Chapter Text
On his sixth consecutive Day of Black Sun, Sokka wakes up mad.
Whatever spirit has trapped him in a cycle of his own terrible mistakes seems to believe that he will take this punishment lying down. Well, fuck that. Sokka is a planner. Sokka is a fixer. Modern problems require modern solutions.
The sun’s just cresting the horizon and he’s the only one awake (he’s reliving the one day this has ever happened!) and instead of poring over the maps until everyone else rises and shines like he did the first time and every time since, he tiptoes over to where Toph is sleeping.
Sokka gives her a tentative poke (please don’t freak out and throw a rock at him, please, he doesn’t want to restart this day this soon) and Toph doesn’t move.
Sokka’s about to try poking harder when she hisses, eyes still shut, “What do you want?”
“I need to talk to you and Aang,” he whispers back.
Her eyes open only to squint skeptically in his general direction. “Not Katara?”
“No,” Sokka replies, involuntarily glancing over to where his sister’s lying. She’s really alive, he reassures his brain. The version of this day where she died was fake. Or it didn’t stick, at least.
“Weird,” Toph says, though she’s clearly delighted. “Okay!”
“Great, but keep your voice —”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it, silent and sneaky,” Toph says, not nearly as quietly as Sokka would like. Well, beggars can’t be choosers and Katara still seems fully passed out.
They creep over to Aang, who looks positively angelic sleeping soundly in his bed of koala sheep fur. In any other circumstance, Sokka would feel bad about waking him (maybe so bad he’d change his mind and walk away) but the pessimist part of Sokka’s brain is pretty sure he’s not getting off this hamster wheel any time soon and his actions have, well, diminished consequences.
He ruthlessly pokes Aang in the arm.
Aang springs into sitting position like a triggered platypus bear trap. Sokka’s glad he woke up Toph first because when Aang opens his mouth to yell, she’s there to unceremoniously stuff a rock in his mouth and then puts a finger to her lips so he gets the message.
Aang looks positively bewildered but spits the rock out and doesn’t cause further commotion.
“Hey, guys? What’s going on?” he asks in a hushed voice.
Shit. Sokka probably should have given himself more time to plan out what to say but he’s finding that the inherent time limit on this day is really stifling his ability to strategize the way he likes.
“Soooooo. I’ve been thinking —”
“Shouldn’t you have been sleeping?” Aang asks, obviously concerned following his own recent adventures in sleep deprivation.
“I mean, I did that, too — thanks, Aang — but what I was thinking about was….our plan?” Big inhale as he tries to figure out how to sell this without giving the game away. “What if we went to find Ozai now?”
“Now? Sokka, the eclipse isn’t for four hours,” Aang cuts in.
“I know! But what if — just a hypothetical — but what if it’s, well, harder to find him than we expect? Like maybe he’s hiding! And if we went now, we would have time to look for him and maybe set up a trap for when the eclipse actually happens. Because you know, it’s a very short window —”
“Why would he be hiding?” Aang asks.
“I don’t know, they’re the Fire Nation! Maybe they’re being extra careful with the royal family —”
“Yeah, right! They’re always having that dumb prince run around after us —” Toph scoffs.
“Yeah, but he’s — Ozai’s probably a different —”
“They don’t know we’re coming,” Aang says. (Spirits above, it kills Sokka not to correct him.)
“And even if we went now, what about the invasion, bird brain?” adds Toph.
“I mean, they would just… keep with the plan —”
“Wouldn’t they worry about us if we went missing?” Aang asks, the crinkle in his brow just going deeper and deeper.
“We could leave a note! Again, the point of this is Ozai —”
“Also I don’t know why you woke me up — Aang’s supposed to kick the Fire Lord’s butt solo,” says Toph, starting to sound genuinely peeved.
“I was thinking the three of us could go on Appa and, I don’t know, if they were, say, hiding behind something metal you could help us break in —”
“Sokka,” Aang says in the voice he usually reserves for animals who are spooked and about to run (too kind, Sokka can hardly bear it). “I know today is scary. I’m nervous, too! But you put together a really good plan for the invasion. We all trust it! And you should, too.”
The thing is, in any other world, Aang would have Sokka dead to rights. Changing ostrich horses mid-stream isn’t Sokka’s style — he only suggests scrapping a well-thought-out plan when he’s really, really nervous and then it’s the kind of thing you should talk him out of. But this is not Normal World. Sokka doesn’t know how to explain what’s really going on — he doesn’t really know himself. He has the shape of it — this day on repeat and only he notices! he keeps getting killed and then just waking up again! it’s all extremely cool! — but not the reason why. And he doesn’t want to sound unhinged.
