Chapter Text
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It’s been raining in the city for an entire week straight, and Sokka is so, so sick of this bullshit.
“Twenty-six is such a boring year,” Toph’s voice says in his ear. “It’s literally between twenty-five and twenty-seven.”
She’s calling from Indonesia, and Sokka can hear birds singing in the background of wherever she is right now. Birds. Singing! It’s been raining in New York for so long that he actually misses the wood doves that used to wake him up by chirping at his window at the ass crack of dawn. Why does Toph get to be sunbathing on an island while Sokka’s slogging through a rainstorm at seven in the morning?
Far be it him, though, to bring a friend down just because the universe has decided to hate him personally. He keeps his voice light as he somberly agrees, “That’s how numbers work.”
Toph doesn’t rise to the bait. “How does it feel to be boring years old?”
“I’m not turning twenty-six for another week.”
“I won’t have cell service for the next two weeks, so pretend you’re turning twenty-six right now,” she orders. “How do you feel?”
He pulls up at a crosswalk and tugs the hood of his disposable poncho further down. He’s been splashed in the face by city gutter water once before, and the infection in his right eye lasted for almost a month; he would rather never relive that, thanks. “I feel like I’m not twenty-five,” he replies.
Toph snorts. “Gee, creative answer.”
“Hey! Accurate answer.”
“Then what did twenty-five feel like?”
Twenty-five feels like the last year he’s still allowed to say he’s learning how to be an adult. It feels like waking up to an aching knee anytime the weather drastically changes overnight. It feels like 335 days—give or take a few—of gluing his heart back together after Zahra dropped it in the middle of her kitchen, where Sokka had cooked more than she ever did, and it shattered into hundreds of pieces that he had to hurriedly sweep back into his chest with soft palms that bled so easily when he grabbed those jagged shards. He took the red-stained pile of rubbish back to Katara and Suki and Zuko and Yue, and they very patiently gave him the scaffolding he needed to rebuild that most vulnerable part of him a bit stronger, but also a bit more hardened, than it was before.
“Twenty-five felt like I was too old to get carded at the bar, but I’d still get offended every time I wasn’t,” Sokka says.
Toph cackles right as the light turns, and Sokka surges forward with a grin. He misses her as dearly as he misses clear skies, right now. Only two more blocks, and he’ll be safely inside his lab building, rotating gently in the corner of the lobby like shawarma on a spit until he’s no longer a dripping hazard to the lab equipment.
“Are you going to do anything stupid for your birthday?” Toph asks.
“No,” Sokka pouts. “I have a project deadline for one of my advisors the day after, and the day after that grades are due for the differentials class I’m TAing.”
“Gross. Why didn’t you quit school when the rest of us did?”
He gets caught at a red light on the crosswalk again, but there are no cars from either direction, so he dares the universe with a cheeky little jaywalk. “I’m a slut for research funding.”
“That’s not gonna get you laid.”
“Suki and Yue are gonna take me to a club the weekend after, though.”
“What about Zuko and the rest of them?”
Sokka’s freezing heart gives a pitiful shiver when the warm lights of his building come into view. “They’re all going to be out of the country.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Yeah, well. Mai’s birthday is in January, anyway, so we can all go nuts then.”
Finally, blissfully, he’s indoors again, and the sigh of relief that slips out of him has the security guard shooting him a weird look. “What was that about?” Toph asks.
“I have escaped the torrent of angry gods,” Sokka reports. “I am now at work.”
Toph laughs. “Perfect timing,” she says. “My cocktail just arrived.”
A bird in the background trills again. Sokka glares out the window at the rain. “Do you have no empathy for my suffering?”
“Don’t expect me to cry a river for you.”
Of course he didn’t, but that’s what’s great about Toph—in their circle of very emotionally in-tune friends, Sokka sometimes needs someone who’ll crassly tell him to grow a pair, misogyny be damned.
They say their goodbyes, Sokka does his shawarma routine, and then the morning becomes very mundane. There are emails, tests to grade, labs to prepare. Sokka told Toph he’s a slut for funding, but truly, he enjoys even the tedious aspects of what his studying entails; it is, after all, study, the great confluence of research and education that has the power to change lives and maybe even the very world as humankind knows it. This is the stuff that could save lives; it’s also the stuff that could, maybe theoretically, make Jurassic Park a reality.
Sokka loves it.
Around one or so, his stomach starts throwing a tantrum about We need to eat! Now! He squints out the lab’s window, wondering if the rain is heavy enough that he’ll subject himself to the miserable basement café food, and he spends so long mentally debating with himself that, when he looks down, he barely catches Azula’s contact photo disappearing from his silent phone’s screen.
