Chapter Text
His tears burned more than the blood seeping from his wound. Each breath he took closed his chest tighter, each movement he made hurt somewhere, and yet he still couldn’t stop dragging the knife down his arm. He couldn’t stop the tears from flowing out his eyes as he ripped apart every last vein he could reach. It was over. Sokka looked straight into the face of the dead man in front of him, allowing another two tears to roll down his cheeks as he silently apologized for what he’d done. For his failure. For everything. He couldn’t hurt anyone else again.
“Sokka?”
The voices were louder than anything else those days. It didn’t matter how hard he tried to ignore them, how much he begged for them to go away. The face of every dead solider kept coming back to him, screaming at him, clawing at his skin, and begging him to end it like he’d ended it for them. He knew it wasn’t fair to put all the blame on himself but he didn’t know how to stop it. He didn’t know how he was supposed to forgive himself after everything he’d done so he pressed the knife down one more time and watched as it slashed the last of his vital skin.
“Sokka, are you awake?”
Up until she put the hand on his shoulder, Sokka honestly didn’t know whether he was or not, and definitely being awake then didn’t help at all in determining whether he already had been. Sokka glanced down to his left arm, surprised to see it was still covered by his sleeve and not burning in the least. He brushed a hand over his nose and closed his eyes for a moment as he accepted that whatever happened, he hadn’t truly cried. He hadn’t truly broken. At least, not more than he already had.
“Yeah, sorry.” Sokka’s gaze flickered to the paper he was leaning over. The date in the corner didn’t make sense. He had to be at least a week off in his numbers, unless his sense of time was even more broken than he thought. “I was just… yeah. Did you need something?”
“I didn’t need anything,” started Katara, “but I was wondering if you maybe wanted to go to the market with me? You don’t have to, but I just feel like you haven’t been out much recently, and I…”
She was right. Sokka rarely so much as came out of his tent those days. It wasn’t just because of how he hated himself or how many times he’d failed, but because he had to face his friends, his family, Zuko, and that was too much to deal with. So, instead of doing that, he stayed in his tent day after day, working on the same plans over and over again. He rarely bothered with a shirt like he had that day, generally choosing to cover his arms with the already stained blanket along with loose-fitting pants that put less strain on his leg. It ached when he moved too much, he realized, so it was easier to use it only when he needed to practice. Only when he had to defend himself or prepare for the times when he did.
Unfortunately, Sokka was not simply allowed to live in utter isolation, and his friends and family consistently pulled stunts like that to guilt him out whenever they noticed his absence (which wasn’t as often as one might think because he wasn’t as important as that either). Sometimes they just brought him something to eat or checked in to be sure that he was okay—the answer was always “no”, but what he said was always “yes”—and other times, they all but forced him to get dressed and pulled him out to do something with one or more of them at a time. Sokka cared about them all too much to ever refuse, and that was the only reason he found himself at the market that day.
It was Katara who pulled the coat around his shoulders and forced the cane into his hands. Katara who redid his hair by herself and latched onto his upper arm until he followed her out of the camp. Katara who tried to get him to smile and joked that he was just being grumpy because she dragged him away from his work when in all honesty, that was all he really wanted. An excuse to get away from the war. A net to catch him so he wouldn’t keep sinking any further. He swallowed hard as they stepped into the village, knowing full well they’d be in trouble if they were recognized. All he could do was force himself to relax. It was stupid to feel so much anxiety over something so small. It was stupid to feel so much anxiety at all.
“I don’t care.” His answer was in response to a question of which fruit to buy, which got Sokka to admit the simplified truth if only in his head. He didn’t care what they ate because all of it made him sick. He didn’t care what she bought because if worse came to worst, he would leave his rations for the others. He looked away from the fruit stand to glare at his shoes, hoping beyond anything that Katara was nearly done. “Did you get what we needed yet?”
“We’ve been here for five minutes. What do you think?” Her tone was joking but it struck Sokka to the core. It wasn’t his fault that he felt like they were more at risk every second they spent in that village. Every moment they were in the market, being stared down by people who knew they were protecting the enemy. Protecting Zuko. “Lighten up, Sokka. It’s the first time you’ve been able to get out in ages. You should be in a great mood right now.”
To that, all Sokka wanted to ask was how in the fuck he was supposed to be in a good mood when they were literally on the edge of a war. When the colonies were destroying themselves and the Earth Kingdom was about to call for the heads of every damn Fire Nation noble. When someone—masked and therefore covering from which side they hailed—had already tried to assassinate Zuko and if they ever came out of hiding, were bound to do it again. It wasn’t possible for him to feel any positive emotions with all that hanging over his head. It wasn’t possible for him to smile until it was over.
