Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Despite Aang’s frustrated insistence ten minutes earlier, Sokka is not beach moping. He’s sitting, calmly, thinking very hard about how miserable he is. There’s a difference. And it’s not even a beach. Agna Qel’a doesn’t have anything that really passes for a beach anyway, just what feels like an endless amount of docks and ice, so there. 

Not beach moping. 

Impossible to be beach moping, technically. 

“Are you still beach moping?” Katara, behind him, already sounds exhausted. More than that, she sounds pre-done with Sokka’s feelings, and they’ve barely spoken today. This is just some task she needs to check off before she can go to sleep, and the idea of being that much of an annoyance makes something desperate curl in Sokka’s stomach with panic. 

Emotions are inconvenient, and Sokka isn’t allowed to have a breakdown. He has to be the one that’s holding the group together. Because Sokka is funny . That’s what he does. He keeps up morale. He’s not a beach moper. Katara is. Aang is. Sokka can’t be. Dad pretty much assured him of that when he left the entire tribe in Sokka’s hands at thirteen.

And he can’t be mad about that either.

Even though Sokka is only fifteen, and he has no idea what the hell is going on, and he’s miserable and there’s a feeling that’s wedged its way inside his chest that feels awful and it won’t go away. Grief he’s familiar with, he’s carried that every day since Mom died. This is different. 

It’s…cold. 

Sokka scowls out to the ocean, through the broken gates of the entrance to Agna Qel’a where the Fire Nation’s ships blasted through two days ago. He doesn’t look back at his sister. He can already picture her expression perfectly, all the concern and exasperation, and Tui and La, he doesn’t want to do this .

“No, I’m not beach moping,” Sokka says, the words more biting than he means for them to be. “I’m not a beach moper. Do I look like a beach moper to you? Because that’s rude. Don’t go telling people they’re beach mopers.” 

Katara takes a seat next to him on the edge of the dock, letting her shoes dip into the freezing cold water. Sokka has to bite his tongue to stop himself from telling her not to do that so she doesn’t get frostbite. His little sister bested a master waterbender publicly a few days ago, she really doesn’t need him nagging after her anymore. 

That dark twisty feeling sinks deeper. 

Katara looks over at him, studying his profile. Sokka looks away. 

“Aang sent you, didn’t he?” Sokka asks at last, annoyed. Couldn’t come by yourself, could you? He doesn’t say, but the thought pools in his psyche like rot. It’s not fair and he knows that. The last few days have been miserable for everyone. Sokka isn’t the only person whose beach moping. Katara’s probably beach moped. Cheif Arnook probably has to have the not-beach scheduled out for all the moping. 

“He was concerned about you,” Katara says carefully. “He said you weren’t talking to him.” 

“He said I was beach moping. Why would I talk to him after that? It was rude.” 

“Sokka.” Katara rests a hand on his knee. It’s warm. Everything in the Northern Water Tribe is freezing and wet, and Sokka leans into it on instinct. He hates it here, he’s decided. Whatever beautiful spirals he saw when they arrived have turned dull and lost luster.  

“What’s going on?” 

Sokka breathes out, and watches it plume into the air before tenting his knees and resting his head on them, arms pulled tightly across his shins. It makes him small, and that’s good. Sokka feels small. Like he could squeeze into the world's smallest box and there would still be room for something else. 

“Are you going to talk to me?” The edge of impatience slides into Katara’s tone and panic seizes Sokka’s chest. 

“I spent all morning helping find dead bodies.” Sokka blurts. Katara’s hand stills on his leg. 

“You-- what ?” Katara sounds horrified. 

“Nevermind,” Sokka says quickly. “It doesn’t matter. I didn’t say anything.” 

Sokka bites the inside of his cheek. Why did you say that? Shut up. Shut up, shut up. Katara isn’t supposed to know about that. The failed siege was just supposed to be some property damage and that’s the extent of it. Hahn was pretty clear that the women and children shouldn’t know yet, and it was the one bit of sexism that Sokka was fully supportive of. 

Yue’s dead, Zuko’s missing again--but will be back because it’s freaking Zuko and nothing can stop him--and there are dead Fire Nation soldiers floating down the streets. There are dead Water Benders and dead civilians and so many dead people everywhere and Sokka didn’t realize how many people were dead until he was helping scoop them out of the streets to give them a proper burial at sea. 

And it wasn’t all the Fire Nation’s fault. Aang helped, probably a lot more than he realizes. The Spirit of the Ocean or whatever on the Spirits name that glowing fish-thing was destroyed and massacred and ruined and Aang walked away assuming that all he did was destroy some Fire Nation ships.

Sokka would give anything to have that innocence. He would give anything to keep Aang’s innocence about this. The kid doesn’t need to know. The kid can’t know, Sokka decided, somewhere between digging out a water bender with half his face missing and another who was in parts. 

“Sokka,” Katara has her concerned voice now. Sokka hates himself just a little more. “What are you talking about? Who asked you to help with that?” 

Sokka digs his chin harder into his knees. The misery, he knows, is radiating from him, but maybe he’s earned just a little beach moping. “Cheif Arnook. He wanted all the able-bodied men to help,” Sokka mutters. “I wasn’t doing anything important, so I don’t know, I figured…” 

When he looks at his sister, he can see that she’s fighting back nausea, and Sokka mentally kicks himself. Dead bodies are a no-go topic. Sokka knows that. It took Dad months to get Katara near an animal carcass after Mom without panicking, and Sokka knows that didn’t really get better, Katara just got quieter about it. He has to listen to her wake up sobbing every couple of months, not Gran-Gran, certainly not Dad. 

“Sorry,” Sokka says, his chest heavy. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I just…”

“No, I want to help.” Katara says, even though she looks like she very much does not, “I didn’t realize…I guess I just thought that the casualties were…smaller. Yue’s body just sort of--” 

“Disintegrated into nothing?” Sokka mutters. He’s still bitter about that, and the Moon doesn’t get a free pass just because it’s not dead. Screw the Moon, this grudge he’s taking to his death. At least he got to bury Mom. 

“--vanished,” Katara finishes politically. Sokka wonders if she understands the weight of that. What it felt like to hold Yue’s corpse and then for it to just go. No closure, no second-guesses, no nothing. Sokka was left scrambling to hold air with a hysterical, horrible feeling consuming him, but nothing tangible to validate it. “And I’ve been so busy helping in the healer’s wing I didn’t realize the body count.” Katara adds. There’s a very small hesitation, “Do you want to talk about it?” 

Yes. 

“No,” Sokka mutters. “I’m fine, Katara.” 

“You don’t seem fine.” 

“I have to be!” Sokka snaps, meeting her eyes for the first time since she sat down. Those tired gray smudges stop him short. Sokka swallows hard. “We should go. I have to get up early to help tomorrow. Chief Arnook is trying to get as many bodies as possible on a ship so he can do a mass burial. He’s doing a funeral in a few days.” 

Katara looks stricken. For a moment, she looks fourteen instead of older-- always older --and it makes Sokka’s stomach clench violently. Neither of them are strangers to war, but it’s different to be in the middle of the bodies than to hear about it from afar. It’s just…It’s big , that’s what it is. The war doesn’t feel like this distant concept they’re running from anymore. It’s not this thing they’re prepping Aang for, but still Big and Bad and Far Away. No. 

It’s at their doorstep.

It’s bodies floating down the street. 

They always fled whatever disaster they ended up in before they could help clean up. Sokka knows this isn’t the only trail of bodies they’ve left behind. Aang does that. Death follows him like a big, ugly shadow with greedy fingers. 

Katara doesn’t move. “There’s that many?” Sokka doesn’t answer. Katara grabs his shoulder. “Sokka, how many are dead ?” 

“Best estimate so far is nine hundred for the water tribe,” Sokka says. “Hundreds of Fire Nation soldiers, too.” 

Katara pales. “Oh,” she whispers. Her voice is very quiet. “Oh.” 

“Yeah,” Sokka agrees. 

“Does Aang know?” 

Sokka shakes his head. “He’s not stupid. He knows there was a body count, but I don’t think he realizes how big it is. I don’t want to tell him. He already feels like this entire thing is his fault.”

It is. Sokka is trying to be objective about that, but there is a teenist, tiniest seed of resentment in him that if Aang hadn’t been here, Admiral Zhao wouldn’t have attacked, and Yue would still be alive and not the Spirits forsaken Moon. There wouldn’t be bodies in the street. In reality, this isn’t Aang’s fault. It’s the Fire Nation’s. No one made them attack. 

Aang existing isn’t enough justification for Sokka to resent him.

“It is the Avatar’s fault.”

Sokka and Katara jump at the voice, Katara nearly spilling off the deck into the ocean. If not for Sokka’s reflexes--honed from years of practice catching his baby sister from falling off of everything--she would have. Both of them look back to see Hahn standing there, his expression dark. He’s bundled up in a coat, but he’s still wet, and Yue’s ex-finance looks just as grumpy as he did when Sokka was let off shift several hours ago. 

Katara’s eyes narrow. “It’s not Aang’s fault. He didn’t know that the Fire Nation was going to attack. How could he?”

Hahn scoffs, stepping closer. Sokka tenses all over. “How could he not? Even if the Avatar is a child, you aren’t.” That is directed at Sokka. “The Fire Nation has been following you everywhere, hasn’t it? Did it not occur to you that we would be the next target? Everywhere you go, you slaughter people by the dozens . How could you let him come here and put thousands of people in danger!? How could you let the Fire Nation do this to us!?” 

Sokka flinches. 

Katara gets to her feet, her fists clenched. “The Fire Nation attacked you, not us--” 

“I don’t care! ” Hahn shouts. There’s something wild in his face. “You knew there was a target on your back and you didn’t care, and now I’m burying my mother!” Sokka and Katara freeze, and Hahn sucks in a gasping breath, somewhere just above a sob, “They just found her body. My father is broken and my sister is devastated. My life was perfect before the Avatar came here. Everything was perfect before you!”

Sokka sinks into himself.

Katara doesn’t. She doesn’t absorb things. Not like him. It doesn’t crawl to the bottom of her psyche and stay there, because Katara doesn’t let people bully her. Katara gets in Hahn’s face, her finger jabby and angry. “You want to be angry at someone? Be angry at the Fire Nation. They did this to you. Not us. Aang is doing his best to stop them, and he needs a bending teacher.” 

“Your excuses won’t bring my mother back.”

“The Fire Nation killed my mother, too, Hahn, but I don’t--” 

Their fight quickly dissolves into something sharp and acidic, but Sokka isn’t paying attention to them anymore. He spent all afternoon looking for bodies, and the distant piece of ice immediately grabs his attention. There are two more bodies, clinging to a floating piece of ice, still and badly sunburnt. 

Fire Nation. 

Sokka vaguely recognizes the old man, but the kid next to him, with the massive scar taking up the left side of his revealed face--yeah, that’s a little harder to miss. 

The icy terror that crashes through him sends Sokka scrambling up to his feet. Zuko took Aang. He took Aang in the middle of a fight, and he didn’t care and he fought them and he burned Katara and he chased them all over the world and no matter how much Sokka pretends not to care, Zuko is a monster and Sokka is terrified of him. 

“Spirits,” Sokka breathes. His voice is strangled. 

The ice patch is getting closer, the tide bringing it to the dock. Sokka is given yet another reason to hate the Moon forever. 

“Guys,” Sokka says. Katara and Hahn ignore him, still going at it. “ Guys !” Sokka reaches back, patting open air until he gets a fistfull of Katara’s clothing and yanks on it. Katara makes a disgruntled noise, but finally looks back. 

Sokka points. Then points harder. 

“Is that--?” Katara starts to ask. 

“Prince Zuko.” Hahn sounds far more delighted than this situation calls for. “Is he dead?” That, too, is said with hope. It’s hard to tell from this distance, but neither Zuko nor the old man are moving. That doesn’t mean they’re not breathing. There’s just no wiggling. 

Spirits, please let them be dead. 

They found Admiral Zhao’s body this morning, mangled and disfigured, but ultimately still recognizable. Sokka isn’t afraid to admit he felt some relief and even a little joy at the sight. This...isn’t like that. Sokka is frozen and nausea is making his throat burn. 

Hahn brushes past him toward the edge of the dock. “I think they’re alive,” he announces after studying them. Sokka’s chest sinks. Hahn looks back, “Waterbend them to the edge of the dock, Kapara.”

Sokka’s teeth grit. 

“ What! ?” Katara snaps. “Are you insane?!”

“Just leave them out there to drown,” Sokka suggests, forcing something light into his voice, even though he’s deathly serious. “Makes life easier for all of us. No more Zuko, no more Zhao, no one chasing the Avatar anymore. Win-win.” 

Hahn looks between them like they’re some of the stupidest people he’s ever been forced to witness. “Do you not understand the opportunity we have here? That’s the crown prince of the Fire Nation. He’ll have information about battle strategies, the capital city, the Firelord --he’s a treasure trove about the Fire Nation. Cheif Arnook will want to interrogate him.” 

Sokka can’t help the derisive snort. “Sorry to burst your bubble, but I doubt Zuko is going to be much help. He’s got a one track mind. If it doesn’t have to do with hunting down the Avatar, I doubt he’s retained it. I don’t even think he eats food.” 

Hahn rolls his eyes. “Waterbend them closer, girl.” 

Sokka’s jaw is beginning to hurt from how tightly he’s clenching his teeth together. “My sister’s name is Katara.”

“Yes, yes, that’s what I said. Kamara. Now, before we lose them.” Hahn snaps, not looking back at them. Katara looks at Sokka for direction. Sokka has no idea what to tell her, and his breath catches. His mouth moves for a moment, and he looks over at Zuko again, trying to think. 

Leaving Zuko to die is his first instinct. Turning around and pretending he didn’t see is his second. He would have done that-- gladly-- in the blizzard, but Aang had to kick around stupid morals. 

Aang and Katara are good. They’re good in a way that Sokka never can be. He’s not a good man, he’s not a good soldier, he’s just a desperate kid willing to bloody his hands if it means his family is safe. And Zuko dead? Well, that keeps his family safe. 

But Hahn is right. Even if Zuko is Zuko, he has to have some information about the Fire Nation, right? If anything, he lived there, so he might be able to draw them a map or something. That’s more information than they’ve had in a long time. And wars are won by who has whose maps, so it wouldn’t be for nothing. 

Zuko will probably have something, and they need something --anything, really--that will help them with this fight. Aang alone isn’t going to be enough. The fiasco of the last few days proved that.

Sokka gives Katara a very slight nod. His sister, always so trusting even though Sokka doesn’t deserve a fourth of it, nods back and raises her hands. It only takes her a few hand movements before Zuko and the older man’s ice block are bumping against the edge of the dock. 

Between Sokka and Hahn, they manage to pull both onto the dock. Zuko looks horrible, his skin burned badly from exposure to the sun. There’s yellowing bruises on his face and cuts that look well over a week old scattered across his pale skin. They must have been deep to still look this awful. A nasty burn along his jawline makes Sokka wince. 

