clock is uncomplicated: just three arms and some numbers pointing to what time of the day it is. The inside, though, has complicated mechanisms that keep every arm in place, moving exactly to the second working together to keep everything in motion.
When one thing is off, one joint out of place, the whole clock is out of sync. Every mechanism works together, the people he meets in his life come together to form his own little clock. Ever since he walked out of Zuko’s life, his clock has been out of sync.
Now Zuko stands in front of him, three years older and somehow more mature and comfortable in his own body than Sokka has ever seen him, and Sokka feels the gears inside of him click into place. All the arms facing Zuko like a clock resetting.
“Um, hi?” Zuko looks as confused as Sokka feels. His eyes flit around the lobby of the motel as if looking for hidden cameras about to jump out to announce a reality tv show. Sokka stands there, the only sound in his head being the tick, tick, tick of the second hand of his clock.
Life has a way of surprising him. This is a surprise.
When Sokka had left Zuko, he had moved out of their shared apartment in Canada to a tiny one bedroom apartment in New York. Geographically, not that far really, but Zuko hates the city and doesn’t really understand a lot of American culture and there was no way he would have ever followed him.
Which makes it all the more strange that Zuko is in New York now.
Not the city, clearly. Sokka was going back to canada to visit his family, so he had packed up his Sudan and took two weeks off of work with the promise to check his emails as much as he could. The weather was never on his side though, and a blizzard hit upstate New York and he had no choice but to stop at the rugged looking hotel just an hour outside of Buffalo.
Sokka hesitantly steps through the door of the motel, only forcing his feet through the doors out of sheer need to be inside where it’s warm and his snot isn’t freezing inside of his nostrils. Zuko is standing by the front desk where, notably, there is no attendant.
“Hello?” Sokka realizes it’s been too long since Zuko's own greeting. There is an air of awkwardness and confusion surrounding them.
Neither of them know the right thing to say in this circumstance. So clearly Sokka opens his mouth to say, “hell of a storm, huh?”
Zuko blinks. His eyes flit to the doors where they shutter against the frame, snow billowing outside so that all they see is white. Then he nods.
Sokka scratches the back of his neck. There are a million questions going through his head, the biggest one being why are you in New York? The next one being, why are you here? Followed up by, when did you start growing your hair out?
But by walking out of Zuko's life, he knows that he has very little business asking any of these questions. Any information that Sokka wants to know is Zuko’s to give, not Sokka’s to take.
“Ah, sorry about the wait Mr. Sato. I’m afraid that we are booked for the night, but considering the circumstances I discussed with our supervisor allowing you to stay in one of our staff rooms for the night." The young attendant looks stressed, Sokka wonders how many people were pulled from their travels and forced to stay in this motel, which probably doesn’t see much action otherwise.
Sokka thinks about what she said. His mind focuses on the words ‘we are booked for the night’ and ‘one of our staff rooms.’ He opens his mouth before he can think to stop himself and asks, “what about me?”
The woman looks between the two men, clearly sensing tension, before saying with a grimace, “Ah well, as Mr. Sato was here first; it is only fair that he gets the room. I can call one of our neighboring motels to see if they have any availability…”
She looks exhausted, but tense like she is expecting a fight from Sokka. Sokka feels his heart turn to stone in his chest, the wind outside was blowing so hard outside that the doors banged open and closed again, snow sprinkling inside before the wind sucked the doors back out again. Sokka doesn’t even know if he can walk back out to his car, let alone drive to another motel, even if it was just a couple miles down the road.
He doesn’t get the chance to voice any of his concerns before Zuko places his credit card on the counter and says, “he can stay with me.”
The clock inside of him pauses, before continuing only a second later, like a heart skipping a beat. The woman sets Zuko up with the room, refusing to let him pay for a much less maintained staff room.
It isn’t until Zuko has a room key in his hand and directions to the staff room just off of housekeeping that Sokka finds his words, “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Was I supposed to let you drive in this weather? Let you sleep in your car?” Zuko is tense, but the resignation in his voice tells that Sokka isn’t getting out of this.
“I could have…” Sokka’s options were quite limited. He pauses to think, “I could have asked for some blankets an-“
“What? Slept on the lobby floor?”
