Work Text:
Zuko’s startled by someone slamming open the door to his office. He’s been reading and signing documents related to school reforms for hours, so the interruption is very welcome. Especially when the person turns out to be Sokka, instead of someone who’s been sent to kill him. Which happens more often than one would think.
“How did the guards let you in?” Zuko asks, as Sokka approaches his desk. He’d asked not to be disturbed for the night, determined to get the task out of the way as fast as possible. It’s not that he doesn’t want to do it, but turns out changing a system built on propaganda requires a lot of work on top of everything else he has to do. At least it’s better than arguing with different advisors and politicians in various meetings.
“I just told them it was an emergency,” he explains.
Zuko looks alarmed. “There’s an emergency?”
“Yeah, there’s this guy who has been overworking himself to death recently and urgently needs a break. I hear they call him the Firelord.”
Zuko sighs in response and shakes his head. “You know I can’t.”
Sokka pulls up a chair to sit next to Zuko’s desk. He came here with a purpose, and he’s not leaving before Zuko actually takes a break. He looks so deeply tired, and knowing him, he hasn’t gotten up in hours. Or eaten. Or even looked up from the documents before Sokka walked in.
“How long have you been sitting here?” Sokka asks, and gets yet another head shake in response.
“Not sure.”
It’s Sokka’s turn to sigh, and Zuko takes a moment to look at him. He furrows his brows.
“Why are you wearing that?” He nods towards the uncharacteristically red and casual Fire Nation outfit Sokka is wearing. Usually the only times he wears Fire Nation clothes are in formal settings. Where the hell did he even get those clothes? He knows asking was a mistake, when Sokka grins at him.
“You should take a break and I’ll show you.”
Fuck. Logistically, he knows he needs to take a break, but he also needs to get the work done as soon as possible. However, he’s incredibly curious. Saying no to Sokka has also never been one of his strong suits, and the adorably excited look on his face is certainly not helping. Sometimes he thinks he would genuinely be willing to start wars if it meant keeping that smile on Sokka’s face.
So by Agni, he’s taking that break.
Zuko sighs. “Alright, what do you have in mind?”
Sokka quite literally beams at him, which alone makes it all worth it. Sokka reaches to take his hand and pull him out of his seat.
“First, we need to get you a new outfit,” Sokka states, before dragging him out of the room.
After visiting the palace tailors and finding Zuko some clothes that make him look “less like a rich asshole and more like a regular person” (might go without saying that these are Sokka’s words, not his), they’re finally ready to go. Zuko tries not to think about the passing time and how he probably should be spending it by doing his literal job. Sue him for wanting to have fun every once in a while.
“I’m assuming we are going out, and if that’s the case, how are you thinking of getting out of the palace? The guards aren’t exactly big fans of letting me leave without, you know, guards.” Zuko questions as they make their way down the palace hallways. Sokka is still holding his hand and leading him forward.
“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that, I have everything planned out.” He pauses. “Except we might have to do some climbing to actually get out of here.”
Some climbing turns out to mean climbing the outer walls surrounding the palace. Not impossible, but definitely not Zuko’s definition of “some” either. However, his slight annoyance is quickly forgotten, when Sokka gives him a hand to pull him up on the wall, and he sees the entire city spread out in front of him.
It feels like old times again. Except for the part where they aren’t on the run and trying to put an end to a war anymore, but sneaking out like regular teenagers instead. It’s weird. It’s not like he gets to feel like a regular teenager all that often. Or any kind of teenager for that matter. They sit there for a while, and Zuko wonders if Sokka feels like that too.
“I want you to know that my first idea was bribing the guards, but on second thought it seemed like a bad idea and I didn’t want to risk causing international conflict.” Sokka quips before jumping down from the wall into the bushes. Zuko jumps down as well.
“So what you’re saying is that there could’ve been an actual emergency tonight?” Zuko jokes.
“Well yes,” Sokka agrees at first, but suddenly gets more serious. “Also there was an actual emergency. I wasn’t joking when I said you’ve been overworking yourself.”
Zuko dismisses it with a wave of his hand. “Yeah yeah, I know. You don’t need to worry.” Sokka doesn’t seem too happy or convinced, but he drops the topic. For now at least. Zuko’s sure he’s going to hear about this later.
