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2020-06-29
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Wishful Thinking

Summary:

Right after Boiling Rock, Zuko found Sokka sprawled in his tent with a bouquet of red roses, and a ring of romantic candles, and one final rose set between his teeth. With the littlest twinge of envy, Zuko realized the entire display was for Suki.

The point is Sokka's flirting is about as subtle as a buffalo yak. To miss it, you’d have to be a complete and utter airhead.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

Zuko’s familiar with Sokka’s methods of seduction.

Not because he’s ever been on the receiving end, obviously. But right after Boiling Rock, he’d walked in on Sokka sprawled on his mat in what he clearly thought was an alluring manner, with a bouquet of red roses he’d gathered from spirits know where suspended from the top of the tent, and a canvas draped like a theatrical backdrop behind him, and a ring of romantic candles, and one final rose set between his teeth. Zuko had realized, slammed by embarrassment and bemusement and the littlest twinge of envy, that the entire display was for Suki.

The point is he’s more familiar with Sokka’s methods of seduction than he ever thought he’d be, and so he knows without a doubt that Sokka is obvious. He’s about as understated as a flying bison landing on your face. To miss Sokka flirting with you, you’d have to be a complete and utter airhead.

(No offense, Aang.)

/

The old gang writes intermittently to Zuko, feeding him snatches of political intrigue and personal gossip via their own team of messenger hawks. From Aang, he learns that Momo’s found a new best friend in the form of a ring-tailed lemur. From Toph, he learns that the Blind Bandit’s re-established dominance in competitive earthbending circles. From Katara, he learns that Suki and Sokka have separated, and he replies that his own break-up with Mai seems to have stuck this time.

From Sokka, he learns that Sokka still can’t paint and still hasn’t stopped trying. For no identifiable reason, he’s decided to send a detailed painting of himself and Zuko. He’s rendered them both as stick-figures (indistinguishable if not for the inkblot smeared across half of Zuko’s face), standing in their old war balloon (though the basket may have been modeled on a dented teapot), watching what must be the sunset (if the sun were a badly filled bao dumpling). The whole scene’s inscribed within a particularly unsuccessful attempt at a circle.

For a second, Zuko tilts his head just so and mistakes the circle for a heart.

Azula made objectively better finger paintings when she was five. Still, this picture was clearly made with effort and affection, with an undeniably Sokka sort of charm. 

Zuko hangs it by his bed. Only because he’s the Fire Lord now, no one dares say anything about it.

/

The gang converges on the Fire Nation again a year after Zuko’s coronation. It’s both a team reunion and a celebration of the fact that Zuko’s somehow survived a full year as Fire Lord. He braces for chaos.

Toph delivers; he has to bury five police reports about her before she even makes it to the palace. The headmistress of a local school demands an urgent meeting with him, in which she begs him to stop Katara and Aang from breaking up any more classes with their dance parties. Suspiciously, Sokka’s record stays clear.

For one horrible moment, Zuko wonders if he didn’t come at all. The possibility shakes him, though he doesn’t know why.

(He knows exactly why.)

But when they arrive, Sokka bounds up the palace stairs ahead of everyone else. He flings his arms around him before Zuko can even eke out a “good to see you,” and Zuko realizes with a new sort of horror that he didn’t misremember exactly how striking Sokka looked. He thought he’d romanticized the memory, spinning it into a silly dream that reality would instantly deflate.

But the reality of Sokka’s currently draped all around him, and there’s so much of him in every direction because he hit his growth spurt in the past year and now rivals his dad for sheer magnitude, and Zuko can’t let go.

He holds on a second too long, until Toph runs out of patience and shakes the stairs with one stomp of the foot and he has to move on.

/

Somewhere in his travels, Sokka dug up a rare scroll on swordsmanship. He mentions it offhand while plundering the table at breakfast, and Zuko asks to borrow it for closer study. He acquiesces easily, as long as Zuko promises to give it back soon, before Sokka’s afternoon training session.