Katara must’ve understood because she didn’t say anything else. She just went on to the next stand, getting everything they needed to take care of the others back at the camp. He winced when they stopped for more remedies. It was bad enough knowing she couldn’t fully heal Sokka’s leg; he didn’t even want to think about what might happen to Zuko’s arm. The thought that someone else would have to suffer that horrible chronic pain because of him was too much. Sokka shook the thought from his mind just in time to react to the rock which flew past his head.
It was a coincidence.
They weren’t recognized or attacked, just caught in the crossfire. Caught in the same sort of screaming, raging battle that Sokka once believed was behind them. He barely moved fast enough to get Katara to the ground before fire shot right where she stood, burning a nearby building. Sokka wanted to get out of there immediately, to drag his sister far away from everything because she was already burned and could only get worse, but he couldn’t. Katara resisted his pleading, instead rushing to help the people of the village who had no part in the fight.
It wasn’t until half the buildings in the street were smashed and up in flames when she finally let herself get dragged away, if only to find the others. If only to look for help because they couldn’t save everyone on their own. Compared to everyone in the villages, to the earth and fire shooting everywhere, Sokka and Katara were nothing. And compared to his sister, putting out fires left and right and challenging people as they ran by, Sokka was nothing. He was just as if not more helpless than the non-bender citizens who watched and fled as the battle grew stronger. As the fighting and the deaths increased.
Sokka wanted to go back to the village to help after they got Aang and the others, but they wouldn’t let him. They said his leg was too messed up because of the way he was so obviously limping. It would’ve been easier to let him go. Probably better too. Sokka might have been useless but his mental state didn’t truly snap its last straw until that moment. Until he was sobbing into a pillow on the floor of his tent because the world was crumbling around him and he couldn’t even fight back. When he was digging his nails into his arms and ripping open the scabs that finally started to heal. When he pretended to be asleep when someone came by because he lacked the energy to look them in the eye.
“Hey. I brought you dinner.”
The words didn’t help at all in encouraging him to lift his head. It didn’t stop his chest from burning or the tears from rolling down his cheeks and soaking into the pillow beneath him. He didn’t want dinner but he didn’t know how to say that. He didn’t know how to refuse when he knew his dad was only trying to help. Trying to keep him alive. Sokka didn’t want to be alive anymore. He didn’t want to eat or talk or go fucking shopping, he just wanted to stay with his face in his pillow and wait for the moment he finally suffocated. The moment he finally escaped the prison he was living in.
“I’m not hungry,” mumbled Sokka. On the bright side, he wasn’t lying for once. He felt sick as anything and he knew that eating wouldn’t do anything but make it worse. “Can you just go, please? I don’t— I don’t want to eat anything.”
“I know, bud, but you have to have something. Come on.” Hakoda slid a hand around Sokka’s arm, gently nudging him to a seated position. Sokka rubbed his face off on his pillow before he sat up, hoping his dad wouldn’t notice the bloodshot color of his eyes. Just looking at the food made him sick. Either he couldn’t start or he couldn’t stop; there was no longer an in between. “Hey, look at me. I know it was a hard day, and I know you wanted to help, but you did the best you could. It’s okay that you can’t—”
“They almost got her, Dad. The firebenders almost— I barely got her out of the way in time and I— she got burned, and we— it’s my— it’s my fault. I wasn’t— I didn’t— I shouldn’t have—”
It wasn’t until the words actually left his mouth when Sokka realized the sickness in his stomach was guilt. He knew the villages weren’t safe and he didn’t even try to stop Katara from going. He was too wrapped up in his own stupid thoughts and insecurities to bother really watching her back. He almost lost her the same way he lost his mother because he was too pathetic to help. He was too stupid and distracted and the full force of it didn’t hit until he was suddenly wrapped in his dad’s arms, resisting the urge to cry, and blaming his emotions on exhaustion when asked. There was a chance that was true, after all. He’d been so exhausted recently, it wasn’t a stretch to cite that as the cause.
“Whatever happened was not your fault.” Hakoda sounded terrified too, like Katara hadn’t mentioned what went down and it wasn’t until then when he started to fully understand it. When he started to understand the risks they were taking by making themselves a part of that fight. “Sokka, listen to me. I don’t know what happened out there, but it was not— Katara, hey. Come in here for a minute.”
“No, you don’t have to—” The second Katara stepped into the tent, Sokka’s brimming tears changed from those of exhaustion to those of frustration. “I’m fine, Dad, I’m just— stop. Just leave me alone.”
