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Why were lemming seals so damn fast?
Zuko was panting and empty handed when Sokka’s father jogged up beside him. He straightened his spine and tried to scrape together a little of his dignity—not easy, with his lungs aching from the cold and his breath puffing out in gasping clouds of steam. He’d been so sure he had it that time, only for the seal to slip away through a fissure in the ice at the last moment.
Hakoda and Bato weren’t even winded, which just felt like adding extra insult to injury. They could tell what prey was worth chasing after, and which ones would get away before they caught up to them. They each had caught two lemming seals already, dangling tauntingly now from the packs strapped to their backs. Zuko hadn’t even come close to getting one, though not for lack of trying.
This was not exactly what he’d been hoping for when he’d invited himself along this morning. Not that he’d necessarily thought it through—impulsive, as always, he’d seized the opportunity to get Sokka’s fathers alone. Maybe the open surprise on Sokka’s face when Zuko volunteered to join them should have been a warning to him that this was a bad idea.
“Good effort,” Hakoda said amiably, clapping Zuko on the shoulder hard enough to knock him forward a step. He nodded, still breathing a little too hard to manage a dignified reply. He clumsily spooled the line on his harpoon around his fist. At least he’d kept a hold of it this time. His first attempt, he’d missed his throw by an embarrassing margin, just as the lemming seal had been escaping through a fissure in the ice. Luckily Bato had better reflexes than him, and had managed to snag the line of it before Sokka’s second-nicest harpoon, which he had graciously allowed his boyfriend to borrow, had been lost to the ocean.
There was definitely a hint of laughter in Hakoda’s voice. He was laughing with him, of course, because he wasn’t a cruel man. Zuko supposed it would probably be funny to watch the adorable little bastards outsmart him, if it wasn’t so spirits-damned infuriating.
Why had he thought this was a good idea?
He could have spoken to Hakoda in the village like a normal person. But no, of course he’d wanted to… to prove himself, or something, which was backfiring absolutely spectacularly, considering he was making an absolute fool of himself. If Hakoda had had any reservations about him before now, he was sure as hell doing everything he could to validate them—
Hakoda was watching him, a peculiar expression on his face. It was a patient, not-quite-concerned look, the sort of thing he wasn’t really used to having directed at him by anyone other than Uncle. Zuko realized that he’d let the silence draw out too long and flushed.
“What’s on your mind, son?” Hakoda asked.
Zuko could feel the heat of his embarrassment prickling at the back of his neck. He shook his head a little too furiously and glanced away.
He did have a reason for inviting them out here. His fingers itched to curl around the little lump in his pocket… but no, he couldn’t, not now. He wrung his hands around the worn sinew rope wound around the base of his borrowed harpoon.
A sharp whistle cut through his thoughts. Bato was waving them down a short distance away. Zuko followed his sharp gesture down the slope—it took him a moment to spot the lemming seal, camouflaged as it was against the pristine white of the snow.
Right. This was what they were here for. He needed to focus.
Hakoda clapped him on the shoulder again, as though giving Zuko permission to let the conversation drop for now.
He’d catch something first. He’d catch something, and they’d be impressed, and then he’d find his moment to ask what he’d been meaning to ask…
He was almost as eager to escape the awkwardness of the conversation as he was at the chance for seal-hunting redemption. He heard Hakoda chuckle again when he took off. Zuko sprinted after the lemming seal, boots pounding the ice, spear gripped firmly though his thick mittens. The seal wasn’t moving, didn’t seem to be watching him, distracted from the sound of their approach by the water rushing through the fissure in the ice. It seemed as though he’d blinked and suddenly drawn far closer than he’d ever imagined the animal would let him. Zuko felt his excitement rising in his throat, and he raised his spear in the same short breath—
—but then his foot caught the ground where the snow gave way to sea-sprayed ice, where the occasional gush of water lapped up over the edge of the fissures. He was going too fast to stop, foot sliding, ankle folding, knee buckling under his weight and the pain and the breathless shock of his back hitting the ground hard enough to shake the ice.
There was a moment of pin-drop silence when Zuko’s back hit the ice, followed by the splash of the lemming seal escaping into the sea. The pain that flashed up his calf a moment later stole the breath from his lungs.