The old man is barely breathing, and his skin is also sun-burned where it’s not hidden beneath thick robes. He went after Admiral Zhao, didn’t he? This is the guy that was really against the spirits being killed. Which means nothing. In a lifetime of evil, not wanting to kill the Moon doesn’t give him bonus points. 

Spirits, he’s familiar. Sokka knows his name. He’s seen him in Fire Nation propaganda before. Somewhere. 

Much to Sokka’s private disappointment, both are breathing and have a pulse. 

“They’re alive. Yay. Now what?” Sokka asks, looking at Hahn.

Hahn’s eyes are dark. “Now we get them to the chief.” 

Sokka sighs. “You better hope Arnook wants something to do with them, because I’m going to be pissed if I had to drag them to the palace only to get a no thanks.” 

000o000

Chief Arnook does, in fact, want something to do with Zuko, so Sokka doesn’t have to be pissed. There’s anger in the chief’s eyes that Sokka recognizes from Dad. A fierce protectiveness and a desire to hurt. Dad never would have left them if he didn’t think hurting the Fire Nation was more important than they were, and Sokka understands that. Sort of. He knows what it feels like to be angry enough at the Fire Nation to want to break it, at least. 

“Get them both to the lower dungeons with the other soldiers,” Chief Arnook’s voice is cold. “And put them on ice. It’s been a long time since we’ve faced the Fire Nation, but we haven’t forgotten how to hold fire benders yet.” 

For the first time, Sokka wonders where the old fire bender armor came from. 

Zuko and the older man haven’t woken up yet, slumped between guards like two lifeless puppets, hands chained behind their backs. They look dead. Really dead. Sokka doesn’t let it bother him. As they’re dragged away, he notices that the older man’s arm is bent at a weird angle. Sokka promptly discards this information as unimportant. 

“What are you going to do with them?” Katara asks. 

Chief Arnook’s expression is grave. “Whatever I have to. The destruction they leveled on Agna Qel’a can’t go unanswered. It’s time that the Northern Water Tribe take a more active part in this war. We need to know if other spirits are under attack, or if this was just the first assault. With Prince Zuko here, we have a rare opportunity. Pakku, send for healers. We can’t interrogate them until they awaken.” 

Pakku gives a slight bow before walking off. 

“Thank you for bringing them to my attention. You may have given us the key to winning the war.” Chief Arnook says. Hahn gives Sokka a smug look. Sokka scowls at him. 

“Of course, I do my best to serve my country,” Hahn nods his head. “We’ll continue to serve our duties to you, my lord.” 

Katara manages to go the whole walk back to their rooms without saying anything. Or maybe Sokka does. The point is that it’s quiet. “Zuko didn’t look good,” Katara says, pushing open the door. It’s cold in the room, because of course it is. Can’t exactly leave fires unattended when everything melts.

Sokka hates Agna Qel’a. 

“An astute observation,” Sokka assures. “I’m sure that you would look better after floating on a piece of ice for two days with no food or water after being in an enormous battle where the Moon was literally at stake.” 

“I’m just saying,” Katara explains with limited patience, “that I hope they’re okay.” 

Goodie two-shoes.

“Yeah.” Sokka says without feeling. 

“Hope that who is okay?” Aang asks, sitting up on his bed. When they were first shown to the room, Aang had adamantly refused to use any of the animal skins, but the brutal cold of the night had quickly cured him of that notion. Now he’s snuggled in them and it looks weird. This place makes everything weird. 

As Katara explains what happened, Sokka digs through their rations for dinner. He has no appetite, but pretends that he does because he’s expected to. Admitting how awful he feels feels marginally illegal at this point. Sokka passes around the food, and then sits down on his bed and engages minimally in the conversation. When Aang asks if he’s okay, Sokka claims exhaustion and says he’s going to bed early. 

He curls on his side, arm stuffed under the pillow and tucked inside his coat because it’s never warm here, and tries to pretend that he’s fine. The creeping feeling in his chest doesn’t go away. 

Sokka watches his breath plume in the air, listening to Katara and Aang speak quietly for a while. The sounds are numbing, but he tunes back in when he hears his name.

“--he okay? ” Aang is whispering. “You said you’d talk to him.”

“I tried,” Katara sounds disappointed. “Then the Zuko problem happened. I’ll talk to him tomorrow, okay? Before I go to the healers. I think we’re all struggling to make sense of the last couple of days.”

“Yeah,” Aang is uncharastically sober. “I understand.”

Do you? Sokka wonders dully.

Both of them are quiet. “Is he sad about Yue?” Aang asks. 

Katara hesitates. “I don’t know. We didn’t talk about that. Probably. He really liked her.”

Yeah. He did. And she ran so far away from him, now she’s literally the Moon. What does that say about him? He’s romantically hopeless, and everyone leaves. Mom. Dad. Yue. Katara will, too, once she realizes that Sokka is just extra baggage they don’t need. He’s waiting for it. Braced and anxious to the point he’s nauseated. He doesn’t want his sister to abandon him, but that feels as inevitable as the sun rising. 

Aang is more important to her. 

He’s not okay with that. 

And Aang doesn’t really care about him. He’s just part of the packaged deal that came with Katara. How long does he have left with them? Months? Days? Will they leave him in the Agna Qel’a when they leave for the Earth Kingdom? How long will he wait for news that his sister is dead? That Aang is dead? (That Dad is dead?) 

Sokka squeezes his eyes shut. His tears are warm as they roll down his face. 

“I think he loved her,” Aang says. Katara doesn’t have anything to say to that. “Katara,” Aang’s voice is very hesitant and very young. It kicks to life every protective big brother instinct in Sokka’s body to put himself between Aang and whatever is making him that nervous. “Does it ever get better?”

“What?” 

“Grief. Is Sokka going to feel better? Because it’s been months since I learned about the air benders and it still hurts so much.” Aang says. “But your mom died a while ago. Do you feel any better about it?” 

“Oh, Aang,” Katara releases a soft breath. “It does get easier,” she promises. “You heal. But right now, while it’s still raw, it hurts a lot and that’s okay.” 

Sokka releases a shuddering breath. 

It hurts so much, Katara. And I can never tell you that. I can’t fall apart in front of you. 

The two move on to lighter topics of conversation before finally going to bed. Sokka wakes up the next morning absolutely miserable. Grief is thick in his throat, and his chest is heavy and tight. He makes jokes through breakfast to ward of Katara’s concern and pokes at Aang until the air nomad is a little ready to strangle him, which is good. Business as usual then. 

After Aang and Katara leave to help with the clean up, Sokka finds Hahn and climbs back in the boat to help with body pick-up again. It’s no less miserable or depressing than yesterday, and Sokka leaves in a foul mood. He goes back to the dock to beach-mope, but the idea of running across any more fire benders makes the idea sour and he leaves. They only found one living Fire Nation soldier today, which is better than yesterday. The captive count is upward of fifty at this point. 

Sokka doesn’t know what Chief Arnook plans to do with the soldiers. The Fire Nation doesn’t trade captives and it doesn’t negotiate. It’s Sokka’s understanding that Fire Nation soldiers are expected to kill themselves if they do get captured rather than face the shame of needing help. 

Spirits forbid that happen.  

The Fire Nation is so weird. 

Zuko, according to Hahn, who supposedly got his information from Pakku, hasn’t woken up, but his companion has. General-Prince Iroh, the Dragon of the West, Lord Ozai’s brother. Because of course. Why not, right? The crown prince and one of the most blood-covered generals in history. Go big or go home, apparently. 

Sokka hates his life. 

A lot. 

He successfully avoids Katara and Aang that night before going to bed, but not his feelings, so Sokka keeps waking up on the edge of nightmares about Yue. And Mom. And Dad. Eventually he finally submits and cries as quietly as he can, face buried into his pillow, and tries not to be bitter about the fact that neither Aang or Katara notice, because that was the point of being quiet in the first place.

He doesn’t think, in the privacy of his mind, that most of those tears were for Yue. 

When he wakes up the next morning, the ache in his chest is a little better, but not by much, knotted and ugly, never going away. The days keep going. 

The funeral comes and goes eight days after the fight, just as miserable as Sokka imagined it would be. There’s still missing Water Tribe members, unclaimed bodies, and the speech the Chief Arnook gives to console his people is detached and somewhat emotionless. Everyone weeps, but as the funeral prayer is recited and candles lit, Sokka can’t remember the words. 

As they’re sitting down for the community mourning dinner, Sokka watches with no small amount of anger as Hahn cries big, ugly fake tears for Yue. Comes with the most perks, circles around his head, over and over again until Sokka finally stabs his fork into his untouched fish and gets to his feet. There’s something slow and methodical building in his chest, slow acting poison, as he storms across the room.

“Hahn!” Sokka shouts, and then when Hahn turns his ugly face, Sokka slams his fist into it. 

Bitterness, he realizes. It’s bitterness. 

Hahn makes a choked sound, his hip slamming into the table he was standing next to as his hands raise up to his face. “What the hell!?” Hahn exclaims, looking up. His nose is bloody and all Sokka feels is dark satisfaction. “You barbarian !” 

“You liar!” Sokka shouts. “You didn’t even love her! Don’t you dare sit here and tell everyone how much you mourn her! You’re mourning the perks!” 

Something flares in Hahn’s eyes. 

“Sokka!” Katara shouts behind him. Suddenly she’s there, grabbing his arm, trying to pull him back. But Sokka doesn’t let her. He aches and he’s broken in a way that can’t be put back together, and all Sokka wants to do is hurt. He wants something else to ache this badly, to make this go away because Sokka is drowning and he’s never going to get better and Yue left and Mom left and Dad left and Katara and Aang are going to leave and Sokka is going to be alone--

“How dare you--!?” Hahn roars. He leaps, and Sokka meets him.

He barely remembers the fight. He remembers the red haze, and the muscle strain and the hurt, but he doesn’t remember how it ended. He doesn’t feel better when it’s over, but the pain makes him feel more alive, and every shuddering wheeze he gasps as he breathes around bruised ribs feels like it has the potential to help eventually. Pain makes him focus. Makes him sharper. Makes him useful.

For the first time since Yue died, Sokka feels like he’s living in himself.  

So, of course, his sister has to come and ruin it. 

Katara sits him down on his cot, practically tearing off his coat and then his shirt. “You idiot,” she seethes. Aang lingers behind her, with a disapproving frown. His big eyes are filled with concern. Sokka laughs. He feels sort of tipsy. “What were you thinking ? Were you thinking?” 

Sokka shivers as his bare chest is revealed to the world. Katara bends water around her hands and it makes the shimmery-glow of healing as she presses it against his ribs. Sokka releases a soft groan between his bloodied teeth in relief before shoving away her hands. “I don’t want you to fix it.” Sokka growls.

“Yes, you do. Don’t be stupid.” Katara snaps. She reaches for him again.

Sokka shoves her off. “I don’t.” 

“What good does this do you?” 

“I can think.”

Katara looks disturbed. “You want to be in pain?” 

“Yes!” Sokka explodes. “Because at least if I hurt like this, I can feel it! I know it goes away! I know when it’s going to leave me and I can trust it, unlike Mom, and Dad, and Yue, and you!” 

Katara stills. Aang looks stuck. Sokka breathes into his hands and moans. He bites his fingers and fidgets, rocking back and forth. The stabbing, sporadic pain of his ribcage makes it hard to think and he’s glad. He’s so glad. His black eye is swelling and he’s crying. 

Katara takes a seat next to him on the cot. “Sokka,” her voice is very, very soft. “Me and Aang aren’t going anywhere. We’re not Dad.” 

Sokka shakes his head, biting into his palm until he flinches at the pain. Katara takes his hand and covers her fingers over old bite scars.  

Dad promised not to go either. 

And instead he left Sokka in charge of their entire tribe at thirteen to run away to a war that wasn’t even his. He left them. He didn’t come back. He didn’t write, he didn’t care. The Moon didn’t even let him bury Yue. Sokka gets nothing. He always gets nothing. 

Katara releases a soft breath. “Why don’t you let me heal you, and then you can sleep. You’ll feel better, I promise, okay?” 

“So I can get arrested tomorrow for assaulting Hahn?” Sokka grumbles. 

Katara winces. “No.” 

So much to look forward to. But he doesn't fight his sister this time, and she heals his ribs and his face before helping him to bed. Sokka listens to her talk to Aang for a while, but the words blur together into nothingness. Sokka must fall asleep at some point, because he wakes up to Katara’s gasping mewls of panic. A lifetime of reaction has him moving before he even recognizes what he’s doing, and he slides into the cot next to her, wrapping his arms around her. 

“It’s okay,” Sokka promises, pressing a soft kiss to her head. One of her hair loopies is tickling his nose, but he doesn’t care. “It’s okay. Just breathe, I’ve got you. I promise. I’ve always got you.” 

Katara shakes and cries silently in his arms, burying her face into his shoulder. “She was dead,” Katara whispers, “and I couldn’t do anything. Oh, spirits, what they did to her face, Sokka…” 

His name is more of a moan than a word. 

“I know,” Sokka soothes. He barely remembers Mom’s face anymore, but he’s heard Katara describe her corpse so many times that when he thinks about Mom, that’s the image that comes to mind. 

Katara cries herself back to sleep, pressed as close to his body for protection as she can get, and Sokka rests his chin on top of her head and tries not to think about how small his sister is. The coats and furs hide it, but underneath, Katara is still a tiny, bony girl half-starved despite Sokka’s best efforts. A few minutes later, Aang wordlessly shows up at the bedside, something pleading in his gaze. 

Sokka sighs and lifts up the furs to invite Aang inside. The kid looks relieved, and scrambles under the blankets to squeeze himself in on Sokka’s other side. This, of course, takes a great deal of knee jamming and elbow ramming before he settles, because Aang can never do anything smoothly. Sokka grumbles and complains, but in truth he’s grateful to feel the kid breathing against his spine. Momo settles down on Aang’s stomach and seems perfectly content to stay there forever. 

This is how the guards find them the next morning, cuddling like they’re a bunch of five-year-olds. Sokka absolutely does not squeal like a girl when they grab his shoulder to wake him, nearly taking out one’s eye with his boomerang, which he feels kind of bad about. Aang and Katara jerk upwards at Sokka’s yelp, and Katara is trying to bend before her half-asleep brain catches up with her.

“What are you doing trying to sneak up on us like that!?” Sokka shouts. “Can’t you see we’re all highly trained warriors of combat!? We could have killed you!”  

Momo takes that moment to crawl on top of Sokka’s head, purring, which does not help his point, but is warm and cute. Sokka pulls the lemur off and sets him on the ground. Momo climbs back up Sokka’s leg immediately and Sokka gives up entirely on life. 

“Am I being arrested?” Sokka decides to just get this over with. Aang and Katara will stage a jailbreak and then they’ll leave. They’ve really only stayed this long to help with the clean up, but now they really need to find King Bumi. 

“No. Master Pakku has requested Katara’s presence in the dungeons,” one of the guards explains. Sokka looks toward the window and tries to determine what time it is. Too early for this. Is the sun even up? 

“ Why ?” Katara groans, rubbing at her face. 

“He didn’t say.” 

Aang flops his face back into the pillow. Sokka pokes him until Aang swats at him. The other guard watches this entire exchange with judgy eyes, “He has been with Prince Zuko for several hours.” 