The reassurance was worse than nothing at all because he didn’t know how to accept it. He didn’t know if he could accept it and that just started a whole new cycle of guilt because he felt like he was forcing his family to care for him when he didn’t deserve it. Not that it mattered. Sokka sat there the whole time anyway. He sat there as they told him he was amazing and tried his best. As they lied through their teeth and told him he was somehow supposed to be proud of himself just like they were already. He knew it wasn’t true. That nobody really gave a shit and nobody was proud of him because he failed everything he set out to do. He pushed them away when they were trying to help and then cried back into his pillow like he deserved to feel bad about it.
But regardless of how shitty or pathetic Sokka was acting, everything stayed the same. Every morning he woke up and worked on the same strategies, every afternoon he refused an offer for this or that, and every evening he stared in the mirror at the disgusting face looking back at him and mutilated his arm with the knife. It was on a walk in the morning when he decided the blade wasn’t enough anymore and scraped his knuckles against a rock instead. It brought a new sensation, a burning sensation, and caused it to ache every time he moved his fingers. It was good. It was what he deserved. He ducked back into his tent before anyone noticed he was missing and slid down in front of his work.
Sokka hid the date with the blood on the backs of his hands. It couldn’t have been that long already.
Generally, Sokka preferred staying in his tent and hiding out but it was days like that when he wished he did something else. When he wished he stepped outside just for long enough that no one would have to worry about him. It was always the worst when someone walked into his tent, terrified because he hadn’t spoken to anyone in days. But what was the point? Why should he bother speaking to them if he didn’t have anything to say? He had no plans, no ideas, just a list of days that didn’t make sense because they couldn’t have been fighting for that long. That many days couldn’t have blurred together the way it felt like they had.
“Hi.” He didn’t look up when he heard the voice in the doorway. He didn’t have to. Only one person would come in with a single word in that ridiculously charming, stupidly awkward tone. “Is it okay if we talk?”
Sokka hesitated before nodding, glancing up to the man in front of him. His face was beautiful and his eyes were almost glowing despite how sad they appeared when they met Sokka’s gaze. He quickly shifted away, hating himself for hurting Zuko and hating Zuko for continuing to care for him regardless. Zuko deserved better. They all deserved better and the fact that they were all clinging to Sokka after everything he did was ridiculous. He’d even go so far as to call it stupid. They were wasting time, energy, and resources on him, and it wasn’t fair to anyone. He wasn’t good enough for anyone. He scratched at the bandage on his sleeve.
“I just… uh… I wanted to apologize, I guess.” Zuko’s eyes immediately turned to Sokka’s still red knuckles, and he quickly tugged his sleeves over those that were exposed. He could play it off as a training incident. “I’m sorry that this happened. I know things have taken a really bad turn and I’m just— I’m really, really sorry I got you involved. Aang and I never should’ve asked the Water Tribe for help. This isn’t your fight.”
“It is my fight.” It took a lot of effort to resist the urge to pick at the peeling skin around his knuckles. Sokka shifted his hands beneath his knees, focusing on chewing his lip between thoughts instead. “Just because it doesn’t technically involve us doesn’t mean I don’t want to end it. We’ve all gone through a hundred years of war already, Zuko. It’s not fair for anyone to have to go through it again. There are— There are kids out there, you know? And whether or not this objectively involves my tribe, I’m not going to leave them. I’m not going to let them grow up the same way I did.”
“I understand. I just wanted to make sure you were okay, I guess. It’s not easy to— I know there are children out there suffering but you suffered too. I just want you to know that if it ever gets to be too much, you are under no obligation to—”
“Yes. I am.”
“You are so fucking stubborn.” There was something in Zuko’s tone that Sokka couldn’t quite place. Something that sounded not annoyed, but pleased. He leaned forward, his right hand resting beside Sokka’s outer thigh. Sokka couldn’t stop himself from following Zuko’s fingers, his gaze lifting to meet his lovely eyes. “That’s what I like about you, Sokka. You’re strong, you’re smart, and I don’t get to say it much anymore, but you are so, so pretty. So fucking pretty.”
Zuko tasted like spices and the sun on a warm summer day. He smelled like smoke and the kind of hard work that made sweat seem pleasant. He felt like a warm blanket, like home, like the embrace that Sokka always needed. Against everything his mind was telling him, Sokka accepted the hand on his thigh, the tongue between his lips, and returned a hand to stroke the hair tickling his cheek. He liked twisting a finger around Zuko’s locks, tasting the traces of hot candy in his breath, and listening to the gentle heartbeat that fluttered with their movements but grounded Sokka in a way nothing else ever could. He lifted his other hand up, squeezed it around Zuko’s shirt, let his lips linger for one more passionate moment, and pushed him back to replace the space that belonged between them.
