In Which Sokka Is Maybe Bisexual But Definitely a Dumbass

by amidsizedfrog

Summary:

The plan: get Zuko a boyfriend

The execution: poor

The success: none to speak of

 

“Dude, do they even let you be gay and a firelord?” Sokka asked Zuko in a voice that he hoped sounded a lot more casual than he thought it did. Sokka hadn’t even known Zuko was gay until Katara basically took out a PSA about it. Apparently, a lot had changed the in the years since the war had ended. A lot Sokka hadn't known about, or heard about in the South Pole. 

Sokka was in the fire nation now, though. With Zuko. The two were sitting on the tiled sun roof, Sokka’s arms crossed ridiculously behind his head.

If Zuko was surprised by the question he didn’t show it. “They don’t even let me be gay, Sokka,” Zuko responded dryly.

“What?” Sokka asked. He moved his hands from behind his head to sit up.

“It’s illegal in the fire nation,” Zuko responded. “I’ve mentioned it before --”

“What?” Sokka asked again, but louder. He rubbed his unexpectedly sweaty palms on his pants. This wasn’t exactly going to way he thought it would. It was probably because his voice didn’t sound casual enough. Things would have been fine if he voice had been casual enough. Sokka knew he should’ve practiced more.

Zuko winced and moved his arms upward in an aborted gesture to shush Sokka. Oh God, Sokka’s voice definitely one hundred percent hadn't sounded casual enough.

“I mean,” Sokka lowered his voice. “Why don’t you -- change it, or something?”

Zuko looked at him like he was insane. “The Fire Nation just got out of a Hundred Year War -- which we, technically, lost -- and you want me to start passing legislative on people’s -- love lives?” He scoffed.

“But you’re gay and if you’re gay ,don’t you want to be gay and you know, do gay things with all that -- gay -- things,” Sokka was aware he was rambling, thank you very much. The problem was, he couldn’t seem to stop, once he’d started. His palms were really, really, really sweaty which was weird because this didn’t affect him, like at all and anyway even if it did, it was only because Zuko was his friend and he loved him the normal amount. For friends. Not like how he loved Suki who had, you know, breasts! So there! Sokka wasn’t gay! He shouldn’t even care about this! Sokka was just a really, really, really good friend. Who cared. About Zuko. A lot. The normal friend a lot though. Not the gay amount. Because. And Sokka couldn't emphasize this enough. You know. Breasts.

“... so, I guess that’s the reason why.” Sokka came to his senses to find Zuko looking at him expectantly.

“What?” he said, for what had to be the seven million and fifth time. What had Zuko been saying? It sounded like some classic Zuko bullshit evasion. “It sounds like a bunch of bullshit,” Sokka told him, trying to pretend that he had been listening as his vulnerable -- no -- sexy looking -- no -- rugged -- no -- honor bound -- there we go -- companion had been pouring his heart out to him.

To his surprise, instead of blasting his head off with fire, or at the very least giving him the patient pursed lips of disappointment, Zuko actually nodded. “You’re right,” he said, shaking his head wonderingly. “It was all bullshit. Sokka, I swear, sometimes you know me better than I know myself.”

“Yep!” Sokka said. “That’s me! The … intuition guy!”

“I guess the real reason I haven't done anything about the -- well, you know,” Zuko continued, distinctly uncomfortable and fidgeting with his robes, “is that I’m -- worried. How the nation will react. I’m worried my nation will think me weak. And …” he stopped.

“And?” Sokka prompted, eagerly.

Zuko looked down at his hands. “And I’ve no one I -- no reason to break any laws. Also, a heir is required of me, so I might as well --”

“You mean, you don’t like anyone?” Sokka asked, not sure why he felt so disappointed by that.

“I -- do,” Zuko said. “But, um. That is to say,” he fumbled around for words for another few minutes before Sokka took pity on him.

“He doesn’t like you back? Yeah, we’ve all been there. I mean, not me personally. I’ve liked exactly two girls and they’ve both liked me back, which you know, I’m kind of the greatest, so, that makes sense and --”

“Yeah,” Zuko said, a sad twist to his mouth. His eyes were flickering back and forth, across Sokka’s face, as if he was looking for some sort of answer. What kind of answer, Sokka didn’t know. “He, um, doesn’t like me.”

“How do you know? Have you told him how you feel?” Sokka asked. Then he frowned. “Who is it, anyway?”

Zuko shot backwards so quickly he almost fell off his lawn chair. “Who -- what -- no one,” he said firmly. “I’m not telling you because he doesn’t like me so it doesn’t matter.”

“Have you told him? Did he reject you?”

“No, but I --” Zuko risked a peak at Sokka from under his fringe. “I know he doesn’t feel the same. It would be … awkward.”

“Do I know him?” Sokka asked. He leaned forward eagerly. “Please tell me who it is! I promise, you can trust me. I'm a great matchmaker!”

“Sokka!” Zuko protested, leaning so much further back that this time, he really did fall off his lawn chair.

Sokka shot closer, draping his body over Zuko's recently involuntarily vacated lawn chair, head in line with Zuko’s chest. Zuko looked tense, holding himself unnaturally still. “Because if I knew him, I could maybe help set you two up. Get you some action, that sort of thing. Like I was saying before, I’m kind of a stellar matchmaker. A love god, if you will.”

“I -- love -- what?” Zuko asked, dazed, staring up into Sokka’s eyes.  

“Man,” Sokka said, still peering down at Zuko, this time in concern. Was Zuko really having a hard time understanding him? Sokka pulled back suddenly and hopped off the chair, offering Zuko his hand. “You must’ve hit your head when you fell off that chair.”

“... right,” Zuko said, staring at Sokka’s hand, face still red. He grabbed Sokka’s hand. His hand felt weirdly warm in Sokka’s grasp, callused and hard.

“Dude, are you alright?” Sokka leaned in to examine Zuko, not letting go of his hand. “Maybe you should --”

“I’ve got to go!” Zuko blurted out, edging away from Sokka’s grip.

“What?” Sokka asked.

“Yeah, it’s a meeting. That I forgot about. That’s happening now. Important business. Firelord stuff. You get it, I'm sure. We’ll talk later,” Zuko said, darting off. Sokka watched him go. That was weird. Even for Zuko.

Sokka looked down at his now empty hand. It was strange, but Sokka kind of missed Zuko’s warmth. He shivered, even though it was bright and sunny out. Weird, he thought again. That must be a Firebender thing. The warmth. Oddly, though, the idea of finding a different, female firebender to hold hands with filled him with nothing but dread. He shook his head. Katara probably wouldn't know what to do but if he was talking to Katara he wasn't stuck alone with his thoughts so check and mate Mr Brain Head! 

 

 

---

 

 

“Hey! Katara! Kataraaaa! Kat -- fuck!” Sokka slipped on a particularly unexpected piece of ice and fell. He pouted. “You didn’t have to do that,” he pointing out, accusingly.

“You didn’t have to run all the way across Zuko's palace screaming my name,” she pointed out in return, pleasantly. "A palace, I might add, that I am only visiting under duress and because the peace of the nations relies on it."

“Yeah, yeah,” Sokka waved his hand in the air dismissively. “Whatever. I have something important to tell you!”

“What?” Katara asked, interested in spite of herself.

Sokka leaned in, conspiratorially. “Katara,” he said, in a low secretive voice. “Zuko has a crush.”

Katara did not look properly surprised. She didn’t even look mildly shocked. “Oh,” she said, vaguely interested. “You finally figured that out?”

“What do you mean finally?”

“It’s been -- two years, three, almost. Just. You know. Take it easy on him. He’s got low self esteem and everything --”

“What does that even mean?” Sokka asked, bewildered.

“It means don’t be a dick when you --- hang on,” Katara stopped herself, turning around slowly. “Who do you think Zuko has a crush on?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out,” he admitted to Katara.

Katara stared at him. “You mean you don’t know?” she asked incredulous. “You mean it isn’t -- completely obvious?”

“No, I -- wait, do you know who it is?”

Katara gulped. Sokka saw her gulp. She knew! His sister knew who Zuko liked and she was keeping it from him. Sokka was going to get to the bottom of this, no matter what it took.

“Um,” Katara said. “I promised Zuko I wouldn’t tell anyone?”

“This is so unfair,” Sokka complained. “I’m your brother. Whatever happened to Water Tribe solidarity?”

Katara rolled her eyes. “Why do you even care?”

Sokka refused to even think about why he didn’t want to answer that. “Just tell me who he likes, Katara,” he begged, instead.

“No!” Katara insisted. “I’m not going to betray Zuko’s trust like that.”

“Katara,” Sokka explained slowly. “If I don’t know who Zuko likes, I can’t create a elaborate scheme to hook them up.”

Katara took a moment to absorb that, to really take it in. That was okay. Sometimes it took genius a while to be recognized. Sokka could wait. He could -- was his sister giggling? Was she laughing?

“You want --” Katara’s voice was muffled with suppressed laughter. “You want to set Zuko up? With the guy he has a crush on?”

Sokka frowned. He couldn’t believe Katara would betray him like this. “I can’t believe you! This is a serious matter!” He didn’t even know why it was funny. “I don’t even know why it’s funny!”

“It’s not funny,” Katara told him, briefly bringing her laughter under control. “It’s hysterical.”

“Katara!” Sokka whined.

She just shook her head, rocking back and forth, shoulders shaking with quiet laughter.

“Fine! I’ll do it myself!” he told her. “I’m going to be the best wingman that Zuko ever had, okay? I’m not going to rest until I find the man of Zuko’s heart and the two of them fall in love and live happily ever after forever and ever until they both die! Of old age! At the same time! Leaving the Fire Nation in the capable hands of their probably adopted son -- or daughter,” he added hastily, not that Katara was in any sort of shape to be berating him or even forming words.