Sokka flares his nose, “I'm sure they have a conference room.”
Zuko sighs and uses the key to open the unlabeled door next to the sign that says housekeeping. The woman was right about the room not being well maintained. The room reeked of smoke, not only cigarette but a more earthy smell that makes Sokka wonder what the staff does on their breaks. There is only one bed, a full sized bed laying on a broken bed frame. the sheets, at least, look clean and the bed made.
“I'll sleep on the floor.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Zuko says softly followed by a familiar eye roll. “We can share.”
Sokka feels like he is walking on glass, or maybe an icy pond that is about to shatter beneath his feet and drag him into freezing cold water.
Whatever the analogy, he feels like he has to tiptoe around the situation. Zuko is the first one to slip into the shower, because of course he is prepared with an overnight bag full of bathing products and cosmetics. Whereas Sokka has in his hand an old grocery bag with only a pair of boxers, a toothbrush, and his phone charger.
So on top of everything else, he needs to ask Zuko if he can borrow his toothpaste. This is the nail on his coffin, the rock at the bottom of his icy pond.
“So… are we going to talk about this?” Zuko asks once they are both settled. Zuko slips under the covers, while Sokka stands in the corner still contemplating how dirty the floor is for him to sleep on.
Sokka isn’t stupid enough to dance around the subject, so he slips under the covers himself while saying as casually as possible, “we can if you would like.”
Zuko makes eye contact with Sokka and with just one look the breath is stolen from his lungs. He had been unsteady all night, sliding in broken glass or ice or whatever you want to call it, but just one look from Zuko has steadied him.
Sokka stopped himself from really looking at Zuko all night, but now he can’t help himself but look Zuko over. He had been thinking about Zuko pre- and post- leaving him, but the Zuko in front of him is the same man. He has the same scar on his face, the same gold eyes, the same bedtime outfit choice, the same long nervous fingers.
But post- Zuko has more confidence. Pre- Zuko would never have wanted to talk about anything, Sokka was always the one to initiate hard conversations.
Zuko clears his throat and purses his lips before saying, “you… moved to New York?”
After that it’s like a damn breaks, or maybe it’s like a broken damn is slowly getting fixed piece by piece. Sokka tells Zuko about his life post leaving. Moving to New York, working at an engineering firm, hating being at the bottom but slowly working his way up to having his own team. Hating the city but loving the work. Missing home, missing his sister and his dad and his gran and… Zuko.
Zuko talks too. Sokka thought a lot about Zuko post leaving. Everyone in Zuko's life had somehow left him, but Sokka had always been a constant. Sokka always thought that maybe Zuko got lost after Sokka left, the thought alone had him almost coming right back, but it turns out Zuko is strong, stronger than Sokka even knew, because Zuko was able to bury all of his pain and heartbreak and throw himself into his work, becoming an extremely successful curator that travels from museum to museum to help with temporary exhibits.
Zuko hated cities, but he loved traveling.
Hours later, after they had talked about everything and nothing and all in between, Sokka finds himself laughing quietly.
“What?” Zuko asks, he turns on his side to face Sokka, a small smile of his own on his face. Facing each other in bed, Sokka feels all of the gears in his chest, moving like a well oiled machine, making him feel full and complete in a way he never thought possible.
“I can't believe that this is happening right now,” Sokka says quietly. A smile slipped from his face a little to say, “I should have never left you.”
“I understand why you did.” Zuko says softly, “we were in different places, our lives were taking us in different directions.”
“I should have fought,” Sokka says.
“Me too, i should have fought too.” Zuko brings his finger up to Sokka's cheek, where a wet tear had dripped onto his pillow. “I'm ready to fight now, though.”
Sokka presses his face into Zuko's hand and nods, “Me too. The second I saw you in the lobby I knew that…”
How does he articulate what he knows? How does he tell Zuko about the clock in his chest? He kisses the palm of Zuko's hand. Zuko doesn’t ask him to finish his sentence. Someday, Sokka might find the words and he will tell him about the little gears inside of him, but right now Sokka kisses every knuckle on Zuko’s hand and listens to the tick, tick, tick of his clock shifting, every second, every minute, every hour his clock moves just for Zuko.