Neither of them said a word. Zuko pulled his hair back behind his ear and Sokka dragged a finger over the stubble on his own cheek, the phantom kisses reminding him of everything they could never have. For a long moment, they stayed in their uncomfortable silence, until Zuko slid a hand forward and Sokka made things even worse. He pulled away quickly, wrapping both arms around his stomach as he bit down on his lip and stared at his knees. It didn’t make sense why he had to be the bad guy. It didn’t make sense why Zuko still liked him after everything he’d done. After everyone he’d killed.
“I’m sorry,” said Zuko quietly, tugging at his hair again. It was entirely loose around his shoulders. He must’ve come to see Sokka before he’d even finished getting ready. An utter waste of time. “I understand if you don’t want to— I just thought that— I mean, I— before this all went down, you and I, we were— we kept— that— and I thought— I really thought that maybe it could turn into something more.”
What hurt the most was that Sokka thought so too. He didn’t know how it happened, but he knew that it did. He knew that it wasn’t all just in Zuko’s head, it was real. After the war, Zuko broke it off with Mai pretty fast. They were still best friends, just like Sokka and Suki after they drifted apart, but they weren’t together like that. They didn’t steal glances at each other like Zuko did for Sokka. They didn’t take any opportunity to initiate physical contact like Sokka did for Zuko. They didn’t play with each other’s hair, lay on each other’s laps, or awkwardly kiss when no one was looking. Never flirted in their letters, never kissed each other’s jaws and shoulders, never made up a bullshit excuse to go visit each other just to hold hands. They never did any of the stupid things that Sokka shouldn’t have engaged in.
“No.” Pushing him away was the right thing to do. Even if it hurt, even if it made him sick, it was the right thing to do because staying around Sokka wouldn’t do anything but cause more pain for Zuko. For both of them. For everyone. “It couldn’t have. We were being stupid, Zuko. I really like you, I do, but we’re not— you’re the Fire Lord, and I’m just— I’m just Sokka, you know? I— I’m just a disabled non-bender from the Water Tribe. It never would’ve worked.”
That was the truth of it. It didn’t matter if anyone knew what they’d been doing in private or not, every time Sokka went out alone with Zuko, he felt out of place. Stupid. He was standing beside the Fire Lord, one of the most powerful people on the entire planet, and he was walking around with a cane. Twenty years old and he had a cane. He couldn’t count the amount of jokes he’d heard about it. The weird looks he’d gotten. It didn’t matter if Zuko bragged about how it happened, how he fucked up his leg, people still looked at Sokka like he was weak. Pathetic. Unworthy of spending any time with the Fire Lord, let alone being his friend, his lover.
“That’s not true.” The only reason Sokka didn’t immediately pull away again was because Zuko’s touch somehow dulled the pain. It stopped the scrapes on his knuckles from burning, the carpal tunnel in his wrist from throbbing. Still, the guilt wouldn’t leave his chest. He shouldn’t get to hold anyone’s hand anymore. He didn’t deserve it. “Sokka, please. I know I should’ve said something sooner, but I think you and I both know how we felt by the time all this shit started. And I know we never talked about it or addressed it like we should’ve but after all those times we held hands and we kissed and that night we were working late in my room and we—”
“Stop it, Zuko. Just— Just stop it. I can’t deal with this right now.” Immediately after he spoke, the guilt pounded in Sokka’s chest, but there was no way for him to take it back. No way for him to turn around and act like he said nothing when what he’d done was practically beg Zuko to go away. To leave him alone and dismiss everything they’d done. The look on the Fire Lord’s face hurt and all Sokka could do was his best to dull the pain. “I’m sorry. It’s not that I don’t like you, I just— I really think we should just be friends. The timing isn’t right and even if it were, we couldn’t— it would never work. I’m really sorry.”
The fact that he couldn’t tell whether it was the truth or whether it was his low self-esteem forcing him to say that made it even harder. He spoke the words, set the boundaries, and he wasn’t even convinced that it was true. After all, they had been doing really well together. They did all those things Zuko said and more. They had some of the best moments of Sokka’s life hiding out in little corners and kissing, even if they pretended afterward that nothing went down. Even if this was technically their first official conversation because until death was potentially imminent, neither of them wanted or were brave enough to really talk about it. Maybe that was a sign nothing was meant to happen.
