Work Text:
“This doesn’t seem safe.”
“Dude,” Sokka turned to Zuko, his hands pressed against each other over his mouth until he turned them out at the taller boy, “You literally were hunting the Avatar all over the world on some rickety-“
“It was not rickety it was a-“
“-fire nation ship when you were thirteen. And saw nothing off about it. I don’t think you have a say in what’s dangerous or not anymore.”
Zuko opened his mouth to protest but at the raised unimpressed eyebrow of the other boy, fell silent, his face beet red.
“Still doesn’t explain why we should be leaping on top of a live animal.” Zuko grumbled, eyeing the otter penguins with suspicion, like any minute they would start swarming him. Sokka supposed he shouldn’t expect anything different from him as he had gotten to know the prickly firebender these past few months.
“It’s totally safe! The southern water tribe has been doing this for centuries!” Sokka said defensively, “This little guy? Wouldn’t hurt a fly!” He waltzed over to unsuspecting otter penguin and hugged it around its middle, to which it angrily responded by slapping Sokka in the face and sliding away. Rubbing his face which now spotted a bright red mark, Sokka spoke again, “See? Totally safe.”
Zuko eyed him dubiously, “This does not help your case in the slightest.”
“Listen here Fireboy-“
“-Is that seriously the best name you can come up with right now?”
“-you are going to penguin sled with me and you are going to like it!”
And with that, Sokka picked up one of the dead fish he had brought along and threw it at Zuko, forcing the firebender to catch it; the water tribe boy watched with amusement as Zuko was immediately overrun by excited otter penguins.
“Sokka! What do I-?”
“You penguin sled!” With what he knew was a stupid smile, Sokka presented the other dead fish to divert a few of the distracted penguins and grabbed onto one of them, feeling the air in his face as the animal slid onto its stomach and soared the down the hill.
Sokka turned his head to the side after being blasted with snowy air right up into his eyelids, and saw Zuko coming up right beside him, eyes blown wide and looking right close to terrified as he kept his face locked onto the the oncoming slope.
Sokka’s smile turned fond as he watched the firebender squirm for a better hold on the otter penguin. Of all the things to throw the infamous young Fire Lord off guard, it was penguin sledding. Of course.
As the slope to the icy water approached, he heard Zuko yelling, “Sokka! Sokka, what do we do?”
The water tribe boy raised his eyebrows with an easy smile and released his hold on his penguin, “Jump!”
He was thrown backwards into a snow pile face down, inhaling a mouthful of pure white coldand nearly choked on it until it melted in his mouth. Sokka quickly coughed and lifted himself to his feet, scanning for Zuko, suddenly being very worried that his friend was currently being soaked in freezing water. Sure, the guy had somehow survived swimming into the Northern Water Tribe like the desperate angsty teenager he was- but that didn’t mean taking an unexpected dip in ice water was going to be any more pleasant.
Sokka nearly tripped over himself as a dark head of hair poked out of the disturbed snow near his feet and Zuko sat up, coughing.
Sokka quickly recovered and sat, crossed legged, beside him, grinning like a doofus, “Not so bad, aye Jerk?”
Zuko was still rubbing the water out of his eyes, and Sokka began to grow just slightly concerned for his wellbeing. He had assumed Zuko would enjoy penguin sledding. But what if he was about to go off at him for forcing him to do it? And hey, since when did Sokka care about impressing Zuko anyway? Since when? It’s not like he cared about his opinion or anything so-
“That,” Zuko interrupted Sokka’s spiral, “was…pretty great.” He finished, as though embarrassed to admit it.
“Ha! I told you so. Still not ready to admit I’m right about lots of things yet? I see, it took Katara a long time too, I still don’t think she believes me yet which is offending considering she has known me her whole life-“
“Hey, your plan to escape the Boiling Rock was amazing. I told you that.”
Sokka looked the firebender up and down, arms crossed, ignoring the warmness growing over his face. “Yeah, it was.” And didn’t reply further.
Zuko fidgeted in his spot in the snow for a second, “Um…could we do it again?” He asked in a small voice, not looking at the water tribe boy and crossing his arms over his chest, subconsciously copying Sokka’s posture.
“Oh? Sorry? What was that? I couldn’t quite hear-“
“Agni! It was fun and I’d like to go again,” Zuko snapped, the top snow layer around him melting in a neat little circle.
Sokka just grinned, “‘Course we can, Jerk Bender.”