Zuko means to. Of course he means to, but a conference with the economic ministers runs long, and an urgent missive from Azula’s doctors demands his immediate attention, and before he knows it sunset’s long gone. He hastily skims the scroll and copies out a few key points and then tears through the palace, stopping just short of a run as he heads to Sokka’s guest quarters. He stops just outside the door, stealing a moment to catch his breath and run his fingers through his hair, and then knocks.

“Come in!”

Finding the door unlocked,  Zuko enters and immediately regrets it.

There’s a vase of fire lilies sparkling on the table by Sokka’s bed, and candles sparkling everywhere else. Sokka himself is draped provocatively across his coverlet. His musky perfume and brown curls- spilled sensuously, artfully on his shoulders- tell Zuko exactly what kind of visitor he was expecting.

And even if they didn’t, Sokka’s lack of shirt would have given it away.

For a second, they can only gawp at each other.

Sokka pushes himself up to a sitting position, at an uncharacteristic loss for words. “Zuko-”

“I just. Your scroll,” Zuko says in a truly unkingly squeak. Averting his eyes, he places the scroll on the nearest hard surface not covered with romantic candles. 

This time, he does run.

As he makes his retreat through the halls of his own palace, his face blazes red from more than exertion. It’s painfully obvious what just happened. Sokka was prepared to seduce some lucky denizen of the palace, maybe a guard or an obliging cook, maybe a pretty noble girl with flawless skin. Unfortunately for him, Zuko walked in instead, because he’s always had a talent for being where he’s not wanted. Sokka never meant for him to see any of that, not the candles or the well-developed muscles or any of it, and so Zuko will just have to forget the whole scene.

(Still, pacing by the turtleduck pond that night, he allows himself a moment of wishful thinking.)

/

The next time the gang’s in town, Zuko firmly instructs his heart not to drift too close to Sokka. No lingering gazes, no witless smiling, and absolutely no humiliating nighttime encounters.

Like all his plans, this one blows up in his face. It’s not even his fault really, because he feeds the turtleducks in the courtyard every night, and how would he know that he’d run into Sokka on the way there?

“Hey, Zuko.”

Zuko allows himself one glance at Sokka. His hair’s oiled and gleaming, styled in an impeccable bun. He wears a new robe that Zuko’s never seen before, a shimmery midnight blue embroidered in silver, and he’s replaced his usual necklace with a matching silver chain. Its glint draws Zuko’s eyes right to his throat.

He’s tucked a red rose behind his ear, lest anyone accuse him of subtlety.

“Sokka,” he mutters. He can’t add any more words; he’s too busy remembering how to breathe.

Sokka reaches into his purse (and it is a purse, no matter the depths of his denial) and whips out two slips of paper. “I got tickets for Love Amongst the Dragons!”

Zuko can only stare. After a moment, he forces out a barely adequate response: “That’s my favorite play.”

“I know! And I hear this cast’s the best.” 

Sokka pauses as if he’s trying to add something more, but Zuko cuts him off, donning his pleasantest smile. “I hope you and your...companion enjoy the play as well.”

He bows halfway, awkwardly, and then fixes his gaze somewhere past Sokka and resumes walking down the hall with a feigned serenity, heading towards the pond like he was always supposed to. He can hear Sokka sputtering behind him at being brushed off, and it hurts, it physically hurts to be rude to him. But it’s better than what would’ve happened if he’d stayed.

(If he’d stayed long enough to see Sokka’s date actually show up, Zuko would’ve spontaneously combusted under the force of his own envy.)

/

Even excluding the gang’s messenger hawk network, Zuko gets more mail than he knows what to do with. Petitions, reports, ordinary letters, and fan letters pour in from every corner of the globe. He has an attendant now who’s paid to do nothing more than sort them into neat piles.

“Fire Lord Zuko,” she says, tip-toeing into his office one day with a bulky box in her hands. “I wasn’t sure how to categorize this one.”

