Chapter Text
"You have a guest in the North Garden," his attendant says. She has to repeat it twice more for Zuko, lost in the brain-deadening haze of exhaustion, to hear. He hasn't been sleeping well in the days since the banquet. Hasn't been sleeping at all, really, just lying awake with all the endless awful thoughts that keep churning through his head.
Sokka is avoiding him. Or maybe he's avoiding Sokka, it's hard to tell. Outside of the council sessions they haven't seen each other at all, and at those there's always too many people around to risk talking to him. Zuko feels like he needs to say something after what they said to each other on the balcony, but every time he tries to come up with the words they run like sand through his fingers. The only time he almost worked up the courage to follow Sokka after the meeting, Eiyasu cornered him again to insist that he consider sending soldiers to quell the demonstrations in the eastern province, and Sokka slipped away before Zuko could lose her.
So he hasn't been sleeping. Or doing much of anything but staring into the distance and thinking about how terrible everything is.
"A guest," Reiko reminds him gently.
"Thank you," Zuko says. "Do you think I can ignore them?"
She gives him a bewildered look. "Does... that mean I should go tell her you're busy?"
"'Her?' Oh, no." If this is another matchmaking attempt by Jaizu, Zuko is actually going to burn something. "I guess I should go apologize and tell her to leave."
The North Garden has shade trees and a pond, making it marginally cooler but still borderline sweltering in the summer sun. At least the heat means no one is likely to come along and see Zuko fumbling through whatever embarrassed apology he's going to need to make. He makes his way down the stone path. The woman sits facing away from him, her hand on the marble bench, her clothes a dark slash against the vibrant green of the foliage.
"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting," Zuko starts to say, but he doesn't get more than a couple words out before she turns to face him and the rest evaporate in his throat.
Mai says, "What the hell kind of mess have you gotten yourself into?"
Zuko would think this is some exhaustion-induced hallucination, except that that barbed voice sounds so much like Mai that it can only be real. He hasn't seen her for years. Not since their awkward, messy breakup, before she said she never wanted to see him again and went off to the Earth Kingdom. She's even taller now, somehow, and her face sharper, but the cynical slant of her mouth is as familiar to Zuko as anything could ever be.
He's probably supposed to feel something about this, but all Zuko registers in the moment is relief that at least now there's one person in the palace who will be totally, completely upfront about hating him.
"Okay," he says, because at this point, this might as well happen. "Good to see you."
"'Good to see me?' What have they done to you?"
Zuko seats himself on the other end of the bench, leaving a safe distance between them. Mai watches him, her shoulders stiff. "I'm trying to be nice to people now. Or something like that."
She snorts. "How's that been going for you?"
He shrugs. Then his dragging brain finally catches up. "Why in the world are you here?"
"I've been back in the capitol for a couple months to take care of some family things." Mai rolls her eyes. "Didn't feel like I needed to tell you my plans."
"You know what I mean. Why are you here?"
"Oh, let's see. How was your banquet?"
"What does that have to do with - oh - " His face must say it all, because she fixes him with a self-satisfied smirk. "It's not - I wasn't the one who invited you, the councilors sent out the invitations, I didn't know what they were doing until it was already happening."
"Then after I failed to attend, I received another letter from the palace yesterday, with some interesting contents."
Now would be a good time for a convenient thunderbolt to strike Zuko dead. "I didn't write it."
"Oh, I know you didn't," Mai says. "It was far too nice." She lets him stew in the agonizing possibility of it for a moment before relenting. "One of your councilors invited me to make an official re-entrance to court now that I've returned to the city. But it seemed like strange timing. I wanted to see what was going on up here that has your councilors running around behind your back doing so many things you clearly don't know or approve of."
Zuko opens his mouth to tell her that everything is fine, he has it under control now, there's nothing wrong, he's fine.
Instead what he says is, "I don't think I can do this anymore."
Mai leans back, the tension in her shoulders dropping ever so slightly. "Tell me."
He does. He doesn't know why. Maybe because he trusts that Mai will get it instinctively, what it's like to grow up knowing that everything you do is going to be scrutinized against centuries of duty and tradition. Or maybe because she's already seen so much of the worst parts of him, and it doesn't matter if she sees even more. Or because she was the one there for his constant night terrors in that first year after the war, when he'd wake up crying almost every night. It's embarrassing to realize, but even after all these years apart, Mai is probably still the person who understands Zuko best in the entire world.
She listens to him without interrupting. When he's done they're both quiet, looking down at the pond and the fish swimming in lazy circles.
"I don't know what to do," Zuko says. "I'm losing control of them. Even the people in the provinces are demonstrating against me now. I thought I could fix all the things our parents did, but I can't. I'm the Fire Lord and I still can't."
"Let me guess," Mai says. "You're still trying to do everything by yourself all the time, aren't you?"
He bristles at that. "What else am I supposed to do? I'm not telling Aang to come make people listen to me, can you imagine? Holding the Avatar over them like some kind of threat? And I'm not dragging Uncle Iroh back from Ba Sing Sei every time things get difficult. He's actually happy there."
He doesn't say, and I need to fix it myself, because that's the only way I can make up for all the things I did. He doesn't have to - Mai already knows.
She gives him an exasperated look. "There are other people you can ask."
"Who?" Zuko pauses. "You?"
She throws back her head and laughs - real, bright laughter so unlike the Mai that Zuko knows that it makes him suddenly sad, this little glimmer of the people they became apart from each other. "What?"
The familiar glint of sarcasm returns to her face. "I was thinking that you'd have to be totally screwed to be coming to me for help."
"Yeah," Zuko says. "I think I might be."
It should be weird talking to Mai of all people about this, but it's kind of a relief just to tell someone how bad things are. She considers him thoughtfully, eyes narrowed. "Who's giving you the most trouble?"
"Duza. And Eiyasu. They seem to be the ones leading most of the opposition. And Jaizu, too. I don't really know what she wants. She must be the one who sent you the letter." Zuko's face reddens. "I'm sorry she dragged you into her whole... thing. It's not like I want to go along with her plan to marry me off. I just don't know what else to do."
Then whether it's because he's too miserable and exhausted to stop himself, or the dangerous freedom of being around someone who really knows him, he says, "I've been thinking. I think maybe I don't like women at all."
It's the first time that Zuko has said it out loud.
He snaps his mouth shut and turns away toward the soft burble of fish in the pond. Doesn't look at her, in case what he sees there is unbearable.
"Fuck, Zuko," Mai says after a moment. "It's okay."
