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It all starts with Toph and her incredible knack for invading people’s privacy with literally zero subtlety, because of course it does.
It also, in signature Toph fashion, is said with the bluntness of a fucking rock. And Sokka would know, because in the short amount of time since their meeting at that fateful Earth Rumble, she’s hit him with a lot of those. Seriously, he doesn’t know which is more bruised: his body or his ego.
They’re in the kitchen eating breakfast in the Fire Lord’s actual vacation home when it happens. Toph—“fuck Sokka and his schedule, wake me before noon and get a boulder to the face” Toph—is smiling far too widely over her plate of what he’s 90% confident are fried toucan-puffin eggs. It’s the same shit-eating smirk she wears while pummeling Aang under the pretense of training or spending their hard-earned, surprisingly long-lasting scamming money on a piece of junk to annoy everyone (Katara) with.
So yeah, it doesn’t exactly take a masterfully cunning brain like Sokka’s to realize that she’s about to wreak havoc on all of their lives. Even Suki knows it, if the slight widening of her eyes is any indication.
(The only one who doesn’t suspect it is Zuko, leaning casually against the counter; poor, beautiful, terrible-at-picking-up-on-social-cues Zuko, who Sokka just knows is going to have a conniption at whatever comes out of Toph’s gremlin mouth.)
“Okay,” she starts casually. “Was anybody going to tell me that Snoozles and Sparky are a thing, or was I just supposed to find out myself?”
Sokka chokes on his breakfast. Zuko straight-up drops his fancy teacup on the floor.
“What?!” Katara shrieks.
Toph blinks, her eyebrows drawing together. Then she grins so widely that Sokka swears he can see the bits of food stuck between her dirty-ass molars, and he feels his stomach drop even further. Like, straight through the floor and into the center of the Earth further. (He kind of wishes this defiance of nature would kill him, but he guesses he’s just built different.)
“Wait, you guys didn’t know?” Toph asks happily.
“No!”
Sokka hasn’t heard Katara’s voice sound that wheezy since he proudly broke the news of where babies come from when they were kids, and it’s just as unsettling as it was that day in the snow. (Let the record state that she bent a ball of slush down the back of his parka directly afterwards, so she really has no room to talk.)
“Oh, this is good,” Toph giggles.
“I think it’s great that you guys could find love in such a difficult time,” Aang says.
Sokka chokes again—this time on his spit rather than runny mystery eggs—because “love?” Excuse me?
This only makes Toph (and Suki, the traitor) laugh harder.
“This can’t be happening,” Katara mutters to herself.
“If it makes you feel any better,” Suki interjects, “I knew, and I think it’s cute.”
Sokka blushes and stares intently down at the table. Is it mahogany? Maybe a nice, quality cedar?
“I’m just gonna, uh…”
He looks up in time to see Zuko backing away towards the door.
“Oh, no you don’t!”
Zuko freezes in the entryway, because no one challenges Katara when she uses The Voice.
“Let him go,” Toph says, waving her hand casually. (Amendment: no one challenges Katara when she uses The Voice except Toph.) “I’m pretty sure he’s about to have a heart attack.”
Gee, I wonder why.
There’s another tense moment in which no one moves before Zuko finally turns and slinks outside. Once Sokka’s sure he’s out of earshot—a phrase that somehow actually makes sense, because Zuko only has one working ear to have a shot (or shoot?) with, and wow, that is not what he should be focusing on right now—rounds on Toph.
“What the fuck?”
“What?” Toph replies. “I didn’t want to suffer in silence anymore.”
“No one was suffering!” Sokka splutters.
Toph raises her eyebrows at his statement. “I have to hear you guys being mushy and gross all the time! These two are bad enough.”
She jerks her thumb in what’s vaguely Aang and Katara’s direction and, first of all, ew, but also ha, serves them right.
He’s on Team Toph for all of two seconds before she turns her attention back to him and her eternal goal of making his life a living nightmare.
“You guys make out a lot,” she says. “Like, a lot.”
Sokka swears his face is on fire.
“I did not need to know that,” Katara groans.
The table lapses into a silence that only Toph seems to find comfortable. It’s interrupted moment’s later by the scraping sound of Suki pushing her chair back.
“As much as I’m enjoying this conversation,” she says as she stands, “I’m going to go check on Zuko.”
Logically, it’s a good call. But emotionally? The sheer amount of pain that leaving Sokka alone with two 12-year-olds and his sister will undoubtedly cause? Less than ideal.
He resigns himself to suffering in silence as she sidesteps the pile of teacup shards and disappears out the door, abandoning Sokka to his misery.
“So,” Aang says, peppy as always, “How long have you and Zuko been a couple?”
“Since their ‘fishing trip,’” Toph answers for him.