She leaves the box on his desk and exits once more, and Zuko reaches for the card up top. He recognizes it immediately by the nearly unreadable handwriting and breaks into a smile. The whole package is addressed in endearingly vague terms. There’s no city name, no street address, just:

To the Palace of Fire Lord Zuko

From the South Pole

When he decodes the text of the letter, his smile falters.

Hey there,

The days are too lonely and gloomy here. That’s probably because it’s winter and we literally can’t see the sun, but the fact that you’re so far away might have something to do with it too. Good thing I have so many good memories of you to keep me warm. Here’s a gift the Mechanist helped me make, special just for you!

-Sokka

Zuko’s eyes wander to the box. When he rattles it a bit something clinks, sounding vaguely metallic. His curiosity nearly drives him to open it, but his integrity gets the better of him, because it’s not really his box. Clearly Sokka hasn’t grasped the complexities of the Fire Nation mail system. He must mean the gift for his palace lover, but since he left the exact name off the address, it got routed to Zuko by default.

(So Sokka's not just having flings, a series of one-night stands. He’s attached to someone for the long term.)

(Zuko can guess exactly what kind of “good memories” are keeping Sokka warm.)

He calls the attendant back in, striving to seem as detached, as apathetically civil as possible. 

“If you wouldn’t mind,” he says, “could you lock this box up safely in our storage? And then write back and ask Sokka to clarify his intended recipient in case...” Zuko chuckles with a warmth he doesn’t feel. “In case it was in fact meant for someone other than me. When he writes back, just send the box off to whoever it’s really for.”

/

Weirdly, Sokka doesn’t write back.

/

The next time Sokka arrives at the palace, it’s on a diplomatic mission for the Water Tribe. He volunteered. He’ll shine as a strategist, but, Zuko notes sourly, Sokka might’ve had an ulterior motive for taking the job.

And as he sits opposite Sokka and discusses trade policies and the logistics of reparations, Zuko feels like he’s being electrocuted again, sparks dancing down his limbs and most certainly not skipping his heart. It’s with a sigh of relief that he concludes the meeting, their new compromises recorded in ink and signed with the royal seal. As the other advisors exit, Zuko freezes, wondering if there’s any chance Sokka will stay behind.

Instead, Sokka weaves through the crowd of elderly officials and is the first one out the door, like he can’t get away from Zuko fast enough.

When Zuko sighs again, the relief’s mixed with melancholy.

Suddenly exhausted, he drags himself to his chambers and changes out of his formal attire. He considers skipping his usual visit with the turtleducks and going straight to bed, but he can’t sleep when he’s wired like this. 

When he reaches the pond, someone’s already there. In the shadows he makes out the outline of Sokka’s wolf tail.

Creeping a few steps closer, Zuko takes in the rest of the scene. Sokka’s posed elegantly on a rug thrown over the grass. Spread before him are a well-stocked basket of mochi and a carafe of grapemelon juice and a gleaming silver cake stand with a tart on top. It’s blatantly obvious that he’s waiting for someone special, and Zuko shouldn’t even be surprised. Though most of the palace is stuffy and stuffed with people, this breezy courtyard is the perfect place for a nighttime tryst.

Or it was, until Zuko stumbled in.

“Hey, Fire Lord.” Sokka sounds as awkward as Zuko feels. “Wanna...wanna join me for a little snack?”

There’s a note of desperation in how he says it, and it’s clear why. It’s obvious he’s only asking out of politeness and obligation. When the reigning Fire Lord finds you with way more food than you can eat (well, more than you can healthily eat, because Sokka would totally cram all this down his throat if you bet him he couldn’t), you can’t exactly tell said Fire Lord to buzz off.

And it’s out of politeness and obligation that Zuko quickly leaves. He takes one longing look at the cool grapemelon juice, steals another longing look at Sokka, assures him he already ate more than enough at dinner, and discreetly leaves him to his rendezvous.

/

The next time Sokka returns, it’s for another Team Avatar reunion. Zuko breaks out of a meeting early to greet them all, dashing to the courtyard where they’re having a post-journey pre-dinner snack. Three benders lunge at him, wrapping him in a massive hug, but still he takes a curious look around.