Hakoda shouted his name; Bato cursed. Boot steps pounded the hard-packed snow.
(That was another one of those things that eluded him. It seemed like everyone in the village had a sense for these things, could tell which falls were nothing to worry about and which made everyone go quiet with concern.
Zuko was constantly clinging to the back of Sokka’s coat, afraid his over-excitable boyfriend was going to slip and brain himself on the ice. He never did, of course, and then Katara would tease him for treating Sokka like he was more of a fall risk than Gran Gran.
And really, even with Sokka’s weak knee, Zuko was the outsider. If anyone couldn’t keep his feet on the ice, it was him).
Hakoda dropped to one knee at Zuko’s side. He grit his teeth, still trying to remember how to breathe. He hand slid gingerly beneath Zuko’s head, probing.
He thought Zuko had hit his head, he realized. For a moment he was still too stunned by the agony in his ankle to correct him. Hakoda seemed to realize that he wasn’t concussed at the same time Zuko managed to force his lungs to unfreeze, because his attention resettled on Zuko’s face, one hand slipping reassuringly down to his shoulder.
“It’s my…” Zuko managed to choke out, and finished the thought with a jerky gesture toward his leg.
Hakoda hummed and scooted down. His fingers were immeasurably gentle, hands stabilizing the sides of his boot while he assessed the damage. Even the light pressure of his touch was enough to make Zuko swallow down an awful sound. He tried to stifle the pained noise and didn’t quite manage it. Hakoda hummed his apology and let go.
“It might be broken,” Hakoda said, gently, like he was worried how Zuko would take the news, like Zuko hadn’t guessed as much the moment the pain lanced up his leg. He pressed the soft fur of his mitten against his eyes and forced a shaky breath.
This was humiliating. It was humiliating, and disgraceful, and so typical—
Hakoda seemed to misinterpret Zuko’s mortification for something else entirely, because his hand fell gently to Zuko’s arm. He squeezed his shoulder reassuringly.
“Let’s get you home,” Hakoda said.
“No,” Zuko said, a little desperately. He’d already imposed himself on them, and had nothing to show for it. Zuko didn’t want to cut their outing short, too. “I mean, you don’t have to. I can keep going. Or—you can, and I’ll head back on my own, you don’t have to...”
Hakoda fixed him with an unimpressed look, lips tightening like he was holding a smart retort back. He looked so much like Sokka, not just in appearance, but in mannerisms, too.
“I… probably shouldn’t,” Zuko admitted weakly.
“No,” Hakoda agreed, a disapproving frown tugging down his mouth. Zuko’s ears burned. “Can you walk if we help you? Or should I go back for a sled?”
“I can walk,” Zuko said. He wasn’t actually sure if that was true or not, but his pride could only take so much.
Sokka didn’t mind having a day to himself to focus on his work, though Zuko asking to tag along on Dad and Bato’s hunting trip had surprised him. Zuko had never seemed particularly interested in hunting before, the few times that Sokka had tried to take him. Sure, he’d made an effort to pretend for Sokka’s sake, but he was a terrible liar, and his insistence that he was having a good time freezing his ass off trudging through thigh-deep snow, Sokka, really hadn’t fooled anyone.
He’d seemed pretty set on third wheeling with Sokka’s dads this morning, though, and on a day where Sokka had been too busy to join them. Maybe Zuko had taken some of Sokka’s light-hearted teasing about his hopelessness with a spear to heart.
He did like the idea of Zuko giving it another shot, though. Maybe he’d be less resistant to going together next time, and Sokka could take him out with his canoe, skirting around the ice fields for more open waters… He’d float the idea the next time the two of them had a day to themselves.
But for now, Sokka was happy sitting outside in the fresh air, with the sounds of life in the village floating around him, occupying himself with his designs. The South and the North’s architectural designs have been developing independently from one another for the last century. Sure, some of the Southern Water Tribe’s designs had been more theoretical than practical in recent times, with their decrease in numbers and their lack of waterbenders, but now that the war was over that was changing. They’d need to start expanding their communities to accommodate the increasing population sooner than later. Sokka wanted it to be something that the nonbenders and the migrant Northern waterbenders alike could be proud of.