So Sokka lets out a big breath and hides his frustration and disappointment under a metaphorical rock and says, “You’re right, Aang. Thanks.”
Aang gives him one of his sunshine smiles and then goes in for a hug, while Toph pats Sokka on the arm and mutters, “I’m going back to bed” before walking away.
“Let’s look over the maps together before everyone else gets up,” suggests Aang, dragging Sokka up, and just like that, they’re going to the spot where Sokka usually sits alone, to do the thing he’s done the five other times he’s lived this day.
Is this the spirits, the universe, the coma that maybe he’s trapped in telling Sokka there’s no point trying to change his circumstances? Well, tough luck, buddy, he’s not giving up. He’ll die at some point today and then he’ll get another shot at this morning and then he’s going to find a way to break out.
On his sixth consecutive Day of Black Sun, Zuko doesn’t wake up so much as rocket into consciousness with a single thought: The weirdest (and in the running for worst!) experience of my life is even weirder than I thought.
He’d assumed he was going through this — experiencing this horrible, awful, very bad day over and over again — by himself. A reasonable assumption since literally no one he’s interacted with has changed their behavior except in response to his or has had any idea what Zuko was talking about when he’s tried to explain what was happening.
All five loops (that’s what he’s calling them in his head) he’d been throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. Yesterday (if you can call it that), he’d barged into the underground chamber where he knew Azula was waiting to surprise the Avatar and he’d accused her of being responsible for this because wouldn’t that be just like her to trap him in a fun-house of his own fuck-ups? But she’d looked baffled to the point of not even being amused by it — she’s a liar but not that good of one (he thinks) — and ordered him to leave. He’d refused and a yelling match had turned into a fight and then right when Zuko was starting to make peace with the fact that he was going to end this cycle getting murdered by his sister (an upgrade or downgrade from being killed by his father?), the Avatar and his friends — the very people Zuko was so eager to ally himself with! who he was not ready to meet yet! — had come through the door.
After three seconds in which the new arrivals had realized who they were looking for wasn’t there and Zuko had formed the thought What’s a cool way to tell them I’m Team Avatar now?, Azula had sent a lightning bolt Zuko’s way, he had dodged it, and it had gone and struck that annoying Southern Water Tribe boy square in the chest.
As the other boy had hit the floor — dead, very clearly dead — and horror and disbelief had overtaken the Avatar’s face and Zuko had thought despairingly, Oh, now they’re never going to believe that I’m on their side, the Weird Thing had happened.
Time had shuddered to a stop.
And then Zuko had heard the sound he’d heard at end of two other loops — this impossibly loud straining, like the bottom of a ship scraping against an iceberg, that suddenly resolved into a pop, like your ears adjusting to new altitude, followed by a quarter of a millisecond where he’d felt like — well, the only way he could describe it is that he’d felt like water going down a drain.
And then he’d been back here. Waking up in his bed, in the palace he was so desperately trying to escape.
He hadn’t died that time. He was positive. The times he’d died, he’d felt the killing blow. (If you were wondering? It felt bad.) The freezing, the noises, the down the drain feeling that he couldn’t think about without giving himself goosebumps (ugh) — this only happened to him during loop resets where he’d been in great health. They had bewildered him because he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what was causing the day to restart.
But this time, cause and effect had been crystal clear. That boomerang boy with the goofy smile had died and the day had snapped like a rubber band back to its start.
Zuko might — just might! — not be in this alone. He’s just maybe-not-alone in this with a person he’s subjected to relentless cruelty over the past year, who seems like he might be aggressively into puns, whose name he doesn’t know. A person whose propensity for dying is keeping Zuko trapped.
What a cool and normal thing. Thanks, spirits. How do you even talk to a person like that?
That’s a problem for future Zuko. The first hurdle is just getting in front of this guy.
If he thinks too much about this, he’ll chicken out.
Zuko books it to the armory, keeping his fingers fervently crossed that there will be some normal soldier armor lying around (that’s probably not what it's called — is he out of touch?). He’s got to blend in so he can hitch a ride to the beach.
Sokka knows he isn’t doing a good job, but it's like he can’t stop himself. I mean, he does the necessary things — the things he’d figured out over the last five versions of this day that keep more people alive, like checking the submarine on Boat 4 for leaks before they set sail, and the things that that keep him from looking tragically uncool, like freaking out in front of the Boulder — but the vibes he’s exuding are positively rancid.