“Why?” Again, Zuko’s tone was difficult to decipher, as was how Sokka was meant to answer. He chose to keep his mouth shut. It was easier than having to explain to Zuko that he was pathetic and didn’t deserve anyone, let alone the Fire Lord himself. “Please tell me it’s not because of you, Sokka. Please. It’s okay if you don’t feel that way about me but I can’t stand knowing that you think you’re not good enough for me. You know I’m just as awkward as you are, right? Both of us were so bad at flirting. And you’re so much smarter than me, more charming than me, handsomer than me—”
“Don’t.”
It was one word but it was powerful. His tone was sharp, aggressive, pleading, and it worked. Zuko snapped his mouth shut, pulling away when he realized the word was directed at his actions more than what he said. Smoke swirled around his fingertips as he wet his lips and nodded, mumbling something as he wrapped his left arm around his stomach and rose to his feet. Part of Sokka ached for him to stop, to stay in the tent, to kiss him again, and never leave his side. A larger part of him wanted to kick himself for thinking he deserved it and so he said nothing as Zuko left. He said nothing as he glanced up at the entrance, tugged his shirt over his head, and peeled back the bandages. The blade fell on his skin like water, the drops running down his arm and his hand as clearer ones made their way across his cheeks, dripping off the edge of his chin.
He deserved it. He deserved every damn second of the pain and to think he didn’t was to think he was better and he wasn’t. He was pathetic. Sokka convinced Zuko that he was handsome when his arms were, at that point, more cuts than skin. When his cuticles were ripped down to nothing and the bags under his bloodshot eyes hadn’t left in what couldn’t have been months. He wasn’t handsome, he was an exhausted mess of scars and chronic pain. He wasn’t charming, he was a socially inept fool who had a panic attack every time he tried to stand in front of a crowd or talk to someone who intimidated him. He wasn’t smart, he was an idiot who tried again and again to create plans, only for more people to die every week.
Each time Sokka thought of a new plan, a new way to bring peace to the nations without losing more colonies, it backfired. People were already displaced all over, dying indirectly by his hand, and it was too much. Hakoda tried to help with the plans, Bato tried to help with the plans, Aang and Zuko tried to help with the plans, and it was never enough. Even Suki tried to help with the plans but she ended up just holding Sokka while he sobbed because three failures in one day was too much for his stupidly fragile metal state and maybe he didn’t deserve it, but he wanted that fucking hug. He wanted the comfort. He wanted someone telling him that everything in his mind was a lie and he was a better person than he thought.
Sokka didn’t deserve it, but he wanted it, and he let himself indulge just that once.
Besides, it wasn’t like he didn’t give himself all the punishments he needed. Each time his mind started to drift off, a poke. Each time he failed to finish his plans, a scratch. Each time he caught himself wanting to break, a cut. It wasn’t sustainable but it helped. He wasn’t okay but no one had to know that. Sokka let himself lose a few tears when it was time to fall asleep and only then when he could help it. That was the time when his mind was allowed to do whatever it wanted. The time when he wouldn’t stop himself from breaking because he had nothing else to do that day and in the morning, he could reset, which he did. The morning was always a clean slate. Over and over again until he didn’t know the date anymore.
Each morning, he did the same thing as the last. He mentally berated himself when he did something he deemed wrong. He turned away from the meals he was brought because he couldn’t imagine stomaching them. It was the same thing he did day after day ever since they want back into hiding, ever since they first referred to it as a war. It was a loop he couldn’t get himself out of, a cycle of suffering that seemed to have no escape. More than anything, Sokka wanted to stop. He wanted to quit hurting himself, to break the disgusting mindset he’d fallen into, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t get away from the fighting, the stress, the war, and until he could do that, he was stuck.
Sokka went along with it whenever people asked him to come to a meeting. He put on a smile and stood there to talk to people, then he ate or stressed himself sick and crashed for hours on his own. He faced the families of the people he’d killed and spoke to them about the strategies as if there was nothing wrong, then he went back to his tent and stared in the mirror at the spirits of their loved ones. At the tears on his cheeks, the blood on his arms, and every one of the deep bags beneath his eyes. No one ever mentioned how tired he looked and that was the only reason Sokka refrained from it all himself. Nobody really cared. Not unless someone else got hurt too. If it was just Sokka, it was nothing. Because that was what it all boiled down to, wasn’t it? As an asset in war, Sokka was something, even if he hated it.
But in life, as a person, as Sokka, he was nothing.
Nothing.