Oh.

Right.

Sokka had successfully managed to banish Zuko from his mind almost entirely. After Zuko woke up--six, seven days ago?--he heard almost nothing about him from other Water Tribe members. Sokka didn’t care if that was a good sign or not. It was too much effort to care. 

Sokka’s bad mood sours into something much worse. Great. Just great. Fantastic, really. Sure. Put the psycho and Sokka’s baby sister together. No way that could go wrong. Katara is still a little bruised and burned from her fight with Zuko a week ago. They don’t need round two. 

“Okay.” Katara sits up, rubbing a hand through her messy hair. Sokka swears under his breath and gets up as well. Aang is annoyingly chipper and practically bounces out of bed to follow after the guards, because he’s still at the age where being awake is exciting. 

“Master Pakku only wanted Master Katara.” The other guard says stiffly. 

All of them stop moving. 

“They’re coming too,” Katara says.

“Master Pakku was very clear. Only you.” The first guard’s voice holds a warning.

Katara lifts up her chin. “I’m not going if they aren’t.” 

The guard sets his teeth, but stops arguing. Smart guy. 

The guards speak minimally as they direct them through the halls to the dungeon, and then the lower levels beneath that. It’s cold and windowless, leaving the long halls dark and claustrophobic. It makes Sokka feel like he’s being eaten and digested by a large animal slowly. The guards' torches are barely enough to see by. 

“Nice place,” Sokka remarks dryly. “I can tell a lot of effort was put into the design. It’s got lots of natural lighting. Really helps bring out the corners.”  

“Yeah, it’s um.” Aang clearly can’t think of anything. “...Dark.” 

“Needs work.” Sokka tells him. 

They stop a cell. It’s made of metal, which surprises Sokka, because everything in Agna Qel’a seems to be made out of ice. The guard yanks the door open and somehow, the temperature inside is even colder than the hall. Sokka wraps his arms around himself and swears with enough force he can feel Aang’s disapproving scowl through the darkness. 

“Ah, Katara,” Pakku’s smile is small but genuine. He’s holding some sort of lantern that has some sort of glowing, bioluminescent fish inside, bobbing up and down. No fire, Sokka realizes. The lantern casts long, thick shadows across the room, but offers enough light to see by. There’s several other  benders--guards, maybe? Soldiers?--in the room, and Chief Arnook, who is scowling at Sokka and Aang. 

“I said you were to bring her alone,” Chief Arnook snaps. “This is a very delicate process.” 

“It’s alright,” Pakku soothes. “It doesn’t change anything.” 

“ Doesn’t it!?”  

“Change what? What’s going on?” Katara asks, then, “What is that sound?” 

It’s like…a rattling. Like metal rattling, if metal breathed and was trying breathing through wet fur.  

Pakku’s grimace tells a story. He moves to the side. It takes Sokka several long seconds to recognize the crumpled, bloody figure as Prince Zuko, but when he does, he feels all the blood drain from his face. Zuko’s eyes reflect light weirdly, like a cat, and it’s disconcerting. All Sokka can see in them is glazed desperation. He’s clearly been beaten, and several times if the varying ages of bruises are anything to go by. All Zuko is wearing is a thin pair of trousers, his bare feet exposed to the frosted metal of the floor. He’s shacked to the wall by his wrists, the floor by his left ankle, and his head has been completely shaved, leaving patches of itchy new hair growth. 

That, for some reason, bothers Sokka more than the bruises and blood.

The sound, unmistakably, is Zuko--trying to breathe. He’s shivering and shaking in the chains, dragging in gasping rasps through a dirty gag and broken ribs. If Zuko recognizes them at all, Sokka can’t tell. He looks at them, but what he actually sees is anyone’s guess. 

Aang makes a very soft, mewling sound behind Sokka that has him reaching out for the air bender on instinct. Aang’s smaller hand clasps his and doesn’t let go. Katara flinches. Hard. “What is this? What’s going on? I don’t understand.” 

“An interrogation, Katara,” Chief Arnook explains, his voice flat, “My only child didn’t give her life so the Fire Nation could beat us anyway.”

Sokka’s mouth is dry. 

“Why am I here?” Katara sounds nauseous. 

“I’m sorry, Katara.” Pakku says, and there’s real sympathy and regret in his eyes and voice. “You’re just a child. You should never be involved in this, but you’re one of the best water benders I have ever had the pleasure to teach, and I need your help.” 

“With what ?” 

A particularly rough shiver draws a faint sound from Zuko. 

Sokka can’t think. Can’t feel. Can’t anything .

“Despite our best efforts, Prince Zuko has given little information,” Pakku explains. “Chief Arnook said that when they were alone together a few days ago, Prince Zuko threatened a more devastating attack is coming on Agna Qel’a, and we’ve been trying to get answers so we can prepare. Despite my reservations, Arnook has encouraged me to bring you into this. Katara, you’re here because I’m going to teach you how to torture with waterbending, and then you’re going to help me get answers out of Prince Zuko.” 

Chapter Text

Katara makes a small, but violent sound in her throat, like she’s trying to cough up something sharp. She takes a physical step back, and Sokka is there when she reaches back for him, fingers clawing into his arm with bruising force. The contact calms his racing heart. 

“What the-- no !” Katara’s voice is trying to shout but can't, like the air is getting squeezed down her throat wrong. “I’m not going to help you  torture  someone!” 

Pakku’s expression is doing something funny. 

Chief Arnook just looks disappointed, but also angry, like he expected more from Katara. Aang twitches, his mouth pulling into a frown. 

And Zuko--well Zuko looks half dead, and clearly isn’t listening to their words, just the tone, because he’s withdrawing in on himself at it, like a small child bracing for another blow. And Sokka feels  his  face doing something funny the longer he stares at the prince. There’s something squirmy and uncomfortable in his stomach that Sokka is beginning to realize with no small amount of disdain is pity. 

Spirits, this must be a dream. When has  Zuko  ever been pitiable? 

Pakku releases a soft breath between his teeth, and gives Chief Arnook a very pointed  I told you so  look. It makes Sokka angry. He didn’t think that Katara could do it, but he pushed her in that direction anyway?  Why?  

“I believe I overestimated you. You’re not ready for this, Katara, and I apologize.” Chief Arnook says. 

“I could  do  it,” Katara bristles. “But that doesn’t mean that I  will.  I’m not going to--we’re not the Fire Nation. We don’t  do  that to people. I won’t hurt him like that.”

( Oh, Spirits, what they did to her face, Sokka…)

Sokka thinks about all the bodies he’s helped fish out of the streets. The disfigurements and the burns, and the gruesome way that they died and didn’t get back up again. He thinks about Jet flooding an entire city just to make a point. Yes, they do. They  do  do that to the Fire Nation, and Katara is naive. 

“Why are you hurting him?” Aang asks. He hasn’t looked away from Zuko since they came into the cell. “Why can’t you just talk to him?” 

Twelve, Sokka is reminded again. Aang is  twelve. 

Chief Arnook rapidly comes to the same irritated conclusion, his nostrils flaring. He makes a sharp gesture back toward Zuko. “Because he has information on the Fire Nation. He’s the crown prince. Do you have any idea what that means,  boy ? He knows about war plans, the location of generals, trade routes, and supplies, he’s led sieges and killed before. The Fire Lord’s heir is their High War General. Why do you  think  that Prince Iroh led the siege on Ba Sing Se?” 

And--

Yeah.

Huh.

Sokka had never really thought about that before. It was something that just  happened , really far away without any consequences to his tribe. Prince Iroh failed, and they moved on with their lives. Sokka’s tribe didn’t even hear that the siege was over until a year later from a trader. That and the news that Fire Lord Azulan was dead. 

But why  would  the Fire Nation put their heirs actively at the forefront of the war effort unless there was a  reason  for them to be there? Fire Lord Ozai hasn’t been seen at the head of a battle since he took the throne. Why  is  Zuko out here, chasing the Avatar around with inhuman levels of commitment, and not at the front lines like all the other Fire Lord heirs are supposed to be? Because Zuko  is  the older one, isn’t he? Doesn’t he have a sister or something? She was named after Lord Azulon. Azaria? Azula? Something like that. Sokka swears that Zuko is the older one. 

“I don’t know, he just  did ,” Aang says. The rapid flickering of emotions that usually crosses his face is gone, leaving behind stony indifference. It’s unsettling to witness, like life is physically draining from Aang’s body. The kid’s eyes finally rise from Zuko to meet the chief’s. “Zuko has been chasing us everywhere for months. He doesn’t have the information you want. You don’t need to hurt him.” 

Chief Arnook scoffs. “Who do you think told the Fire Nation where you were going, Aang?” He shakes his head. “Master Pakku was right. All of you are still children and incapable of helping us. Although Katara is a gifted water bender, her spirit is weaker than I thought.” 

“I’m not a torturer.” Katara’s voice is thin, arms wrapped over her chest. Her discomfort prickles against all of Sokka’s protective instincts. "That doesn't make me weak." 

Spirits, please don't let her get on another morality rant. 

“The line between torture and healing is a thin one, Katara.” Pakku doesn’t sound particularly happy about this fact. “In times of war, our women have always aided us in this manner. That's why we asked you. I apologize, you're not familiar with our culture." 

That’s great, Sokka thinks, feeling hysterical. So they take you apart and then put you back together again? So the men go out and beat everyone up in the fight, but the women have to take their prisoners apart after?

Katara shakes her head, looking slightly nauseous. “I won’t help you with this. Come on, Aang.” She lets go of Sokka to grab the Avatar’s arm and starts to haul him out of the room. The kid makes a sqwauky sound, but allows himself to get pulled out of the cell. Sokka looks at Zuko again, bloody and miserable, and tries to dredge up  something.  But all he can think about is Yue and the gut-wrenching horror at realizing that Zuko  took  Aang. 

He doesn’t feel  nothing,  but there’s not enough  something.  Spirits, what does that  say  about him?

“Sokka,” Katara says with impatience from the doorway. “Let’s  go .” 

“Actually, I would like to have a word with Sokka first if that's alright,” Pakku says. Sokka’s gaze flicks back to the old man with dread. What  now?  Katara tenses up, but Sokka gives her a nod to reassure her that it’s okay and she leaves the doorway with reluctance, clearly just grateful to be able to  go. 

Pakku comes closer and wraps an arm around Sokka’s shoulders, and leans in close. His breath doesn’t have a temperature, and his whisper is tired, “There are no guards here at night. It gets too cold for us to subject them to that.” Sokka’s brow furrows. 

Uh? 

…okay. 

Wait. 

“Are you…are you--what are you saying?” Sokka asks, keeping his voice low on instinct. Pakku’s gaze flicks up to Chief Arnook for a moment. 

“Arnook's judgment is clouded with his grief,” Pakku says, “he’s going to kill the boy."  

And?  Sokka thinks, wild. Pakku says that like it should spur Sokka into righteous action, but all Sokka feels is relief. He’s not his sister or Aang. Zuko is a threat. If he dies, it’s one less thing they have to worry about. Yeah, sure, whatever, he feels a little bad for Zuko, but he was fully prepared to leave Zuko in the snow to die after he took Aang. Aang's safety comes first. 

And honestly, looking at Zuko, Sokka thinks that killing him might be more of a mercy than a punishment. 

“Okay,” Sokka says slowly, because Pakku is clearly waiting for some sort of response. 

Reflief flickers through the old man's expression and he pats Sokka's shoulder. Oh, Sokka thinks, feeling very far away. Pakku wants them to break Zuko out. He thinks that Sokka just agreed to help. He didn't. He didn't do anything. 

How does Pakku  justify  this in his head? What if Katara  had  agreed to help torture Zuko? Would he have been okay with that? Why is he trying to get Zuko  out?  Hasn’t Pakku helped with the torture? No one has heard anything about Zuko for a week, surely that means that Pakku has been helping because healers would have talked about it. Right? 

Or maybe it was just the guards. Those bruises are from fists. 

But why would Pakku want to release Zuko? Zuko is dangerous. Even if Chief Arnook kills him, so what? At least it would show the Fire Nation that they're serious. 

Sokka's eyes drop, landing on the prince in question. Zuko’s still miserable and shivering, and for a moment, their eyes lock and Sokka knows that Zuko  knows  who he is. Anger flashes through his expression, cold and defiant, and Sokka thinks about Aang again, stupid,  tiny  Aang, curled against this back last night because he was too scared to sleep by himself after Katara’s nightmare. 

Aang, that Zuko wants to take to his father to be stuffed in a cell somewhere to rot and die slowly, simply for the crime of having been born. Aang, that Katara would have abandoned him for. Aang, that Sokka and Katara abandoned their tribe for.

Aang. 

Sokka lifts up his chin and walks out of the cell, leaving Zuko to lie in his pool of frozen blood. And he doesn’t care. He  doesn’t.  Zuko is a monster, and Sokka doesn’t have to look out for everyone. He doesn’t. He’s not a bad person by walking away.  He’s not.  He feels absolutely nothing but relief at the thought of Zuko getting hurt worse because he deserves it, absolutely. Zuko will probably dig his way out of the prison with a spoon or something soon anyway. Zuko always survives. He’s  always  fine. 

Sokka meets Katara and Aang, who are waiting for him at the end of the cell block. It really  is  cold down here, the sort of cold that gnaws at the bone and slides what feel like sheets of ice to hover just beneath the skin. 

“What did Pakku want?” Katara sounds irritated already, hands on her hips. 

For a moment, Sokka considers telling them. Explaining that Pakku wants them to stage a prison break and then...and then  what?  Run with him? Hide him in their room like the baby otter penguin Katara tried to raise as a pet for the grand total of an hour before Gran-Gran found them? Did Pakku forget how  dangerous  Zuko is? He’s a master fire-bender, and, oh yeah,  insane.  There’s no way Sokka is putting his family near him again.

Zuko can rot. 

Sokka swallows the tangy words and shrugs. “He just wanted to apologize. I guess he’s not man enough to say it to your face cause you’re a girl.” 

Katara’s scowl deepens. “Of course he isn’t.” 

Sokka shrugs. Aang looks back down the hallway, and Sokka makes the executive decision. He puts a hand on Aang’s back and steers him toward where the exit was. “I think we should just get out of here.” 

“Are they really going to keep hurting Zuko?” Aang asks. 

How can he still  care  about that? Spirits, what does someone have to  do  to the kid before he wishes harm on them, even just a little bit? Was the attempted murder and the kidnappings, plural, not enough? 

“No, I don’t think so,” Sokka lies. “Chief Arnook was just upset because of Yue.” Her name feels rotten in his mouth. “And he took that out on Zuko. Once he feels better, Zuko will probably just sit in the cell bored out of his mind until his dad pays the ransom or whatever.” 

“Oh,” Aang says, unhappy. “I guess that makes sense.” 

Yeah. Sure. 

“Did Chief Arnook say that he was doing a ransom?” Katara asks.

“That’s what I heard from Hahn,” Sokka says, then considers the source and shrugs, “so who knows how reliable that information is.”