She makes air quotes around the words, and Sokka adds it somewhere between “rolling her eyes” and “glaring” on the ever-growing list of Impossible Things Toph Does Despite Being Literally Blind.
“It’s true,” Sokka admits before Katara can inevitably turn the question on him.
“Aww,” Aang coos. “I guess all our field trips with Zuko really are life-changing!”
He sounds so chipper that it makes Sokka want to puke. Or maybe that’s because of the stare his sister is leveling him with. (Okay, it’s definitely the second reason; but Avatar or not, Aang is still on some thin fucking ice!)
“I don’t get it,” Katara says. “I thought you and Suki- and then with Yue—“
Sokka winces at Yue’s name, because yikes, that trauma is still certified fresh.
“It’s called being bi,” Toph says. “You should try it sometime.”
Well, Sokka thinks. That is certainly some...new information.
“I can tell you’re thinking really hard over there,” she adds, looking almost directly at him, “and I’d just like to say that I’d lose an Earth Rumble before I ever let a man near me.”
She smirks and pounds her fist into her palm, then, and it’s wholly terrifying. “And I would never lose an Earth Rumble.”
“That’s awesome, Toph!” Aang says. “The monks always said all forms of love are beautiful.”
“Quit saying the L-word,” Toph replies with a shudder. “It’s gross.”
Sokka rejoins Team Toph so fast he gives himself whiplash.
“I don’t get it,” Katara says, failing to acknowledge the entire conversation that just happened in a display of her infallible tact. (And yes, that was sarcasm.)
“Sweetness, I literally just explained—“
“Not that,” she interrupts. “I meant, why Zuko?”
Sokka sinks down in his seat as three sets of eyes suddenly train themselves on him. (He’s including Toph in the tally, because even if she isn’t physically staring at him, she’s metaphorically razing him into the ground with judgment.) He decides he’d much rather watch himself twiddle his fingers in his lap.
“He’s hot?” he offers impulsively. “Like, of course he’s hot, he’s a firebender. But he’s also a, uh, very attractive guy, you know?”
He glances up to see Katara glowering at him while Aang smiles encouragingly at her side and Toph picks at her toes, smugly listening as the chaos unfolds. Pretty much business as usual, if he’s being honest. Time for him to resume his role of Resident Blabbernouth.
“He’s also really funny, when you get to know him. And awkward, which, duh, you all know, but in a cute way?”
He should add “digging his own grave” to the official repertoire of skills he’d put on a business card if he ever had one, because damn is he good at it.
“Enough,” Katara says, holding up a hand. (And here Sokka thought he’d never be grateful to his sister for interrupting him.)
“Just…” she trails off with a sigh before turning to Aang and Toph. “Could you guys give us a minute?”
Toph starts to pout, but Aang drags her off with the promise of an “epic rock battle.” Sokka isn’t sure if he’s more relieved that the unwanted spectators are actually leaving or that for once he’s safe from the collateral earthbending injuries.
“Look,” Katara says once they’re alone. “You and I both know that Zuko’s struggled with doing the right thing in the past.”
“I thought you said you forgave him for Ba Sing Se,” he protests.
“I did,” she replies. “And I know he’s changed, but I just couldn’t live with myself if you got hurt.”
Sokka’s half-hearted glare softens. “He’s not going to hurt me. I trust him.”
Katara sighs, turning to bend the spilled tea in a stream around her. He recognizes the anxiety in her movements; her waterbending has always been stiffer when she’s stressed. The liquid splatters into the sink with more force than necessary, spreading a wave of the jasmine scent through the air in its wake.
“It’s just hard, you know?” she says. “Sometimes, I still look at him and see the boy who chased us around the world.”
She touches Mom’s necklace, back in its rightful place around her neck, almost subconsciously.
“I get that.”
It hurts to admit, but it’s the truth. There are still moments when the Fire Nation gold of Zuko’s eyes steal his breath, and not in a good way. There are times when he flinches at the flames his boyfriend so easily calls to his hands, at the memories of black snow and being hunted like prey by a ponytailed jerk.
(He knows, now, that the constant chase was in the name of a fool’s errand; that so much of the hardship Zuko’s honor-bound quest forced upon him and his friends was the result of a lifetime of abuse. But it doesn’t change the reality that some part of Sokka has been irreparably damaged by fire, regardless of who wielded it. It’s a burden he must bear, a byproduct of the endless war he was born into. The knowledge of these facts doesn’t make it any easier.)
“Zuko gets that, too.” Sokka thinks of soft reassurances, flames extinguished at the slightest show of discomfort and exchanged for the comforting warmth of shared body heat.
Katara nods slowly. “He makes you happy?”
He can’t help the dopey smile that spreads across his face. “So fucking happy, sis.”