“You absolute idiot,” was the last thing he heard his sister choke out as he retreated to his room to plan.

 

 

---

 

 

Sokka started by making a list. He was sure that he would make many more, different better list, but for now he started with a list of every man Zuko had ever met. He put Aang on it at first for the sake of thoroughness, then frowned, shook his head and took Aang off of it.

Zuko was actually kind of a hunk, now that Sokka thought about it, scar included, so this whole list thing might not actually be as hard as he originally thought. Not that Sokka noticed how Zuko looked, or how other men looked, because Sokka didn’t. Sokka went at the list for a good thirty minutes, stopped and read it over. There really weren’t many names on it to begin with but when he started crossing people that Zuko had tried to kill in the last few years, he wasn’t left with a single name.

Did Zuko really have no male friends around the same age as him that he hadn’t tried to kill at some point in the two or three years? Not according to this list. Besides Haru, Sokka couldn’t think of a single person outside the Gaang that Zuko had even known a year ago, but if Zuko liked Haru, Sokka would have to re-evaluate his entire opinion of the Fire Lord’s judgement.

Maybe Sokka should be focusing on finding Zuko new men? Yeah, that was a great idea! Zuko did say his current slice of homemade love pie wasn't giving him back any crust after all. Maybe Zuko just needed a new, laid back, funny, inventive, restless kind of guy -- to balance out all that Zuko-ness. Someone fun. Someone -- 

Sokka gobbled up the old list and threw it away. It was time for a new list. A list of ideas. Ideas about how to introduce Zuko to men. New men. Ideas that Sokka wrote down instead of responding to or engaging with his own thoughts. 

This was going to work. He was a genius! 

 

 

---

 

 

Idea #1: hot guards are hot

“Hey!” Sokka greeted Zuko completely normally and non-suspiciously at the breakfast table. “What’s up?”

“Sokka!” In his haste to stand up and great Sokka, Zuko accidentally upended his goblet of juice onto his official black robe. “Fuck,” he said. “Sorry about that.”

The royal chef who brought out his breakfast immediately started to try and clean up Zuko’s robe, but Zuko pushed his hands away.

Sokka gave the servant a crucial look over. She was a woman, which the first strike, and she was also about seventy-two years old which was a second strike. He should probably not add her to the ‘potential Zuko setups’ list. Sokka gave a decisive nod.

“You can go,” he told the royal chef. It wasn’t nearly as effectively as he imagined it would be in his head.

For one, Zuko looked up at him in shock and for two, the royal chef put her hands on her hips and refused to move.

“I mean, if you want to,” Sokka corrected immediately, lifting his hands up in the air.

The royal chef put down her napkin and left slowly, maintaining eye contact with Sokka as she left.

“Great,” Zuko groaned the second she was out of earshot. “Now she hates me. Do you know how long it took for her to stop sneaking extra fire flakes into my desert?”

“Hey now,” Sokka said. “None of that negative talk! Look on the bright side -- at least you’re good at being hated!”

“Sokka,” Zuko said through clenched teeth. “That isn’t actually helpful.”

“No, no, it is,” Sokka insisted. “You have a lot of experience being hated. That’s a good thing.”

“You’re about to get a lot of experience being hated,” Zuko mumbled under his breath.

Sokka wisely chose to ignore this. “Being hated is just what happens when you’re evil. Which is why you should never ever be evil again. It's a good life lesson. You can never learn too many times to not be evil.”

“Thanks, Sokka,” Zuko said. “Where would I be without your invaluable advice?”

Sokka shrugged. “Probably off somewhere being evil and hated,” to which Zuko actually laughed.

Sokka grinned, taking that as encouragement. He threw his arm around Zuko’s broad and apparently very built shoulder and tried to think good thoughts about how amazingly this was going to work.

“Zuko,” Sokka whispered in his ear, “let’s go outside.” Zuko shivered, which Sokka thought was weird. He pulled back. “Do you need a cloak or something? Are you cold?”

“No,” Zuko said shortly, avoiding Sokka’s eyes again. “Let’s just go.”

The two of them left for the palace gardens, Sokka following Zuko. Sure enough, exactly like Sokka had planned and anticipated, Zuko took the two of them to the edge of the turtleduck pond. Sometimes, Sokka wondered if Zuko had ever been to any other part of the garden. Like, had he ever smelled the flowers? Or gone over to the planting beds? Or the trees? Jumped over rocks? Wiggled in the vaguely lagoon shaped algae pits? Or literally anywhere else? Sokka doubted it because, when all was said and done, Zuko was an absolute dumbass.  

Zuko took a seat by the edge of the pond, face twisted up in concentration.

“I have a meeting later,” he told Sokka brusquely. Sokka would've been offended if he didn't know by know that brusque for Zuko was extraordinary hospitality for anyone else. 

“Zuko, relax,” Sokka told him, eyes casting around for the guard shift. They were a little early, but Sokka had faith that his meddling would pull through.

“What are you looking for?” Zuko’s body tensed up. “Is there going to be an attack?”

“Zuko,” Sokka repeated, “Relax. You need to loosen up.” He raked his eyes over Zuko’s frame: formal dress, hair pulled into the traditional top knot. “Here,” he reached for Zuko’s top knot, fingers brushing against Zuko’s smooth, black hair.

Zuko sat perfectly, unflinchingly, shockingly still as Sokka carefully started to pull his headpiece out.

When Sokka finally got the headpiece pinning Zuko’s hair out, his breath caught for a moment. Zuko’s hair was longer than it had been at the Western Air Temple and the cut was much less jagged.

It was so long that it fell down to his chin, completely obscuring the scar on face. It wasn’t right. He didn’t look like Zuko. He was a fragment of Zuko-that-was when Sokka was used to the totality of Zuko-that-is. Sokka’s hands trembled, seemingly with an invisible weight, as he put his thumbs on the bottom of Zuko’s cheeks and brushed his hair behind his ears.

Zuko’s skin burned beneath Sokka’s palms and when Zuko spoke, his voice was dry and cracked and he had to lick his lips. “What -- are you doing?”

“I couldn’t see your scar,” Sokka found himself unable to answer any other way that honestly, fingers still curled around Zuko’s jaw. “It didn’t look like you.”

Zuko looked away, pulling his face out of Sokka’s hands. “You should’ve let it stay hidden,” he told Sokka.

Sokka was shaking his head before Zuko even finished. “No,” he said. He reached out, not sure what he wanted to do or even what he wanted to say, but knowing he needed to say something, to impress on Zuko why he shouldn’t ever be ashamed of his own face.

His gesture fell short. He let his hand fall restless against the grass.

“It’s part of you,” Sokka said. “You shouldn’t ever try to get rid of part of you.” Katara, he knew, could come up with something better, something comforting and nice. Aang probably could too. Sokka felt useless, until he felt Zuko shifting to face him.

This time, Sokka could see the dull red against his pale skin. Zuko’s lips were shadowed at this angle, tilted upward in a small smile. It was Sokka's turn to feel frozen, caught and stripped under Zuko's high beams.

Then Zuko spoke and whatever spell had held him there was broken. “Not even the evil part?” Zuko asked, teasingly.

“Huh?” Sokka said, brain not entirely back on online yet.  

Zuko’s skin darkened slightly. “You should I shouldn’t try to get rid of any part of myself. And I was -- you said -- I was just -- joking,” he finished lamely.

“That’s why you should leave the jokes to me, buddy,” Sokka told him. He went to clap his arm on Zuko’s back, but stopped himself at the last minute. Despite Katara's claims otherwise, Sokka did possess the smallest amount of emotional literacy and was capable of realizing that this was simply not the moment for manly chest slapping. Sokka gave a good manly chest slap though. Zuko was really missing out.

Maybe Sokka should --

“Sokka,” Zuko said, nervously, hands fisting the loose fabric of his formal robes, “I have something to -- I need to tell you.”

Sokka turned to face him, but as he was turning his head he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. “What is it?” He asked, still kind of glancing around.

“I, um, kind of have, um -- that is to say, I like --”

That’s when Sokka’s eyes landed on Jee, the most recent and youngest addition to the Palace Guard. He was right on time. “Jee!” Sokka shouted, interrupting Zuko and waving his hands above his head. Sokka instantly regretted it, mentally slapping himself in the head. Maybe originally, it was supposed to be a set up for Zuko but now Sokka wanted Jee to leave. He wanted it to just be him and Zuko and he wanted to know what Zuko was going to say say, but --

Jee started coming over, because of course Jee was coming over -- because Sokka called Jee over!

Sokka tried to make the universal sign for Stop Right Now, I’m an Idiot but apparently Jee knew that was as Don’t Stop Ever In Fact Speed Up I’m In Danger Because I’m an Idiot because Jee started sprinting over. Sokka sighed. He probably deserved that.  

“Sokka Water Tribe.” Jee bowed low. “Fire Lord Zuko.” He bowed again. Zuko bowed back on instinct, looking mystified and a little disappointed.

“Jee, stop that,” Sokka hissed and Jee straightened up.

“Yes, Sokka Water Tribe.”

“And don’t call me that! We’ve been over this!”

They had. Sokka had met with Jee twenty minutes before creeping down to bother Zuko at breakfast and Sokka had given Jee strict instructions. They had involved not coming over until he got Sokka’s signal, not calling Zuko ‘Fire Lord’ and addressing Sokka as Lord Sokka. So far, none of these rules had been followed.

“Sorry, Sokka W -- Lord Sokka,” Jee corrected.