Zuko exhales, unsteady.
"So it's not just that you don't want this right now."
"But what if I have to?" The fear has him in its grip again, filling up his lungs. "Jaizu's right, I pushed too hard. The nobility are going to break, they'll kill me and put someone else on the throne who doesn't care about any of this, and they'll start another war and everything will be like it was before - "
"Zuko," Mai says, grabbing his shoulder. "You're doing it again, you're spiraling, you have to breathe."
He takes a shuddery breath. Mai's hand is on his arm, anchoring him in place. She breathes out and he does too, following her pace like they've done a hundred times before, until his lungs untangle themselves and his racing heart starts to slow.
"Listen," Mai says. "You don't have to do this if you don't want to."
"But - "
"No. Screw them. You think they deserve this from you? Half the nobility would have kept waging the war just because it made them richer. You don't owe them fucking anything."
There's ice in her voice. Zuko remembers her father - how Ukano resisted the end of the war, insisted that Zuko was a usurper and Ozai was still the true Fire Lord. He wonders exactly what Mai meant when she said she came back to the Fire Nation to deal with her family. Maybe it's better if he doesn't know.
"It's not as easy as just saying that," he says. "I don't get to ignore all this because I don't like it. If I don't do anything, I'm going to end up with a knife in my back."
"So let me help with that." Mai's expression is hard, but it's not directed at him. "I'd enjoy tearing them down. You know I would."
It's so strange to be talking to her like this, but it's good, too. Zuko didn't think they'd ever really speak again, after the ways they hurt each other. They were two kids struggling under the weight of their parents' expectations, and then they were two traumatized teenagers with more responsibility than they knew what to do with, desperately keeping each other afloat in the aftermath of the war. They weren't good for each other like that. But maybe there's another possible version of this: two people who know each other, and care enough to help. Not quite friends, but maybe something like it.
"Um," someone says behind them.
Sokka stands at the garden entrance, staring at the two of them on the bench, at Mai's hand on Zuko's arm.
"Sorry," he says. "I didn't realize - I'm going now."
"Wait, Sokka - "
Zuko jumps to his feet, but Sokka has already fled back into the palace corridor. Zuko stares after him, horror pooling in his stomach. He turns back to Mai. "I think I need to go. I'm sorry, this shouldn't -"
"Zuko," Mai says, in a tone that allows no argument. "Sit."
Zuko sits.
A slow smile creeps across her face. "You've got to be kidding. Him?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You know I know when you're lying, right?"
Zuko buries his face in his hands. "Please, please don't tell anyone."
Mai laughs. "Why? Because you have this whole reign of non-corruption image going on but you brought in your crush to sit on your council? Or because you're too chickenshit to do anything about it?"
Zuko's mouth snaps shut. Both of those, pretty much.
"This is great," Mai says. "It's even worse than I thought. You really have made an absolute mess of things. The nobility are going to tear you both into shreds."
"It's not just that I wanted him here," Zuko says desperately. "He really is the best person for the job."
Mai rolls her eyes. "And I bet you've been super weird and not talked with him about it at all, haven't you?"
"Why would you think that?"
"Because you barely ever talked about your feelings when we were together, idiot."
"Okay," Zuko says. "I guess I deserve that."
"So what was your plan? Tiptoe around each other until one of you dies of old age? Marry some woman for an alliance and then stare longingly at him forever? Or just ignore him long enough that eventually he goes back home and you don't have to think about it anymore?"
"I didn't have a plan. The only plan was to try not to give anyone the idea that he'd be good to hurt to get to me, so he doesn't end up dead." Zuko crosses his arms. "Besides, it's not like I really know what he... feels. About me."
"You don't know what he - Zuko."
"What?"
"Sometimes," Mai says, "you can be really, really dense."
He scowls. She gives him another amused look. "Let me see what I can do about your councilors," she says. "You can deal with whatever mess the two of you have going on. I don't even want to know."
"Thanks," he says, quietly. "For helping."
Mai just shakes her head. "You're still the same weird guy who's trying to be good but doesn't quite know how. And that's a lot better than what the rest of them are up to, so yeah, I'll help." She stands, brushing a leaf from her lap. "I'll write to you, okay? And, look. Just talk to him. He doesn't know you as well as I do, and he won't get there if you push him away."
"This is coming from the queen of cynicism? What have they done to you?"
She gives him a sad smile, another small glimpse of the life she's led that Zuko knows nothing about. "Enough to know that some things are worth trying to save," she says. "So try not to screw this one up any worse, will you?"
***
Sokka isn't in his rooms. He's not in the training field, or the courtyard, or the library, or any of the other places that Zuko thinks to look. At last he breaks down and asks the guards, burning with shame at the thought that they may guess the motive behind his frantic questions, until he finds one who thinks she saw Sokka pass by a little while ago. He hurries in the direction she points, peering down each hallway, anxiety burning a hole in his chest.
He almost misses the open door that leads to one of the garden verandas. He stops in his tracks at the sight of the figure standing on the other side of it, his breath catching in his chest.
Zuko must make a sound, because Sokka stiffens and whirls to face him, curling in on himself as if to protect some wound.
Zuko hesitates at the threshold. "Back there, that wasn't - "
"I think I should go back home," Sokka says.
It's a punch in Zuko's gut, taking the air from his lungs. "What?"
"I thought I understood what was happening," Sokka says. "But I was wrong. When you invited me here, I thought... but you've been avoiding me the entire time I've been here. And then you act like you want something from me, and then your councilors start pushing you into some marriage and you just go along with it. And now Mai is here and - I don't know what you want, or if I was imagining things, or what. But I can't do it." He shakes his head. "I should go home and you should bring in someone else to sit on your council. They'll do a better job than me, anyway."
Sokka moves as if to push past him back into the corridor. The noise rises in Zuko's ears, the fast thrum of panic. All he knows is that he can't let Sokka leave his sight.
He says, "You weren't imagining things."
Sokka stops. He stands half-through the door, close enough to touch, close enough it makes every nerve hurt. "But... you think it's too risky or something, don't you? It would look... bad for you."
Zuko says nothing, which is an answer on its own.
"I get it," Sokka says. His voice is strained. "You have to do things a certain way. I mean, you're the Fire Lord. You have all these duties you have to uphold. I knew that, but I just thought... I don't know. I was being naive. But I can't be here for this. If you really think you need to do all this then I believe you, but I can't stay and watch it happen. I'm not doing that to myself."