“Maybe that’s why they shaved his hair,” Aang suggests. “To send his hair to the Fire Lord?” Sokka blinks at him with surprise, but nods after a second. Huh. Twelve does not mean  stupid . “How long do you think it will take the ransom to get to the Fire Nation?”

Katara looks at Sokka, and Sokka runs some calculations in his head. “A week or two. Maybe more? That depends on what the Southern Water Tribe is using to carry the messages. If they send a person, it’s definitely going to take longer.” 

“So Zuko could be here for a while," Aang concludes. 

“Probably. Why?” Sokka asks. 

Aang looks away, his fists clenching. “No reason.” 

There definitely  is  a reason, but Sokka finds with sudden clarity that he doesn’t really care. He’s too tired. They exit the prison and Sokka finds himself making a mental map back to Zuko’s cell despite himself. Angrily, he shoves it away. He doesn’t care how many lefts he has to take to get there, because he’s not going to  do  anything. 

Zuko doesn’t matter. Pakku can take his misplaced altruism and shove it down someone else's throat. Zuko is a problem, and they don’t have time for any more problems. 

Katara and Aang are still talking behind him, but Sokka couldn't repeat their conversation to save his life. The sun has barely started to groggily light up the sky, and Sokka glances at it in relief. Thank the Spirits, he can go back to bed. When they make it back to their room, Sokka immediately flops on his bed, only to yelp with surprise as Momo lets out a loud screech and leaps out from underneath the covers. 

“What the--!?  Momo !” Sokka shouts, throwing his pillow after the lemur. He didn’t really mean to hit him, but it smacks into Momo’s back, sending him tumbling forward several feet.

Katara sweeps the creature up into her arms, throwing the pillow at back at Sokka's face. “Sokka! Be nice.” 

“I should have eaten him when I had the chance,” Sokka mutters, taking the pillow and burying his face into it to hide the guilt. 

“Don’t suffocate,” Katara says mildly. Sokka turns his head so he can scowl at her. Momo has climbed onto her shoulder and is staring at him with betrayal, which makes Sokka unfairly annoyed and guilty. How can such a small creature practically  ooze  judgment? 

Katara and Aang are starting to get ready for the day, Aang preparing breakfast, and Sokka feels a special brand of irritation wash through him. He turns his head away from them and curls up around his pillow to stop himself from saying anything. 

“I’m proud of you, Katara.” Aang says without prompting.

“Why?” Katara asks. She’s stirring something in a pot. Sokka can hear the wooden spoon clicking against the metal. 

“After what Zuko has done, a lot of people would have tortured him. You didn’t.” 

Spirits, does he have to sound so  happy  about that? 

“Thanks, Aang.” Katara’s voice is warm. She hands the Avatar something. When she speaks again, she’s considerably more somber, “I can’t believe that they’re doing that to Zuko. I thought they would just hold him here. Do you think they’re doing the same to General Iroh?” 

“I don’t know,” Aang says, he's biting his lip, Sokka can hear it in his voice, “but we should do something, right? To help?” 

“ Why ?” Sokka can’t stop himself. He can’t see it, but he  feels  Katara and Aang’s combined judgment pass on his back. Sokka tucks his arm underneath his head. “Why is it always  our  problem? Chief Arnook is probably going to try and end the war with Zuko’s ransom. Shouldn’t we let that happen? Besides, if Zuko is here, he's not chasing after Aang anymore." 

Neither of them say anything. 

Wrong thing to say, evidently.

Sokka sighs. Talking is exhausting. “Look, I’m not saying I’m  happy  that Zuko is being tortured. I’m not, okay? I’m not sadistic. It’s just that…I don’t know. It seems like the lesser of our problems right now. Maybe even a good thing in the long run? If the Fire Lord actually cares about his son, then maybe the war will be over and Aang won’t have to face Ozai.” 

“I guess you have a point.” Katara says with reluctance. 

“Yeah, maybe.” Aang mutters. “I don’t like this.” 

Of course he doesn’t. It's the pacifism in him.

Sokka thinks about Pakku and closes his eyes. “Nobody does, Aang.” 

Katara nudges his back with what feels like the edge of a spoon. “Come eat something, Sokka."  

“I’m not hungry,” Sokka mutters. “Momo can have it as an apology."

“ Sokka .” His sister sounds ready to fight. 

“I’m tired, Katara,” Sokka pulls the blanket over his shoulders. “I’ll eat later.” Katara goes quiet, as if he poked her just right to deflate all the energy from her soul. He should feel bad--he  does-- but mostly he's just relieved she's leaving him alone. 

And eventually, Sokka really  does  fall asleep. His dreams are riddled with nightmares, mostly of Zuko escaping and running away with Katara and Aang. But when he wakes up, shaken and biting at his knuckles to stop himself from crying, he just stares up at the ceiling. There’s not a point to get out of bed. Yue is dead. When they did a final sweep before the funeral for bodies, there weren’t any. He doesn’t have water bending to learn, attacks to help prevent, or…anything, really. Katara and Aang aren’t in the room, but Momo is, sitting at the end of the bed, staring. 

“You’re so freaking creepy, you know that?” Sokka mutters. Momo licks his eye. Sokka digs his teeth harder into his knuckles, pushing down another round of panic. 

Momo tilts his head and yawns, showcasing fangs. He curls up against Sokka’s legs, purring. It’s surprisingly comforting and Momo doesn't stop purring until Sokka's no longer biting at his fingers. 

Aang comes back before Katara does, his life-filled energy spazzing away the darkness Sokka has spent the last few hours carefully building inside the room. It makes Sokka miserable. How is he so effortlessly  happy  all the time?

Aang pets Momo and is clearly  trying  to be quiet, but fails. When he drops something loud and metallic causing it to clatter across the floor, Sokka pulls the pillow over his head. 

He hears Aang’s numerous apologies in the background. And then--“Sokka?” Aang sounds hesitant. Sokka can’t remember the last time Aang didn’t go barreling into something with no regard for his well-being. Aang doesn't even know what hesitation is. 

“What?” Sokka asks. “Who died?”

“No one,” Aang takes a seat on the edge of Sokka’s bed, scooting Momo forward. Momo growls. “Are you sick? You haven’t got out of bed. It's almost dinner. I'm worried about you." 

When was the last time someone who wasn't Katara  said  that to him? It should be comforting, but it just makes him feel guilty.  

“I’m catching up on sleep.” The words come automatically.  Can’t talk about it unless it’s funny . “I’ve spent the last few months sleeping next to you, and you snore. How am I supposed to get any rest through that?”

“I don’t snore.” Aang argues.

“Mhm.” Sokka draws the sound out. “Why don’t you ask Katara? You know, snoring all the time is a sign that something is wrong. People don’t snore like you when they’re healthy. Maybe  you’re  sick.” 

“I am  not --” Aang catches himself, taking a deep breath. “Don’t do that.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“And I don’t snore!” 

Sokka can’t stop the soft snicker that escapes him. Aang’s expression flickers at the sound of Sokka’s miserable laugh with something like surprise. Relief. Sokka's laughed recently. Probably. That's offensive. 

“Okay, okay,” Sokka lifts up a hand in surrender, because Aang really does look ready to start pulling teeth over this. “You don’t. Quietest sleeper in the world. I promise.” 

This is normally the time that Aang would say something to retaliate and then storm off in annoyance, but in a rare show of self-control, Aang doesn’t take the bait. “Are you okay, Sokka?” 

Sokka sighs heavily. “Sure.”

“You’re not okay.”

Sokka raises his hand in irritation. “Why did you even ask?"

Aang makes a face. Closes his eyes, breathes in. Spirits, is Sokka really  that  annoying? “Katara said that you miss Yue.”

Sokka’s jaw clenches tightly. Tears blink into focus at the corners of his vision. His throat feels hot. “Yeah. But she’s the Moon now, right? So I should just be happy about it and move on. I don’t get to grieve anything. I didn’t even get to bury her.” 

Aang tilts his head. “Is that why you punched Hahn last night? Because he said that we shouldn't grieve her because she's the Moon? You were really angry.”

“He didn’t even  like  her, Aang. He was going to  marry  her and he didn’t even--” Sokka takes in a sharp breath. He’s started to cry and he can’t remember ever consenting to that. “It’s not fair. Yue was…she made me feel safe and our relationship should have even happened because she was  engaged.  Spirits, I’m so messed up. We kept seeing each other even after she told me because she was  miserable.  And Hahn kept insisting that he’s lost everything and I just…”

Stop talking. Stop talking. Stop talking. 

“Yue meant a lot to you.” Aang says. 

“Yeah. I guess. It’s stupid.” Sokka rubs a hand over his face, brushing fingers through his messy hair. He didn’t bother to tie it up, and now it’s hanging around his face. It probably looks stupid. Does he care about that? He doesn’t know. Probably not. 

“It’s not,” Aang looks away from him. “The monks don’t… didn’t  bury their dead, but I never got to give them a proper goodbye either. Gyatso was still lying where he died when we found them at the Temple a hundred years later.”  

Yeah, and okay, so one dead almost girlfriend in comparison to what Aang lost is pretty pathetic. Awesome. Aang definitely has a right to be moping all day and Sokka does not. He’s so pathetic. 

  “I’m sorry about what happened to Yue, Sokka.” Aang says. “I really am. I wish I could have saved her.” Well, no one can stop the people that matter from leaving, can they? Not even the Avatar. “But I  do  think that Yue is at peace with her choice." 

Why do people always say that? How is it  ever  supposed to be helpful? Hey, this person is gone forever and you’re never going to see them again, but guess what! They’re at peace! Be happy about it. Move on. They’re at peace, now are you. 

“I’m not.” Sokka mutters, petulant. 

“No,” Aang’s voice is a little absent. He looks away from Sokka, rubbing the fabric of his pants through his fingers. The endless, annoying energy Aang is filled with on a day-to-day basis is drained away, leaving him looking  old.  “I’m not either. But Katara said that things get better, and I believe her.” 

“Katara says a lot of things that aren’t true.” 

Aang looks put out by that, and Sokka decides it’s time to stop being honest. He can’t think of anything funny to say and feels panic thrumming beneath his ribcage, like a bubbling, ugly  thing  living in his chest. 

Aang releases a soft breath, clearly trying to find something that Sokka won’t argue with. Sokka can see the moment that he gives up, because his mouth sort of twitches. “Just…just let me know if I can help you, okay?” Aang says. 

“Sure.” Sokka says, immediately planning to not do that, ever. 

Aang gives him a long look, and Sokka feels the weight of all the Avatar's past lives staring at him. Aang gets to his feet. “We’re here, Sokka.” Aang promises. There’s a pause, like Aang is thinking before he says, quiet, “And we’re not going anywhere without you.”

Sokka feels his entire body twitch. With the drama of this morning, he’d almost forgotten about yelling at Katara last night.  Almost . He’d been hoping that Aang and Katara  had,  though. Sokka rolls over so he doesn’t have to look at Aang anymore. 

“Okay, Aang. Whatever.” 

Aang gives up and Sokka stares mutely into silence. Time passes. Could be hours or minutes, Sokka’s brain has sort of stopped caring, and for once, it’s a relief. He’s tired. So, endlessly, irrevocably  tired. 

There’s a loud knock on the door before it’s thrown open. The wood scrapes loudly against the ice floor and Sokka sits up, struggling to bring the world into focus. Tui and La, what  now?  What possibly could have happened to Katara to make her this angry in the space of several hours? 

Momo, who had been sitting on his chest, makes a bristling sound of protest as he’s rudely dislodged, crawling away with a hiss. 

It’s not Katara out for blood like he first suspected, but several gaurds. And, behind them, is Hahn. Sokka may have few memories of their fight last night, but one thing he does remember distinctly is the fact that he broke Hahn’s nose. It’s been re-knit together, perfectly shaped and flawless as ever.

Annoyance rushes through Sokka, followed closely by fear. 

Spirits. 

Aang looks up from where he’s sitting on the floor, his staff balanced over his legs. “What’s going on? Is someone hurt? Where’s Katara?” 

“By order of Chief Arnook, Sokka is under arrest for his unprovoked attack against me yesterday.” Hahn says with no small amount of satisfaction. 

Aang makes a sound in his throat. Chief Arnook  ordered his arrest? What the?  Why?  Sokka bristles, finally dragging the energy to stand for the first time in hours. Panic seeps back into his chest cavity, violently. For a moment, Sokka is fourteen, desperate for Dad to be there. To  help.  For someone to put themselves between Sokka and the problem. Dad used to do that, before. For the first time in years, Sokka  only  feels fifteen, a boy scraping their way into manhood. 

He's scared and he  hates  it. 

“Are you  kidding  me?” Sokka exclaims. It’s the only words he can get out. He was  joking.  Last night, when Katara was putting him back together, he was  joking  that he would get arrested. He didn’t think that Hahn would be petty enough to do it. The healers put him back together, and Hahn knows just as much as Sokka does that the punch was wholly deserved. 

“My father was very displeased with what happened yesterday and he spoke with the Chief. You're to be held in the prison until the trial in a few days.” Hahn says. Sokka vaguely remembers Hahn saying his father was some sort of important war general a few days ago. Which makes him important. And Chief Arnook was clearly unhappy with them all this morning. But was he angry enough to resort to  this? 

“That you couldn’t take a punch or that you didn’t win?” Sokka asks before he can stop himself. Sokka has been training to be a warrior since he could walk. Dad made sure he knew how to take a punch. 

Hahn’s eyes narrow. “Take him.” 

The guards move forward, and Sokka freezes. He doesn’t know what to do. Getting arrested is not something he wants to do today--or like, ever, really--but if he resists then  what?  The entire city is made out of water. There’s nowhere he can run. 

Aang gets up to his feet, his staff in hand. He takes several steps, all but throwing himself between Sokka at the dozen men as they approach him. “Wait,” Aang says, “you can’t just  arrest  him!”

“ Aang .” Sokka hisses. 

“Avatar, you saw what he did yesterday. The unprovoked violence will only get worse. He’s unstable. There is a reason the Northern Water Tribe cut off all ties with the Southern barbarians.” Hahn says. 

Sokka thinks about his tiny, desecrated tribe of thirty-six people. The Fire Nation  exterminated  them in the raids, leaving behind only scattered fragments and a town buckling beneath the weight of itself. And he thinks about Agna Qel’a, nice and cozy in their enormous city with a bustling population. Alive. Safe. The Fire Nation hadn’t visited them in so long the only armor they had was  decades  old.

It hasn’t even  been  a decade since Mom was murdered. Since Zuko showed up, and took Aang. 

And Agna Qel’a, never there, never  helping. 

Darkness curls in Sokka’s stomach. “ We’re  the barbarians!? You’ve been sitting here in your stupid city for  decades  doing nothing while the Fire Nation has destroyed the world! What? I’m the barbarian because I’m not a good enough  victim  for you?” 

Hahn’s mouth sets. 

Aang’s posture tightens. 

" You're  not the victim in this," Hahn says, "I am." 

All at once, Sokka feels the anger deflate from him, like his body can’t sustain the pressure anymore. He can't fight Hahn anymore. He's too tired and it's pointless. Hahn only sees what he wants to. He's never going to listen to Sokka, just like he never listened to Yue. Sokka lifts up his hands for the shackles, "Just take me so I don't have to listen to you anymore." 