He blinks. Why is Azula calling him in the middle of a weekday? He can’t even remember the last time they’ve spoken on the phone.
His phone lights up again, and Sokka picks it up. “Hello?” he answers.
“You need to go to the hospital.”
Azula, the queen of without preamble. Sokka’s used it, but that doesn’t mean he’s not wary of it. “Why? What do you know that I don’t?”
She sniffs. It isn’t her usual sharp sniff of disdain. “I’m in Tokyo, and Mai and Ty Lee are in Beijing,” she explains.
Sokka’s stomach drops. Azula never gives context for her demands. “What happened?” he asks, dread clawing at the back of his throat.
“Zuko collapsed.”
Sokka doesn’t remember how it happened, but somehow, he makes it from his lab to the hospital on foot, still in one piece, and in less time than the subway would have taken him. Azula and Mai also must have their fingers playing puppeteer to some very powerful strings, because Sokka’s shown to Zuko’s room based on nothing more than his driver’s license.
He doesn’t know what wing of the hospital they’re in, but the room the nurse brings him to is dark, and not just because the city’s been covered by clouds for days on end. Some beds have privacy curtains drawn around them. Aside from his and the nurse’s footsteps, the only sounds are the soft blips of medical equipment. They pull up at the second bed from the end, and Sokka’s not prepared for the sight behind the soft blue curtain when it’s pulled back.
Zuko looks small.
He’s always been one of those people who seems taller than he actually is from the sheer force of his presence, but here, in a sterile hospital room with wide white pillows creating an overlarge canvas for Zuko’s pallid face, he’s small. There’s a difference between a sleeping Zuko and the unconscious one laying before Sokka now, and Sokka doesn’t like it.
He steps forward and is about to reach for Zuko’s ankle when he notices he’s still dripping rain. It reminds him that there’s a world beyond his friend who’s in this hospital bed, and he looks up to make eye contact with the nurse, who’s watching Sokka patiently. “What happened?” Sokka asks.
Apparently, while at a gallery installation this morning, Zuko collapsed and hit the back of his head on the corner of a pedestal on his way down. Some skin split, there was a lot of blood because all head lacerations are like that, and over the course of getting rushed to the hospital and having a portion of his head shaved and stapled back shut, they determined that Zuko had collapsed from sheer exhaustion.
“He isn’t too concussed,” the nurse says, “but he’s definitely been over-working himself for a while, and he’ll need substantial time to recover from that.”
Sokka sinks into the chair that’s been left at Zuko’s bedside. They’ve all known since forever that Zuko works harder than any of them, running off less sleep and more caffeine and rushed or forgotten meals; it’s a running joke and a given that Zuko’s cortisol levels are probably higher than all of their friends’ combined.
It no longer feels funny when the glow of a heart monitor deepens the shadow beneath Zuko’s unscarred eye.
“He could have died,” Sokka hears himself say.
The nurse responds with something, but Sokka doesn’t process any of it. His friend could have died, all because—because he’s too stubborn and driven to get a healthy amount of sleep?
The nurse leaves. Carefully, Sokka pushes up his rain-damp sleeve and reaches out to touch Zuko’s forearm.
His arm is real, solid and warm beneath Sokka’s fingertips, and only then can Sokka let out the shaky breath he didn’t realize he was holding in. He’s really here, and—god, what if Zuko weren’t here?
It’s not like Zuko is Sokka’s whole world, but Sokka’s life without Zuko would suddenly be so full of empty spaces that he can’t even imagine what his days would look like; he can only think of what would be gone. Who would he text when his data is still processing at two in the morning and he had one cup of coffee too many to just go to sleep? Who would he call when he’s alone and drunk in Alphabet City because Suki’s game is impeccable when she’s buzzed, and his apartment feels dauntingly far away but Zuko’s is definitely in walking distance? Who else is going to indulge Sokka’s rambling attempts at explaining how he feels? Who’s going to catch Sokka off-guard by spouting quiet, sincere truths at unexpected moments, leaving Sokka breathless and silently reeling over the notion that sometimes other people understand him better than he understands himself?
There’s a soft sigh, and Sokka jumps out of his skin, whipping his head around to check on Zuko.
He’s still out of it, but he’s turned his head a bit, and suddenly Sokka can see it, half-hidden by the longer top layers of Zuko’s hair: surgical staples suturing a long cut that’s raised and an angry red, glistening with a clear, viscous substance. Sokka stares at it, mind utterly blank.
The sound of the ward’s door opening jolts him. He carefully lets go of Zuko’s arm and straightens in his seat as other voices float to him from across the room. His entire left leg has fallen asleep; it’ll take at least a minute to walk off. Now is as good a time as any to call Azula, he supposes.
The further his body carries him away from Zuko, the more his chest tightens.