Sokka nodded once in approval. For one horrible, horrible moment Sokka thought about telling Jee to just leave and insisting that Zuko explain himself. But Sokka had made a plan. He was going to stick to the plan and, eventually, the plan was going to make Zuko very happy. Plans were good. Sokka's plans were good. They were even going to work out, one of these days. Sokka was sure. Who cared if he wanted to stay and talk to Zuko alone - this wasn't about him! This was about Zuko. Who needed to meet men and get over his sad secret crush.

“Zuko,” Sokka said, very reluctantly. “This is Jee. Jee, Zuko.”

“I know,” Zuko told Sokka, in a questioning tone. “I hired him?”

“Yes, Fire Lord Zuko,” Jee affirmed. And then, after a violent pantomime by Sokka, “I mean, Zuko.” Even as he was saying it, though, he was wincing.

Sokka looked between the two of them rapidly. Well, there was no way in hell this wasn’t going to be a complete success. “Oh no,” Sokka lied unconvincingly. “I’ve just remembered that I have to go somewhere else right now leaving you two alone to talk for hours. How horrible!”

“Sokka, don’t you dare leave,” Zuko started.

“What was that?” Sokka said.

“Sokka, come back here. Don’t walk away! Sokka!”

“Sorry, can’t hear you!”

“You asshole!”

“Yeah, I know, I’m amazing! You don't have to say it all the time Zuko, jeez.”

“Fuck you!”

“Yeah, I know, I wish I could stay too!” And then Sokka was completely out of earshot.

Perfect, he thought to himself. He really was an absolute genius. But if he was such a genius, why did his stomach hurt? Sokka shrugged mentally. He was probably just nervous it wasn’t going to work out. Which it was. Which would be a good thing. Yeah. That made sense. It was going to work, he told the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. It was going to work.

 

 

---

 

 

It didn’t work out.

Zuko came up to Sokka maybe ten minutes after Sokka left him and Jee by the pond, ranting and yelling about how this was an abuse of power and how Jee was a guard and that Sokka was never to do anything else like this ever again did he understand?

Sokka tuned Zuko out about a minute and a half into his rant.

For some reason, instead of upsetting him or bothering him, it just buoyed Sokka, his stomach ache completely gone. It just went to show that some people more well adjusted than others, Sokka thought to himself. Some people could take failure to turn it into success. Besides. There were still ideas #2-#17.

---

 

 

idea #2: improving Zuko’s self esteem so he finally can admit his big gay feelings.

Sokka started another list. It was his third list in as many days and no, he didn’t think that was a bad sign, thanks for asking.

He started this third and hopefully final list the best way he knew how: by dividing the page in half vertically. The first half was reasons not to date Zuko. The other half was reasons to date Zuko. This was going to work, Sokka told himself, again. He was just going to read this list out loud to Zuko and then Zuko would go out into the world and make wild, wild love with any and all available men.

When he was done writing his pro and con list for dating Zuko, he showed it to Katara who just rolled her eyes and told him he was perhaps the stupidest boy to ever exist, like for real the actual stupidest, like even Ozai wasn’t as stupid as Sokka and Ozai tried to literally burn the entire world. Personally, Sokka thought was so rude of her to say when Jet like, existed.

But he guessed that the list must have been pretty good because Katara didn’t tell him not to do it.

The next day, Sokka found Zuko in the throne room, pacing the floor, with his hand in the air, reciting something to himself. “The stone that turns itself over is … the new side of the same stone?”

Sokka shook his head. He wasn’t going to ask. Zuko was a weird guy. Sometimes he paced around saying nonsense to himself in an empty throne room in a weird riddles or in a screechy high pitched voice. It was bizarre and frankly a little concerning. But he’d had a rough go of it so Sokka cut him some slack.

“Hey, crazy pants,” Sokka said. Okay, maybe Sokka didn’t cut him that much slack. But it was so much fun to see the war of joy and embarrassment that crossed Zuko’s face whenever Sokka teased him that Sokka didn’t think he’d ever be able to stop.

“Okay, so I’ve been thinking more about your love life problems --”

Zuko moaned. “Please, Sokka --”

“And I’ve made a pro or con list about why this mystery guy that you won’t tell me about for some fake reason should date you.”

“You did -- you made --”

“Yeah,” Sokka nodded sagely. “It’s because you have low self-esteem, which are two words Katara taught me.”

“I’m going to kill Katara,” Zuko said.

“I realized that you haven’t asked out this guy because you’re afraid of rejection. Because of your low self esteem.”

“My life was so much easier when you were all scared of me,” Zuko told him.

“So I made a list,” Sokka ignored him. “Of reasons why any gay man in his right mind might want to date you.”

“That’s not exactly --” Zuko told him in a strangled voice.

“Sit down and shut up,” Sokka told him, pointing at the throne.

Zuko sat down and shut up.

“Number one,” Sokka read loudly. “Your hair is the exact right length. It’s fluffy and silky and you could really have some fun times running your hands through it.” Sokka flushed when he realized what that sounded like. “Not that I want to run my hands through it,” he said. Zuko looked away. “I meant some sort of hypothetical person might, hypothetically want to run their hypothetical hands through it.”

“Sokka, I get it,” Zuko attempted to cut him off but Sokka would not be cut off.

“Because I’m not gay.” Sokka hesitated. Zuko still wouldn’t make eye contact with him. “Not that being gay is a bad thing,” Sokka added hastily. It didn’t seem to help.

“Sokka, -- you don’t have to -- remind me,” Zuko told the floor.

“It’s just that. You know. Boobs,” Sokka explained helpfully. Zuko didn’t reply. Then Sokka tilted his head to the side. “I guess you don’t actually know,” he said.

“Um, no,” Zuko said. “I don’t.”

“They’re nice,” Sokka told him, forgetting all about the list for a minute. “Really nice.”

“I don’t care,” Zuko snapped, in a voice that was cold and angry all of the sudden, which Sokka didn’t get at all! They were having a great and totally non-awkward conversation about one of Sokka’s favorite things: breasts! “Sokka, are you done wasting my time today, or did you have something else to say?”

“Well, yeah,” Sokka said, gesturing at the scroll. “No need to be a sour catsnake. I still have ninety-nine reasons to go.”

Zuko dropped his head into his hands and bit his lip. “Look, I --” he started.

“Reason number two,” Sokka read, determinedly. “Zuko is ripped.”

Zuko closed his eyes. “Please tell me that’s not an actual reason,” he told Sokka.

“Reason number three,” Sokka continued. “He’s the Fire Lord. Which is just like an instant status bump. And, who knows, some people get off on that sort of thing! I mean, sometimes Suki would --”

“Enough!” Zuko yelled. “Sokka, I don’t want to hear this!”

Okay, Zuko was bring out his Mr Angry voice, which meant that if Sokka preferred his eyebrows to remain unsigned, he should shut up now. Unfortunately, Sokka’s brain often worked faster than his mouth which meant -- “I’m just saying, the Fire Lord thing can be kind of a turn on for some people!”

Instead of shooting a fireball at Sokka’s head like Sokka expected, the ends of Zuko’s mouth just turned down in a sad little frown that just a little bit sadder and more frown-y than his typical sad and frown-y Zuko expression. “Yeah, some people. Not everyone.”

Sokka didn’t really know what to make of that. “Zuko, bud, this is exactly what I’m talking about. You gotta get that self esteem up. I’m sure your mysterious man --”

“I don’t have a mysterious man!” Zuko growled. “And if I did, you could probably go so far as to say that I’ve recently become one hundred percent aware that he isn’t into that,” Zuko did something with his hands that was clearly supposed to imply some sort of sexual act, though Sokka didn't think that gay sex normally had to be that aggressively chaotic or seemingly anatomically impossible, “sort of thing.” He finished with the sort of gesture Sokka didn't think he'd ever be able to unsee.

“Okay, fine, you don’t have a mysterious man slash we're dropping the mysterious man. See, this is me. Dropping it. You don't have a mysterious man.” Sokka conceded this point, temporarily, but rallied quickly. “Yet! Because you haven't had me on the case!”

“Sokka! I -- don’t -- I won’t --” Zuko spluttered.

“And I swear right here that I will find a way to get you together with someone, preferably this future mysterious man, okay, or I’ll die trying.”

“You’re going to die, then,” Zuko told him.

“No, no,” Sokka said. “None of that! We are embracing optimism! We are embracing the optimistic spirit! Just like I did in ... Ba … Sing Se --”

“And how did that turn out?” Zuko snorted.

“Well! At first it turned out well!” Sokka protested, arms flailing around. “We didn’t expect your sister to, you know, show up and invade the whole entire place --”

“So you call the fall of the greatest Earth Kingdom stronghold something that went well?” Zuko asked sarcastically.

“Sort of?” Sokka replied, refusing to back down.

“Sort of! Sokka, your level of -- delusion about your “success” in the Earth Kingdom --”

Sokka didn’t let him finish. “We got Appa back!”

“I got you Appa back, you mean?”

“Yeah, like I said, we got Appa back.”

“No,” Zuko replied. “I’m pretty sure I was the one who did that because, you know, I was there and I remember doing it. And considering I fell ill and almost died directly as a result of that rescue, I’m damned well not going to let you get away with taking credit for it!”

“Zuko,” Sokka said, patiently waiting for Zuko to tire himself out. “You’re part of Team Avatar.”

“I --” this froze Zuko in his tracks. “I wasn’t then,” he finished.

“Yeah,” Sokka reflected. “But you did set Appa free then, didn’t you? And that was kind of good?”

Zuko’s mouth made a little noise, but Sokka could tell that Zuko wasn’t going to be able to answer him tonight. Zuko looked down. “I have sparring with Jee soon,” he said, in lieu of responding.

Sokka almost choked on the air. “Jee?” he hacked out.

Zuko raised his only eyebrow. “Yes?”

“But,” Sokka said, waving his arms around like a crazy person, “What about all that dumb Zuko stuff about honor and positions of power or whatever you were saying before I tuned you out completely?”