He accosts Huu and demands to know what he means when he says death is an illusion and makes everyone uncomfortable (also gets no answers). He gives his speech to the troops and people who looked confident before Sokka started talking are looking confused and disheartened by the time he wanders off the stone stage. He can’t look Katara or his dad in the eye because the only way he knows how to protect them is by doing what he did yesterday (more accurate to call it the last today?) — keep them out of the battle entirely by discreetly knocking Katara unconscious right before the boats load up, pretending she’d passed out because she was sick, guilt-tripping Hakoda into staying behind to take care of her, and sailing off without them. (All of which had felt bad, been difficult, and had proven to be a real they’re-safe-but-at-what-cost with regards to the invasion’s success.)
If everything would just pause for a second and he could think, Sokka would be able to come up with a better plan — he’s sure of it.
But here they are. The cycle of this day is an irresistible force and Sokka is an all too moveable object.
Everyone’s loading up and instead of being in the middle of it all, he’s gone and found a quiet little bit of cliffside to what? Mope on? Tear his hair out on? Look at these spirits-forsaken maps one more time, like they have the answer to escaping this day written on them in code?
“Everything alright?”
Sokka turns to see his dad, looking uncharacteristically — well, Sokka’s not quite sure what Hakoda’s look means. He glances away, just in case it turns out to be disappointment.
“Yeah,” Sokka makes himself say. “Just, you know, polishing my boomerang, thinking about the invasion!” He reaches over his shoulder to grab said boomerang and realizes he doesn’t even have it with him — it’s in his bag on the beach. Perfect. Now it just sounds like a euphemism.
“Oh! Well.” Hakoda seems to search for something — a word, maybe — and then sighs. “I know that this is hard —”
It’s such simple bait but Sokka takes it.
“It is hard! It’s, like, impossibly hard!” Sokka hates that his voice is cracking but he stubbornly keeps going. “I’m just — I’m just trying to keep everyone safe and no one’s listening to me, everyone’s like, ‘We gotta get on the boats, we have to stay to the time table —’”
“Sokka, we’re following your plan,” Hakoda points out gently.
“Yeah, but not the —!”
Fuck! He can’t tell his dad he tried to get Aang and Toph to run away this morning the same way he can’t tell his dad that he’s cursed or hallucinating or maybe he died five days ago and he’s getting some kind of ghost punishment. Which would be worse to see on Hakoda’s face in response — pity or fear? Sokka literally cannot handle either at this point.
Pack all the ugly and wild feelings up and shove them down to the bottom of the knapsack. Figure this out on your own without getting everyone else worried and also killed.
“We are using my plan, I just…” Sokka deflates like a war balloon. “You know… what if I come up with a better plan but everyone’s already too committed to this one and… and not changing tactics messes everything up?” Under his breath, he adds, “I’m already messing things up.”
Sokka turns away and looks out at the ocean without really seeing anything. After a moment, he feels a broad hand settle on one shoulder.
“Part of being a warrior — and being a leader, like you are, Sokka — is making mistakes. I’ve made plenty before and —” Hakoda gives a huff of a laugh. “ — I’ll make plenty more in the future. What’s important is not being afraid to own your mistakes when they happen and making sure you don’t get so caught up feeling bad about them that you can’t help fix them.”
Sokka stares out at the surf. It’s good advice, but he’s not sure how to apply it to his particular situation.
“Is that… is that helpful?” his dad asks, after a moment.
Sokka finally turns his head and sees something like nervousness on Hakoda’s face. He shocks himself by saying the true thing: “I don’t know. But I’m gonna try to figure it out.”
Hakoda pulls him into a side hug and they stand there, looking out at the water they’ll be crossing soon.
“I love you, Dad,” Sokka says out loud, and in his head, he adds, I’ve saved your life one time and I’m going to do it again.
Riding in a tank is a loud, uncomfortable, aggressive way to travel that Zuko cannot in any way recommend. That boy better be on that beach.
The subs don’t sink. The sub that gets harpooned by Fire Nation chains is rescued by Katara and Appa. They land on the beaches and this time, Sokka knows where not to stand if he wants to avoid getting taken out by a missile.
It’s the question of his dad’s survival that has Sokka’s heartbeat rattling his rib cage now. The whole voyage to the beach, he’s been trying to replay the past versions of the invasion in his head to prepare but it’s hard. The two times Hakoda’s gone down, it’s been when they’ve engaged the komodo rhino riders but Sokka’s never seen who kills his dad — he’s always been too caught up in combat himself. The timing of when it happens is hard to suss out — the battle’s always fucking loud — and it feels like the moment of seeing Hakoda still on the ground, (the darkening ground, and above him, Katara and a look on her face he’s seen once before) is writing over the memories of everything that leads up to it. Which makes solving this particularly, um, challenging.