“Then I guess I’m happy, too.”
It’s like the tension has been zapped out of his body. He’s up and out of his seat before he can think, wrapping his sister in a hug. She returns the gesture for a minute before shunting him off of her.
“I still need to give him the talk,” she says.
Sokka blanches. “Uh…”
“Not that talk, the sibling talk!”
She must sense the confusion written all over his (definitely blushing) face, because she elaborates with a groan.
“You know,” she says. “That I’ll kill him if he breaks your heart, and all that jazz.”
“I’m sure that’ll go over super well,” he replies sarcastically.
Katara rolls her eyes. “Shut up and finish your breakfast, and then go make sure Toph hasn’t killed Aang.”
“Do you know how many rocks she’s going to hit me with?!”
In true sisterly fashion, Katara just laughs. “If you do the dishes, I’ll think about healing you later.”
Sokka groans and attempts to estimate how many water whips he’d get to the face if he made a comment about his sister and Aang.
No, he decides as Katara leaves to strike fear into his boyfriend’s heart. He’ll leave that up to Toph.
He finds Zuko sitting by the shore and moodily staring out at the ocean later. One might even go so far as calling it brooding. (Sokka’s referring to himself, of course, but honestly anyone with eyes (or the freaky foot equivalent of them) could see it.)
“Hey,” he says, making sure to approach from his boyfriend’s right.
“Hi,” Zuko replies softly.
His knees are drawn up towards his chest, toes sporadically clenching in the sand. It’s one of his many nervous tells, and Sokka takes it as an invitation to take a seat beside him.
It’s just the two of them, here. Suki is showing Katara some hand-to-hand moves (as if she needed to be any more powerful) further down the beach, and Toph is off handing Aang’s ass to him in their loosely designated training area.
“So, I’d just like to apologize in advance if my sister said anything, like, weird, and-or super embarrassing. She means well.”
“I know,” Zuko sighs. “And believe me, I’ve heard way worse from her.”
“What?” Sokka asks, interest immediately piqued and diverted from the actually relevant conversation at hand. “When?”
“When I first joined your, uh, crew—“
“Gaang,” Sokka interrupts. “With two A’s.”
“Right. Well, she didn’t really trust me—not that I blame her, but, you know—anyways, she said if I betrayed you guys or, um, tried to capture Aang, she’d- fuck, what was the phrase? Make sure my destiny ended so I don’t have to worry about it anymore? It was better when she said it. Or, not better, I guess, but…”
There’s a lot to unpack there, starting with the fact that Katara is approximately 500 times scarier than Sokka previously imagined.
“Yikes.”
This gets a small chuckle out of Zuko. “I don’t know if you know this, but your sister is terrifying.”
“Believe me,” Sokka replies with a roll of his eyes, “I know. And besides, you’re one to talk!”
Was that a little uncalled for in hindsight? Maybe. But god, Azula and her scary blue flames really do scare the shit out of him.
“Point taken.”
The words fade away, carried out by the tide lapping against the shore. Sokka’s tempted to wade in, but now probably isn’t the time. (Plus, he’s wearing socks, which would be gross.)
“You can break up with me now, if you want.” He startles at the sound of Zuko’s voice, quiet and raspy. “I won’t blame you.”
“Why would I do that?”
Zuko shrugs. “I’m me, and you’re...you.”
“And that means what, exactly?”
“You’re too good for me!” There’s a bit of familiar anger there, flaring in the way that was Zuko’s defining characteristic for so long. “And this- Agni, I can’t imagine how fucking embarrassing this is for you.”
Sokka blinks. “What?”
“Being seen with someone like me,” Zuko continues, sentences rushing together. “I’m messed up! I have a giant scar on my face, and I’m a guy, and I’m the- the son of the fucking Fire Lord!”
“Whoa, slow your roll, there, baby,” Sokka interrupts.
Zuko flushes at the pet name, and when Sokka holds his arm out, he accepts the invitation to tuck himself into his boyfriend’s side.
“Literally none of those things matter to me. Okay, maybe the Ozai thing isn’t great, but that’s a dig on him for being the shittiest person alive, not you.”
With how closely they’re pressed together, Sokka can feel each vertebrae of Zuko’s full-body shudder at the mention of his father.
“I don’t understand,” Zuko says quietly. “Why is no one upset with me?”
“Why would they be? And don’t,” he interjects before his boyfriend can open his mouth, “just give me the same bullshit reasons as before.”
Zuko’s voice is small when he replies. “I guess I’ve just never met anyone who didn’t care that I’m- that we’re both, you know…”
“Dudes?”
“Yeah.”