Zuko should let him go. Sokka will be safe back in the Southern Water Tribe, out of the grasp of the nobility. And without him here there'll be no real reason to balk at Jaizu's plan. They'll both make it through this. Everything will be fixed.
That's what Zuko wants, isn't it?
Instead he says, "Please don't go."
He's breathing too fast again. The silence from Sokka is agonizing, a weight pulling Zuko's body down. "Please," he says. "I'm not courting Mai, or anyone else. I'm not marrying any of them. I can't. I think it might be really selfish of me to say that but I - I can't do it. I can't do it even if I have to, I can't -"
He only notices that he's squeezed his eyes shut when Sokka touches his arm. A light touch, not pulling him closer, not pushing him away.
"So don't," Sokka says, unhappily.
Zuko's throat is tight. "I wish I could just say that without having to think about all the possible repercussions." His voice breaks. "I wish we were regular people and it didn't matter at all."
He doesn't know what else to say after that. A gust blows across the veranda, the warm air washing over them, stirring Sokka's hair.
"What if we could try it?" Sokka says suddenly. "Being regular people. Not for long. Just for a little while. I think I know how to make it happen, if you want."
"Uh, is this going to be one of your plans? I don't know if I can survive another one of those."
"This one will be fine. Only minor peril to your life, I promise."
His hand slides down Zuko's wrist, their fingers brushing in a silent question. Zuko doesn't pull away, doesn't look away. His heart races. "I think -"
"Fire Lord," says the voice, slick and venomous.
Jaizu stands halfway down the corridor, her face tight. Zuko snatches his hand away. For a moment he tries to convince himself that she didn't see, didn't hear, because the alternative is too horrifying to even think about.
"We need to talk, it seems," she says, and heat blooms in his cheeks.
Sokka steps away, looking back and forth between them. "Councilor - "
"You do not need to be present for this conversation," Jaizu says, without looking at him. "Fire Lord, if you please."
Sokka reels back as if struck. Jaizu turns without another word and stalks down the hall. Sokka stares after her, then at Zuko. "What do we... ?"
"I can fix this." Zuko says, frantic, his stomach sinking. "Just - let me fix this."
Sokka opens his mouth to say something, but Zuko is already hurrying after Jaizu. She walks ahead of him with quick, determined strides, fast enough to force him to rush. A sick fear grips him, the world unsteady around his legs. There must be something he can say to her, some excuse he can make for what she saw.
She sweeps open the door to her office. The inside is fastidiously neat, the scrolls and papers on her desk in tidy rows. Zuko shuts the door behind him, the rush of blood in his ears overwhelming.
"I don't know what you think you heard - "
"I heard enough," she says. "Enough to hear the improper and, frankly, seditious thoughts that man is putting in your head. You are the Fire Lord. You do not get to shirk that responsibility for some - man. A foreigner! Your obligation is to lead this country. Your parents -"
"Don't bring my parents into this."
"Why not? Clearly they did not instill enough sense of duty in their children."
"My father's sense of duty had him slaughtering innocent people!"
Jaizu raises a hand, mollifying. "I'm not suggesting that I support the choices of Fire Lords past. The Hundred-Year War was an atrocity, and something our nation will spend lifetimes trying to correct for. I don't believe you would have put me on your council if I thought otherwise." She closes her eyes as if in pain. "Fire Lord, I am trying to keep you alive."
He digs his fingernails into his palms. "I can do that myself."
"Can you? Do you have any idea what would happen if it had been one of the other councilors there instead of me? Do you know how it looks? Half the council would try him for espionage, and the other half would accuse you. You say you want to make things better - that means you have to stay Fire Lord long enough to do so. You're supposed to be strengthening your alliances, not burning them down!"
"I'm not marrying someone just to build an alliance," Zuko says, breathless. "I just - can't. I'm not doing it. There has to be another way."
"You think your feelings trump your obligations?" she hisses. "Your life is not your own. Your life is the lives of millions of people. That responsibility overshadows everything else." She sniffs. "Really, you can't imagine you're the first monarch to ever want someone they couldn't have. But those who came before you always did what they needed to."
The room buzzes with silent anger. Zuko can't talk past the lump in his throat. He digs his nails in harder, trying to stay steady, the hopeless anguish a cinder running underneath his skin, begging to be let free.
"Your friend," Jaizu says pointedly, "will have to leave. He's too much of a liability to you here. We'll have a ship prepared by tomorrow to return him to the Southern Water Tribe. I can at least keep the reason from the others, or I doubt I could vouch for his safety -"
"I wouldn't let them hurt him," Zuko says. The room is getting dangerously warm, but Jaizu doesn't seem to notice. "No one touches him. If anyone tries to hurt him, I'll kill them."
"Really, for all your talk of changing how things are done, and still you'd stoop to acting like Ozai -"
His body goes cold. Then it is hot, very hot, as the lanterns along the wall explode in a crush of flame.
The fire sings at finally being allowed to run free, igniting the vast white chasm of hurt that has blossomed in his chest, until the smell of it hits him and snaps him violently back into place. Zuko extinguishes the flame in a flash of horror. There is little damage, the papers on Jaizu's desk just barely singed. But it's too late. She flinches back from him, her expression morphing into fear.
It's been so long since someone has looked at him like that.
He steps back, quaking. He should say something, but what can he say? He's already proven her point.
He runs away instead.
***
He doesn't know where he's going, just that he has to get there fast. So he isn't paying attention when he rounds the corner and collides with Sokka coming the other way, nearly bowling them both over in the middle of the hall.
"I didn't know if I should follow you or not," Sokka says, steadying them both upright. Then he gets a look at Zuko's face. "Oh, shit, are you okay?"
Zuko can't be here. Out in the open like this there are too many people who could be watching. A pair of guards walk at the other end of the hall. In a distant room someone laughs, and even though Zuko knows it's unrelated it sends a thrill of shame through him.
Sokka searches his face, looking at him with such concern it opens up that yawning pit of hurt all over again. Zuko should tell him to leave. He doesn't trust Jaizu to keep this to herself after he set half her office on fire, which means Sokka is in active danger now. Sokka needs to get as far away from the Fire Nation as he can, somewhere where the councilors can't touch him, somewhere where Zuko will never ever see him again.
That's what Zuko should do, but he's tired, and selfish, and weak, and all he wants is to not be here right now by any means he possibly can.
"Your idea," he says. "To be normal for a little while. We should do it."
Sokka frowns. "Now? Are you sure that's a good idea?"
"Can you?"
"I mean, I think so, but -"
"Then I want to," Zuko says. "Tell me."