Hahn's nostirls flare. " Gladly."

Aang makes more protests, but after a sharp, “Aang, stop,", the kid finally stops trying to fight everyone and just watches furiously as Sokka is taken into custody. 

“Will you tell Katara what happened?” Sokka says, tired.

Aang nods, eyes blazing. 

Sokka is escorted out of the room in chains and tries not to feel ridiculous about it. This whole thing feels blown out of proportion and stupid. He hit Hahn. Okay.  So?  Why does it have to be a  trial ? Back home, people hit people and then they moved on with their lives. The whole world didn’t come to an end. 

Brats. 

Sokka expects to be taken to some sort of holding cell while he awaits his trial, but to his surprise, he’s taken to the lower dungeon instead. The cold seeps into his skin, making him nauseous. The guards retrieve the fish-lanterns again, and Sokka stops walking. 

“You can’t be serious,” he protests to Hahn. 

“The holding cells were destroyed in the fight," Hahn says in explanation. “Believe me, I’m not  that  desperate to make you suffer.” 

Sokka doubts that. 

Before they get much further, Pakku appears around a corner and stops. His eyes go wide and flash. Dread. Anger. Surprise. “Hahn, what you  doing , you stupid boy?” Pakku exclaims. “Why have you arrested Sokka?” 

“Didn’t you see what he did to me?” Hahn asks. “Chief Arnook gave me permission to arrest him this morning. He  ordered  it, Master Pakku.” 

Pakku’s eyes narrow. “He did, did he?” 

“ Yes .” 

Sokka’s mouth tightens. “This is payback,” he realizes out loud. “For Katara not helping him this morning.  Spirits  of all the petty, lazy-- why  is this man in charge of a country? He seemed so… nice  before. Competent.”

“War changes people,” Pakku says. “So does death.” 

He got any more wonderful insight like that up his sleeve? That'll help. 

Sokka’s stomach churns uncomfortably. He breathes out, and watches it plume in the air. Pakku studies Sokka like he’s trying to put together a complicated problem. Sokka feels his shoulders rising despite himself. Part of him hopes that Pakku will immediately protest and get him released, but instead, Pakku almost looks…relieved. 

“Put him in Zuko’s cell,” Pakku says. “He can wait out until his trial date there.”  

“ What ?!” Sokka shouts. He wrenches back from the guard holding his arm. “There is no way that I am sharing space with that--” 

“Master Pakku, are you  certain  that’s the best choice--?” Hahn says. Even a few guards are throwing in protests, but Pakku silences them all with a look. 

“ Yes , I’m certain. Zuko is not doing well, and perhaps Sokka’s sister has taught him something about the healing arts. If Arnook does not let a healer attend to the prince soon, I doubt he’ll live to the end of the ransom date.” Pakku says. 

“You want me to babysit?!” Sokka protests. 

Pakku gives Sokka a signtifcant look. “No. I don’t. Not today. It will be evening soon, and you’ll both sleep.”

It takes a second for Sokka to realize that Pakku is referring to the vague reference about guards he gave earlier. The note about them not being around at night because it’s too cold. The information Sokka did not pass to his sister and Aang like Pakku apparently hoped he would. Pakku is trying to get Zuko broken out of prison,  with  Sokka. That's...that's  why  he wants them together.

This is all a game to him.

Spirits,  why  does he want Zuko rescued that badly?! The only thing Sokka can think of is that Pakku wants to get Zuko back to the Fire Lord without any consequences but that would mean that he's--

Pakku wouldn't...

Is…is Pakku a Fire Nation  sympathizer? 

“Wait,” Sokka’s voice is weak. “Pakku, I didn’t really--”

“Take him,” Pakku says, and gestures for them to follow him. Sokka stops being compliant and half-dead. Every step that the Agna Qel’a soldiers take is dragged and fought for. Sokka fights all the way to Zuko’s cell, screaming obscenities and dislocating knees until they punch him hard enough in the stomach that Sokka’s too dizzy to fight anymore. He broke one of the lamps and now the bioluminescent fish is leaving a long, dragged trail across the floor. 

The door to Zuko’s cell appears too soon. 

It’s not until the door is being dragged open that Sokka realizes that the path Pakku came from only led to one cell. The cell that was housing General-Prince Iroh. When they throw him inside, Sokka lands in a crumpled heap on the freezing metal floor hard enough to bruise.

"This is for the best, Sokka," Pakku says apologetically and swings the door shut. The darkness is all-consuming and terrifying. Sokka can hear a chain clink, and Zuko breathing furiously. 

Sokka breathes in the freezing air and wraps his arms around himself. He's already shivering, but he still manages to gasp out, "well,  shit ." 

Chapter Text

Sokka’s lungs feel like they’re burning. Every breath is icy and horrible, clawing through his throat, trying to freeze it inside out. 

He stares at the closed door until he hears the group walk away. His eyes are stinging and his ears are faintly ringing. Everything feels like it’s covered in a shine of unreality, like he’s looking at it through a mirror. This isn’t really happening to Sokka, because that would be ridiculous. He didn’t just get arrested and thrown in prison for punching Hahn in the face. Pakku doesn’t want him to break Zuko out of prison and threw them together so that would happen. Sokka is, in fact, still in his bed and waiting for the sun to go down so he can sleep again when it’s socially acceptable. 

He’s almost convinced himself of it until there’s movement to his left in the cell. 

“ You ,” Zuko’s voice is low and terrible, but not because he’s trying to be threatening. Sokka gets the impression that the prince’s throat has given up on life, retired, and Zuko was left to deal with the grinding fallout of it. Has anyone thought about giving him water since he got here a week ago? 

Sokka remembers the sunburns that streaked up the side of Zuko’s neck. He and his uncle must have been out at sea for at least a few days without water, or food. He must be dehydrated. And Sokka must be insane, because he really doesn’t care if Zuko’s hydrated or not. 

Sokka wraps his arms around his chest, trying to bury down the rising panic. “Yep,” he says, and his voice trembles along the word, “me.” 

He turns his head in the direction of Zuko’s voice, but all he can make out is dark outlines. The cell is freezing, and he can hear the rattle of the chains as Zuko shivers. “Good to see you. Well. I guess hear you. Er,” Sokka pauses, then decides, well, what the hell? “How have you been?” 

Zuko is quiet for a long beat, almost like he can’t believe Sokka had the audacity to ask him that question. “Why are you h-here, tri-tribal trash?” Zuko asks. 

Sokka grits his teeth. 

Barbarians.

Trash. 

Awesome. Good to know what Sokka’s worth to these people. He shouldn’t have expected more, but it’s hard not to. In the Southern Water Tribe, people knew Sokka. They helped each other. There weren’t enough of them for feuds and disagreements to last long. They were equals and they cared. 

Here, Sokka is nothing. 

Sokka manages to crawl to a nice, cold corner and curl himself against it, folding his knees up to his chest and burying his head in them. He doesn’t answer Zuko, because he doesn’t want to talk. He just wants them both to exist on opposite ends of this darkness and pretend the other doesn’t exist. Sokka is beginning to shiver hard enough it makes his teeth hurt. 

Tui and La, how has Zuko lasted days down here?

Home was cold, but they had ways to manage that. Sokka was used to their cold, he knows their cold--this is deeper. It feels like it settles inside his skin, cooling down his bones until everything is brittle and swelling. This type of cold burns, and Sokka is trying desperately not to find irony in that. 

“Wh-why?” Zuko presses. “ Why?” 

Sokka’s irritation bubbles up to the surface. “Well see,” he says, because he can’t stop his mouth from going, can never stop his mouth from going, “I, uh, punched the wrong person in the face and now I get a nice, cozy stay down here until they feel better about it. I think my real punishment is having to talk to you.” Sokka says that last part conversationally, just to be petty. 

He’s trash, fine . Zuko’s worse. 

Zuko makes a small sound of frustration. “Perhaps that is mine as-as well, then. The new method of-of tor-torture.” 

Sokka scoffs. “Hey, you said it first, buddy. You better watch out, I’ll have you begging for mercy before the hour’s out.” But the thing is--Sokka really, really doesn’t want to talk to Zuko, not even to force information out of him. Sokka likes talking to people he knows. He chatters to fill space and to make people laugh. He knows he’s funny. He doesn’t want to be funny around Zuko because Zuko isn’t safe. 

Zuko huffs, irritated. He also says nothing else, and both of them stay in their corners, miserable in the dark for hours and hours and hours. Sokka is curled up, head resting on his arm when a slat on the bottom of door is shoved open and food is pushed through.

“Chow time,” the guard says cheerfully and walks away. In the brief glimpse of the green-ish light, Sokka manages to catch sight of the food. Bread and what looks like some type of fruit. Zuko doesn’t move for the food, but Sokka does, and grabs the bread--two thick slices--and the fruit. His conscious pulls at him, and Sokka reluctantly gives it attention and looks in Zuko’s direction.

“Hey grumpy, do you want any of this?” Sokka asks.

“No,” Zuko says, his voice strangely stiff.

Sokka hasn’t eaten in hours and he’s starving. He knows Zuko must be, too. “Uh-huh,” he intones doubtfully. He throws one of the pieces of bread at Zuko, and he knows that he makes contact because the chains rattle when Zuko startles. “Don’t be stupid. Eat.” 

Sokka takes a large bit of his bread, and while he chews he tries to figure out how to eat the fruit. There’s some sort of thick skin that’s prickly and painful, but when he digs his nails in to try and remove it, the fruit oozes thick slime. That’s probably not a good sign, so Sokka sets it down to be consumed by the ice instead. 

The bread does nothing to satiate him.

To his surprise, Zuko is the one who breaks the silence, “Why?”

Sokka rubs at his arms and looks in his direction uselessly. It’s an instinct, even though he still can’t see anything. “That’s a pretty vague question you may not want to leave open-ended. Why what?”

“The fo-food,” Zuko’s voice drops an octave, “why?” 

“...because we’d starve if they didn’t give it to us?” Sokka offers tentatively. He feels like he’s missing an obvious point and it’s making him feel stupid.

“Not th-that , you st-stupid tribal boy,” Zuko snaps, “why did you gi-give it to me? You didn’t have to. You sh-shouldn’t have. Kindness gets-gets you hurt.”

Sokka frowns. Spirits, the Fire Nation messed him up good. Who gets surprised over something this mundane? “The food was for both of us,” Sokka points out, “you’re hungry too.”

“Th-that’s…enough?” 

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Sokka asks honestly. “Why would I choose to let you suffer?”

Because he already has, Sokka realizes. Because that’s what he was doing for days. He, Katara, and Aang didn’t do anything while Zuko was down here and Sokka should have told Katara and Aang about Pakku’s plan, but he didn’t. Because he did want Zuko hurt. Zuko attacked Kyoshi Island, he took Aang, he’s hurt them. 

But Sokka’s father taught him better than to let someone suffer if he could do something about it. Aang and Katara never would have stood for this. And, Sokka realizes with a sinking feeling, he shouldn’t either. Everything’s just felt so muddled and terrifying the last few days. Sokka was cleaning up bodies , he was mourning Yue. It’s been a mess, inside and out, and maybe he wasn’t thinking clearly. Maybe he was just thinking in terms of survival, because Zuko dead meant their lives got easier. 

“Be-because pain makes you stronger,” Zuko says the words like he’s reciting them from memory. “Makes you-you better.”

Sokka blinks. “No, I’m pretty sure that’s not how injury works.”

“It-it does,” Zuko promises, “that’s what m-my father said.”

“Your father is also kind of insane, no offense, so I wouldn’t take what he says to heart,” Sokka points out.

The chains pull sharply and Sokka flinches back instinctively. “My father isn’t insane!” Zuko snaps, and he has what Sokka is beginning to recognize as his self-righteous tone on, “He’s wise and kind and just. He deserves my loyalty and yours.” 

Mhm. Yeah, maybe Sokka will believe that when his tribe isn’t thirty-six people and the Fire Nation hadn’t slaughtered his mom and left Katara traumatized for life. Sokka nods. “Sure, bud. Okay.”

There’s a small hesitation. “Are-are you mocking m-me?” 

“Would you feel better if I said no?” 

“Tribal trash.” 

“It’s Sokka, by the way,” Sokka says, trying not to let his gritted teeth be audible. “Not that you’ve ever bothered to learn. You’ve been chasing us everywhere for months and you don’t even know our names. That’s kinda…that’s kinda sad, actually.” 

Zuko scoffs. “Why-why would I learn? I-I only needed to capture the-the Avatar.” 

“Aang,” Sokka corrects before he can stop himself, “his name is Aang.” 

“I know that!” 

“Okay, grumpy, calm down,” Sokka mutters, “spirits.” 

“Is-is he here?” Zuko asks. Sokka pauses, but not because he doesn’t want to answer, but because Zuko doesn’t sound hopeful about the prospect. He sounds like he desperately wants Sokka to say no. 

“...Yeah. He and my sister. Aang was there when I was arrested, but because they haven’t broken down the door yet, I’m not sure we should count on a rescue party yet. I don’t know what’s holding up Katara, she’s usually a punch first ask questions later kind of person, so I’m not…I don’t know.” 

If Katara knew what happened, Sokka doesn’t think he’d still be down here. They don’t have anything tying them to the Agna Qel’a except tragedy and blood. Katara has learned most of what they have to teach her and they need to leave eventually. Now seems like a good enough time as any. 

“I-I don’t need yo-your help ,” Zuko snarls.

Sokka raises a very judgmental eyebrow and lays back against the floor. Spirits, that’s freezing, but so is everywhere else, so he might as well just be cold right here. “Oh, really? So you haven’t broken out of here yet because you enjoy them beating you up?” 

“I’m…I’m gathering information,” Zuko doesn’t sound sure about that, “for my father.”

Sokka nods sarcastically, “About Agna Qel’a’s torture methods? I’m sure that will be very helpful.” 

“Uncle has-hasn’t left yet, either,” Zuko mutters, “we-we must still be-be here for a reason.” 

“I’ve got one. The Northern Water Tribe is very good at keeping people. You know, my dad used to refer to their prison as ‘the vault.’ People who got stuck down here didn’t come back up. I don’t think your uncle could break out of anywhere just because he wants to.” 

“Un-uncle is very good at what he does.”

“He’s a professional escape artist?” 

“ No,” Zuko snaps, and the sheer irritation and desire to cause bodily harm in his voice makes Sokka slide a fraction further from him. “You-you wouldn’t un-understand. You’re-you’re…”

“I’m what ?”

“Nothing,” Zuko says, then seems to realize that’s exactly what he meant. “You’re nothing.” 

Sokka’s stomach tightens painfully. He feels like he just went penguin sledding and slammed hard into the snow at the end instead of coming to a slow finish, breathless and dizzy and scared. Barbarian. Trash. Nothing. 

And maybe that’s why Dad did it. Left Sokka alone with Gran-Gran to raise Katara. Left Sokka in charge of the tribe when he hadn’t even had a second growth spurt yet. Left. Because Dad raised Sokka, he knows him, he must have been able to see all of these faults before everyone else and realized it wasn’t worth sticking around for. 