The timidness—the pure and simple shame —radiating from that single syllable makes Sokka want to hunt down each and every sad excuse of a human being who made Zuko think the way he felt was anything less than normal. He’s sure the stupid fucking Fire Lord is, as always, front and center on the hit list, and oh how Sokka wants to punch that bastard’s teeth in…
For now, he’ll just have to help Zuko unlearn the lies seared into his brain and, if the litany of hidden scars on his body that Sokka is now deeply aware of is any indication, onto his skin.
“I promise that no one here will judge you for that. Or me.”
Zuko frowns in a way that still broadcasts distrust, so Sokka switches tactics.
“Do you think Toph and Suki are wrong for liking girls?”
“What? Of course not!”
“Then what makes you so different?”
“It- it just is!”
“How?”
He feels the way Zuko’s entire being seems to tense beside him, and wonders for a second if he’s sorely miscalculated and purchased a one-way ticket to Flambe Town. But then Zuko sags, leaning more heavily into Sokka’s side.
“I don’t know how to do this,” he admits. “And I don’t want to fuck it up.”
“You think I know what I’m doing?” Sokka says with a snort. “No way, man.”
Zuko looks thrown by this information, which admittedly fills Sokka with a teensy bit of pride. Because sure, he’s kissed people before Zuko; but truthfully (though he’d rather die than admit it to Katara), Suki’s lips had been the first he’d felt pressed against his own. Then there was Yue, beautiful and ethereal, who filled his stomach with flutter-bats and brought a constant blush to his cheeks.
His tryst with Suki was nothing more than the byproduct of an adrenaline rush, though, and Yue...well, Yue turned into the moon. They left him with nothing but memories of fleeting moments, stolen bursts of sparks deep within his pounding heart.
But with Zuko? With Zuko, it all comes so easy. He doesn’t have to think twice about pressing a kiss to his cheek, his lips, his neck. His skin is almost ghostly pale under the midday sun, luminescent against the backdrop of the cloudless sky. It reminds Sokka of the glaciers at the South Pole, of long nights staring at the frozen ceiling of his igloo and fantasizing about mysterious encounters that could never even begin to hold a candle to the headrush he’s experiencing right now.
“Sokka,” Zuko murmurs, bringing a tentative hand up to wind in Sokka’s hair.
Sokka hums against Zuko’s throat, nose tucked into the warmth that his boyfriend literally emanates. He swears he can feel the waves of heat coming off of him whenever he blushes, which Sokka takes great care to ensure is as often as possible. Man, firebenders are weird.
He lets Zuko guide his face up and pull him into a deep kiss. It’s a new kind of raw, an intimacy somehow wholly disparate from the roaming hands and grinding hips of their last few private encounters. There’s campfire smoke and sandalwood and cinnamon on his tongue, a combination of comfortable and new and Zuko Zuko Zuko.
“Thank you,” Zuko says when they finally break apart. It’s a little breathless, a little unsure—a little too much like Zuko still isn’t convinced that he deserves Sokka’s affection.
And, well, what kind of boyfriend would Sokka be if he let him think such a thing?
He’s deep in the process of very thoroughly reaffirming his big, mushy feelings when he’s hit in the head with a supremely unwanted interruption. Like, literally hit in the head, because Toph has oh-so-kindly hurled a weird sand boulder at him.
“What the fuck?!” he yelps, falling back onto his elbows.
Zuko looks about as frazzled as Sokka feels, right eye wide and hair slightly mussed. His unscarred cheek is a brilliant shade of red, and Sokka is sorely tempted to tease him about it. (Now who’s the one whose skin isn’t meant for the tropical misery that passes as the Fire Nation’s climate? Check and mate, jerkbender.) But he keeps his mouth shut because he is a merciful, doting partner; plus, he doubts Zuko will survive the menace that is Toph with a fresh source of joke fodder.
“Sparky!” she shouts as she stomps closer. “Stop being gross and teach Aang, I’m tired!”
“Uh…” Zuko says awkwardly. “I guess that’s my cue?”
Sokka sighs. “Guess so.”
Zuko hoists himself up to his feet with a groan, then extends a hand out. Sokka, who values laziness almost as much as bodily contact with alarmingly attractive firebenders, takes it without hesitation.
“Thanks,” he says after a few grunts (for the drama). “Good luck with the jerkbending, jerkbender!”
He leans in to plant one last kiss on Zuko’s lips—which, wow, the fact that this is something he can just do now is never going to get old—before letting his mouth linger mere centimeters from his boyfriend’s unscarred ear.
“I’d come watch, but then I’d have to go do some jerkbending of my own.”
The fantastic blush that his genius innuendo sends blooming across Zuko’s face is almost worth the pillar of muddy, deceptively solid earth that Toph takes upon herself to slam into his groin.
Almost.
(Definitely.)