He had some ideas on how to integrate the North’s bending-based architecture into the Southern Water Tribe’s post-raid designs—they simply didn’t have the benders to do the kind of maintenance that Agna Qel’a required, but innovation was Sokka’s specialty. The fact that this was even a problem they had just showed how far they’d come.
He’d spent the afternoon prototyping, with a few curious kids from the village offering their expert help—and also just playing in the snow, which may have slowed down his progress some, but was just too cute to complain about. The sun was hanging midway down in the afternoon sky when the kids’ parents began to call them home. Sokka stretched and felt his shoulder pop. His knees were stiff from sitting so long. He hoisted himself up and shook out his leg, then turned his attention out toward the ice fields, in the direction he’d seen his dads and Zuko disappear this morning.
He didn’t expect them back this early—it’d be early evening by the time they called it quits, usually—so Sokka didn’t recognize what he was seeing at first. Three figures, walking through the snow, an odd stumbling gait as they staggered forward. His heart rose in his throat at the sight of it, wrong, something was wrong, and he was sprinting before he had another second to think about it.
Sokka was out of breath by the time he reached them. He moved immediately to take Zuko’s weight, and Bato slid back to let him. Zuko made a quiet sound in his throat. For a moment he seemed oddly resistant to the touch. Sokka drew back slightly.
“My knee is fine today,” he murmured. He had to assume that was it, that Zuko was worried about hurting him when Zuko was clearly hurt himself. “Let me help.
Zuko didn’t seem fully satisfied with that, but he nodded tightly and accepted Sokka’s arm around his waist.
“Dad! What did you do to my boyfriend?” Sokka asked. He’d expected Zuko to come home tired, but he hadn’t expected him to be hurt. Thank the spirits that his dad had been there, but still—
“It’s not his fault,” Zuko said tightly. The amount of heat in the words seemed to startle Hakoda. Sokka blinked, confused, and he clarified, “He didn’t do anything to me.”
Ah. Sokka’s expression softened. His mind would never have jumped there, to assume that it had to have been someone’s fault, but certainly never to assume his dads had done anything. Zuko, of course, even hurting, felt the need to defend them. He brushed a soothing thumb over his neck—a gentle acknowledgement of the words, a gente reassurance for the anxiety behind them.
“I know. Sorry. That was a bad joke,” Sokka said. “It was an accident?”
He looked to his dad for an answer to that question—no sense in asking his boyfriend, who would blame himself for making the sun rise if he thought it was what Sokka wanted to hear.
“He slipped on the ice,” Hakoda confirmed. “It happens.”
That bit he added with a concerned glance at Zuko, like he wasn’t sure Zuko believed it. He sighed. His teeth were clenched, so the sound came out more like a hiss.
Well, so much for Zuko’s new-found interest in hunting. Sokka squeezed his arm. “Let’s get you home,” he said.
“We’ll go find Katara,” Bato suggested, curling one hand around Hakoda’s elbow. The touch snapped Dad out of his overprotective hovering. He squeezed Sokka’s shoulder reassuringly, and it wasn’t until Sokka gave him a small nod that he turned to follow Bato’s lead.
“Come on,” Sokka said softly.
Sokka cast one more glance back at his dads’ retreating backs. Dad must have sensed his eyes on him, or maybe he just knew Sokka too well, because he looked back and met Sokka’s gaze, nodded silently, and then picked up his pace. He turned his attention back to Zuko. The stuttering crunch of their footsteps in the snow was the only sound between them. Sokka opened his mouth to ask Zuko whether he was okay, and then thought better of it. His jaw was clenched so tightly that it made Sokka’s teeth ache in sympathy. He almost wanted to offer to carry him the rest of the way, but something in Zuko’s mood stopped him.
“Almost there,” he said instead.
“You don’t have to do this. I can walk on my own,” Zuko said through grit teeth. That was very clearly not true, considering that he’d been using Sokka’s dads as crutches the whole way home, and the exertion from that had left him shaky and struggling to limp along beside him.