Maybe Katara and Aang aren’t helping because despite Aang’s promise earlier that they wouldn’t leave him, Aang didn’t mean it. 

“That’s rude,” Sokka says, because his mouth is dry and his eyes are watering, but he has his voice and his jokes. “You’re very rude, you know that?” 

“I’m-I’m not rude ,” Zuko protests, actually sounding offended, “I’m truthful, l-like my f-father. It makes-makes him honorable.” 

Sokka wipes at his face. His chin is trembling and he clenches his teeth together. He’s not going to let Zuko know he made him cry. His face is hot. “Yeah,” his voice is thick and Tui and La, not now,“ yeah, I’m sure your dad always listed out your faults and assured you how worthless you are. That’s very honorable.” 

“Of-of course he-he did,” Zuko says, and now he sounds confused. “Why wouldn’t he-he?” 

Because he’s your dad?

Sokka blinks. “Wait, are you serious?”

“Y-yes? I’m-I’m a shame to-to my family and he let-let me know. My sis-sister is the one-one he wanted. He…he’s… he’s… said-said that I des-deserve to be-be dead. I’m-I’m only alive be-because of his-his-hissss…was…was lucky-lucky t-t-to be born.”

And--

And wait a minute. 

Sokka sits up slowly, “Wait. Wait, what?” 

“Ag-agni K-K-Kai,” Zuko says, like that explains everything, even though Sokka has no idea what that is, and holy shit Zuko’s dad told him he deserves to be dead? Lord Ozai told Zuko that he wants him dead? What kind of parent tells their kid that they want them dead? 

“Hold on,” Sokka says, “your dad told you, like on purpose, that he wants you dead?” Zuko makes an unintelligible sound. “Zuko,” Sokka voices slowly, “Zuko, seriously, what the hell? You know that’s messed up, right?”

Zuko doesn’t answer. It takes Sokka a long minute to realize that might not be out of spite. The firebender really isn’t sounding well. “Hey, are you okay?” Sokka asks, and is mortified to realize that his voice has slipped into the one he uses when Katara needs help. “Zuko?” 

“C-c-coolllld,” his voice is faint.

Sokka gets close enough that he can feel the air moving as Zuko breathes. It makes him shiver. “Um, I don’t…” Sokka says. Zuko was pinned up by his wrists against the wall, Sokka remembers. It’s not exactly the ideal position for sharing body heat. Nor is he sure that Zuko would even accept that. “We can…we can share body heat? It helps.” 

What was it that Pakku said? He wasn’t sure that Zuko would make it to the end of the ransom date? Zuko sounded fine for a little bit, but that doesn’t mean anything. Sokka sounds fine. He should have asked earlier. 

“Bet-better when…when wake up…” Zuko mumbles. He doesn’t say anything after that, presumably having passed out, and Sokka can hear the chains clinking as he shivers. And well. Well damn it. Because Sokka isn’t heartless and he’s not stupid and he knows that if he leaves Zuko alone like this he will sustain permanent bodily harm or die if Sokka does nothing. 

Sokka feels sick, but there was never really a decision to make in the first place. He squeezes his eyes shut before getting closer and tucking himself against Zuko’s side. The firebender’s bare skin is freezing and Sokka swears rythmatically under his breath. 

What exactly does Chief Arnook hope to achieve here except killing all the firebenders off from hypothermia? These conditions are inhumane. 

Zuko doesn’t wake up, and Sokka stays next to him until he’s shivering relentlessly and Zuko’s has lessened. Then he crawls to his own corner of the cell and tries to preserve what little body heat he has left. The thing about sharing body heat, Sokka has learned from a life surrounded by snow, is that warming someone up tends to make you both cold and miserable eventually. Body heat is not endless. 

He lays down in a tight ball and stares miserably in the direction of the door. It’s sealed, he can’t even make out a crack from light. He squeezes his eyes shut, breathing in slowly. It’s been hours. Katara and Aang still haven’t made an appearance. If they could have blunt force traumaed their way in here, they would have. 

Sokka doesn’t know what to do.

A trial. 

Spirits, this whole thing is insane and stupid.

He doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but boredom, fear, and cold make it impossible not to. Sokka wakes up from his second nightmare to a small, desperate whimpering sound. It’s the sort of sound that used to wake him up to Katara, and Sokka is already upright before he remembers where he is. It’s not his sister. 

It’s Zuko.

The sounds only get worse, and Sokka hears shifting. Biting his tongue and hating every choice that led him to this moment, Sokka grits his teeth and moves closer to Zuko. He hates this, he hates this, he hates this. He blindly reaches out for a body part to shake. His fingers make contact with some part of Zuko’s face, he has a second to recognize the feel of a cheekbone, an eye, hair, and ragged, burned tissue before Zuko bolts upright and screams. 

Sokka jolts back, yelping.

The scream muffles after a few seconds, like Zuko just pressed a hand over his mouth. “I’m sorry, Father--” the words are strangled and panicked. There’s more shuffling. The firebender drags in a desperate, gasping wheeze. “Don’t… don’t…” 

He said I deserve to be dead. 

“Hey,” Sokka forces his voice out. It feels like knives clawing up his throat. “Zuko? Hey, it’s me. You’re…” okay would be a lie, and so would safe , so the sentence trails precariously. 

“Uncle?” Zuko sounds young, and Sokka feels that protective instinct rise, hounded from years of looking out for his tribe, for raising his sister, for always being the one in charge and protecting. “What are you--you…? Agni, it’s…it’s cold… ” 

“Yeah, I know,” Sokka promises. 

Zuko breathes heavily for a long minute. “...Sokka?” 

He remembered. Huh. Imagine that. 

“Yeah. Just me. Sorry. I was just trying to wake you up. You sounded like Katara does sometimes when she’s having a bad dream. I didn’t mean to freak you out.” Sokka admits. He expects Zuko to start shouting at him. If he could firebend, Sokka’s pretty sure he wouldn’t have a face anymore. But Zuko doesn’t do anything, he doesn’t even sound like he’s breathing, pinned in place, and waiting for something awful. 

Sokka backs up a bit. “I’ll-I’ll just…just be-be over here.” 

Zuko doesn’t answer. 

Sokka tries not to care. 

He doesn’t really sleep that night--night?--beyond in short, scattered bursts. Zuko wakes up from at least one more nightmare that he’s aware of, panting and shaking, but Sokka pretends not to notice. Sokka’s exhausted and feels worn out and strained by the time he hears voices in the distance. Shouting, and a great deal of it, only getting louder and sharper. 

The door is slammed open, metal smashing into ice with a clattering bang and Sokka slams his shoulder into the wall with surprise as he jerks upright. Chief Arnook is there, holding one of the fish lanterns and he looks furious. There are guards and councilmen behind him, one of whom is the spitting image of an old Hahn.  

Chief Arnook doesn’t spare him a second glance, instead, he turns toward Zuko, frenzied.

Through the glow of the fish lanterns, Sokka gets his first look at the other boy since yester…day. Yesterday? How long has he been down here? Zuko is pale to the point his skin looks slightly gray and washed out. There are bruises on top of bruises on his bare chest and arms, but there’s not any blood that Sokka can see beyond a long, ugly gash along Zuko’s collarbone. His ribcage is disgustingly visible, and Sokka can see that several of the bones are broken. His fingers are swollen from frostbite and look painful and impossible to use. The piece of bread that Sokka threw at him is laying near his hip. Sokka’s stomach clenches. 

He forgot. It’s such an inconsequential detail, but he forgot that Zuko couldn’t grab it to eat it. And Zuko still thought that was Sokka being kind? Sokka would have assumed it was a taunt or punishment. 

Chief Arnook stalks over to Zuko, grabs his face, and slams in his head into the wall. The ice cracks from the force of the blow. “Did you know!?” he shouts, and the rage makes Sokka’s heart pick up speed. “Did you know!?” 

“Cheif,” the man Sokka’s pretty sure is Hahn’s father tries to placate, “let’s not be rash. He’s just a boy.” 

“He’s a monster!” Chief Arnook roars. “All of them are! The Fire Nation has taken everything from us and you’re going to defend him!? No firebender is innocent, they take and corrupt every good thing!” 

“Chief--” the councilman tries again. 

“No! You would dare defend them after what they did to our city?” Chief Arnook shouts, “What about your wife? What about our children, our brothers and sisters and family ?” 

“I only meant,” Hahn’s father says through gritted teeth, “that he’s unlikely to speak to us if he has a concussion.” 

Chief Arnook ceases to notice his existence, turning back to Zuko. He wrenches something that Sokka can’t see and Zuko cries out, “Did you know!?” 

“I-I-I don’t know wh-what you’re talking a-about!” Zuko gasps. 

“ Pakku ,” Chief Arnook snarls, and Sokka feels every muscle in his body lock up at the name. “He’s in league with your uncle! My guards caught them conspiring to break you out. He’s a master water bender, my friend-- I trusted him and he was working for the Fire Nation!” 

Pakku was…oh spirits .

“Wh-what?” Zuko sounds as confused as Sokka feels. 

“He insisted,” Chief Arnook says the words lower, but they don’t feel any safer, “that he was doing it for the ‘greater good’, that he was working in something called the White Lotus. That your uncle, a prince of the Fire Nation, can be trusted!” 

Tui, Pakku is a Fire Nation sympathizer. Was getting Zuko out of here ever just because Zuko was hurting, or was it all for some greater scheme to help the Fire Nation? Did Pakku not want to teach Katara not because he’s a sexist piece of shit, but because he was trying to delay them. Did Pakku help plan the invasion? Why was he helping Prince Iroh? Doesn’t he know what he did to Ba Sing Se? 

“What is the White Lotus?” Chief Arnook demands. “What faction of the Fire Nation is it? What does it do?” 

“I-I don’t kn-know,” Zuko says. He looks, from what Sokka can tell, like he’s trying to digest the information himself. His gold eyes are wide. 

Chief Arnook slaps him across the face violently, “Don’t lie to me, boy!” 

“I don’t know!” 

A punch this time.

“Was Pakku how Zhao got into the city? Is that how he knew how to kill the spirits, about my daughter’s promise? Is he why my daughter is dead!?”

“No!” 

Zuko makes a strangled sound when his head slams into the ice again and Sokka sees blood smear against the dark blue. “Stop lying to me! How can you not know anything!? You’re the Crown Prince, the High War General! You make battle decisions! You’re not this incompetent , you can’t be this useless!” 

The flinch Zuko makes is instical and primal when Chief Arnook raises his hand again, and it breaks something in Sokka. 

“STOP IT!” Sokka roars. He doesn’t remember getting to his feet, he doesn’t even remember moving, but between one blink and the next, he’s throwing himself between Zuko and Cheif Arnook, arms outstretched, using his body as a shield. 

The chief seems to recognize that Sokka is here at all for the first time, but the rage in his eyes doesn’t dim. Doesn’t ease to something manageable. Sokka is trembling and Zuko is breathing heavily behind him, and everyone in the doorway is just watching. He wants his sister. He wants his sister so badly that it feels like a physical wound just got ripped open inside him.

Sokka takes in a shuddering breath. “He doesn’t know any-anything. He’s been ch-chasing us around for months, n-not with the F-Fire Lord.”  

“They have written communication. Step aside.” 

It’s not a request. 

Sokka doesn’t move. “Beating him to death won’t fix this.” He takes in a deep breath, and, for the first time, he thinks he understands what Katara and Aang do. “Zuko didn’t k-kill Yue, Chief, that was all Zhao, and he’s dead n-now. Yue made her choice, we-we have to resp-respect that.” 

She abandoned them because she wanted to help. Without her sacrifice, the spirits would have died. Yue is a hero and her sacrifice deserves to be remembered with joy, not blood . 

Her father doesn’t unclench. “Yue was all I had,” he says, “she was everything to me and I have to live with her gone knowing that her murderers walk free. Zhao didn’t kill her, the Fire Nation murdered her. And until every last fire bender is dead, Yue will never know rest. This boy will become the next Fire Lord. He’ll murder and destroy for the sake of nothing because that’s what the Fire Nation DOES!”

Sokka flinches. 

Chief Arnook looks ready to kill someone, but Sokka can see the cracks in his haunted eyes. The grief and overwhelming anger swirling into madness. “And my trusted advisor, my friend, all but my brother has betrayed me to the Fire Nation. Pakku helped my daughter die. So move, boy, or I will move you.” 

Sokka bites the inside of his cheek and raises his chin in defiance. Chief Arnook hits him violently. Sokka tumbles to the floor, smashing his elbow painfully into the ice. He’s dizzy for a second too long, because the Chief all but kicks him out of the way. 

He hit him.

He actually hit him. 

“Get Iroh,” Arnook’s voice is slightly fuzzy. The guards don’t move, so the chief turns to roar at them, “ GET IROH! ” 

Sokka struggles into a seated position, hand grabbing at his elbow. The world makes a dizzying lurch. His eyes briefly meet Zuko’s, and the flickering terror that he sees makes his heart pick up speed again. His vision is blurry. He tries to get up, to use himself as a shield again, but he doesn’t get very far before he falls. 

One of the guards grabs him and hauls him to the opposite end of the cell. The council stands there, expressions either impossible to read or resigned. Sokka doesn’t know how long it is until Prince Iroh is pulled into the room, but it feels like it takes seconds. He knows it must be longer. He saw how far away the cells were. 

Prince Iroh looks confused, tired, and he’s as pale as Zuko is, but otherwise, he seems okay. Like Zuko, he’s not wearing a shirt or has any shoes. His clothing is thin and dirty, and the shackles wrapped around his wrists look like they’re making a valiant effort to cut off blood circulation. His expression, much to Sokka’s disbelief, is almost cheerful. He opens his mouth to say something but stops when he sees Zuko’s crumpled form. The relief isn’t hard to miss, but the brief flicker of anger that flashes in his expression is. “Zuko. You look most unwell, nephew.” 

“Uncle,” Zuko breathes. He looks like he wants to cry. “Uncle, you-you’re alive? ”

“I am, Prince Zuko,” Prince Iroh’s voice softens. The older man turns to Arnook. “Chief, I must admit I’m confused as to why I’m here.” 

“The White Lotus,” Arnook says between gritted teeth. “Pakku’s betrayal. The Fire Nation’s attack. You’re going to explain to me what’s going on and if you don’t, I will harm your nephew.” 

“There’s no need for that,” Prince Iroh assures gently, “we’ve already discussed this, Chief Arnook. Your desire to find something nefarious in what I’ve said only shows the limited depth of your character.” 

“Limited depth of my--?” 

“Chief, I assure you that Pakku wants to see the end of this war as badly as you do,” Prince Iroh plows forward like nothing happened, “and that he, I, and many others have been working together to find a way to see that conclusion without my brother winning.” 

He--

What? 

No one in the Fire Nation wants the war to be over without Lord Ozai sprinting to the top. That’s why they’re fighting it. That’s why they’ve been fighting it for one hundred years. Did he forget that part?