I work best under pressure, Sokka says to himself, absolutely unsure whether this is true or not.
His mouth is drier than the Si Wong Desert.
The Water Tribe warriors and Earth Kingdom tanks surge forward, skirting the flaming rocks raining down. Those piece-of-shit Fire Nation tanks start pouring out of the gate in front of them and coming up the beach to attack the rear. Sokka takes his eyes off his dad for one (1) millisecond to watch the swampbenders start demolishing them. (It’s a very satisfying millisecond.)
Then it’s back to Hakoda, who is leading the charge. All Sokka can do is follow.
Okay, so Zuko did lie to be able to get a ride in a tank down to the beach and the lie was that he knew how to be a gunner. This is a lie that is falling apart right now, in real time, as the tank approaches enemy combatants and Zuko, up in the gunner’s seat, does absolutely nothing of use.
Two things about this: first of all, Zuko isn’t going to fire upon the invasion force because these are the people he’s trying to join. Second of all, he couldn't even if he wanted to — all of the little windows to firebend out of were closed when he got in his seat and he can’t figure out how to open them because none of the levers in front of him are labeled clearly at all.
The soldiers below him are yelling about his idiocy and Zuko’s halfway through the thought of Wow, one more reason to defect from the Fire Nation — absolutely shit, non-intuitive design! when oh, fuck, oh Agni, they’ve been hit by something and they’re spinning and Zuko’s energy is now devoted to not throwing up and the realization that’s he’s going to die in this garbage can if he doesn’t get out now.
They collide into something — which, cool, he hits the dashboard and now some part of his face is bleeding but at least they’re not spinning anymore — and Zuko hits every single lever and button until finally, a hatch opens and he scrambles up and out and tumbles to the ground.
As Zuko struggles to his feet, the tank he was just a(n incompetent) crew member of gets chucked into the ocean by some very, um, minimally dressed waterbenders with big leaves on their heads. Which — aren’t both the Water Tribes from the poles? Where it’s cold? Is this, like, some summer vacation/invasion look they invented? Or is what he’s seeing just the product of the concussion Zuko absolutely just got?
Hard to know and ultimately pointless. Zuko doesn’t see who he’s looking for among them. He throws off his helmet, wipes the blood from his face as best he can (ugh, the cut’s on his unscarred brow so it’s just going to keep bleeding and bleeding), and runs aimlessly into the fray.
The komodo rhinos are bearing down on them and Sokka’s on the outside of the warrior line. What did he do when he did this before? Just engage with whatever rider came up to him, he guesses? (He was so scared in the first version of this day, it was all instinct, absolutely no brain.) What did Piandao say he was good at? Creativity. Use the terrain. The terrain’s not just the concrete beneath his feet — the terrain’s also the komodo rhinos.
Thinking just enough to figure out the timing but not enough to doubt himself, Sokka darts in front of his dad and all the other Water Tribe warriors and leaps directly onto the foremost horn of the foremost rider’s rhino. La’s fins, this could have gone spectacularly badly but it doesn’t — he hops from the front horn to one of the shorter ones behind it, pirouettes to face the rider with his sword sweeping upwards, to knock the guy’s spear away when instead — holy shit. The Fire Nation’s soldier’s spear is butter and the space sword is apparently a very hot knife — it cuts the spearpoint and wooden shaft in half so quickly Sokka doesn’t even feel any resistance in his upswing. There’s shock from both parties at this turn of events, but in the blink of an eye, Sokka snaps back into action, unseating the rider and swinging into the saddle himself. Wow wow wow, so this is what good adrenaline feels like — he was honestly starting to forget.
Sokka looks down from his new and improved perch and for the first time he sees it — a firebender running up to Hakoda, who has his back turned. No no no fuck no —
“Dad, look out!”
Hakoda turns towards Sokka’s voice and gets his shield up just in time to catch the blast of fire that killed him twice before, then pivots to dispatch four Fire Nation soldiers in six moves.
His dad’s not dead. His dad’s still standing. His dad’s not just doing okay — he’s doing great .
“I did it, I did it, I did it,” Sokka whispers wonderingly, a smile entirely inappropriate for battle lighting up his face. He digs his heels into the side of his komodo rhino (it is his now, Sokka decides — this bad boy’s way too cool to give up) and his mount charges forward.
Hakoda clocks their approach and grabs Sokka’s proffered hand with ease, swinging up into the saddle behind his son. Sokka’s about to turn back to ask his dad where he should direct their ride when the komodo rhino skitters to a halt.
What now? Oh, a Fire Nation soldier who apparently has nothing left to lose has run directly into their path. Jeez, this guy looks like shit — there’s a cut above one eye that’s bleeding like a stuck pig deer and the other side — oh, fuck.