It’s never been easy to tell from her voice alone what’s really on Azula’s mind, and Sokka’s still feeling somewhat overwhelmed, so he lets her talk and talk and talk as he wanders around and around the hospital cafeteria. The best course of action here is taking none, if her sharp tone and repeated scoffing indicate anything.
He buys a cup of black coffee and burns his tongue on the first sip right as Azula says, “The cat lady will get Mai’s spare key to you by the end of your work day.”
Sokka exhales loudly and flicks his tongue up and down inside his mouth. He never learns, when it comes to airpot coffee, does he? “What?” he says.
“Don’t make me regret trusting you,” Azula snaps. “I can’t leave the country until the inheritance crap is settled.”
“I know,” Sokka says, because he does. Even though Ozai only croaked this January, Zuko and Azula rarely talk about their father’s passing; when they do, it’s usually to complain about the sudden barrage of Japanese, Singaporean, and American legislative crap they now have to deal with, because Ozai died with a shitton of money and assets, and now all the governments want a piece of it. Ursa suddenly reappearing in their lives only a couple months after Ozai died certainly didn’t help alleviate any of the stress or confusion.
“He’s going to be on some sort of head trauma watch and recovery protocol,” Azula says, “and you’re the only other person left in New York who can take care of him.”
“Okay.” What else is he supposed to say? No? Inconceivable.
“Pack enough for at least a week.”
Wait— “Pack?” Sokka echoes, even as his brain is rattling through the logic. “You want me to move in with him?” It does make the most sense, his brain concludes.
“What part of take care of do you not understand?”
“I—I mean, I’ll do everything I can, but I can’t just abandon work for an indefinite period of time.”
“The walk from Zuko’s place to your lab is twenty-six minutes instead of an hour and twelve minutes.”
Of course she already checked. “You’re sure Zuko won’t mind?”
“I don’t care what Zuko minds if he won’t even mind himself,” she snaps.
Sokka winces. She’s not exactly wrong. “Fine,” he says. “What’s the cat lady’s name? I’ll let the front desk know to expect her.”
When he returns to the ward, he’s buried in his phone, typing out a packing checklist with one hand, balancing his poorly-insulated coffee cup with the other. He tugs aside the curtain with the coffee hand, and he’s not expecting to hear a bewildered, “Sokka?”
He almost drops his coffee and instead flings his phone in his panic to catch the cup. “Zuko,” he blurts, coffee dripping down the side of his hand. He looks around for something he could use as a napkin—is he really going to have to use Zuko’s bedsheet? Surely he’d get kicked out of the hospital for that—
Zuko leans over the railing of his bed and pulls several tissues from a box on the side table. “Here,” he says, holding them out to Sokka, and this is just them in a nutshell, isn’t it? Zuko almost fractured his skull a few hours ago, yet he’s the one taking care of Sokka.
Sokka takes the tissues. “How are you feeling?” he asks.
“Fine.”
He pauses in sopping up coffee to stare at Zuko. His eyes are alert on Sokka—a hopeful sign that he’s truly not that concussed, Sokka thinks—but there’s still something drawn about his expression. “Dude,” Sokka says, going for lighthearted. He’s not sure he hits the mark. “You literally have staples in your head.”
Zuko sighs. “My head hurts,” he concedes.
“Uh-huh.”
Sokka carefully sets down his coffee and then crouches at the side of Zuko’s bed. He’s aware that he’s staring, but there’s still a part of him that’s desperately seeking every assurance that Zuko’s alive and going to be fine.
“Why are you here?” Zuko asks.
There are probably many more informative answers Sokka could offer, but he’s currently preoccupied by suppressing the urge to crawl into the bed and wrap himself around Zuko so completely that nothing could ever touch his friend again—because that would hardly work anyway, would it? Not if the thing that’s hurt Zuko this time is something inside Zuko himself.
“I’m coming home with you,” Sokka says.
The cat lady has the aura of a daddy dom instead of a cat lady, and the security guard is really giving Sokka a funny look as he accepts Mai’s key to Zuko’s apartment from her. “Thanks, June,” he says, wondering how this woman got a gig as Bai Ze’s regular catsitter.
“Mai suggests dumping all the cold brew that’s in his fridge,” June replies.
“I think a partially incapacitated Zuko is still very capable of murder over coffee.”
“She also said to get reusable ice packs—the good kind.”
Sokka frowns. “What’s wrong with frozen peas?”
“Get the ice packs.”
June pats the top of his head in a very condescending way and then leaves. Sokka has no idea what to make of it, and frankly, he’s okay with that; there are much more pressing things on his mind right now. It’s not until he’s ringing up six reusable gel ice packs at a pharmacy self-checkout that he wonders why he’s getting ice packs for a mild concussion. Don’t concussions just require, like, rest and no light? Maybe these are to help reduce any swelling around Zuko’s laceration, but a bag of peas surely could have covered that.