***
Zuko paces in his rooms while the sky grows darker. Sokka left to get something out in the city, promising to come back as soon as possible, and now Zuko can't suppress the image of something terrible happening to him out here. The afternoon light has faded into dusk while he waits. Now it begins to slip into the dark blue of night, the nearby lanterns flickering in time with his anxiety while he walks from one side of the room to the other.
When he finally hears voices at the door he flings it open, half expecting to see one of the councilors bearing down on him, but of course it's only Sokka, holding a wrapped parcel in both hands and insisting to one of the attendants that he doesn't need help carrying it.
"It's good thing I knew where to get this," Sokka says, breezing into the room. Only once the door is closed and they're alone does he turn serious. "Zuko, what's going on, really? What happened with your councilor?"
"It's fine," Zuko lies. "Show me what you brought?"
"Is it really a good time to be doing this?"
"Sokka, I'm ordering you to show me."
Sokka drops the parcel on the table. "Okay," he says, his cheeks darkening. "But that's only going to work on me this once."
He unwraps the parcel and takes out a few bundles of clothes. Not the garments worn among the nobility, but rather something a shop-owner or a scholar might wear. Zuko picks up one of them. The fabric is rougher between his fingers than his usual clothes. It reminds him of what he wore back in Ba Sing Sei, all those years ago, at the tea shop with Uncle Iroh.
"Clothes won't be enough," he says. "Anyone who sees my scar will instantly recognize me."
"Yes, oh brilliant one," Sokka says. "I did think of that."
He holds out a container the size of Zuko's palm. Zuko takes it, opens it. The faint smell of mineral and chalk fills his nose.
"I don't know how to use this," he says.
"I figured. I can do it." Sokka takes the container back. "You'll have to close your eyes, though."
He touches Zuko's chin, tilting his face up. Zuko's heart speeds. He squeezes his eyes shut, holding his breath.
The makeup is a thin paste, cool against his face where Sokka smoothes it over his scar, fingers delicate on the skin.
"I think that's good," Sokka says after a few minutes, and Zuko opens his eyes and turns to see the person staring back at him from the mirror.
It's... not him. It's a person who looks like him, but this person's face is unblemished. Up close he can see the difference in texture and color between the makeup and his skin, the angle of his bad eye, but from across the room it's not noticeable at all. The person in the mirror never had an Agni Kai at the age of thirteen. The person in the mirror is a university student, maybe. Someone young, a little naive, someone who grew up with a normal, quiet life, and parents who loved him.
It's exactly what Zuko wants, and still it sends a twist of pain through him to see it.
"What?" Sokka asks, a little defensively. "It's good, isn't it? I think I've stared at your face long enough to match the color pretty well."
"It's good," Zuko says, clenching his fists so hard it hurts. "It's perfect."
***
In their new clothes they drop down from the balcony of Zuko's rooms, past the patrolling guards. It feels childish to sneak through his own palace like an intruder, but it's exhilarating too. It reminds Zuko of the games he and Azula used to play, before things got bad between them. Hiding in the gardens from their mother, sneaking to each other's rooms to tell stories after dark. Except now it's Sokka pulling him through the shadows, Zuko's hand grasped in his. It sends a bubble of warmth up Zuko's arm every time they freeze to avoid being spotted and Sokka's grip tightens.
Sokka is smart, he must know that something is wrong, but he's stopped protesting for now. He glances back at Zuko every now and again, and each time his smile is a little wider. Zuko keeps thinking that now is when he needs to tell Sokka it's not safe for him to stay here, and every time that smile kills the words before they can reach his lips.
He can't ruin it like this. He'll tell him soon. He just wants Sokka to feel this night unmarred by the knowledge of what's to come.
He squeezes Sokka's hand. Sokka squeezes back, and it's so good Zuko could almost forget that everything is about to implode.
They make it over the palace walls at last, into the city proper. Sokka leads him down the alleys until the palace is out of sight. The further they get from it, the lighter Zuko feels. It's just after dark and there are still plenty of people out walking home, talking with friends, sitting and eating dinner at street vendors' stalls. A few children play farther down the road, their parents calling them home. A group of students pass them, laughing.
No one looks at him. All these people, and none of them, absolutely none of them, care who Zuko is at all.
"Now that you're a regular person, what do you want to do?" Sokka asks.
"I don't know," Zuko says. "Everything, I guess."
They head farther into the city. The night has finally started to cool off, the sea breeze ruffling Zuko's hair. Street lanterns shimmer on one after another as a lamplighter passes by, bending the flames into existence with small flicks of her hand.
"Are we going anywhere in particular?" Zuko asks.
."Yes. And I'm not lost, so don't even ask."
"I wasn't going to, but now -"
"Oh, this way," Sokka says, and turns down an alleyway. Zuko hurries to follow him. After a few more streets the sound of voices swells, and the air takes on the distinctive smell of frying food. A faint memory surfaces in Zuko's mind, something long forgotten.
Then they're out of the alley and in a street buzzing with vibrant color and sound.
Sokka elbows him gently. "You probably haven't been to the night market for a while, right? This is pretty much as everything as you can get."
The last time Zuko was here he must have been, what - ten? Eleven? Before the Agni Kai, definitely. It's completely different now, and not just because he's standing out in the open instead of flanked by a ring of guards. With the end of wartime rations, the food stalls have spread in abundance. Dumplings, cold melon tea, fried squid, rice cakes - and not just Fire Nation food, but Earth Kingdom, too. Some of the stands even fly Earth Kingdom banners out in front, as unthinkable as that would have been the last time Zuko was here. A few enterprising vendors have set out tables and chairs, their customers sitting with bowls of noodles. Other merchants have their wares out for sale, bolts of fabric and teapots and books. A busker on the corner plays the flute, and a small group around him applauds and tosses him coins when he finishes his song.
For some reason the first thing Zuko thinks to say is, "I didn't even bring any money."
Sokka laughs. It makes the bubble in Zuko's chest swell. "Well, I didn't tell you to. Anyway, I did."
"Yeah, but I would have."
"Next time you can, okay?" Sokka gives him that sideways smile. A shard stabs through Zuko's heart.
"Next time," Zuko says, and the taste of that lie is so sweet.
He follows Sokka into the crowd. Conversation hums around them. People bump into him, and they don't throw themselves on their knees to apologize. They don't even take more than a passing glance at him. Zuko keeps expecting someone to gasp and point him out, but the makeup does its job, and the eyes of the crowd move over him without pause. He and Sokka look like two students or apprentices out enjoying the night, no different than anyone else here, unremarkable in every way.