The boy that is ruining Zuko’s life (no, that’s not a fair assignment of blame, yes it is) is on a komodo rhino, right in front of him and Zuko has no idea what to say. Zuko didn’t think that — well, you could stop the sentence right there, couldn’t you? Zuko didn’t think. He just ran into a warzone to find a person who probably hates him and doesn’t even realize there’s a time loop because if he did he’d probably try to stop dying, right?
This was such a stupid idea , Zuko thinks as he stands in front of an enormous angry animal with his arms spread wide so it doesn’t try to run around him, intermittently wiping blood from his face. I don’t even know his name.
“You!” yells the boy, pointing at Zuko with an expression of pure disbelief.
“You!” responds Zuko indignantly, pointing back.
There’s a brief stalemate, as the boy with the — well, Zuko had assumed he’d see a boomerang in his hand, but it’s actually a sword with a black blade??? which, interesting — seems increasingly baffled and frustrated.
A missile hits the ground nearby and they both flinch and that’s right, they’re still on a battlefield and time is limited and Zuko has to say something —
WHY IS THE FUCKING PRINCE OF THE FUCKING FIRE NATION HERE, CAN SOKKA HAVE ONE NICE THing now, wait, how is he here, Sokka’s never seen him on the battlefield before and he’s done this five times, well maybe four times that you can count, but the only place he’s ever seen Zuko was yesterday when Sokka got to Azula’s chamber in the bunker below the city and she and him were fighting and, wait, that hadn’t happened the first time he lived this day so what —
“You have to stop dying!” is what comes out of Zuko’s mouth. Well, it’s inelegant but accurate.
“Excuse me???” yells back the Water Tribe boy, the multiple question marks audible.
“You’re screwing this up for me!” replies Zuko. “Every time you die, the day resets and if you haven’t noticed —” he gestures around them “— this day sucks!”
“Sokka, what’s going on?” asks the man behind the boy who is apparently named Sokka.
“I’ll explain in a — one second, just please trust me, Dad” replies Sokka (Zuko is furiously committing this name to memory), sotto voce. He then executes a frankly unfairly cool move — he stands up in the saddle, runs down the komodo rhino’s forehead, slides down the ramp of its biggest horn, catches air, and then lands in a crouch a few feet away, his sword extended toward Zuko.
Show-off, thinks Zuko weakly.
“Did you do this?” asks Sokka, before correcting himself. “You did, didn’t you? I mean how else would you — fucking unbelievable! You’re — what? You’re so bad at catching the Avatar you had to figure out a way to give yourself infinity chances?”
“What? No! I’m trying to join your side!”
“Do you think I’m stupid?!”
“I mean — I don’t know you that well! But it’s the truth!” There’s not not little flames coming out of Zuko’s nostrils as he vents his frustration. “I’m trying to be good and helpful and I’m trying to get away from here but every time I get close, the day just restarts and I assume it’s because —”
“Oh, you — well, you know what you do when you assume! You make an ass of you and —”
“Well, it happened last time! I was about to defeat Azula —” Oh jeez, that’s an embarrassing lie that he didn’t mean to tell. “— when you barged in and got yourself killed and the whole room —” Zuko makes a popping sound and then raises one hand slowly, so as not to provoke an attack from Sokka, and gestures to indicate water going down a drain.
Sokka startles and really makes eye contact for the first time. His gaze is blue and unforgiving.
“It’s happened to you, too,” Zuko breathes.
“Once,” Sokka agrees. “The second time, I think? I —” Suddenly, his face closes off. “You can’t trick me. You’re a lying, murderous little —” He can’t seem to decide on a word to finish the sentence. “You’d say anything —”
“Yes! You’re right, I would’ve. But I’m —” Spirits above, why had he not tried to write out any of this in advance? “Look. I don’t deserve your trust — I’ll probably never earn it! But that doesn’t change the circumstance —”
“How many times has it been for you?”
“Six.”
“Fuck!” Sokka looks like there are a million different things he wants to say and he doesn’t know where to start. “I can’t believe this is —”
“That guy bothering you?” yells a gruff voice in the melee.
Zuko and Sokka both turn to look at the speaker, a shirtless, extremely jacked earthbender.
“I —” Sokka looks back and forth between the earthbender and Zuko. He seems extremely torn. He’s also maybe blushing?
“The Boulder will take care of it!” exclaims the earthbender who is apparently named the Boulder and has clearly taken Sokka’s hesitation for assent.
WHAM — Zuko’s obliterated by two tons of limestone.
Well, it’s one way to end a conversation.