“W-what?” Zuko sounds aghast, “You-you-you don’t-don’t want my father--? But-but…you’re a-a traitor? ”

Prince Iroh does something close to a wince. “I had hoped to explain this to you at a better time, when you were more ready to hear it. Things are not always what they seem, Zuko, and for now you must trust that I have perspective you don’t yet have.”

“You’re unloyal !” Zuko spits that with disgust, “How can you be--?”

“I’ve found more important things to be loyal to,” the look Prince Iroh gives Zuko is significant and oh, Sokka realizes, oh. 

Zuko is more important to Prince Iroh than the entire Fire Nation. 

This goes over Zuko’s head entirely. “Traitor! Traitor!” 

“No, Zuko,” Prince Iroh says gravely. What would that be like, to have someone abandon the entire war just for you? Dad abandoned them for the war. A war they hadn’t been any closer to winning in a century, but he left them because that was more important. He didn’t know that Sokka and Katara would find Aang. He didn’t know that they would have a solution to the violence, he just decided his family was less important and left . 

“The White Lotus is a group of scholars from all nations, not fighters,” Prince Iroh explains, “we trade information, we help guide the Avatars on their journey and provide minor influence on decisions.” 

“The White Lotus is not a Fire Nation creation,” Chief Arnook realizes, studying Zuko’s face. Prince Iroh nods. “Pakku was telling the truth, then, about that at least.” 

“Yes,” Prince Iroh agrees, and he offers a small smile, “see, now you can understand the gravity of miscommunication we’ve experienced. Why don’t we have some tea, and then we can talk--” 

“Why was Pakku trying to break your nephew out of prison then?” Chief Arnook interrupts. “If you’re just scholars, why would Pakku betray me? You say you want the end of the war, but you take away our one chance at doing so? I’m ransoming the Crown Prince, the next Fire Lord! If Lord Ozai wants to see his son alive again, he’ll be here with a ransom by the end of this week and you’re trying to steal our one chance to end this war!” 

Wait, but Zuko said--

Sokka feels the blood drain from his face.

Spirits. 

Zuko said that his father told him he deserves to be dead. Why would Lord Ozai respond to a ransom for the son he doesn’t care about? Sokka looks at Prince Iroh, and he can see that the man knows that. It’s written into the guilty, haunted edges of his face. Zuko was never going to get out of here unless it was by death or outside interference, was he? 

“Zuko is just a boy,” Prince Iroh explains, “if you really desire a ransom, my brother will pay handsomely for my return as well.” 

“I don’t want gold!”

“That’s such a shame, it really can be helpful for many things, like tea--” Chief Arnook slaps Zuko across the face. Zuko cries out sharply in surprise, and Sokka’s breath catches. He looks at Prince Iroh. A glimmer of danger has sparked in his eyes and it makes the man lose his softness. “Please refrain from striking my nephew.” 

“I don’t believe you,” Hahn’s father says, and takes a step forward. “You led a siege on Ba Sing Se for almost two years. You were once going to be the next Fire Lord before Azulan died. You’d never betray your nation just for scholars . I don’t believe the White Lotus is real.” 

“Those who refuse to see the truth will often find comfort in inanity,” Prince Iroh states evenly.

Hahn’s father scowls at him, then looks toward the chief. “Pakku has always wanted power. Perhaps that’s why he became a Fire Nation sympathizer and betrayed us.” 

Chief Arnook considers this. He studies Prince Iroh for a long few moments before he looks down at his fish lantern. The glowing green fish inside is swimming toward the bottom of the glass. Chief Arnook looks at Zuko before twisting open the top of the lantern. A putrid smell fills the cell and Sokka gags. 

“Prince Iroh, do you know what this is?” Chief Arnook says conversationally, gesturing to the fish. Sokka’s stomach clenches with dread. He doesn’t know. He didn’t even think about it. It was just a fish. A glowing fish. Fish are normal and safe. 

Prince Iroh’s expression is unreadable, but his voice is without humor, “A jelly-eel.” 

“Yes,” Chief Arnook continues, “are you aware that their skin is so poisonous that we have a special water-bending move just to collect them, so no one touches them directly? The toxins on their skin, you see, burn any skin they touch. There is nothing that helps the pain for days. They say there is no greater agony in the north.” 

Prince Iroh’s eyes lift to the Chief’s. “You’re not this kind of man. You’re a good man. Pakku has been proud to serve you--” 

“ Pakku!?” Chief Arnook snarls. “Pakku can rot. My daughter…” his voice breaks, “ my daughter is dead because of your nation !” 

“Arnook,” Sokka can hear the slightest edge of alarm in Prince Iroh’s tone, “ don’t .” 

“Tell me the truth!” Chief Arnook snaps. The hand holding the lamp is beginning to shake. Sokka doesn’t know what to do. Everyone has forgotten he’s here except the guard and he’s too far to do anything if the chief decides to drop it on Zuko. 

“I have told you the truth,” Prince Iroh says. 

“Why were you trying to break Zuko out of prison?” 

“Because I care for him.”

Chief Arnook snorts, “Do you really expect me to believe that’s all? You were trying to destroy our ransom.” 

“I was not.” Chief Arnook takes a step back toward Zuko and Prince Iroh repeats, sharper, “ I wasn’t.” 

“How long have you been working with Pakku?” Hahn’s father demands.

“We’ve known each other for a few years,” Prince Iroh explains, “we met after I joined the White Lotus when my son died.” 

The questions continue, and Sokka watches with dread as Chief Arnook only gets angrier. Sokka doesn’t understand. Prince Iroh is, from what Sokka can see, telling them the truth. He’s had years of practice identifying liars at home, especially Katara when they were younger, and Prince Iroh doesn’t have any of the signs. His answers are clipped and incomplete, but Sokka wouldn’t say they’re lies. But maybe that’s the problem. Prince Iroh is withholding information, and his half-truths or bad truths or whatever it is that he’s doing aren’t enough to save Zuko. 

Chief Arnook turns back to Zuko, raising the lamp. Sokka wrenches in the grip of his guard, kicking his feet, but it doesn’t do anything. Prince Iroh lurches and starts to struggle violently. “Arnook! Arnook, no! I beg you! Leave Zuko alone! Zuko! ZUKO!” 

The chief’s hands are trembling so badly that water spills on the floor at his feet, but he doesn’t stop. He pours the lamp over Zuko’s head. Sokka didn’t think he’d do it until that moment, and he doesn’t think Chief Arnook did either, because his expression instantly morphs with horror and regret. 

The glowing green fish lands on Zuko’s face, across his right eye. Long and covered in thin, glowing tentacles, it stretches down to his neck. 

For an endless, nauseating second, nothing happens. 

Prince Iroh doesn’t look away, almost like he can’t. 

It takes Sokka several more seconds to realize that Zuko isn’t breathing. Instead, thin, wretched wheezes are escaping him like he’s being slowly strangled. And then he does start, and the wailing is terrible. He writhes under the contact, and the fish slides from his face onto his thigh, and Zuko shrieks .

It’s the type of sound that Sokka imagines death sounds like.

Zuko’s face is red and already bleeding, the skin turning a horrible shade of deep purple and Zuko is screaming and screaming and Sokka collapses to his knees when his legs won’t hold him, but he can’t breathe. Air isn’t coming and he can’t force it in because Zuko is in so much pain--

(Oh, Spirits, what they did to her face, Sokka…)

Prince Iroh wrenches from the grip of his guards and throws himself at Chief Arnook. His hand closes around his throat before he’s hauled back. “He’s a child !” Prince Iroh shouts, “You bastard! He’s a child! You have no right to harm him! He’s done nothing! Nothing! May the spirits visit you with death, may misfortune befall your family in this life and the next, you absolutely despicable fu--” Prince Iroh keeps swearing and shouting as he’s dragged from the cell, Zuko’s cries and pleading a haunting background to the anger. 

When Prince Iroh is far enough away that he can’t be heard anymore, Chief Arnook tries to turn and instead almost collapses. Hahn’s father grabs him. “Arnook,” he says quietly.

“What have I done?” Arnook whispers, face ashen, “Spirits. What have I…?”

“Should we call for a healer?” another councilman asks, voice stiff. 

“No. Nothing will help him now, nothing but time,” Chief Arnook gasps. He doesn’t look back at Zuko. Sokka is afraid to. 

“Let’s get you out of here,” Hahn’s father says. Chief Arnook looks like all the anger has been drained from him, leaving him lifeless instead. The guards leave. The councilmen leave. Sokka and Zuko are left alone. 

Zuko is sobbing uncontrollably, and Sokka can’t. He can’t. He moves toward the firebender and grabs his arm. The fish is still writhing against Zuko’s left thigh, having made its way down to Zuko’s knee, trying and failing to find water. Sokka can see the streak of burned clothing and purpling skin underneath. 

He takes in a gasping breath.

Zuko will not be helped by Sokka hyperventilating and he knows that but he can’t believe that Chief Arnook actually did that. He was distant but warm and he raised Yue, who was the nicest person Sokka has ever met, and he…he did this. Grief doesn’t change people. It breaks them open and splinters what’s left before forcing them back into the same shell, no matter how much it doesn’t fit over their bones anymore.

“Zuko, hey,” Sokka’s voice breaks, “Zuko, it’s okay, I’m here. I’ve…I’ve gotcha, okay?” 

“Sok--sokkkkk…” Zuko’s voice slurs and he gasps sharply, his entire body shuddering. Sokka looks down at the jelly-eel and sees that it’s found a new target--the knee. He has to get it off of him. Sokka grits his teeth and can hear Katara lecturing him about being an idiot, but he doesn’t really have a lot of other options, does he? 

Sokka reaches out and grabs the fish by one of the tentacles, dragging it off of Zuko’s leg. 

His entire body locks up. At first, it just seems to be some sort of paralytic, stiffening all his muscles in one go, but that’s not what it is. His entire body has locked up with agony, all the air leaving him in a gust as his hand begins to burn. The pain is sharp and terrifying and biting and it makes his ears ring and his vision tunnel. The white-hot agony rolls through him until he can’t remember what it’s like to exist without it.

He can’t drop the jelly-fish. His fingers have cramped around it and refuse to let go. 

Sokka begins to cry. 

Let go. Just let go. Just LET GO. 

His fingers unclench, and the fish drops to the floor. Not far, but far enough. Sokka clutches his arm to his chest, weeping, and looks down at his fingers. A ragged, blistering burn has bubbled across the palm of his hand, wrapping around several fingers. His skin is starting to purple, bleed, and swell. He forces in ragged breaths.

Zuko.

He has to help Zuko. 

He clutches his hand to his body and reaches the other to grab Zuko again. The right side of his face is streaked with blood, and the blood from his leg is beginning to pool on the floor. Zuko is gasping. 

Sokka’s brain is stumbling between every thought, incoherent and panicking, and he does what he would normally do for Katara, or even Aang. He climbs next to Zuko’s side and wraps an arm across his shoulders, trying to comfort. “It’s okay,” Sokka gasps. “I’m here. Not-not-not going anymore.”  

Not that he could, but even if that was an option, Sokka knows he wouldn’t. All he can be for Zuko is here. There’s nothing else he can do. 

Katara, Aang, please. 

Please, please, please. 

Where are you? 

Chapter Text

The next time Zuko is awake, Sokka is digging the scaly fruit into the manacles attached to the wall. He’s not really sure what it’s supposed to do except make him feel good about the fact that he’s doing something--which is ironic, because he doesn’t feel good about the fact that he’s doing this--and having little success. While the fruit really shouldn’t be in contact with human skin, it’s not much in the way of a blade.

He’s not sure how long Zuko has been awake when his voice croaks, “What…doin’?”

He’s not shivering anymore.

Sokka doesn’t know if the prince has it in him to shiver anymore. Sokka doesn’t. He’s clutching his throbbing arm to his stomach and trying to think about anything but the pain and blisters. Maybe that’s why the fruit became the next best option.

At least the dull, prickly pain is sort of soothing. 

“Isn’t it obvious?” Sokka grumbles, scraping the fruit against the metal. It drags, loudly, like pine needles against fresh ice. “Breaking you out.”

Making him more comfortable was the goal, but even though Sokka likes to think he’s a capable person, he doesn’t think he could break them out with nothing but the corpse of an evil fish, fruit, and the clothes on their backs. 

There’s a reason Dad and Bato called this the pit. 

Zuko’s shoulders have to be killing him. Sokka did his best to offer support, but when he fell unconscious, his entire body weight had been sagging against the chains. The rough, blistered skin of his forearms promises that this isn’t the first time it’s happened. 

The jelly-eel is dead, laying a few feet away from them. Sokka managed to toe it away with his shoe, but it does provide light, which makes Sokka feel cramped. It was almost better to have the void of nothing, because he couldn’t see just how small the space they’re trapped inside is. 

Zuko’s silence is extremely judgemental.

“I don’t know,” Sokka mumbles, finally dropping the fruit to move back against the wall, leaning his head back against the cool metal. There’s frost spread on the floor and climbing up the corners. The fruit, miraculously, looks unscathed, which makes Sokka’s stomach profoundly grateful he couldn’t figure out how to eat it.

He jostles his arm when he moves and sinks his teeth into his tongue to stop himself from exclaiming. The white rush to his vision makes his head swirl with vertigo. 

Zuko breathes out harshly. His body just looks like one rigid, tensed line. Pain is written into every feature of his face, but he doesn’t cry. The squinted left eye isn’t even open. Sokka thinks about the screaming from earlier. The pain can’t be any different then than it is now. Sokka’s isn’t. 

Sokka takes in a deep breath. He wishes Katara was here. She could do something. All Sokka can do is sit and wait for the next bad thing to happen.

Zuko swallows thickly.

“Hey, um,” Sokka keeps his voice quiet, but Zuko still jerks at it with surprise, a muted sound keening in his throat. He turns his head on instinct toward Sokka, and the sight of his face stops Sokka’s voice in his throat. 

“ Mutilation” would be a generous word. 

The fresh, oozy burns are stretched across the right side of his face, splitting the skin across his nose open. Blood is smeared down his cheek to his neck, and the skin is bruising in all shades of vivid, ugly colors. The skin is swollen and…puffy, somehow. Sokka’s arm looks the same, but he didn’t realize that it was…

Spirits. 

His right ear and underneath his nose seem to have come out unscathed. On the left side of his face, it’s hard to tell where the damage from the fish stops and Zuko’s other scar begin. 

Zuko licks split lips, “Is it bad?”

His voice drags Sokka out of his thoughts in a stuttering burst. “Can you see?” Sokka asks. There was probably a more gentle way to ask that question. Definitely. Absolutely. The grimaced wince on Zuko’s face assures him of that.

“Maybe?” Zuko’s voice is hopeless. “Blurry.” 

“Everything is blurry?” Sokka translates. Zuko nods. His right eye isn’t even open. He’s squinting at Sokka with his left, but he keeps looking just past Sokka instead of at him. Sokka studies his face and for the first time, he think he realizes how young Zuko is. He looks small. Scared. He looks like Katara. Sokka doesn’t know how to take care of Zuko, but he does know how to be a brother. “Hey, maybe it will be better wh-when the swelling g-goes down?” 