“Now that the hard part’s over, are you ready to have fun?” Sokka asks. Zuko nods. He still has no idea what Sokka has planned, not even a guess, but he’s dying to find out.
It’s a nice warm summer evening, and as they get closer to the center of the city, the sounds of nature start blending into the sounds of people laughing and celebrating. The streets are lined with all kinds of stalls and street vendors, and the crowds gathering around them seem to be in high spirits. Many people are wearing some kind of golden sun mask, which Sokka quickly buys two of from the nearest vendor.
“Now we blend in perfectly.” He says while handing the other one to Zuko.
“Wait, what is this for?”
“It’s the Sun festival for the solstice! Have you not heard of it?” Sokka sounds surprised, but not in a bad way. Just genuinely shocked.
“I know what the solstice is, I just don’t think people celebrated it much during the war, at least I’ve never heard of that...”
“Oh, I guess that makes sense. I mean, if they banned dancing, festivals sound like something they would ban as well.” He goes quiet for a second. “So what do you want to do first? There are some games over there, and we gotta visit the wishing tree, and there were some skewers that I wanted to try and oh! We can’t skip the fireworks…” He trails off. Zuko smiles at his excitement.
“Oh I don’t really have anything specific, but I saw there were some crafts being sold over there that I want to go look at at some point.” The sentence is punctuated by a loud grumble of his stomach. He hadn’t even realized how hungry he was before, but right now it feels like he’s going to die on the spot if he doesn’t get food in the next 10 minutes. Preferably 5.
Sokka chuckles. “So I’m guessing food first.” and Zuko can’t help but nod vigorously.
Armed with komodo chicken skewers and a bag of sizzle crisps, they set out to wander around the festival grounds. Sokka is still holding his hand, and even though thinking about it makes him feel kind of insane, Sokka’s presence also feels grounding in the huge crowd.
The anonymity brought by the mask is also a relief. It’s nice to be ignored and treated like a regular person for once, which is a thought that Zuko from a year ago would have never had. It’s crazy how things change. Zuko from a year ago wouldn’t have imagined he would be holding hands with the cute boy traveling with the Avatar either, but here they are. He could get used to this.
Their first stop is the stage, where different firebending performances are taking place. They finish their snacks there, looking at students and masters and everyone in between take the stage one after another. The fire looks absolutely mesmerizing. The performance that sticks with Zuko the most, is the one that depicts a story of a man and a woman who keep finding each other at different points in their lives and end up falling in love. It’s unlike any of the other performances that focus mostly on the technical skills, and that’s why he likes it.
After the performances they stop at a stall with little wooden trinkets depicting animals from all the nations. Zuko buys small dragon statues for him and Uncle, as a sort of reminder that despite everything going on, there are positive changes happening in the Fire Nation, like the festival. And when Sokka is distracted, Zuko also gets a penguin figure to give to him later, as a thank you for forcing him to take a break. Just getting out of his stuffy office feels like it’s healing him in some way, and seeing the people openly celebrating on the street brings him even more hope for the future.
They move on to the next stall that has different kinds of flowers from around the Fire Nation. Zuko has no intention to buy anything, but they are colorful and nice to look at. They are about to leave, when the old woman behind the counter addresses him.
”Young man! You should get some flowers for your boyfriend, I’ll even give you a discount.” She nods towards towards Sokka.
Zuko panics for a moment before remembering no one knows who he is behind the mask. He can panic about the implications of ”boyfriend” later, and lie his way through the situation now.
”Oh sorry, I’m a student and really don’t have the money right now. Thank you though.” He replies before quickly dragging Sokka away. Zuko hears him laughing behind him.
”I can’t believe she tried giving you a gay discount,” Sokka says through giggles, and Zuko can’t help but join him in laughing about it. He’s glad the mask covers his cheeks, so no one can see how hard he’s blushing right now. The fact that Sokka didn’t deny the boyfriend part is giving him butterflies, and the fact that he didn’t stop holding his hand after the comment is certainly not helping the case.
”At least she wasn’t homophobic, that’s all I can ask for.” Zuko states, trying his best to hide the fact that he’s sort of freaking out on the inside right now. Sokka nods in agreement.