He wants to shout for the sheer delicious freedom of it. He could live in this moment forever.
For a while they follow the path of the market, pointing out everything new. Sokka gets incredibly excited about a stall selling Water Tribe food, some seaweed dish that sounds deeply unappetizing to Zuko, and then complains so much about it being made wrong that Zuko has to haul him away from the unfortunate vendor. They buy dumplings instead, and hotcakes drizzled with honey and sesame, and cups of plum wine. Sometimes Sokka grabs Zuko's shoulder to point out something, or puts a hand on his back to keep them from being pulled away from each other as they move through the crowd. It's so casual it sends a deep and resonate ache through the cavity of Zuko's chest.
He knows what he's doing here. He's giving himself this one good night, a memory he can use to hurt himself after it all falls apart. He needs to memorize every detail: the taste of the wine, the smell of salt and fried dough, the warmth of Sokka's hand on his arm. He needs it as sharp as possible so it can do the most damage later.
Because after this is over he's going to tell Sokka to leave.
"I hear music," Sokka says suddenly. He straightens up, spinning around. "Over - there."
He takes off, pulling Zuko along. Zuko lets himself be hauled through the market. The wine has made everything a little swimmy and soft, and it takes a minute to realize that he can hear the music too. A drummer and a fiddle player on the side of the road have accumulated a small crowd that Sokka edges his way into. Zuko drifts helplessly after him.
"See," Sokka says, a little too loud, and Zuko realizes that Sokka is on the edge of tipsy, too. "I told you. Music."
He starts humming along, though it's drowned out by the fiddle and the noise of the market around them and only Zuko can hear it. Sokka's head lists to the side. The curve of his shoulder is warm brown in the lantern light. The skin there is pocked with scars, shrapnel from the airships on that last day of the war. The sight of them makes something painful curl under Zuko's ribs. He wants to press his cheek to Sokka's shoulder. He wants to lace their fingers together. He wants, and he doesn't know what he wants, and he thinks that whatever it is, it isn't enough.
If this is their last night together, Zuko knows how it's supposed to go. There should be a tragic and passionate declaration of love, or at least sex - definitely sex, some sort of consolation for this being the last time they'll ever see each other. It almost feels like a certainty; even if Sokka doesn't know that this is the end yet, he'll figure it out soon, but -
But Zuko doesn't know if he wants that.
It's been hiding in his mind since the banquet, since Jaizu told him he needed a child to secure the strongest possible alliance - and maybe for several years before that, in the background where he was never quite willing to think about it. Another piece of his future he's taken for granted, along with everything else, that he'll want whoever he wants in the ways he's supposed to and never question it at all.
The thought that this night should end with him and Sokka sleeping together does not evoke the same revulsion that he felt about the noblewomen. It's more of an empty, dull dread, like he's watching a fist moving towards him in slow motion, fearing the impact but not stepping out of the way. It shouldn't feel like this, should it? He likes Sokka, he definitely does, in a marrow-deep way that fills every part of his body with wild and hopeless yearning. He's supposed to want it. It's what other people want. It's what Mai wanted, and surely Sokka does too.
He could make himself. He could drink enough wine to numb the dread, and bring Sokka back to his rooms and take his clothes off and convince himself that he wants this. He should do it because they'll never see each other again. He should do it because it's what he's supposed to do. He should do it because he'll only be doing it to hurt himself, and hurting himself is what all the angry howling parts of Zuko still think he deserves.
A sizzle of light flashes above them, the atmospheric hiss of someone firebending nearby. The crowd gasps in confusion, and then in amazement as a tongue of flame snakes over the alley, burning orange and blue. It's a fire-construct in the approximate shape of a dragon, a meter long from nose to tail - and really, whoever is doing this is showing off, because the flame does a lazy loop in midair and then bursts into a shower of sparks that fall over their upturned faces. They land like pinpricks on Zuko's skin.
Several people nearby applaud, laughing. Sokka turns to him with a smile so uncharacteristically shy that it makes Zuko blush. "Hi," Sokka says. "This is nice, right?"
Looking at him is like looking into the sun.
Sokka deserves the truth. Jaizu's threats, the danger for him here, what Zuko feels, all of it. But he can't say it, because when he does and Sokka decides that Zuko isn't worth it after all it's going to break Zuko's fucking heart.
Zuko says, his voice wavering, "This isn't going to work, is it?"
Sokka's smile falters. "What do you mean?"
"We can pretend to be normal people, but it's just pretend. It doesn't change anything." Zuko pulls away, holding his arms against his chest to keep them from shaking. "You were right. You should go back to the Water Tribe. It'll be easier for both of us that way. I should have said it earlier, I just... I don't know. I'm sorry."
He steps back, into the flow of the crowd. Sokka moves as if to reach him, his mouth forming the shape of Zuko's name, but there are too many people between them. Whatever he says is lost in the noise.
Zuko turns and presses through the alley, his eyes stinging. The anonymity of the crowd protects him. He doesn't look back.
***
The palace is mercifully quiet at this time of night, so there is almost no one to see Zuko racing down the corridor to his rooms. That is, until he nears the door and sees Reiko coming the other way. It doesn't fully register to him how this looks, only that he has to get around her without her noticing that he's on the verge of crying, until she moves to block his path.
"You can't be here," she says nervously. "This is a private wing. I'll call the guards, and - Fire Lord?"
That's when Zuko remembers he's still wearing the makeup and clothes, and for the thousandth time today he wishes he could dissolve into a puddle on the ground.
Reiko's eyes widen. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were - I didn't know you'd left, please, go ahead, of course." She bows much deeper than necessary, sounding just as embarrassed as he feels.
This is apparently enough to push Zuko over the edge. The tears he'd held back so carefully on the walk back to the palace spill over onto his cheeks.
She looks away, mortified. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to upset you."
"It's not your fault," he manages to say. Zuko doesn't know the appropriate conversational technique for escaping this, so he gives up trying and heads for his door to his rooms instead, throwing it open and lighting all the lanterns in a single unhappy motion.
His attendant tails him hesitantly, lingering at the threshold. "Do you... need anything?"
"I don't know." He sinks into a chair, laying his face on the table, arms over his head. He hears Reiko's quiet footsteps move into the room and groans. He just needs her to leave so he can sit here alone and think about how he's screwed up absolutely everything in his life.
"Councilor Jaizu came by to speak with you earlier," Reiko says. "I told her you were busy. And - alone."