“Sokka’ll be right back,” Katara answers before he can ask. “He’s not interested in snacks right now, maybe because he ate three boxes of fried komodo-chicken at lunch.”

“Sure,” Zuko chuckles, trying to ignore how his heart wrenches. “He’s probably catching up with his secret sweetheart.”

“Nope, he hasn’t dated anyone since Suki,” Aang chirps.

Zuko pulls back from the hug and glances at him. “What?”

“Yeah-” and now Zuko spins around to see Sokka himself striding into the courtyard- “it’s the single life for me. Even I can get a hint through my skull with enough rejections.”

Zuko stares at Sokka- at his glorious blue eyes, his self-deprecating smile- and feels a fiery blush creeping up his own neck. 

“What half-wit,” he demands, “would reject you?”

Everyone falls silent. Zuko can literally hear the garden crickets.

At last, Toph snorts. “And they say I’m the one who can’t see.”

Sokka’s staring back at him, face scrunched up like Zuko’s a puzzle he can’t solve. “Do you...not know?”

“Know what?” Zuko whips his head around. “Why are you all staring at me?”

“You mean,” Sokka says hesitantly, “I wasn’t obvious enough?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about!”

Sokka blinks at him. “Give me a second.”

He dashes back into the palace as Zuko glances at the others in desperation. They just raise their eyebrows at him and then return to their snacks.

Toph makes the only comment: “Wow.”

Scowling, Zuko sits down and starts working his way through a pile of fire gummies, just to have something to do. Then a bang rattles the ground.

He shoots to his feet, positive they’re under attack until he turns and sees fireworks instead.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

There are fireworks zooming upwards from not too far away, painting the sky with yellow and orange. They burst and then crackle, sparks raining down and leaving threads of golden smoke in their wake. Then a series of red rockets speeds into the air and explodes in harmony, forming some kind of defined shape.

(If Zuko tilts his head, that’s definitely a heart.)

Suddenly Sokka appears below the fireworks show, posed proudly on a palace rooftop, arms spread wide. 

“Fire Lord Zuko,” he declares. “Your Majestic and Royal Gorgeousness.”

(What.)

“I humbly request your attention on a matter of massive personal importance,” he continues.

“You have it,” Zuko calls back, utterly unsure what’s happening right now.

“Will you go on a date with me?”

(What.)

He gapes up at Sokka, and then he steals a glance at the rest of the gang, waiting for someone to confirm this is all one gigantic prank. But their smiles look earnest, and Sokka waits, eyes wide with perfect sincerity.

He stares back up at Sokka for one more moment of silent wonder. “...Yeah.”

Sokka springs off the rooftop and charges straight into him, tackling him for one gigantic hug as the rest of their friends burst out laughing.

“Did you honestly not know?” Toph titters behind him.

“Yeah,” Katara adds. “Between the cologne and the theater tickets and the picnic…”

“And the metal tea-maker he invented for you!” Aang finishes.

Zuko can’t answer. He’s too busy adjusting to the fact that Sokka’s holding onto him like he’ll never let go, adjusting to the fact that the world makes so much more sense now. He buries his face in Sokka’s shoulder and tries to accept that somehow Sokka likes him, and that he’s liked Zuko for at least two years, and that he’s been courting him with all the subtlety of stampeding buffalo yaks. This implies that Zuko missed Sokka’s courting, marking him as the world’s most Majestic and Royal Airhead.

(If it means he gets to keep Sokka, it's a title he'll accept gladly.)

Notes:

Thank you for reading. Kudos and comments are much appreciated <3

P.S. I wrote another fic that feels a lot like this one!

P.P.S. I've also finished a 67k Zukka longfic! It's a canon-divergent AU where Zuko joins the Gaang early... because they accidentally killed him off in Season 1 and he gets stuck haunting Sokka, who doesn’t believe in ghosts. Here's a link if you're curious.