“We’re just sparring, Sokka,” Zuko told him, flatly.

“You say that now,” Sokka told him. “But before you know it he’s going to be -- engaging you in sexual congress!”

Zuko stared at him. “Sokka,” he asked, pained, “why do you insist on saying these things?”

“I’m just looking out for you!”

“Okay,” Zuko allowed, “but could you look out for me in a way that doesn’t involve the words sexual congress?”

“No,” Sokka told him immediately and Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose.

He peered at Sokka through one eye. “What are you even trying to argue? Isn’t,” Zuko tried to pretend like he wasn’t blushing, “'sexual congress' kind of what you want?”

Sokka opened his mouth to protest but -- he closed it again. Zuko was right. “You’re right,” he said.

Zuko was flabbergasted. “No -- I -- what -- I’m right?”

Sokka snorted. “You know you’re allowed to be happy, right?” Sokka told him, half kidding, half serious.

“Ha ha,” Zuko dead panned. “You’re very funny.”

“You even deserve a hot man. A sexy, sexy Fire Nation man. Even if it’s Jee! Someone to keep you warm on the -- well, not at all ever even slightly cold nights but still --”

“Sokka,” Zuko groaned, covering his face with his hands.

“Alright, alright,” Sokka held his hands up in surrender. “I’ll leave you alone to brood. Or spar. Or ‘spar’.”

“Stop that,” Zuko told him. “We’re just sparing. That’s it. And,” he added, a little petulantly, “I don’t brood.”  

“You brood,” Sokka said.

“Don’t,” Zuko protested, but more weakly this time.

“Zuko,” Sokka asked, very seriously. “Approximately how many times a day do I find you sitting in a darkened corner by yourself and looking mournfully out at the window?”

Zuko was suspiciously silent. “You’re starting to sound like my Uncle,” he told Sokka. “He was always saying a lot of nonsense too.” But the obviously affection in his voice took out any sting the his words might have had.

Sokka put his hand on his chest. “Thanks,” he said. “I have it on good authority that your Uncle is a very wise man. Namely, yours. You say that your uncle is a very wise man on a daily basis.”

Zuko snorted. “He’d like to believe that.”

“So by extension,” Sokka continued over Zuko, “I am a very wise man.”

“No,” Zuko said, smiling. “By extension you’re both idiots.”

Sokka laughed.

It wasn’t until he got back to his room, several hours later, that Sokka realized how effectively Zuko had distracted him from his list. He'd only got two reasons down! It'd taken him almost as a minute to come up with the whole list! 

Well. Sokka thought. That was okay. That just meant war.  

---

 

 

Idea #3: setting the goddamn fool up on a goddamn date

Sokka was going to set Zuko up on another surprise date. It was going to go better than the introduction with Jee, though. (Sokka shoved down the little voice inside him that seemed to be saying things were going okay with Jee after all).  The date would be with a noble this time. The the duck pond set up -- if it could even be called that -- with had failed so miserably, Sokk was wary of attempting the same thing again. But then, his plan for getting Zuko to make a move had backfired so spectacularly that other nobles and surprise setups were all he had left.

Besides, he vetted this guy.

Well. Sort of. He'd had other things to do. The Fire Nation guards were making the travel balloons wrong.  Technically they were the same design that yes, Sokka himself had come up with, but that was then-Sokka and this was now-Sokka and now-Sokka could see that they were clearly wrong and could be better, only it took the better part of the afternoon to convince the guards of that and by the time he was done he'd forgotten about the vetting until he was in the middle of dinner -- with Zuko. 

At which point Sokka resigned himself to just not sleeping. Proper vetting or sneaky-nighttime vetting in between fixing the new travel balloons because he'd come up with an even better idea, this had to go perfectly for Zuko. 

Sokka had very high hopes for this date. The kid was cool, for a Fire Nation brat, and Sokka had been prepping Zuko by dropping little compliments about his clothing ever breakfast for the last week. He'd never seen a grown man choke as much, but Zuko swore it was just because the head chef had started putting fire flakes in his breakfast again, thanks-a-bunch-Sokka and Sokka dropped it after that. So Zuko was ready to be romanced, and he had a man ready to romance him -- the date was going to go great. 

 

 

---

 

 

The date did not go well. It started terribly and then somehow only went downhill from there. 

The date started with Zuko showing up to what Zuko thought would be a private picnic with Sokka and ended with an angry seventeen year old son of a rich and important family throwing a soggy towel in Sokka’s face and yelling that if the Fire Lord really wanted to fuck the Fire Nation that badly he could go ahead and do it!

It took Sokka one horrified moment to realize the towel only had wine on it and not anything else, and another minute to find Zuko sitting alone, wine dripping down his face and hair.

“He dumped on wine glass! On my head!” Zuko yelled, when Sokka showed up.

“To be fair, apparently you tried to fuck the Fire Nation?”

“No,” Zuko replied, still yelling, “I just said I’d never love him more than the Fire Nation and if he’s expected to be involved with me, he should just get used to that!”

Sokka snorted. “Tui and La, tell me you didn’t actually say that.”

Zuko looked much more ashamed now. “I did.” He looked up at Sokka. “And then he threw the wine glass at me.”

“Where’d the towel come from?” Sokka asked.

“He threw that at me when I told him Azula had better aim when was nine.” Then, petulantly, arms crossed over his chest, he added: "Well, it's true."

“Ah,” Sokka said. “Still probably better if you don't say that next time. But why was the towel wet?”

“He dumped the other bottle of wine on me.”

“Again?”

“One before the towel, one after,” Zuko confirmed.

“What’d you say that time?” Sokka asked.

“That was when I told him I’d rather fuck the Fire Nation than ever even touch him,” Zuko said.

“I gotta say,” Sokka admitted, “I’m feeling more and more sorry for this guy.”

Zuko glared at him.

“Sorry, your Lord Fireness, but I really think his action were warranted. Those are just not very flattering things, dude.”

“Don’t call me dude,” Zuko sighed. “And. I guess you’re right, but. It is true, what I said at first. There are -- few, very few people -- I would put before the Fire Nation.”

Sokka nodded understandingly. “Like your mom,” he said.

“No,” Zuko replied, gaze level and piercing. “Like you. Your sister. Your family. Aang. Toph. You know. You guys.”

“You’d put us before the Fire Nation?” Sokka asked, completely taken aback.

“Without you,” Zuko said, “there would be no Fire Nation.”

“Really?” Sokka asked.

“It wouldn’t even be a question,” Zuko told him.

Sokka didn’t usually find himself at a loss for words. “I -- thank you,” he said, which seemed deeply inappropriate and indeed, made the ends of Zuko’s lips twitch.

“You’re welcome,” he said. “Now, will you please stop setting me up on terrible dates with terrible noble men?”

“Never,” Sokka told him cheerfully. “By the way --”

“Yes,” Zuko rolled his eyes. “The meat is still in the picnic basket. Uneaten.”

“Hell yeah it is!” Sokka jumped up and down. Zuko just shook his head fondly.

“Come on, asshole,” he told Sokka, fondly leading him back to the abandoned picnic. “We’ve got a picnic to finish.”

“You know,” Sokka said when they got there, “this is a really beautiful view. I picked out a great spot. I’m kind of brilliant.” He took a massive bite of baturky leg. “Mghsk kfjghskg slkagj,” he said.

“What?” Zuko asked.

Sokka swallowed. “I said, this is really romantic.”

“I guess,” Zuko told him, fiddling with the edge of his robes.

“I mean, look at the view,” Sokka pointed out to his friend, enthused.

“It’s good,” Zuko told him.

Sokka rolled his eyes. “It’s much better than good, you idiot. It’s a beautiful, majestic -- feast.”

“Of course you’d compare it to food,” Zuko said.

“To a lot of food,” Sokka corrected.

Zuko smiled, and nudged Sokka with his shoulder. It sent a wave of warmth curling down Sokka’s arms and settling into his stomach. He leaned back against Zuko and relaxed. It really was beautiful up here, he thought, turning to look at Zuko, with the sun setting behind them.

He sat there, chin resting of Zuko’s shoulder, and watching the the sky change from yellow and red to blues and purples, feeling Zuko’s breaths deep within his bones. The air around them was still, and warm. It lulled Sokka into a soft, sleeping sense of calm. He timed his breaths with Zuko's and was, momentarily, still.

It should’ve been uncomfortable, leaning on Zuko like this, but Sokka didn’t notice anything past the moment, anything outside the bubble they seemed to be inhabiting.

Too soon, the sky fell completely dark, and the two of them wordlessly packed up the picnic together and returned to the Palace.

---

 

 

Sokka kept with the set up idea for a while. A really, really long while. Probably too long a while, if he was being entirely honest with himself.

He abandoned Zuko at a cafe with a Earth Kingdom friend of Haru’s. “Too angry,” Zuko said, which Sokka didn’t even want to touch with a ten foot long pole.

He convinced Zuko to go swimming with a Fire Nation family. “Too stiff,” was Zuko’s complaint for these guys.

He set Zuko up with another guard. Sokka thought he might’ve changed his mind about that every since he started sparing with Jee. Still: “My literal employee, Sokka, we’ve been over this!”

He invited the gay son of a Water Tribe National. “He likes polardogs,” was Zuko’s protest. Sokka could barely resist pointing out that Zuko liked polardogs. He would've, too, but something deep inside him didn’t want Zuko to like Natuck.  

He took Zuko to the market and physically shoved him into every man he saw. That was probably Zuko’s least favorite of these attempts because by the third trip to the market, his shoulder was starting to get bruised and also bodily slamming into someone and knocking them to the ground was turning out to not be the most effective way of connecting with someone romantically.