He tenses. "I see."
Silence for a long moment. Long enough that Zuko looks up at her. She's staring into the space over his shoulder, not directly at him, her fingers curling like she's working herself up to whatever it is she's about to say.
"Last year." Reiko swallows. "When you revoked Sozin's decree. I was finally able to marry my wife."
"Oh," Zuko says.
"It doesn't always seem like it here in the palace," she says. "But down in the city, in the towns, a lot of things are better now because of what you've done. The nobility don't want you to believe it. It suited them better the way it was before. But it's true."
"I still need the nobility on my side to get anything done. If I don't want them to finally find a way to overthrow me."
"It doesn't have to be that way. There are plenty of others besides the nobility with ideas. The fishing guild. The farmers. People with a reason to build something better now. They'd send representatives to sit upon your council, if you decreed it."
"I hope you aren't saying this around any of the councilors," Zuko mutters. "I think we'd be lucky if all they did was exile you for agitating unrest."
"I'll take a risk for what I believe in if I have to," she says sharply. Then her hands fly to her mouth. "I don't mean that you aren't - I wouldn't presume - please, forgive me for overstepping."
It stings. Zuko wants to shake her and tell her that he's trying, he's trying, he's doing everything he can and it's already destroying him. But he keeps his mouth shut.
"All I mean is..." Reiko hesitates, and continues at his nod. "Just because this is the way things have been done in the past, doesn't mean they have to continue this way. Isn't that what you always say?"
He gives her a bitter smile. "I think I've been sufficiently admonished."
She bows again, looking relieved. "I'll leave you alone. Oh, but I was coming to give this to you." She places a sealed scroll on the table in front of him. "This just came, and I was told it was urgent."
The familiar symbol on the wax seal sends a complicated twinge of emotion through him. "Thank you."
"Good night, Fire Lord."
When she's gone Zuko puts his head on the table again and stares at the unopened scroll. The immediacy of the hurt has dulled, leaving him with a hollow ache all over his body. He wants to cry now that he's finally alone, but the tears won't come anymore. He breathes in and out while the lantern light flickers around him.
There's a knock at the door.
"I really don't need anything," Zuko says.
"Well, I want to talk," comes the voice through the door. "Or you can run away again, I guess, if you want to."
Zuko sits up, gripping the edge of the table. A few long seconds pass as he debates leaving the door closed. But his stupid heart is weak, so he goes and opens it instead.
"Will you just talk to me?" Sokka asks miserably. "I know something bad is going on. If you really want this to be over, I'll go, and you'll never have to think about me ever again. But, Zuko, please. I can't do this if you don't talk to me."
The self-destructive part of Zuko urges him to slam the door. This is his very last chance, already more than he deserves, and if he ruins it here then yes, it'll hurt, but at least it'll finally be done. He'll have severed it of his own volition, instead of giving Sokka the option to hurt him. He won't have to cut himself open and hold out all the vulnerable pieces to be seen, judged, and deemed unworthy.
His fingers tighten on the edge of the door to close it. Zuko bites his tongue and forces them back to his side. He turns away and retreats into the room, leaving the door open. Behind him the door closes, the brush of Sokka's footsteps on the tile following him in.
Zuko turns to face Sokka and crosses his arms. Uncrosses them. Crosses them again. Sokka looks at him, silent and pained.
There's too many things, and they're all too hard to talk about, twisted up in a giant knot in his heart. He picks the smallest thread, the least painful one, because that's all he can bring himself to say. "Would you like me better if I looked like this?"
Sokka looks bewildered. "Is that what you're upset about?"
Zuko shakes his head.
Sokka sighs. "Sit," he says, and holds Zuko's arm to guide him to the couch before pulling away again. Zuko listens to him moving around in the adjoining room for a while before emerging with a basin of water. Sokka sits beside Zuko, the basin on his lap, their knees not quite touching.
"For the record," Sokka says, soaking a cloth in the water. "I'd like you any way you are. You care, and you're always trying to be better. That's more than a lot of people in the world." He wipes the cloth at the makeup over Zuko's scar.
"I can clean this off myself," Zuko mumbles.
"Yeah, obviously. I know you have this whole thing about needing to do everything by yourself. Just let me help, okay?"
Zuko falls silent. He closes his eyes and lets Sokka dab at the makeup. The water is cool on his skin. For a while he doesn't talk, doesn't move at all.
"It's not safe for you here," he says at last. "I've been trying to hold everything together for so long, and it's not working anymore. The nobility want someone more like my father on the throne, and at least some of them are positioning themselves to get rid of me for good. I didn't want you to know how bad it was." His face warms. "And I didn't want you to get hurt. If they know that you mean... something... to me, they'll use you to get to me. If you're not here, then you won't be in danger anymore."
Sokka says nothing, his hand on the edge of Zuko's jaw, steadying Zuko's head as he wipes with the cloth.
"Jaizu wants me to marry into one of their families to force an alliance," Zuko continues. "It makes sense. I don't have a good argument against it. I just don't think I can do it, but I don't know what else to do. That's what I was talking about with Mai earlier. She thinks that maybe she can help with all this, and she has her own reasons to hate the nobility. That's all, we're not - I mean, I'm not interested in her, and I don't think she -"
"Yeah," Sokka says quietly. "I got that."
Zuko exhales. "I wanted to tell you. But I was scared, and - " The darkness behind his closed eyes, the quiet, the gentle repetition of the cloth on his skin, makes it easier to untangle the vast knot of thoughts he doesn't want to face. "I like you. I really like you. I just don't think I feel it the right way."
A pause, Sokka's fingers on his cheek. "You can't feel things the right way or wrong way. You just feel whatever it is you feel."
Zuko swallows. "I think a part of me knew when I was with Mai. Maybe. I don't know. She was the one who wanted to sleep together. And it was what I was supposed to do, so I did. But whatever she got out of it, I didn't really feel. And then later I thought it was just because I didn't, you know, like girls." He blushes again, and tries not to think about how Sokka can feel the heat of his embarrassment right under his fingers. "But it's not just that. I think maybe I just don't want to, at all. So I... I thought you wouldn't want to be here anyway once you found that out, and I didn't want to deal with that and... I didn't want to - to disappoint you."
He doesn't open his eyes.
There's a click of ceramic as Sokka sets the basin down on the table.
"Fine," Sokka says. "It doesn't really matter to me."
Zuko has stopped breathing. The world feels all strange and slow, like in a dream.