After the pharmacy, it’s a chaotic two hours of returning home, packing, and dropping by Zuko’s to dump his stuff; then it’s an ordeal and a half to get Zuko back to his apartment. They take a cab—there’s no way Sokka would subject Zuko to the MTA in this state—and by the end of the elevator ride up to Zuko’s floor, Zuko’s clutching Sokka’s arm tightly enough for Sokka to lose circulation in some of his fingers.
“Let’s go to your room,” Sokka suggests.
Zuko makes a noise that Sokka takes to mean yes.
They beeline for Zuko’s bed, and as soon as Zuko’s safely on the mattress, Sokka unplugs the alarm clock on Zuko’s nightstand and then looks around the ceiling. “Where’s your smoke alarm?” he asks. “I’m going to cover the light with tape—”
His phone suddenly blares, and Zuko flinches. “Fuck, sorry,” Sokka says, jamming his hands into and out of his pockets as he rushes out of the room.
It’s Mai, and when he picks up, she immediately demands, “What happened?”
Sokka relays what he knows to her, pushing through every weird stumble his throat hitches on, and when he’s through, there’s silence on the other end of the line. “Hello?” Sokka asks hesitantly after a moment.
“You need to convince him to stop,” Mai says.
Sokka glances at Zuko’s bedroom door. He hasn’t heard a peep since he picked up this call. “Stop what? His job?” he asks, heading for Zuko’s kitchen.
“The overworking.”
Sokka snorts, tucking his phone between his shoulder and cheek to grab two water glasses. “He’s never going to stop overworking.”
“Not on his own will.”
“Wouldn’t it be better coming from you? You know him better than I do.”
“He doesn’t listen to me.”
There’s a genuine pain in her tone that makes Sokka pause long enough to almost overfill the glass he’s holding under the faucet. For a moment, he considers chasing that unexpected tone, but decides to pin that conversation for a time when he can see Mai’s face. “Okay,” he says carefully, “But you’ve known him for longer. What makes you think I can change his mind?”
“You’re not mean to him.”
“Low bar. Maybe you should be nicer to him?”
“You also cry easily, and he hates making you cry.”
Sokka almost drops the second glass he’s filling. “You want me to guilt him into fixing his work-life balance?” he asks. “Also, Zuko’s never made me cry.”
“He said he made you cry when you visited for his graduation.”
“Oh. But that was a good cry.” Sokka does remember, now, how comically horrified Zuko had looked when Sokka burst into tears over bibimbap. They were both completely sober in the middle of the day, and when Sokka made some offhand joke about Zuko liking his ooh ooh too spicy! face the best, Zuko casually replied it was actually the way that Sokka smiled when he was proud of a friend. “Your love for them emanates from your entire expression in this infectious way,” he’d said through a mouthful of beansprouts, as if he was just stating some mundane fact and not, like, knocking the axis of Sokka’s world askew. “It makes me want to make you proud of me.”
Of course Sokka fucking cried. And then almost died choking on his own laughter at the immediate, wide-eyed terror that washed over Zuko’s face.
“He didn’t know that,” Mai says, bringing Sokka back to now.
“He knows now.” He takes a sip of water and then picks up Zuko’s glass to take it to him. “And anyway, I’m not going to, like, emotionally manipulate him into a better sleep schedule.”
“Can you at least try to talk to him?”
There’s an uncharacteristic aggression to her question that Sokka wants to comment on until he peers into Zuko’s bedroom and the thought on his tongue instantly dies. Zuko’s curled so tightly on his side that he might as well be the world’s most tense bean bag chair, and Sokka …
He can’t watch Zuko go on like this.
“I’ll try,” he says quietly. “I have to go.”
“Thank you,” Mai says, and before Sokka can say bye, she’s hung up.
He pockets his phone and takes the water to Zuko, setting it on his nightstand and then touching his shoulder. “Mai says hi,” he whispers.
Zuko licks his lips, his eyes still screwed shut. “There should be …” His mumble trails off.
“Sorry?”
“In the freezer …”
Again, his voice is too quiet to truly hear, but Sokka leaves to fetch one of his recently attained ice packs. What else could he be asking for?
When he returns, ice pack wrapped in a clean dish towel, Zuko immediately puts it on his face. “You face hurts?” Sokka asks.
“My scar.”
Sokka’s an idiot. “Oh.”
“My nerves are all wonky and fucked, is the best I can understand it. So any hit to the head …”
Sokka’s a physicist, not a biologist, so he doubts he’d understand even if Zuko could explain it. “Do you need anything else?”