They also drop by the section that includes vendors from the other nations. There’s everything from cabbages to collectable coins and traditional wear on sale, and even an exhibition for headwear from different Earth Kingdom cities and towns has made it’s way to the festival.
Sokka buys some ink from a stall that sells imported goods from the water tribes, and they get sun shaped pastries from a stall that sells combination Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom cuisine. It’s nice that despite the summer solstice only being celebrated in the Fire Nation, the other nations are also participating in the festivities, not even a year after the end of the war. Seeing the results of his work feels good, even if he is avoiding said work at the moment.
After circling the stalls a few times, and avoiding the street of scammers with their different games set up, they make their way to the wishing tree that’s standing tall in the middle of the festival, adorned with a lot of wishes already. There are different tables set up for picking your piece of paper, and writing the wishes around the tree. There’s a constant stream of people moving between the wishes and the tree, but most of the big crowds seem to be near the stalls.
Sokka quickly picks up a blue wish, and moves onto the writing station. Zuko hesitates. Blue, green, red or yellow. Change, stability, love or career. He has no idea what to wish for, or where to even start. There are simply too many things he currently wants to wish for, which Uncle would call improvement. He’s no longer driven by the singular force of finding the Avatar, which Zuko agrees is good, but it’s currently making his life more difficult.
Wishing for something like world peace seems like too big of a wish for one tree to handle, so he goes for a simple green one. Or well, it would be simple if he was anyone else. Regular people get to make wishes about school and crushes and hobbies, Zuko has a duty to his nation and a century of damage to undo. Not exactly a job known for its stability or simplicity.
But tonight, he’s here as a regular person with regular wishes, which is exactly what he ends up hanging on the tree before making his way back to Sokka again.
”What took you so long?” Sokka asks while offering his hand to Zuko again, which he’s instinctively already reaching towards. They both look down at their hands, but neither of them mention it.
”Just thinking about a lot of things.”
”Wanna tell me what you wished for?”
Now that’s a hard question. In a way, yes, yes he does. But then again, it feels very childish. And even though he knows Sokka would never judge him, saying it out loud feels wrong somehow, like this is not a wish for someone like him to have.
”It’s stupid.”
”How so?”
”Because I know it’s never going to happen.” Zuko explains as they walk further away from the festival area. They stop at a spot that overlooks the bay, a prime spot for looking at the fireworks that are going to start any minute now. Sokka takes off the sun mask and Zuko follows suit, grateful for the lack of people after hours of pushing through big crowds.
He continues. ”I would love to just do this, you know? Like move to a tiny village somewhere where nobody knows us and we don’t know anybody, and just live life like regular people. I know it’s unrealistic and I can’t just do that, but.. that’s what I wished for.”
”We?”
Oh. Zuko hadn’t even noticed he said that. It just feels so obvious to him. ”I- Yeah. It wouldn’t be the same without you.”
The first firework goes off.
Sokka turns to look at him, and after that it feels like time is simultaneously frozen and moving faster than Zuko can comprehend.
Suddenly Sokka’s hand is cupping his cheek, and their noses are touching, and then their lips, and the fireworks are still going off in the background like in a cliche romance story. Zuko never wants it to end.
When they separate for air, Sokka taps their foreheads together. They stare at each other for a while, both unable to contain their smiles.
”I would really like that by the way,” Sokka says after a while.
”What?”
”Your wish. I’d love to do that with you. And I know it sucks that it won’t happen tomorrow or next week or even next year, but if I have anything to say about it, I’ll make sure your wish comes true eventually, no matter how long it takes.”
Zuko blushes again, and this time there’s no mask to cover his face. He wants to hide his face in his hands and scream, because who the hell just says things like that, but he goes for a more rational thank you instead.
“Thanks for bringing me here today, I really needed this I think.”
”I’m happy I could share it with you. I think you forget it sometimes, but you deserve nice things too, Zuko.”
For a second Zuko feels like he’s about to cry. The look of genuine care in Sokka’s eyes is so sincere that it almost hurts, and Zuko doesn’t know what to say. The i love you i love you i love you his brain is screaming on repeat feels like too intense of a sentiment after the first kiss, so he opts to pull Sokka in for another kiss instead, hoping to translate all of his feelings into it as the last fireworks of the night go off in the background.