After several weeks of this, Zuko starting taking to ducking into whatever room was nearest whenever Sokka approached. Katara took to rolling her eyes whenever she saw him.

Aang occasionally gave Sokka bad suggestions for men Sokka could set Zuko up with.

Toph came with them sometimes and laughed whenever her feet felt Zuko looking embarrassed. "How --" Sokka had started but Toph had just cackled and said, "believe me, even without my feet, it would be obvious."

Once, memorably, Sokka forced Zuko to go outside for a walk with him and tried to introduce him to every single man along the way.

He was just introducing Zuko to a man named “Chan” from a “Very important Fire Nation family” which was apparently Fire Nation speak for having legs like a tree trunk, god damn, and okay, so Sokka was a little occupied scoping this new man out -- for Zuko, obviously -- that he didn’t notice the three year old child falling off the back of a cabbage cart.

Zuko, however, did see the baby and like many a gazelle-giraffe before him, leapt through the air into a death defying feat of child catching.

The driver of the cabbage cart was a very tall young man with short cropped hair and when he got out to thank Zuko, Zuko blushed and stuttered his way through a nearly incoherent response.

This wouldn't do, Sokka thought in dismay, watching Zuko and the man talk. Zuko was blushing and seemed nervous and the man seemed nice and explained that he was just watching after the cart for his grandfather.

And then Sokka saw Zuko touch his cheek, which definitely meant Zuko was interested, and that was the final straw.

Sokka stepped aggressively into the vendor’s space and grabbed Zuko’s hand. “Sorry, we’ve got to go.”

Zuko just sort of grinned at Sokka, letting himself be pulled away. “Sorry,” he called back guilelessly at the young man, waving. The young man waved back. Sokka purposefully didn’t question why Zuko was coming with him so easily. He also didn’t think about why he was pulling Zuko away.

“Fuck you,” Sokka told Zuko for almost no other reason than he wanted to.

“Why are we leaving?” Zuko asked curiously. “He was -- nice. And. You know.”

“Ha!” Sokka yelled in an entirely too forced voice. “It’s cute you think you like him, but Zuko, you don’t know that man at all! He could’ve been a murderer. He could’ve been a spy. He probably wanted to -- take advantage of your nubile young body!”

“My nubile -- my body is not nubile!”

“Yes, it is,” Sokka argued.

“No, it’s -- I’m not getting into an argument about this,” Zuko insisted. “And anyway, Isn’t the point of this to introduce me to strange, um, men?”

“Yes,” Sokka said in exaggerated voice. “But men who have been chosen and vetted by me .”

“I’m sure he was fine,” Zuko protested. “I mean, he had that kid --”

“Exactly!” Sokka interrupted triumphantly. “Are you ready to be a father, Zuko?”

Zuko couldn’t hold back his laughter anymore.

“Zuko are you -- this isn’t a joke, Zuko! Teenage pregnancy is a serious problem!” Somehow that only made Zuko laugh harder. “It is serious! Do you want a kid right now? Do you seriously think you’re ready for that responsibility? What kind of life do you think they could have?”

Sokka was so caught up in making his point, he didn’t even notice when Zuko’s laughter trailed off into something more awkward.

“I know I wouldn’t -- I know I can’t have kids, Sokka,” Zuko told him and Sokka felt a swooping sensation in his stomach. “It’s just nice. To think about.”

Wow. Sokka was really the worst person in the world. Just awful.

“It’s just,” Zuko’s voice sounded like he was -- crying? God, Sokka should just amputate his mouth. “Knowing that my own friend has so little faith in me --” Zuko broke off. Apparently he couldn’t even continue.

Sokka deserved to be punched in the face. Zuko’s shoulders shaking so hard he must be really -- hang on -- “Fuck you!” Sokka said, punching the the lying bastard in the arm. “You asshole! You lying bastard! I thought you were actually upset!”

Zuko just kept snickering.

Sokka shook his head. “Not that you deserve it now,” he said, once Zuko’s laughter had subsided, “but I was going to say I think you’d make a great father.”

Zuko took a second to answer. “Thanks, Sokka,” he told him quietly, with a small private smile.

Sokka beamed at Zuko in return.

When they got back, Zuko left Sokka to go practice firebending with Jee. Like he'd been doing for the last two or three weeks. It was fine. It didn’t bother Sokka. Sokka was used to being left out of that magic stuff anyway. Sokka didn’t care. Really!

That’s why he spent the entire time Zuko was firebending with Jee pacing up and down in his room. Because he didn’t care and it didn’t bother him. Obviously.

 

 

---

 

 

“Why are you hanging around Jee so much?” Sokka asked Zuko immediately after his firebending practice.

“No reason,” Zuko answered too quickly. Defensively, Sokka thought to himself. Ah-ha! He was right to be suspicious! That funny feeling inside was just his gut and it was right! 

Sokka tried not to respond, but he couldn’t help himself. “I thought you weren’t doing the thing with the guards anymore. You know, because of power dynamics and stuff.”

“I’m not doing the thing with the -- I’m not!” Zuko snapped back and woah, okay, maybe he was getting a little upset here. Sokka should calm this down.

“Good!” Sokka snarled, doing exactly the opposite of calming down. Why was he mad? Why did he care?

“Why are do you even care?” Zuko asked.

“What do you mean?” Sokka furiously snapped back, because he couldn’t exactly say, ‘because the thought of you and Jee on a date makes me want to claw my chest out and I have no idea why’. He didn’t even know why he was having this arguing with Zuko. It felt like some other Sokka had hijacked his brain and taken the reigns.

“I don’t get you!” burst out of Zuko’s mouth. “First, you want me to date Jee. You basically shove me at him. But now that I’m actually getting along with him, you don’t even want us to be friends?”

Yes, exactly, was Sokka’s immediate thought, but even his mouth recognized that was insane.

Unfortunately, Zuko wasn’t done ranting. “God, it’s like you’re jealous or something, which I know you aren’t because,” but Sokka didn’t hear anymore of the words coming out of Zuko’s mouth.

Jealous. Oh my God, was Sokka jealous?

He couldn’t be. He couldn’t be because he didn’t like Zuko. He liked girls. He thought of Suki and -- you know, breasts -- and yep, definitely still attracted to her. Women were still amazing.

But then he thought of Zuko, and for some strange reason the day in garden when he was taking out Zuko’s hair piece popped into Sokka’s mind and he wanted to grab Zuko and run his hands through his hair over and over again. Sokka felt sick and weird and like he didn’t understand what was happening at all. His throat started to close reflexively in on itself.

“I’ve got to go,” he told Zuko shakily, as quickly as he could.

“Wait!” Zuko called, but Sokka didn’t look back. If he had looked back, he would’ve seen Zuko staring despondently after him, face twisted and guilty.

But Sokka didn’t look.

 

 

---

 

 

Sokka kept walking until he found Katara, which meant that he found Aang, because God forbid these two spend a minute outside of each other's immediate sight line.

“Hey Sokka!” Aang chirped.

“Katara,” he said, “I need to talk to you. Alone. Right now.”

Katara narrowed her eyes. “Why can’t Aang come?”

"Because!" 

"I think that Aang shouldn't be excluded just because you --"

“Um, actually that’s fine,” Aang said nervously. “I don’t want to go.”

Katara sent Aang a betrayed glare. Aang smiled nervously back and put both hands behind his back. “Fine,” Katara agreed, and let Sokka drag her away to his room. She crossed her arms over her shoulders. “What is this about? And why couldn’t Aang be here? He gives great advice, you know.”

“Okay, that’s debatable but --”

“Actually it isn’t --”

“But,” Sokka said loudly, cutting Katara off and refocusing the conversation. “I have an important question. For. You. About things. And also about stuff. It’s definitely about both things and stuff.”

Katara, impressively, raised only one eyebrow. Zuko was the only other person Sokka knew who could raise only one eyebrow, and that was probably just because Zuko only had one eyebrow.

“Right,” Sokka said, defeated. “Can you like, could I like, you know,” Sokka said. “Is it possible that in a completely hypothetical scenario that I -- with um, breasts, which I definitely enjoy, could, like, opposite like them?”

“Sokka,” Katara said, not very patiently, “what the hell are you talking about?”

“I --” he took a steadying breath. “I like Suki,” he said.

“That’s … good?” Katara said.

“Yes,” Sokka said, and then got a bit sidetracked. “I mean, we aren’t really in love or even really together anymore, but she’s amazing and I do still love her and --”

“Sokka, I know,” Katara reminded him.

“Right,” Sokka said, and determinedly looked his sister in the eye. “I like Suki,” he said. “But what if I also liked someone else?”

Katara soften a bit at that. “That’s good,” she told him. “I’ve been worried about you. I’m glad you’re moving on.”

“You’ve been -- worried?” Sokka asked.

Katara reached out to put her hand on her brother’s arm. “You don’t seem happy, when I visit.”

“But I am,” Sokka protested weakly. “I’m living with dad in the South Pole. I’m happy.”

Katara let the subject drop. “I’m glad you told me,” she said. “About Suki.”

“Well,” Sokka said, drawing out the ‘l’, “that’s not exactly … everything?”

Katara narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?” She asked. “Do you have a new girlfriend? Already? Are there even any girls in marrying range in the Southern Water Tribe?”

Sokka rubbed the back of his head. “It’s -- no,” he said. “I don’t have a new girlfriend.”

“Then what’s the news?” Katara asked.

Sokka wanted to tell her. He wanted to open his mouth and tell Katara everything because he knew that she would hug him and that she wouldn’t care, but he stood there in front of her and he couldn’t do it.

The words were stuck in his throat, lodged somewhere in between his throatal flap and his chest. Sokka had always been the plan guy, the logic guy. Sokka didn’t have magic water powers, so he used his brain. And when you thought about things, when you rigorously applied scientific thinking on life, you could always make sense of it. Always.