“Rest.”
He says it simply, in a normal if quiet voice, but it still feels like a monumental confession coming from Zuko. “I’ll be in the living room if you need me,” Sokka whispers.
“Mmph.”
For some reason, as Sokka closes the door, it feels like he’s abandoning Zuko to a battle on his own.
Sokka’s known Zuko for about five years, now, and he thought he already knew all of his friend’s less endearing traits: he’s grouchy when really tired, he responds to unsolicited advice by pettily doing the exact opposite, he has a tendency to ignore laws he doesn’t like. What Sokka didn’t know until now is that Zuko is also a terrible convalescent.
The first two days are fine, but when he returns to Zuko’s apartment after work on Thursday, Zuko’s got the lights on and music playing from a speaker as he chops stuff in the kitchen. “What do you think you’re doing?” Sokka asks, sounding scarily like Katara, as he kicks off his boots and wriggles out of his sodden poncho.
He bustles into the kitchen, and Zuko barely glances at him. “Making dinner.”
“Nuh-uh,” Sokka says, grabbing the knife from Zuko’s hand and placing it out of his reach on the counter. “Get out of here. I’m cooking for you.”
“Sokka, I feel— ”
Sokka grabs him by the shoulders and marches him to the couch in the den. “No,” he says, forcing Zuko to sit down. Zuko looks up at him from under a furrowed brow, his lips twisted somewhere between a frown and a pout. Sokka grabs the knit blanket thrown over the side of the couch and drapes it over Zuko’s shoulders. “You need rest.”
He turns off the music and most of the lights, washes his hands, and picks up where Zuko left off, sniffing all the while. New York is still raining, and the last two days were cold, but Sokka’ll be damned if he leaves the kitchen now to get a sweatshirt. Zuko would immediately be back in here, pushing himself too hard, too soon.
When he’s finished cooking, he brings two bowls of oyakodon to the living room and discovers Zuko flat on his back, breathing measuredly but somehow not calmly through his mouth.
Sokka sets down the bowls, and even that sound is enough to make Zuko wince. Quietly, Sokka goes to the kitchen to grab ice; when he hands the pack to Zuko, he gets a strained “Thanks” in response.
Sokka takes his bowl back to the kitchen island and eats as quietly as possible.
An hour or so later, he hears movement in the living room. He turns to watch Zuko get up, grab his food, and then slowly tread to the stool next to Sokka. “This ice pack isn’t mine,” Zuko says, putting it on the counter.
“It is now.” When Zuko glances at him, Sokka admits, “Mai told me to get them.”
“Them?”
“I got, uh. Six.”
Zuko sits down and picks up his chopsticks. “I’ll pay you back.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Sokka springs up. “Let me warm that up for you.”
“It’s fine— ”
“Do you really want cold oyakodon?”
With a sigh, Zuko uncurls from around his bowl and lets Sokka take it. He pops it into the microwave and then picks up the gloves from the kitchen sink. “Can I do the dishes?” he asks. "Will the noise be okay?”
“I really was feeling fine, earlier.”
There’s a frustrated crinkle to Zuko’s brow that Sokka desperately wants to smooth away. “I believe you,” he says. “You also can’t rush recovery.”
“I’m not rushing— ”
The microwave beeps, and Zuko winces. Sokka grabs the bowl and sets it before Zuko. “I tried rushing back when I tweaked my knee in high school, and I just ended up fucking it up even more.”
He watches Zuko until he picks up his chopsticks and takes a careful bite. Cautiously, Sokka turns on the faucet, and when Zuko doesn’t flinch at the noise, Sokka starts cleaning the dishes.
By the time he’s done, Zuko’s taking his last bite. Sokka takes his bowl and chopsticks, and Zuko dips his head. “Thank you,” he says. “You didn’t have to.”
“I do.”
“You don’t.”
“I want to.”
He feels like something is pinching between his eyebrows; he’s pretty sure it’ll go away with some rest, but he has a few data sets he wants to run through before he goes to bed. He’ll probably be able to sleep it off, anyway. “If I make you some tea,” he says, “will you be quiet and rest like a good boy?”
Zuko narrows his eyes, and Sokka grins. “I’m not a child.”
“That pout says you are.” Zuko huffs, which only deepens his pout. Sokka resists the urge to pinch his cheek. “C’mon, boo,” he cajoles. “Please?”
For a second, Zuko seems to freeze, but then he’s looking down at the counter. “Okay,” he says, and a disproportionately large wave of relief washes through Sokka. Maybe Mai’s right. Maybe Zuko will listen to him.