Whatever patience he’d had that had allowed him to accept help from Sokka’s dads was rapidly flagging. The sight of their home had sparked something stubborn in him, because he forced himself another few clearly painful steps, half pulling away from Sokka’s grip despite the way it made his leg shake treacherously beneath him on every other step. He stumbled through the door, with or maybe despite Sokka’s help, and then toward the fire. He collapsed more than sat with any grace on the furs.
“Let me help you with your coat,” Sokka said.
“I’ve got it,” Zuko said, though the weary frustration in his voice didn’t make him very convincing, struggling as he was to free himself from his sweat-through coat. Sokka reached for him, and Zuko batted his hands away.
“Fine,” Sokka said. Maybe a distraction to take his mind off it, then. That always helped Sokka on his bad pain days. “I’ll make you some tea, then.”
“I don’t want any tea,” Zuko said.
“What can I do, Zuko?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Zuko snapped, “I can take care of myself!”
That stung, maybe more than Zuko had meant for it to. He tried to squash the feeling down, to remind himself that Zuko was hurting. By the way Zuko’s jaw tightened, he hadn’t done a very good job of keeping it off his face. Sokka sighed and paced a moment before peeling off his own coat.
“What’s going on with you?” Sokka asked. He was no stranger to Zuko’s stubbornness, but this was too much, even for him. He seemed genuinely upset that Sokka was trying to take care of him, and even if Zuko wanted him to, that wasn’t something Sokka was willing to leave alone.
“Your father already told you what happened,” Zuko said.
“I know what happened,” Sokka said. “Now I want to know why you’re acting like this.” Maybe it was the edge of genuine worry in his voice that made Zuko’s mouth open and snap shut as he barreled on, “You like it when I dote on you, and now apparently you can’t stand me—”
“No,” Zuko said quickly. All the fight seemed to go out of him at once, a flicker of shame and frustration warring on his face. “No. That’s not…” He scrubbed at his eyes, his expression pinched, and then leaned forward in an aborted motion, like he wanted to reach for him, but was waiting for an invitation. “It’s nothing like that. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just… I’m just…”
He trailed off helplessly. Sokka stood indecisively for a moment, warring with himself over whether they wanted that tea after all, or maybe something stronger. He went for neither, kneeling at Zuko’s side and taking his hands in his.
“I want to help you when you’re hurting,” Sokka said softly. “So let me help.”
He could see Zuko warring with his own stubbornness. Sokka waited patiently. He may not have had Aang’s perfect polar bear puppy eyes down, but Zuko had never been able to resist giving Sokka what he asked for, in the end.
“This is completely humiliating,” Zuko said.
“It’s not,” Sokka insisted.
“And in front of your father,” Zuko groaned. He buried his face in his still-gloved hands.
“He doesn’t care about that,” Sokka said. He tugged on Zuko’s wrist, gently, until he convinced him to raise his head, then worked his fingers under each glove and set them aside. Zuko grudgingly allowed it, and more grudgingly allowed Sokka to ease his coat over his head. When he emerged, still overwarm and sweaty from the strenuous walk, hair in a disarray, Sokka cupped his face delicately and pressed a soft kiss to his forehead. “He doesn’t care. I promise you. He won’t hold it against you.”
“You don’t know that,” Zuko said.
Sokka did know. He knew because he knew his dad. He also knew that his dad had done a lot worse for much stupider reasons. He’d heard plenty of exciting stories from Dad attesting to that, and even more embarrassing ones from Bato which Dad had protested the retelling of loudly, mock-outraged and fighting laughter.
“This isn’t really about what my dad thinks of you, is it?” Sokka asked.
“It’s just… me,” Zuko said. “I don’t belong here.”
Sokka frowned, opened his mouth to cut in, but before he could Zuko was speaking in a breathless rush.
“I’m hopeless. I don’t know any of your customs. I can’t hunt, I can’t carve a necklace, I can’t even walk right!” Zuko shouted. “I’ve been living here for years, and what do I have to show for it?”
“It’s only been two years,” Sokka said. “Most of us have been practicing this stuff since we were kids.”
The attempt at reassurance just made Zuko’s expression sour, a mix between frustration and resignation.
“So I’ll never catch up,” Zuko said.
“So no one expects you to be perfect,” he corrected him. “Of course it takes practice to learn how to hunt, or carve a…” Sokka trailed off. Blinked. “Did you say a necklace?”