But Sokka couldn’t make sense of this. He didn’t understand how he was feeling -- or why. And he couldn’t tell Katara that. He couldn’t admit that he failed.

“Sokka?” Katara asked, more gently this time. “You can tell me.”

And Sokka did want to tell her. But he opened his mouth and said instead, “Why won’t you tell me who Zuko likes?”

He didn’t know who the question surprised more, him or Katara, but once he said it, it was like a dam burst open in Sokka’s mind.

“What?” Katara asked, blindsided. “Why would you ask me that?” she added, desperately trying to keep her voice level. But a hint of panic colored her voice nonetheless.  

“Does,” Sokka started, then stopped. The water held, a massive wave, taunt, above Sokka’s head. Waiting to crash down on him.

“I only didn’t tell you because I wouldn’t want to break Zuko’s trust,” Katara told him, hopelessly. “I -- there’s nothing else to it.”

“Does,” Sokka started again. But he started this. He had to finish it. “Does Zuko like me?” Sokka asked. And the wave crashed down around him because it was true and because he knew it and because he -- he felt -- no.

“Oh my God,” Sokka said, when Katara didn’t answer, “Zuko likes me.”

“No,” Katara swore, finally finding her voice.

Sokka snorted. The noise felt unfamiliar and strange. He was surprised to find it came from him. “What, really? You’re going to lie to me now?”

“I --” then Katara hung her head. “Please don’t tell him you know.”

Sokka sucked in a breath. He’d said -- he’d thought -- but somehow it still surprised him. He couldn’t believe it.

“I think,” Sokka said. “I need to go. I think I need a minute. I should,” Sokka said, swallowing dryly. “Talk to Suki. I think.”

“Probably,” Katara agreed, miserably, her sad eyes following all the way the hall. "I'm sorry, Sokka. I didn't --" but she didn't finish or Sokka couldn't hear because that was all he could remember later, walking down the halls of the Palace to Suki's room. 

 

 

---

 

 

Sokka knew the way to Suki’s room by heart, which was good, because if he had to think about it at all, he’s sure he would’ve gotten lost.  

If he had held any hopes that the walk to her room might’ve cleared his mind or made him feel better, they were dashed when he arrived, just as confused as when he left Zuko. He walked past her room, at first, and had to turn around and walk back.  

Him and Suki weren’t together. Not really. He’d, you know, spent a few nights with her in the Palace, and he’d spent every night with her on the trip to the Fire Nation but. They had different lives now.

They lived different lives back then, too. When the war ended, she had gone home to Kyoshi and he had gone home to the Southern Water Tribe. Their last goodbye had been just that -- a goodbye. It had also been bittersweet and pained; it had been the start of the end for any sort of romantic relationship they might have had.

She would always be one of the great loves of his life and he thought that once they stopped hooking up semi regularly, she would be his best friend.

He really needed his best friend right now.

He took a breath. He hoped Suki was alone tonight. He knew that she kind of had an on and off thing with one of the guards.

Sokka didn’t mind. Sokka had actually had a brief flirtation with one of the nonbending women from a neighboring tribe, but that had fizzled out almost immediately. It had been surprisingly lonely in the Southern Water Tribe. He had been with his dad a lot, but his dad had also been busy rebuilding the tribe. Sokka tried to help, but there wasn’t always anything he could do.  

His dad was a good leader. He had things under control. And even then, he still let Sokka come along to every meeting, he still asked Sokka for his opinions and thoughts every day. He still included Sokka in every single step of the process. It was everything Sokka thought he wanted after the war -- but he wasn’t like he thought it would be. He hadn’t imagined it would be this lonely.  

He was the only teenager in the Southern Water Tribe and with Katara and Aang busy going off on adventures with Appa, Sokka felt the loss keenly. Sokka had missed them everyday they were gone.

Sokka knocked on the door.

Suki answered immediately. She took one look at his face, opened her door and let him in. They sat near her bed, on a rug which was soft and nice.

Her hair was messy and her clothes were loosely tied around her. She wasn’t wearing any make up. It made Sokka’s heart clenched tightly to see her this way, made the blood hum in his veins.

“What’s wrong?” She asked.

“It’s this thing with Zuko,” he told her, slumped.

“That thing you’re doing with the setting him up and the dating?”

“Yeah,” he told her miserably.

"What happened?" Suki asked him.

"I don't know where to start," he told her, a little helplessly.

"Start with the worst part of today, and we'll work our way backwards from that," Suki advised him.

Sokka thought for a moment, about the worst part of the day. It was easy. It had been when Zuko yelled at him early. “He yelled at me today. For -- I keep trying to set him up,” Sokka told Suki, “and make him happy and I just keep making things worse! He’ll get mad -- or I’ll get mad and I -- don’t know. I don’t know what’s going wrong.”

“Maybe you should stop?” Suki suggested gently, hand hesitating over his knee.

“I can’t,” Sokka told her.

“Why not? Why do you care so much about this?” Suki’s voice wasn’t judgmental or accusing. It was just curious.

“I don’t know,” Sokka repeated, then took a breath. “It’s just, I’ve been really lonely at the Southern Water Tribe. Even though I have my dad, and Katara and Aang come by sometimes, it’s still really lonely. And then I came here, and I kind of realized that Zuko’s … all alone? Only without even a father or friends. It’s a bit more complicated. Now. But. I don’t know. I don’t want him to be lonely.”

“You were working through your own sense of loneliness viscerally through Zuko,” Suki summarized.

Sokka blinked. “Yeah, that,” he said. “Why do you always make so much sense all the time?”

“It’s because I’m very smart,” Suki told him. “You should listen to me all the time.”

“Yeah,” Sokka agreed happily. “I should. Um, there’s something else,” he said, nervous this time. “Katara said -- I think -- Zuko --” Sokka closed his mouth, twisting it sideways. No. He didn’t think he could talk about this with Suki yet.

“What does Katara think?” Suki asked. Sokka tried to remember what he had said.

“Oh, nothing,” Sokka said. “Just that he’s upset by the fuss.”

Suki bit her lip. “I think you’re doing a good thing,” she told Sokka honestly. “Maybe you could ask Zuko why he’s so upset?”

“Yeah,” Sokka said, with obvious reluctance, as the rock kind of dropped. He thought he had a pretty good idea why Zuko was frustrated with him.  “I just -- don’t want to give up now. It sucks being lonely in your own home. But now -- I don’t know if there’s a solution anymore.”

Suki nodded. “I think you should talk to him about this,” she said and Sokka took that as his cue to stand up.

“Thanks, Suki,” he said, hugging her. “I should go.” It felt wrong to stay the night with her. It felt wrong that he hadn’t told her about Zuko liking him. But it felt more wrong to tell her, somehow. 

He didn’t know if he expected Suki to argue, but she just lead him to the door, and Sokka stepped outside.

“Sokka,” Suki said abruptly, when Sokka was about half way out the door, “do you even want to go back to the Southern Water Tribe?”

Sokka turned to look at her, affronted. “What do you mean?” he scoffed. “Of course I do. It’s my home.”

“But that doesn’t mean you have to go back.”

“My dad’s finally come home. To me. And he respects me. As a man of the tribe. It’s what I’ve always wanted,” Sokka said. He hung his head. “I missed him so much.”

Suki softened. “I know you did,” she said.

“I have everything I want. How could I not return home now?” He spoke quickly, desperately, words shoving over each other, trying to make her understand.

“I’m sorry for pushing, Sokka.” She put her arm around him, rubbing his shoulder lightly. “I know that Katara doesn’t spend much time down there.”

“She stops by occasionally,” Sokka said.

Suki stopped rubbed Sokka’s shoulder. When she spoke, her voice was so soft Sokka could barely hear it.

“You could stay with me,” Suki said. “Kyoshi Island isn’t very far.”

Sokka swallowed. The silence felt thick and heavy around them and Sokka wondered if this was the real reason he came to talk to Suki. He wondered if this is what the night had been building to the whole entire time.

“I --” he said. Suki looked at him steadily. She was so beautiful in front of him, so brave. “I couldn’t,” he told her and he was ashamed.

“It’s okay,” Suki told him. “I couldn't move to the South Pole either.”

“Suki,” he said. “You’re my best friend, I think.”

“I think you’re my best friend,” she told him back.

“I don’t know what to do,” Sokka said.

“It’s okay,” Suki repeated, but then fell silent.

This kind of hurt, Sokka thought, but it was a good kind of hurt. The feeling of bone sliding over bone when you were popping your shoulder back in or lining up your bones with a splint.

“Is this -- is this it? We’re done, right?” Sokka asked.

Suki gave him an embarrassed expression. “I think we’ve been done for awhile,” she admitted.

Sokka let out a breath of relief. “That was kind of what I thought too. But it’s kind of my first real break up. And like, we said goodbye and everything, but then we would still kiss sometimes. Like when I visited you on Kyoshi island.”

Suki laughed. “We should probably stop doing that.”

“Probably,” Sokka agreed. He stuck out his hand. “Friends?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I’ll miss you, you know,” she told him. She gave his hand a squeeze.

Sokka squeezed her hand back. “I’ll miss you too,” he said. “You were my best girl.”

She gave him a smile. “Damn right I was,” and then, unexpectedly, she pulled him into a fierce hug.

Of course, this was when Zuko showed up.

“Sokka! Thank Agni!” came his voice from down the hall, getting louder. “Wait -- um, oh, God, sorry, I’m just -- I didn’t --”

Sokka laughed wetly into Suki’s arm, trying desperately to keep back his blush. He knew what the two of them looked like, half dressed and touching against the door, in the dark, well past midnight.

“Zuko, you insensitive asshole. Get back here.”