On Friday, Sokka comes back to Zuko hunched over his laptop at the kitchen island. “You don’t even have the lights on!” Sokka protests, shucking his poncho off. “Why are you staring directly at a screen?”
“I haven’t checked my e-mail all week,” Zuko argues.
Sokka pulls the laptop away from Zuko and shuts it firmly. “You almost bled out at an installation. Your work is insane if they think you’ll look at an e-mail anytime in the next month.”
Zuko gives him a flat look. “I did not.”
“I’m hiding this,” Sokka says, heading to the small office/guest room/storage space he’s been sleeping in ever since Azula told him to move in. The futon’s actually more comfortable than Sokka’s own bed—he really should invest in a real-person mattress.
“I can see where you’re walking, Sokka.”
“I’m hiding it!”
Something catches in his throat, and he coughs into his elbow as he nudges aside random boxes of books and zines and textbooks to shove the laptop underneath an overlarge pillow that’s sitting on an old dresser that may or may not be from fifth century Japan. Zuko holds onto some eclectic things.
When he returns to the kitchen, Zuko’s setting a kettle on the stove. “Sit down,” Sokka says. “I can make you tea.”
“I’m making it for you.”
“Well— I can make my own tea, then.”
Zuko turns on the burner and finally retreats to a seat at the island. “Fine,” he says. “What are you making me for dinner?”
Graciously, Sokka ignores the petulant bite in Zuko’s tone. “Ramen.”
His expression softens, eyes going round as he sits up taller. “The good kind?”
Sokka grins. “It’s a Friday, baby. Of course I’m making the good kind.”
The weekend is better, if still rainy. Sokka stays trapped inside the apartment with Zuko, unless he’s dashing out to grab something from the bodega. The first run, he misjudges just how hard it’s pouring, and coming back soaked to the bone with his sodden hair in his face is only worth it because it makes Zuko laugh until his scar starts to hurt again. Zuko retreats to his darkened room with an ice pack, and Sokka huddles miserably in the kitchen with his hands wrapped around a mug of tea until his clothes dry out.
He doesn’t forget his poncho for the rest of the weekend, the lights stay off, and Zuko mostly dozes in bed or on the couch while wrapped in several blankets. Sokka, without having to nag Zuko, is able to plow through half of his grading while processing another data set.
Monday arrives too soon and brings with it the return of Zuko trying to be a sneak: Sokka comes back earlier than usual to find Zuko in the living room, grimacing down at a video call where his laptop is balanced on his crossed legs.
He feels the tension rise between his eyes, and the pain only increases as Zuko’s call drags on. It’s clear that Zuko’s hurting; it’s also clear, from the twist of his mouth, that he’s trying to tough it out for whatever meeting this is.
By the time Sokka’s done making dinner—reheating leftovers, really—he has a headache that makes his skull feel too small for his brain. He eats without looking at his phone, and when Zuko wanders in, closed laptop tucked under an arm, Sokka says, “I’m hiding that even better this time.”
“I know this apartment better than you.”
His tone is light and joking, but the way he tenderly moves about the kitchen to boil water and grab his dinner makes something twist in Sokka’s stomach. “Zuko,” he says, hesitating, but— but he can’t be afraid of how Zuko might respond. He needs to have this conversation.
“Yeah?” Zuko asks. He slowly lowers himself onto the barstool next to Sokka, taking a moment to inhale steadily with his eyes closed before picking up his chopsticks.
Sokka bites the corner of his mouth. “Why do you keep pushing yourself when you’re hurting?” he asks.
Zuko chews slowly. Sokka watches him until he accidentally inhales something and starts coughing; reaching for his water and chugging liberally, he almost misses Zuko say, “I don’t know how to not work.”
Sokka finishes his glass and hides a burp with the back of his hand. “Have you ever tried, like, shutting off your computer and walking away?”
“I have,” he says, which, honestly, surprises Sokka. “But I … it makes me feel guilty. Like, if I’m not making myself useful, what am I even doing? What’s the point of me— like. Existing.” He pushes a piece of tofu around his bowl.
If he really considers it, Sokka realizes he’s never really seen Zuko take down time of any sort. Sure, he’ll get a meal or drinks with friends, or walk around a market, or go see a movie, but he never fully shuts off the part of his brain that’s so important to and in tune with his work. They’ll be at a bar when Zuko recognizes an artist he’s worked with before, and Zuko will slip away to say hi and then facilitate at least three other connections between bar patrons. They’ll wander through a farmers market and pass a vendor whose Thai basil reminds Zuko of the essay collection he’s reading for both work and pleasure, and also that he needs to grocery shop for dinner. They’ll emerge from two hours spent in a dark cave watching a dumber-than-shit action movie, and Zuko will already have half an article waiting on his tongue, citing Lorde and Fanon and Didion in the same breath.