“No,” Zuko said immediately, much too quickly to ever hope to be believable. He made a face. “I mean—forget I said that.”
Sokka’s heart fluttered in his throat. He hid the sudden nerves behind a teasing grin.
“What kind of necklace?” Sokka asked lightly.
“No kind,” Zuko said. “You already have a necklace so why would I…”
“So it is for me,” Sokka said.
“It—this isn’t fair,” Zuko whined. “You know I’m not a good liar.”
“Let me see it,” Sokka said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Zuko said.
“Zuko, I love you, but you’re not fooling anyone with that,” Sokka said sweetly. Zuko huffed.
“It isn’t finished yet,” he said, one last-ditch effort, like that would ever convince Sokka to let it go. Sokka raised an eyebrow, and Zuko made a face. For a moment they were at an impasse. Sokka pulled out the big guns.
“Please, Zuko? For me?” he asked.
Zuko squinted at him, clinging to his last flaring stubbornness before he caved. He leaned over to fish around in the inner pocket of his coat, and then looked away as he offered it up, like he couldn’t bear to see Sokka’s reaction.
Sokka accepted the necklace delicately, like it was spun from ice instead of leather and ivory. For all the resistance that Zuko was putting up, it wasn’t actually that bad. It wasn’t like Sokka expected everyone to be a natural talent at carving like he was, and it was obvious Zuko put a lot of time and care into its design. He traced his thumb over the unsteady nicks along the pendant’s edge, the careful boomerang and flame design, and had to swallow back against the emotion rising in his throat. No, it wasn’t professionally carved, but…
“Did you show this to Dad?” Sokka asked.
“I didn’t get the chance,” Zuko said. “I was going to… I don’t know. Kanna thought it was a good idea. I guess I wanted to prove to your father that I could—could be a good husband, but… Maybe it’s for the best. Look at it. It’s unacceptable, it’d be an embarrassment to present this to anyone, let alone…”
Zuko trailed off, like it was going to leave the thought unfinished, but when Sokka caught his gaze he managed the last few quiet words. “Let alone you,” he said.
“Zuko,” Sokka said, heart clenching at the catch in his voice. “You could never embarrass me.”
Zuko scoffed like he didn’t believe him, turned his face toward the fire. Sokka cupped his cheek and forced him to meet his gaze.
“You’re trying too hard to be perfect at this when no one expects you to be,” Sokka said. “So what if leopard walrus ivory isn’t your medium? If you don’t like it, you can try something else.” He paused for a moment, considering. “Why don’t you cast it out of metal? You used to train under Master Piandao, so I know you know how to use a forge.”
“You can’t wear metal jewelry in the South Pole. You’ll freeze,” Zuko said.
“Well, sure,” Sokka agreed, “but you could make a mock-up and then ask Toph to help you make something similar out of stone. There are no rules against asking for help, even if you’re apparently allergic to it.”
Zuko considered that for a long moment, fingers worrying the edge of the fur in his lap. Sokka watched the nervous movement, and then reached out to lay his hand over Zuko’s. His fingers curled around Sokka’s without hesitation, without even thinking about it. He glanced down as though surprised by his own muscle memory, his hand fitting so naturally into Sokka’s. He met his gaze.
“That’s not really… traditional. Are you sure you’re okay with that?” Zuko asked.
“Zuko, I’m not dating you for your knowledge of Southern Water Tribe traditions,” Sokka said. “I’m dating you because you’re the kind of person who tries because you know it’s important to me.
“…Even if my spear handling needs work?” Zuko asked.
That startled a laugh out of him, and the tentative smile Zuko offered in return squashed the last curl of nervousness in his chest. Zuko inhaled, as though to say something else, but Sokka surged forward to kiss him before the words could form on his tongue. He didn’t pull away, just tipped his forehead against Zuko’s, an unbearably fond smile playing on his lips.
“Zuko,” Sokka said, so seriously, like this was the most important thing he’d ever told him—like Zuko was the most important man in the world. “I don’t care if you never catch a single lemming seal in your whole damn life. I’ll catch two, as long as that means I get to bring them home to you.”