“I -- um, okay.” Zuko came back and how had Sokka never noticed the shy smile Zuko only ever gave him or the way Zuko couldn’t stop staring at Sokka’s and Suki’s clasped hands and wow, Katara was right, Sokka was an idiot and Zuko was about as subtle as a neon sign.

Sokka jumped when he realized everyone was waiting for him to talk.

“This is Suki,” Sokka said, without thinking. “Isn’t she, um, amazing?”

He watched Zuko’s mouth turn down briefly, and his eyebrows crinkle in confusion and -- was it normal to be staring at someone’s face so much?

“We’ve met,” Zuko said dryly. Then added: “I’ve seen her take down twenty men.” Zuko cocked his head sideways at Sokka. “And why are you staring at me?”

“Why are you staring at me?” Sokka responded inanely. “Maybe you’re the one whose face is staring at my face and not the face that is being stared at by my -- me.”

“I’m not -- staring,” Zuko said, only now he was blushing and his blush was bright and sort of stained his skin and now Sokka was wondering if other things could stain his skin and what that would look like and --

“It looks like I really am your best girl,” Suki told him with a smirk. “Best and last girl.”

“What?” Sokka said, turning to her in a mild to moderately severe panic. “No, I swear it’s not -- what you think, because I personally -- um, boobs.” he finished. “You know?”

“Actually,” Suki said, “Yeah, I do know.”

“You -- what?”

“I’ve had female lovers,” she told him and that thought effectively wiped away any traces of Zuko or Zuko’s skin or Zuko’s face or Zuko's lips -- woah, where had that come from? Not from Sokka, who was a straight non-gay man with a straight non-gay girlfriend. Only apparently his girlfriend wasn’t straight or non-gay and also wasn’t his girlfriend anymore and --

“I’ll see you later, Sokka,” Zuko told him, sounding downcast.

“Yes,” Sokka said desperately. “Please leave. For now. But not for later. Because. We will talk. Later. At a time that is not now.”

“Try not to break the bed,” Zuko told him in his quietly funny sort of way and Sokka tried to not wonder how much that joke had cost to tell. 

Zuko left after that, which Sokka vaguely thought might be bad in the part of his brain that seemed to be actually functioning and not just emitting static. He felt Suki's hand tighten around his neck, grounding him. Sokka pulled back from their embrace and held himself off the wall, staring at her. 

“Okay,” he said, palms clammy and heart racing, "You are telling me about this girl on girl action right now,” he demanded.

Suki’s face fell. “Sokka, we’re not -- doing that anymore,” she told him, a little coldly.

“No,” his lips were dry, “it’s not like that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Can we go back inside?” he asked and wordlessly followed her to her bed this time. “What do you mean, you’ve had female lovers?”

Suki shrugged. “It’s pretty common on Kyoshi Island.”

“But you’ve also had male lovers,” Sokka said, heart ricocheting in his chest. “Female and male lovers. I don’t -- what does that mean?”

Suki tucked a spare piece of hair around her ear. “It just means I like both.”

Sokka’s tongue felt heavy and thick in his mouth. His words felt like they were coming from someone else. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

“I do,” she said, simply. “Why --” and then her expression cleared. “Oh. You didn’t know?” she asked.

“No,” Sokka said hoarsely. “I didn’t.”

For the second time that night, Sokka felt himself being wrapped up into a hug by his ex girlfriend.

It felt the like world shifted half a degree and everything was the same only Sokka could see everything sharper, clearer now. Shadows slide into to focus and corners and curves cut through the swaths of colors and shades. The world was bright again, like it was whenever Sokka thought about the Southern Water Tribe.  

Sokka didn’t have to choose between men or women and he didn’t have to choose between Water Tribe or not.

All he had wanted to do for so long was to be a man in the tribe -- a leader, like his father.

And he still wanted that. But he was starting to realize that no matter where he lived or what he did, he would be a man in the eyes of his father. In the eyes of his tribe. His father would be proud no matter what he did and no matter where he went, he would always be Water Tribe, even if he didn't live in the South Pole, even if he liked men as much as women, or Zuko as much as Suki. 

It was a strange sense of peace -- of liberty -- that Sokka didn’t quite know what to do with yet.

But for the first time since the war ended, it felt like Sokka could breathe easy again.

He spent that night with Suki, wrapped around each other in a silent sexless gesture that was a ‘goodbye’ and a ‘hello’ and an ‘i love you’ all at once; and when the morning sun hit the edge of the window and entered the room, Sokka felt it entering him, warming him up from the inside until he was lighter than air, untethered and dispersing through the air, high above the ground.

---

 

 

Unfortunately, realizing that he liked Zuko didn’t suddenly mean that he was dating Zuko. No, that would be something Sokka was going to have to do for himself.

This part, Sokka thought with unparalleled hubris, is going to be the easy part.

That’s what Sokka told himself when he was getting dressed, and it’s when he believed when he was leaving Suki’s room.

It’s what he remained convinced of up until Zuko rejected his offer of dinner together.

“Just the two of us,” Sokka had said. Sokka had also batted his eyelashes.

Zuko had snorted and said, “as if,” to which Sokka had feigned hurt.

“Don’t you trust me?” he had asked. He hadn’t batted his eyes this time.

“Of course not,” Zuko told him. “Let me guess -- you’re going to get very sick at the last minute, leaving me alone with some poor noble you managed to rope into your plan.”

“No,” Sokka had insisted. “I’m not going to do that at all!” But Zuko had refused to believe him and had eventually been dragged away by one of his counselors before Sokka could persuade him with his not inconsiderable charms.

That’s about when Sokka realized that spending a month tricking your crush into going on dates with other men probably wasn’t the most effective seduction strategy.

The second time he tried, he told Zuko that he looked beautiful in the mornings and  Zuko shoved him into the Turtleduck pond and told him he'd tried the list of compliments strategy already and that he should at least get more creative with his plans. Sokka resolved to work on his delivery.

The third time they were at dinner and Sokka was trying to gather his wits about him, but he’d accidently been consuming too much -- way too much -- of the Fire Nation sweet wine and had spent the entire evening unable to form words, clinging onto to Zuko’s arm. He passed out in Zuko’s room and when he woke up it was well past noon and Zuko was gone.

They didn’t get another chance to hang out until a day later, when Sokka insisted Zuko taking a break to spar with him.

This would be easy, Sokka thought, and then Zuko swiped his legs out from under him and all other thoughts tumbled out the side of Sokka’s head as was forced to focus on the match.

And then, just was Sokka was getting into the easy rhythm of fighting, Zuko took his shirt off. Sokka didn’t understand how or why he’d never cared about Zuko’s state of undress before hand but he was definitely making up for that apathy now as Zuko kicked his sexy, sexy way to complete, uncontested victory.

“Are you okay?” he asked Sokka when the match was over, frowning.

“Gah,” Sokka said, still looking at Zuko’s chest.

Zuko looked around, self consciously. “We should --” he said, and offered Sokka hand up.

Sokka took his hand shakily and trembling a little bit from the proximity to Zuko’s naked torso.

“Yeah,” Zuko agreed, sadly putting a shirt back on, “it’s getting cold.”

This, Sokka knew, was his chance. “Hey, Zuko,” he said, and then his mouth went completely dry when Zuko turned around to face him.

Why is the hell had Sokka thought that this whole thing would be easier when Zuko was sweaty, exhausted and barely clothed?

“Yeah?” Zuko asked.

Sokka blinked a few times and Zuko chuckled.

“I think you need to get to bed, buddy,” he said.

“Can you come with me?” Sokka blurted out, and then slapped his hand over his mouth, mortified.

“Yeah,” Zuko said, blinking in adorable, adorable confusion. “I’ll, um, show you. Where your room is.”

They actually walked down the hallway holding hands which was insane and Zuko even stayed in Sokka’s room with him waiting for him to fall asleep, which was even more insane. Granted, Zuko slept on what looked like the world’s most uncomfortable chair in the corner, but it was the second night in a row that they’d fallen asleep with each other.

Sokka resolved to give it one more effort the morning. But the next time he woke up, it was still dark out and Zuko was still in the room with him, body curled up in the hard wicker chair in the corner.

Sokka walked over to him softly. “Zuko,” he said.

“Uncle,” Zuko protested. “Another minute.”

Sokka bit back his laughter. This was going to be funny. “It’s Sokka,” he said.

Zuko’s eyes flew open and he thrashed, nearly tipping himself off the chair. “Sokka!” he gasped. “What are you -- what am I --”

“Come back to bed with me,” Sokka said, because clearly his mouth just said things now, without consulting any other parts of himself.

But then Zuko said, “okay,” and meekly followed Sokka back to the large, king sized bed and -- promptly fell back asleep.

Man, Sokka thought, how sleep deprived was this dude? How poorly had Zuko been sleeping? He poked Zuko’s back. Other than a low grumble, there wasn’t much response. Sokka took his time to look at Zuko, who somehow managed to look stressed out, even in sleep.

If he had been worried that it might be hard to fall asleep, Zuko’s warmth quickly disabuse him of that fear.

When he woke up for the second time that day, it was to find Zuko’s face less than a foot away from his.

Zuko was staring at him, eyes wide with terror. “I’m -- I’m sorry,” he stuttered out, as soon as Sokka opened his eyes.

Sleepily, Sokka rubbed his eyes and, uncoiling his legs, stretched himself out until he brushed against -- oh, okay. Oh , okay, Sokka thought, a few seconds later, but it was too late. Zuko’s entire body had seized up.

“I’ve got to go,” Zuko told him. “I’m -- leaving. I’m sorry. It wasn’t -- I didn’t mean -- I’m sorry.” He repeated the last part several mores times.  