Sokka’s always been in awe of the way in which Zuko’s mind works, the way it creates connections and sees shared truths across a whole universe of things, seemingly effortlessly.
But maybe Zuko’s just been good at concealing the toll of his effort.
“When you see me burn an entire afternoon playing video games with Suki, do you think, man, Sokka really isn’t making himself useful?” Sokka asks.
Zuko sighs. “No. And yes, I’m aware that I put unrealistic double standards on myself.” He finally pops the piece of tofu into his mouth, chewing moodily.
There’s something to be said for self-awareness, Sokka supposes. He sniffs and clears his throat; it feels phlegmy. Zuko glances at him. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, just too much cold water.” He slides his glass toward himself, running the tip of his finger along a section of the rim. He tries to remember the equation for calculating radians and comes up blank. “Have you considered trying therapy?”
“Therapy won’t cure a concussion.”
“Dude, you’re being dense on purpose,” Sokka counters, because this is some bullshit and Sokka knows Zuko knows that, too. “I know you’re strong, and that you’ve survived an unending amount of shit to be who you are and where you are today, but that doesn’t change the fact that it was. You know. Shit.”
Zuko deliberately sets down his chopsticks. Half of his food is still untouched. “I don’t have to deal with those things anymore.”
Sokka purses his lips. “We both know you’re too smart to believe that.” A muscle in Zuko’s cheek twitches. “Also, Azula’s literally dealing with inheritance stuff right now.”
Guilt flashes across Zuko’s face. “How is she?”
“Worried about you.”
“Didn’t you tell her I’m being taken care of by the best?”
Zuko smiles weakly, both teasing and genuine at the same time, and Sokka snorts. “She made it very clear that I’m your last resort.”
“You’re never my last resort.”
For a moment, Sokka’s heart stops, his breath stolen away by how casually Zuko says these very large statements; then, Zuko’s standing, his face twisted in pain. “Sorry,” he says. “I need to lie down.”
“Don’t apologize for taking care of yourself,” Sokka automatically replies. Good god, he sounds like Katara.
Zuko reaches out, the pads of his fingers pressing lightly into Sokka’s shoulder. He manages a smile, and when Sokka smiles back, Zuko retracts his touch and retreats to his room.
Even after Zuko goes to bed and stays there, like a well-behaved convalescent, Sokka’s head is in too much of a fog to get anything aside from the dishes done that night. When he leaves in the morning—beponchoed, again, because New York City is fucking demonic and exists as a concept to torment Sokka—his eyes are gritty and he’s annoyed that his bag is half-filled with the remaining exams that he didn’t even try to grade last night despite hauling them home. By which he means Zuko’s apartment.
He gets tom kha from the Vietnamese joint a couple blocks east of his lab and spends his lunch finishing up his grading. He’s down to the final few exams when his phone starts buzzing with a call from pul(s)i(s)tzer.
“I’ll find you a source if you send me coffee money,” Sokka says when he picks up.
“Your paycheck is larger and more consistent than mine,” Katara immediately replies. “I’m looking for someone with a background in silicon photonics. You mentioned a few months ago that you met someone in photonics?”
Sokka sighs heavily, already pulling up the staff directory on his laptop. “Daniel Conteh, I think,” he says. “Or someone he co-wrote a paper with.”
“Everything okay?”
Daniel Conteh does specialize in photonics and optical sciences, but Sokka clicks into his CV anyway; he’s pretty sure Conteh co-wrote a paper with a scholar in Australia who specializes in silicon. “Just tired,” he says, “and Zuko’s been driving me up a wall.”
“Aren’t you usually the one bothering Zuko?”
Sokka sniffs. Geez, how many papers has Conteh authored? No wonder he’s the department favorite for tenure. “I don’t bother Zuko. He loves it when I pay attention to him,” he says flippantly.
“Uh-huh. Why is Zuko annoying you?”
Suddenly, the rain outside starts pouring even harder. “He had an accident at an installation last week and ended up with stitches and a concussion— ”
“Oh, my god.”
“And he’s the world’s worst convalescent and it’s stressing me out that he won’t act like a sick person, and also this fucking rain won’t leave the city.” He sniffs again and finally spots the paper he’s looking for. “Look up Rhianna Sehgal from the University of Sydney. Does she look good?”
He hears Katara typing and then clicking around. He can perfectly imagine her curled up on the couch in the apartment she and Aang share in DC, where the coffee table doubles as her at-home work desk and Aang’s ever-rotating collection of spare bike parts is piled in the corner of the living room. “Oh, perfect,” Katara says. “Thank you.”
“And try Daniel Conteh—that’s t-e-h—from my department if she doesn’t work out.”