"Well, I care about the not-being-killed part. But I think we can manage that. We did sort of overthrow an empire together. We can totally do it a second time."
Zuko finally looks at him then. Sokka is half-smiling, his expression settling into something more serious. "Look," he says. "I didn't come here because I just wanted to sleep with you. I mean, you're a million other things besides that. You're a good person, and you work yourself half to death trying to help others, and you're terrible at cooking, and you have your own weird sense of humor, and there was that one time you almost cried when you saw a lost baby turtleduck. And that's only five things. I could keep going."
Zuko shrugs, and Sokka studies him. "When you left, at the market, I thought maybe you just realized that I'm not that good or interesting, really. I don't know what I'm doing most of the time. I'm just sort of stumbling around here trying not to screw things up for everyone back home, and I'm scared you all know it. I'm not even a bender."
"That's ridiculous - you're one of the best people I know, who cares if you're a bender?"
"Yeah," Sokka says. "Exactly."
He takes Zuko's hand, turning it over palm-up, his fingers brushing the inside of Zuko's wrist. It's a warm electric hum under the skin, making Zuko's heart speed up again.
"What do you want?" Sokka asks. "What does this look like to you, if you stop telling yourself all the reasons it isn't going to work?"
Zuko says, softly, "I hadn't really let myself think about that."
Sokka squeezes his hand. "Will you think about it?"
He nods, slow, not trusting this new ground beneath his feet.
"We can figure something out, with the nobility, if we want to try this for real. Is that what you want?"
"Yes," Zuko breathes. "Of course, because it's you."
He grips Sokka's hand tighter. Sokka pulls him into a hug. "It's going to be okay," Sokka says. "Alright? It'll be okay."
Lightness suffuses Zuko's limbs. It doesn't feel right to allow himself to hope - and yet Sokka is here, his arms around Zuko's back, and he doesn't pull away when Zuko relaxes just enough to lean against him. Sokka's breath is a steady rise and fall against his chest. Zuko's body feels weightless, drunk off the giddy relief of it. He closes his eyes and presses his cheek against Sokka's collarbone. Feels the heartbeat there beneath the skin.
Sokka hugs him closer, leans to Zuko's ear, and whispers, "Now you're getting makeup on my clothes."
Zuko lifts his head to blink at him. Sokka laughs, and right then he's so beautiful it eclipses every other light in the room.
The last of the weight lifts from Zuko's shoulders, a breath he's been holding for years. His mind is finally quiet. So it doesn't really come as a thought, more of a formless bubble at the base of his throat. He touches the side of Sokka's face, gently. Sokka looks at him with soft, wide eyes, and doesn't move away as Zuko leans forward and kisses him.
It fizzes all through his body. Zuko likes the way Sokka's hand runs up his spine to the back of his neck. He likes how Sokka's pulse quickens at his touch. He likes how Sokka touches his cheek, cautious like he can't quite believe this is happening either. He likes how Sokka leans into him when he puts an arm around Sokka's waist, and how Sokka still tastes a little like honey and wine, and the feeling of his hair in Zuko's fingers. It fills up his ribs with a thrumming warmth, and for a few moments he can forget the fear and pain of everything outside this room; all there is is the delicate blooming feeling that says this is right, this is right, this is where we're supposed to be.
The fear is still there, patiently waiting, when he pulls back, but it's muffled. Sokka watches him, a smile creeping up his face.
"I think things might be bad here for a while," Zuko says. "I don't want to put you in danger if you stay."
"I can deal with that," Sokka says, "if you can let the rest of us help you. Will you try to tell us what's going on, instead of trying to do everything by yourself? You don't have to carry all this alone."
Zuko looks down at their hands, their fingers twined. He sighs, exhausted. "That's pretty much what Mai said."
"See! And did you also kiss her right before that too, or...?"
Zuko huffs out an amused, exasperated breath, and Sokka snickers quietly to himself. It pings something in the back of Zuko's mind. He straightens up, looking over to the table on the other side of the room. "Actually, I think she might be able to help."
The scroll, still unopened, waits for him. He picks it up and pries off the seal while Sokka leans over the back of the couch, watching curiously.
Mai's handwriting is neat and familiar. Zuko reads through it, and then reads it a second time. There's a hum building in the tips of his fingers, a mixture of dread and possibility. He holds the scroll out to Sokka, who takes it with a questioning tilt of his head.
"What do you think?" Zuko says when Sokka has finished reading.
Sokka shakes his head. "I'm thinking I'm glad she's on my side this time."
***
It's two days later when Zuko summons them to the audience hall. That's the longest he's willing to risk waiting to follow up on the things that require it. Not that he doubts Mai, but he needs to be sure all the evidence won't conveniently disappear before he has a chance to see it. He also needs to make his move before Jaizu does, so he's going into this with much less than he'd prefer, and hoping very hard that he can bluff his way through the parts he needs to.
Zuko hates it in the audience hall. It reminds him too much of the sort of courts his father held. But he needs the gravitas of the room, with its towering ceilings and gilded throne that glints like a knife in the firelight. Zuko sits on it and looks down at the three councilors waiting before him.
Duza, Eiyasu, and Jaizu look back. Zuko has said nothing yet, and Duza has started to fidget. He glances around like he's waiting for something else to happen.
"Where are the others?" Eiyasu asks at last, breaking the silence.
"Not here," Zuko says.
She frowns. "Fire Lord, I'm afraid I don't understand. Why did you wish to speak with us?"
"Fire Lord," Duza says. "Anything that you want to discuss is, of course, of the utmost importance. But I am scheduled to meet with the minister of education very soon, and -"
"Councilor Duza," Zuko says. "Money from your household has been making its way to the eastern province to purchase weapons for the pro-Ozai agitators."
Duza's face goes pale, then purples with rage. "This - this is a baseless accusation - you certainly can't have any proof, because such a thing would never happen - "
"Your daughter has been helpful enough to provide us with a copy of your household's latest account books," Zuko says. "You're certain there will be no discrepancy?"
Duza sputters wildly. "If it is true - which it is not - it must be someone else in the estate doing this without my knowledge or permission."
"But you do approve expenses for your household, do you not?"
"Fire Lord, I would never dream of - "
"Councilor Eiyasu," Zuko continues over him. Eiyasu has turned the sick color of a dead fish, her hands clasped together in front of her. "Your brother is a squadron leader stationed near the eastern province, correct? You were very insistent that I send soldiers to suppress the demonstrations there. Which, as we know now, have only grown so large because of the Duza family's generosity."