“Don’t worry about it,” Sokka tried to tell him, as Zuko pulled away. “Seriously,” he said, “it’s normal. Zuko, it’s normal!”

But Zuko already out the door.

Sokka tried to run after him, pulling the covers around his nubile young body. “I get boners too!” he yelled after Zuko’s retreating back, which only seemed to make Zuko run faster.

God, Sokka thought, looking around the empty hallway, that really could’ve gone better.

 

 

---

 

 

For the rest of the week, whenever Sokka tried to approach him, Zuko pulled the nearest person around him into a conversation.

The first person to fall victim to this was the Minister of Culture who had been on his way to the bathroom when Sokka passed Zuko into the hall. The second Zuko saw him, he physically grabbed the Minister of Culture and pinned him in place, making the terrified man recite facts about traditional Fire Nation ceremonies for thirty minutes, until Zuko was sure Sokka was nowhere around.

Sokka then tried to ambush Zuko outside his room, but Zuko always yelled for his guards and told Sokka that he was sorry but he had work and then he would do this ‘you know how it is’ shrug that made Sokka just want to grab him and yell, “I’m glad you had a boner!”

Thankfully, Suki talked him out of that plan. Sokka had a feeling Zuko wouldn’t have taken it as a compliment.

Sokka tried staking out the kitchens. Zuko stopped coming down for breakfast. Or lunch. Or dinner.

He tried waiting for him in the training room. Zuko fled.

Sokka had never seen another person put even half the effort into anything that Zuko put into avoiding him that day. He would’ve admired the dedication if he wasn’t so frustrated.   

 

---

 

 

By the second day, Sokka had more or less given up and was more or less sitting on his own in the courtyard, morose. Like a pathetic, sexless rabbit-mouse, if you asked Toph. Which people rarely did.

“Why are you sitting here like a pathetic, sexless rabbit-mouse,” she started. “And where’s Sparky?”

“Wish that I knew,” Sokka replied, despondently, not even touching the sexless rabbit-mouse comment. “Wish that I knew.”

Toph wrinkled up her nose. “Please tell me that isn’t a weird sex thing.”

“You -- what?” Sokka said. “Obviously not, because Zuko and I aren’t haven’t sex. We’ve never had sex. I mean, I don’t like him. I mean, why would you even ask that?”

Toph shrugged. “You’re heart kind of jackrabbits around him. I kind of assumed you two were going at it like rabbit-mice.”

Sokka opened his mouth to protest. Then he closed it. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. A little humiliation here and he could be well on his way to victory. “We aren’t,” he told Toph, “because Zuko’s avoiding me.”

Toph rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that time yesterday when we were all sitting out in the courtyard and Zuko came in, saw you, screamed, and ran away was really subtle.”

“I just need to talk to him,” Sokka explained. “If I could just -- explain …” he trailed off.

“Then you would be fucking like rabbit-mice?” Toph asked.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Sokka admitted.

Toph thought about it for a minute. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll help you.”

“What?” Sokka said. “I didn’t ask -- ow!” Toph punched hard.

“You’re welcome,” Toph told him. “Now, walk, dumbass.”

Sokka was a smart man. He grew up with Katara. So when Toph asked to walk, he shut himself up and walked. Into the ground below the palace.

“Where are we --”

“Shs!” Toph hissed, feeling the ground out with her feet.

They walked in silence for a minute.

“No, seriously,” Sokka said, while Toph stomped her foot down experimentally. “Where --”

“No, seriously,” Toph said. “Shut the fuck up. This is a very delicate art.” And then she spit on her hands, squatted down and thrust upwards. There was a loud, excruciating groaning of metal and then the ceiling above them -- or, Sokka supposed, the Palace floor, raised open.

“Welcome,” Toph said bowing and gesturing at her earth staircase, “to Zuko’s chambers.”

“Toph?” Zuko called from above.

“Toph,” Sokka hissed. “What about the guards?”

She smirked at him, propelling herself out of the pit. “That sounds like a challenge,” she told him.

“Toph,” Zuko said, voice mildly alarmed, “please don’t beat up my guards.”

Toph sighed, sounded very put up upon. “Fine,” she agreed heavily. “But only if you promise to hear Snoozles here out.”

Zuko stood at the lip of the floor opening very stiffly. Sokka waited, tense, for his response.

“Okay,” Zuko agreed quietly, sounding small. “Sokka, we should probably … talk.”

Sokka decided that now would not the best time to whoop with joy and jump up and down. Instead, he climbed out of the rip in the floor, smiling.

The two boys started at each other across the wreck in the middle of the floor, but of them pointedly silent. It took Toph a minute to realize what they were waiting for.

“Oh,” she said. “Me. Right. I’ll be going now. Just remember -- the walls have eyes. My eyes.”

“That’s not creepy at all,” Sokka told Toph, who was too busy pulling Zuko’s floor back together to answer.

The silence that fell after Toph left was awkward and left Sokka uncertain how to break it.

It didn’t help that Zuko was just standing there, unmoving.

Finally, Zuko snapped. “Well?” he demanded. “Are you going to talk to me or not?”

“Um,” Sokka said. “Yes?”

“You enlisted Toph,” Zuko huffed, “and broke into my room. And now you don’t know if you want to talk ?”

This wasn’t going the way Sokka had imagined it would. For starters, in his imagination, he had, perhaps generously, imagined that he might be saying some words.  

“Let’s sit down,” he suggested. It was a lot harder to confess your feelings than it was to decide to confess your feelings in his opinion. “Suki and I aren’t together,” he said, because first things first.

He watched Zuko bite his bottom lip, eyes caught on the brief flash of teeth on pink.

“Oh?” he saw Zuko fidget, pretending not to care. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Sokka said, feeling reckless. “We haven’t been together in a long time. She’s one of my best friends. That’s what you saw, the other night.”

“What do you mean?” Zuko asked.

“We’ve been growing apart,” Sokka told him. “I thought for a long time that I had to stay in the Southern Water Tribe. I thought I had everything I wanted. I was a man of the tribe, a leader. I thought finally winning the war and saving the world meant I was who I wanted to be. But I'm different. I've changed. I don't think I want the same things. I don't even think I knew what it was I was spending all that time wanting or I'd never have wanted it in the first place.”

Zuko gave him an odd half smile. “I think I know something about that,” he told Sokka.

“But I missed everyone.” He looked at Zuko. “I missed you.”

Zuko’s mouth opened silently.

Sokka continued. “I realized that I didn’t have to live in the South Pole to be a man of the Southern Water Tribe. I could go anywhere. And I realized I didn’t want to go to Kyoshi Island. I didn’t even necessarily want to travel with Aang and my sister -- because, obviously, ew.”

“What did you want?” Zuko asked.

“I think I want to stay here,” Sokka said. “With you. For a little while at least. Before I go somewhere new.”

Instead of smiling or looking happy, Zuko frowned and dipped his head. “Sokka,” he said in a low voice, “I’m really sorry.”

“What?” Sokka said.

“I’ve mislead you,” Zuko told him. “There’s something I haven’t -- told you. Yet. That I think you should know.” Zuko still wouldn’t look at him.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to say --”

“Please,” Zuko said. “Let me --”

“But I’m saying you don’t need to --”

“I need to, Sokka, I --”

“Zuko, it’s okay, I --”

“Sokka!” Zuko snapped, then shrunk back. “I mean, sorry. I just want to say something. Quickly. Before you, um --”

“Zuko, I know you like me,” Sokka said, which was maybe not what he wanted to say.

Zuko flinched.

“No,” Sokka said, reaching out to grab Zuko’s hand. “It’s okay, because I like you.”

But Zuko tried to pull away. “Not like --” he said.

“Yes,” Sokka said, keeping on hand on Zuko’s and putting the other on his chest. “I like you that way,” he said and leaned in to kiss Zuko.

Zuko kissed back immediately, like a drowning man finally given air, his free hand flying to the side of Sokka’s face as if to keep him there. Sokka lost track of time for a minute an hour a day he didn’t know  but then there was this moan which Sokka realized was coming from him and fuck, he didn’t know this could feel so good. He needed more.

He pressed his body flat against Zuko’s, pushing him backwards, clenching his hand tightly around Zuko’s hand. He moved the hand on Zuko’s chest up, and Zuko arched into him.

He wanted to explore every part of this that he could, that he never thought he could before, but Zuko pulled away, panting.

“I don’t …” he said, lips looks bright red and full. Sokka just wanted to pull him back into another kiss but instead he sat back. “What’s happening?”

“I like you,” Sokka told him. “To, like, an embarrassing degree. When you said I was jealous of you and Jee? You were right! I was!”

“But --” Zuko said. “You’re not -- you don’t --”

Ohhhhh. Sokka’s expression cleared. “You mean I don’t like men?” Sokka said. “No, I definitely do. I also like women, though,” he added. “Just to clarify. People? Hot.”

Zuko blinked at him.

“You’re pretty hot,” Sokka said, just to see what would happen. Zuko flushed a deep red. Sokka smirked.

“Fuck you,” Zuko mumbled.

“Not yet,” Sokka replied with a wink. He couldn’t help himself and. Well. If Zuko had any complaints, Sokka couldn’t hear them.

 

---

 

"Well?" Katara asked. "What's going on?" 

Toph smirked. 

"Toph!" Katara screeched. "That's my brother!" 

"I didn't say anything! Besides, you asked!"

"And you know what," Katara said, "I'm really not sure why." 

"Dummy," Toph said fondly. "He might be a dumbass but he's your brother. Of course things were going to be okay." 

"I -- thanks Toph," Katara said. 

"No problem, Queen," Toph responded. "Now, about the laws around the mineral rocks within ice and not using them into tricking five year old's into thinking I'm a waterbender --" 

 

---

 

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 3 of the best laid intentions