“Uh-huh. Did I hear you sniff?”
Her tone is suddenly suspicious, and Sokka huffs. “I have a nose that works, Katara.”
“It’s been cold and rainy nonstop and you just said Zuko was stressing you out!” Katara protests. “You know you only get sick when you’re stressed!”
“Yes, but I’m not sick,” Sokka says, shutting the directory to return to his grading portal, “and Zuko and I had a talk yesterday.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you two usually have … talks?”
“I mean. Usually means, like— ” What does it mean to Katara? It doesn’t really matter, does it. “Whatever. We talk! We’re best bros. Of course we talk.”
“That’s good. Men don’t have enough emotionally intimate friendships with other men.”
“Are you diagnosing me?” Sokka teases. “You’re a journalist, not a psychologist.”
“No, I’m not. And I minored in sociology!”
“You sound like Bato defending his armchair coaching based on his cousin’s cousin’s one season as a boxla practice player.”
Katara shouts, aghast. “Take that back!”
Sokka snickers. “You know I’m right.”
“I’m not sending you coffee money.”
“You already said you wouldn’t.”
“Don’t get sick,” Katara snips and then hangs up.
His single-use poncho that had its first use many uses ago catches on the door handle as he leaves the lab, and by the time he’s back at Zuko’s, he’s sodden and shivering and would be ready to scream if he wasn’t so tired. He drops his backpack next to the shoe rack by the door and shuffles to the bathroom to strip out of his soaking clothing.
When he’s changed into pajama pants and an overlarge sweatshirt, he heads for the kitchen and starts filling the kettle. “Zuko?” he calls. “I’m making tea, you want some?”
There’s no response, and Sokka realizes Zuko might actually be asleep. He sets the kettle on a high flame and pads to Zuko’s room.
The door’s not fully closed, and his gentle knock opens it further. “Zuko? You awake?” he asks, more quietly.
He pokes his head inside. The room is empty, the door to the ensuite bathroom ajar with the light off.
His heart starts pounding harder. Was he really so absorbed in his misery when he came in that he failed to notice Zuko napping on the couch, or lying on the floor as he listened to music with headphones?
Sokka goes back to the middle of the apartment, and when there’s no obvious sign of Zuko, his heart jumps into his throat.
He runs through the entire apartment, checking high and low, but his concussed invalid is no where to be found, and what the fuck happened? Did he sleepwalk out of the apartment? Was he abducted? Did Ozai somehow rise from the fucking dead and order a hit on his delinquent heir? The pinch between Sokka’s eyes starts throbbing, and good god, is he going to have to ask the doorman for security footage? Because as frustratingly shitty a convalescent Zuko has been, he’s never actually left the apartment this entire time, which Sokka knows because his umbrella and rain jacket haven’t moved an inch or seen a drop of rain since Sokka moved in—
The umbrella!
Sokka runs to the front entrance, his brain trying to rationalize away the panic clawing at his throat, and he’s so on edge that when the front door suddenly swings open, Sokka screams.
Zuko yells right back, raising his wet and collapsed umbrella like a weapon.
“What the fuck?” Sokka shrieks, catching himself against the wall and a hand flying to his chest. His heart’s beating in double time.
“Why are you screaming?” Zuko asks. He lowers the umbrella, sliding it into his honest-to-god umbrella rack and then carefully removing his wet rain jacket.
“You can’t just leave!” Sokka protests with a cough. God, the shouting fucked up his throat.
“I was feeling better,” Zuko says. “And I wore sunglasses and everything.” He points at the shades that are still on his face and nudges the front door shut with his foot.
Sokka coughs again and pivots to follow Zuko into the kitchen. “Where were you?”
“I just went to the bodega. We were low on toilet paper.” He sets his tote bag on the island and indeed pulls out a four-pack of toilet paper rolls, as well as a box of Sokka’s preferred brand of orange and spice black tea.
Sokka’s heart finally calms down, and he’s slammed with a wave of exhaustion. He sinks onto a barstool. “Zuko,” he pouts, and stops there, because he’s run out of words.
The kettle starts whistling, and Zuko flinches before twisting to shut off the burner. He turns back to Sokka, pushing his sunglasses up into his hair. His eyes are lucid. “Yeah?”
The pinch in Sokka’s nose turns into a tingle. “You scared me.”
“Sokka. The bodega’s a hundred meters from my building.”
“I didn’t know you were there! I thought you were abducted or something! You can’t almost die on me twice in a— ah— ”
Sokka sneezes. “A month,” he finishes.
Guilt weighs down the corner of Zuko’s mouth. “I didn’t almost die,” he says, too quietly to really be petulant.
Sokka sneezes again and drops his forehead to the countertop with a pathetic moan.