She says nothing, staring up at him.
"It seems he and his squadron were operating under the idea that when the order came to move against the demonstrators, they would instead attack the town to give the impression that I authorized the army to kill peaceful citizens. That would certainly turn the populace against me, wouldn't it?"
"Fire Lord - "
"I already have a message on the way to his commander. You know your brother better than I do. Do you think he'll shoulder all the blame alone, or will he try to save himself by pointing out that it was you who gave him the idea in the first place?"
She looks at him with such a wild hate that it freezes Zuko to the spot. "You are not fit to rule," she snarls. "You have no notion of the things that made this country strong. You would have us give everything up to commoners and foreigners! I did what I had to to make everyone else see you as I did."
Zuko takes a deep breath. "Eiyasu, your family is stripped of its titles and lands. Your brother is relieved of his command. You have both acted directly to harm the throne, and this cannot be forgiven. You will both leave the Fire Nation by the new moon, and you will not be permitted to return."
Her eyes flash, and for a terrible moment Zuko thinks she's going to challenge him to an Agni Kai. But instead she spits and turns on her heel. Beside her Duza has fallen to his knees in supplication; she gives him a disgusted look before stalking out of the room, trailed by the pair of guards that Zuko motions to have follow her.
Duza stares up at him. "Please, Fire Lord, I ask for your mercy. I would never act against you in such a way. What you learned of my household must be a mistake."
"I believe you," Zuko lies, which at least quiets Duza's groveling. "Still, there must be consequences for such mismanagement. Your daughter recently graduated from university, didn't she? It would be suitable for you to abdicate, and for her to take your place as head of the household and sit upon the council."
Duza's eyes bulge. "My daughter - "
"And then I would recommend that you spend some time away from the capitol. Perhaps Ember Island?"
Duza casts a frantic look as Jaizu, who pointedly ignores him, her mouth set in a thin line. "If that's what you believe is the best course of action, Fire Lord, I am yours to command."
"I do," Zuko says. "Please see it done before the end of the week."
Duza bows and slinks off without another word, looking relieved to have escaped Eiyasu's fate.
"Well," Jaizu says once he's gone, raising her chin to look Zuko in the eye. "What am I to be punished for? For what it is I know?"
"No," Zuko says. "I want your help."
Surprise slips through her careful mask. "My help?"
"I think you may be the only one of my councilors who actually believes in something other than their own political advancement." He studies her face. "You do, don't you? You want things to be better, even though we disagree on the ways it needs to be done. I need someone I can trust, and who will be honest with me. Not a sycophant who will agree with whatever I say. Someone who wants to work together toward a shared goal. Someone who will tell me if I'm becoming - too much like him."
Jaizu considers him carefully. "No, you're not like Ozai," she says at last. "I shouldn't have said that. I knew it would upset you."
He accepts this with a nod, unable to form the words.
"If you want to hear my unfettered opinion, then really, the Water Tribe man -"
"Stays here. And you know his name."
"Representative Sokka," she amends. "You should know that I wrote a motion to remove him from the council, citing a conflict of interest. However, that motion seems to have been misplaced overnight."
"I don't have anything to do with that," Zuko says.
Behind Jaizu, out of her sight, one of the attendants looks up at Zuko for a fraction of a moment with the ghost of a smile on their mouth, so quick that he can't be sure he sees it at all. He is suddenly certain that whatever Jaizu wrote in her motion, it is now a nondescript pile of ash in a hearth somewhere, waiting to be swept up and thrown out.
"As for the rest of what I have to say, perhaps there are too many others around you don't wish to have hear it." Jaizu looks around at the guards, the attendants at the edge of the room. Zuko hesitates, then motions for her to come up the dias where she can speak quietly enough for him to be the only one to hear.
She does so, walking up with a frown. "I will insist that it is deeply inappropriate for you to be involved with a member of your council," she says. "And for all you've dulled Duza's and Eiyasu's claws, you should still consider marrying into one of the families. This won't be the last challenge you face from the nobility."
"I understand," Zuko says. "But it's not happening. We'll find other ways to deal with it. And Sokka is staying here. He can do the job fine, regardless of... whatever I feel about him."
She throws up her hands. "Then will you at least bring in an additional representative, someone from the Northern Water Tribe, so we can have some semblance of impartiality in this endeavor?"
"That's... not a bad idea, actually."
Her mouth quirks into a suppressed smile. "I'm only happy to offer my opinion, Fire Lord."
"While we're on the subject of the council," Zuko says, "I've been thinking that maybe having only nobility on the council isn't entirely in the best interests of the people, either. We could open it up, bring in other representatives. Perhaps some from the merchants, and the farmers -"
Jaizu looks so horrified that he stops himself before she can keel over dead. "We can discuss it later," he says. "I'll be ready to hear your objections then."
She bows. "I look forward to us working together, Fire Lord Zuko."
"As do I."
"Farmers in the government," she mutters to herself as she leaves. "Heavens above."
***
"Hey," Sokka says, when Zuko steps out into the hall where he's waiting. "Can I watch you eviscerate pompous rich jerks every single day forever? Ah, the look on his face..."
"I don't think I can handle doing that every day," Zuko says. His hands have stopped shaking, but his heart still pounds much too fast in his chest. "Anyway, I'll have to keep Jaizu from tearing me apart first - oh, uh -"
Mai leans on the other wall, amused. "No, it's fine. Don't notice me."
"I didn't know if you'd come," he says.
"And miss out on seeing the results of all my hard work?"
"I can't believe you know those things about the councilors," Sokka says. "How did you do that so fast?"
"Oh, I'm terrifyingly competent," she says, smirking. "All I did was invite Duza over for dinner. You'd be surprised what people are willing to say when they're drunk and they think you hate the Fire Lord too. I bet Eiyasu is furious at him for spilling everything." She rolls her eyes. "I mean, I am still mad at you. But I'm mad at them more."
"Good enough for me," Zuko says dryly.
She snorts. "That move with Duza's daughter was good. You might actually be able to get something done with her on your council. I hear she's scandalously progressive."
"And with me on the council," Sokka says, indignant. "I'm here too."
"I know you are, Sokka. I know you are."
An unfamiliar feeling of peace settles over Zuko shoulders as the two of them bicker. He leads them down the hall, toward the courtyard. The sun beams down, hot against his shoulders, baking the stones under his feet.
He turns his face up to it, eyes closed against the light. His hand brushes against Sokka's. It feels like a promise, an anchor, a hope.
He's not doing this alone. He never was.