Zuko says nothing, squeezing his eye shut and leaning his head back against the metal. He’s really not looking good. They need to get out of here. Come on, Katara. Where the hell is she? Aang was right there when he was arrested. It’s not like they don’t know what’s going on. He has to have been down here for at least a day or two now. The only reason he can think of for why Katara and Aang haven’t done something is because they can’t.

Not that they don’t want to, but they they are physically incapable.

And the implications of that are not comforting.

Chief Arnook has clearly shown that he’s capable of violence. No one has even bothered to check on them since. They haven’t even received food. Maybe the good ol’ chief is hoping they’ll starve to death and it won’t be his problem anymore. If that is the case, Sokka is going to haunt him until he dies. Because what he did was wrong. And he has to know that, right? 

Pakku can’t help them. He was…whatever he was. Arrested? For conspiring with Prince Iroh. Who also can’t do anything, because though the man has a mouth when he puts his mind to it, expletives aren’t helpful.

It’s just the two of them.

Sokka releases a deep breath, letting it come from his soul. An audible acknowledgement of the despair rotting there. Okay. Okay. Think, Sokka. Zuko needs medical care. Now. If he wants to keep his eye, or, y’know, not die, then it has to be soon. Within the next day or so. Sokka can do this.

He has a grimy fish that’s skin is poisonous. It also glows. That bit isn’t very helpful, but Sokka’s gonna note that anyway just in case. He has the fruit. He has Zuko, who is also not helpful. The entire cell is made out of metal--iron--and it’s cold. Cold enough for frost to exist. He can see the door now with the help of the jelly-eel. He has the use of exactly one hand. Five beautiful, useless fingers. 

Okay, that all adds up to…

To…

To a set of useless tools.

Sokka sighs. “I’m sorry,” he says. His breath plumes in the cold. He’s beginning to shiver again, and he’s also starting to cry from sheer frustration. “I’d get you out of here if-if I could, I-I promise.”

Zuko is quiet. 

He doesn’t look angry, he doesn’t really look anything except exhausted. He’s crying again, silent, silvery tears fighting their way down his face. 

Sokka carefully adjusts his position, resting his arm inside his legs. He checks the coloring of his fingers. Swollen, red, and blistered with bruises ranging from yellow to purple. He can’t move any his fingers. Even if he could, he wouldn’t want to. It’s surpassed the point of pain where it’s just sort of nauseating with its intensity. 

“You know what I think?” Sokka asks a while later, playing with the edge of his shoe with his good hand. Zuko does not look like he cares. Sokka decides to pretend he didn’t notice that. “I think that I’m not going to get a trial. Not after the mess that Pakku made.” Sokka hesitates a moment, thinking of Chief Arnook’s anger. The fury that made him drop a jelly-eel on Zuko just to make Prince Iroh hurt . “Do you think he’s dead?” 

“Yes,” Zuko’s voice is rough. 

Sokka releases the inside of his cheek, then confesses, “Yeah. Me too.” 

Chief Arnook did not seem to be the mindset to think long-term about anything. 

“Do you think they killed my uncle?” Zuko says, quieter. Sokka almost doesn’t hear the question at all, but it lingers. It’s sort of sticky, clinging to all those feelings of sympathy that have been dragged out of Sokka. 

“I don’t know,” Sokka admits. “Maybe.” 

Zuko doesn’t talk after that for a long time. Sokka reworks the prison cell in his mind over and over and over again, trying to figure out how the jelly-eel can be a secret weapon and the browning fruit a saw, but all that he can find in this room is a stale sort of hopelessness that tastes like ash.

So the two of them remain here, alone, in pain, and sleeping in small intervals, waiting. 

Waiting. 

They don’t argue. They don’t banter. They don’t confess their life stories to each other. They don’t taunt the guards. They don’t do really do anything, because Zuko is in too much pain to hold a conversation, and Sokka is too tired. That weighty, ugly blanket of Yue’s death is being dragged across his shoulders again, suffocating him. 

Eventually Zuko stops responding at all, even when Sokka lightly kicks him and blows into his ear, a timeless method with Katara. Sokka finds his pulse, weak but erratic, and realizes with no small jolt of panic that Zuko really is dying. 

So he does what anyone would in this situation. 

He grabs the browning fruit and throws it against the door with all the strength he can muster. The resounding bang echoes in his teeth, clattering with vibrations that rattle the door. The fruit, amazingly, finally pops open to reveal several dozen slices of orange-ish goo. It’s sticky and soft inside, which is irritating, because it chooses now of all times to be edible? 

Sokka’s boot is the next thing to meet the door at forceful speed. Then again. And again.

Finally, several locks twist and the door is hauled open, breaking ice as it goes. 

Two water-benders look at Sokka balanced on one foot, then the boot in his hand, twin expressions of irritation already on their faces. 

“What are you doing--?” One of the guards starts to ask. 

“He’s dying. Do you know that?” Sokka interrupts, gesturing sharply with the boot toward Zuko. The guard looks toward the fire-bender, slumped in the chains, pale, bruised, and well, dying . “He needs a healer. Get someone. Anyone .”

That doesn’t seem to convince them very much. Sokka can feel a wringy desperation twist in him. Yeah, sure, he doesn’t like Zuko, but he doesn’t think that earns the other boy a death sentence. And what Cheif Arnook did to him? No one deserved that. He may have taken Aang, but Sokka’s beginning to think there’s more to that story than they were told. Zuko’s father telling him he should be dead, and all that. 

One of the water-benders frowns, “Chief Arnook has given clear instructions that the two of you are to be left alone during negotiations. We can’t do anything. I’m sorry.” 

“Negotiations? Wh-what negotiations?” Sokka demands, fingers tightening on his boot. Chief Arnook leaving them alone was not just punishment or a guilty conscious? 

The other water-bender looks at Sokka like he’s stupid, which is annoying, because hey. Guy imprisoned here. Who the hell was he supposed to talk to learn about any of this? Zuko? Because the man has not shown himself to be a well of information. 

“With the Fire Nation.” 

Huh? 

Sokka blinks. Blinks again. Then a third time, just in case. And no, still doesn’t make any more sense. “Wait, what?” 

The first water-bender seems to realize Sokka has been in prison, because he explains, “Princess Azula arrived last night to start negotiations for her brother’s return on behalf of the Fire Lord. She and Chief Arnook have been discussing the terms all morning. Given Prince Zuko’s…” the water-bender glances at him, expression tightening, “ state , Chief Arnook has refused to any visitation for fear it will sway the outcome.” 

Sokka’s boot lowers with surprise. Maybe shock. Both. 

Princess Azula.

Zuko’s sister.

Is here.

On purpose. Negotiating a deal. A deal that Prince Iroh, the Dragon of the West, the man who held a siege on Ba Sing Se, was convinced would never happen. So convinced, in fact, that he pled with Pakku to break Zuko out, and Pakku resorted to trying to guilt the Avatar into a rescue so that way he wouldn’t have to take the blame. The moving parts of this entire debacle leave Sokka breathless for a moment with disbelief.

But Princess Azula is here. No one was supposed to come for Zuko. That was the point. Sokka decides, conclusively, to put all of this to the side.

“He needs help,” Sokka insists. “Can’t you get someone?” 

“No.” 

“My sister--”

The door slams closed in his face. Sokka closes his eyes, breathes in slowly but it only makes him feel closer to a denotation than any calmer. He goes back to Zuko, and sits, every muscle rigid, waiting for the prince of the fire nation to die, because he’s exhausted all his options, and the spirits seem pretty determined to let this happen. 

Zuko’s breathing gets weaker. 

Sokka buries his head against his knees. He’s always harbored a private admiration for Katara’s resilience. Her stubbornness that could move mountains if she set her mind to it. Katara is an unstoppable, furious force of nature. And she’s not. Here. She’s not helping him. Sokka feels more alone than he ever has in his life. 

He’s terrified.

Because he doesn’t know where Aang or Katara are. What happened. And given what they were willing to do to Zuko, he’s not optimistic they’re in any better shape. Because. Because spirits. 

Sokka tries to blank his mind, waiting for minutes to stretch into hours, checking Zuko’s neck periodically for a pulse.  

He hears the voices first. Chief Arnook, who makes Sokka clench up with panic, and a female voice he can’t place. More men. Not Katara. Not Aang. But maybe, spirits, maybe someone that can help them. 

The door is pulled open again, and Sokka raises his head to squint into the greenish light. There are more jelly-eels, encased in lanterns, and the sight of them makes Sokka’s arm ache and nausea build in his throat. He thinks of Zuko’s face. 

Chief Arnook steps into the room, and his expression is tight and obviously stressed.

Good.

Behind him is a girl. Sokka has never seen her in his life, not even a painting, but she’s instantly recognizable. Not because of armor, but because of the way she holds herself. With that same, flaunty self assurance that Zuko has.

Princess Azula is tall and wirey, with a sort of presence about her that feels like she’s ready to bite him. Her dark hair is pulled up, leaving parted bangs in front of her narrow face, and it only serves to make her appear sharper somehow. It’s weird, in a sort of dizzying way, looking at her, because Sokka can see Zuko in her features. Sokka and Katara look alike, sure, but Zuko and Azula could be twins. Maybe they are. Sokka only knows Zuko is older, but not by how much. 

For a long moment, the girl just stands in the doorway, staring at Zuko, a resentful, rigid tension slowly building in her body. Her eyes are blazing.

“As I told you,” Chief Arnook says, “he’s alive. Not unharmed, but alive. You’ve seen him. That was the deal, now we go.”

Azula says nothing to that, just moves closer, with the grace of a queen. She ignores Sokka entirely, kneeling in front of her brother and pressing her fingers against his neck. The rough contact makes Zuko groan, and Sokka sees something flicker through Azula’s eyes. She pulls her fingers back to tip her brother’s head up so she can see the damage. 

It’s only because they’re so close that he can see the way that Azula’s entire body stiffens. 

Sokka tenses himself, because he doesn’t know what she’s going to do, but he can see the sort of protective fury that has predated some truly violent, stupid choices on Katara beginning to build in the fire bender. 

Azula doesn’t smile or rest a gentle hand on Zuko’s shoulder or head for reassurance. The sort of thing Sokka would have done. Instead, when she speaks, her voice is filled with mockery, “Oh, Zuzu, always getting yourself into trouble, aren’t you?”

Zuko’s eyes squint open, “...‘Zula?”

It’s hopeful, but thick with disbelief. 

“Zuzu,” Azula mimics, and it’s mean. She waves a finger in front of his face, back and forth several times. Zuko’s eyes don’t track it. As far as Sokka can tell, he’s not even sure he’s aware of it. 

 “...is a dream,” Zuko says faintly, “not here.” 

Azula scoffs. “You wish. Never happy to see me, are you?” Then she gets to her feet, and turns, and pins Chief Arnook beneath her blazing eyes. She smiles, and it’s pleasant and warm, and somehow the most dangerous thing Sokka has ever seen. 

“His face,” Azula asks, “who did that?” 

“It was an accident,” Chief Arnook says, “one of the fish we use for our lanterns was spilled on him.” 

Spilled? 

Azula’s eyes follow the dead jelly-eel on the floor a few feet away up to Chief Arnook’s rigid posture. There’s an intelligence in her gaze that makes Sokka anxious, and when they land on him, he tenses. She looks back at Chief Arnook. 

Sokka expects violence and blood and retalation furious enough that it leaves Agna Q’ela in pieces. Azula nods, once. “I see.” Her voice is silky. “Accidents happen, don’t they?” 

Chief Arnook nods cautiously. 

“It’s unfortunate,” Azula takes a step closer to him, “that this wasn’t an accident, was it?”

“It was ,” Chief Arnook insists. He’s staring at Zuko with a rapt, mixed sort of horror that leaves Sokka justified and furious. Because he could have done something. For hours, for days, for however the hell long they’ve been here, he could have done something . 

Sokka looks at Azula. “It wasn’t.” 

Azula is alone, Sokka realizes. He can’t see any more fire nation soldiers. Can’t smell their ash and smoke. Zuko was followed around by an entourage of soldiers and his uncle, but Azula has no one with her. 

She’s supposed to be negotiating the return of Zuko.

And she’s without guard. Without support. Without anyone. Are they still on her ship? They have to be. There’s no way that Ozai would let his daughter come out here alone. Especially not for the rescue of his heir. 

Maybe Sokka just doesn’t know enough about Fire Nation culture. Maybe it is standard practice to send your child alone to negotiate deals on your behalf for the nation. Sokka hasn’t really cared to learn any customs. 

Azula looks back at Sokka. There’s something about her eyes that makes him feel dismissed even though she’s acknowledging him. Those eyes rake over Chief Arnook again. “You…” she lets the word draw, “are practically reeking of a guilty conscience, my dear chief. Here’s what I think happened, and you correct me as we go.” 

She takes a step forward. There’s a slight wince to it, Sokka notices for the first time, like her gait isn’t completely even. It’s weird. Weirder to notice it, because Sokka can tell just how much effort the girl is putting into making it appear flawless and measured.

“ You dropped the jelly-eel on my brother, and you just feel awful about it, don’t you?” Chief Arnook is trying to back up, but subtly, and the water benders don’t look like they know what to do, which is typical. Can’t seem to do anything without anyone explicitly reminding them they have brains. “Yes?” 

“This is war,” Chief Arnook says, “damage must be done. The Fire Nation knows this better than anyone, doesn’t it? The bodies of your soliders were a dam in my streets.” 

Azula’s back is to Sokka now. She makes a low humming sound in her throat. “I see. Yes. Damage must be done. Tell me, do you know how my brother got his scar?” she makes an annoyed sound when Cheif Arnook stares at her blankly. She points at the left side of her face. “ This one dummy, not the new ones you’ve been so kind to gift him with. Our father---he believes the same thing you do. Damage has to be done, and I have to say, like father like daughter.” 

She lets the threat hang in the air. Sokka thinks that he’s lucky, somehow, to have ended up with the warm, cuddly child of Ozai, which is saying something, given that Zuko isn’t exactly a bucket of joy and kindness. 

“Princess Azula--” 

“I will be collecting my brother and leaving now.” Azula says flatly. “Any attempts to stop me will be met with a necessary damage most unpleasant.” 

“That wasn’t the terms we agreed to,” Chief Arnook really must want to get hit in the face just this one time, Sokka thinks. Yeah sure. Go poking Azula. That won’t end badly for him at all. “We still need to discuss terms about his release. You can’t take him without agreeing that the Fire Nation will leave Agna Q’ela alone. I agreed to let you see him before we signed and that was it. You don’t get to take him. He belongs to the water tribe now.” 

Azula’s shoulders stiffen. “ Belongs .” 

“Let’s discuss this somewhere your emotions won’t be clouding your judgement.” Chief Arnook grabs her arm. Azula doesn’t move, even when he pulls on her. 

“Let go.” 

“Princess Azula, I won’t ask you again--” 

Azula tears her arm out of his grip and stalks over to Sokka and Zuko. Chief Arnook is using his lungs and lips to their fullest capacity with his arguing, but Azula seems to have forgotten how to hear if the way she ignores him is any indication. She withdraws a set of lockpicks from her belt and makes quick work on the shackles.

She just.

Has those.

Okay.

As you do. 

Maybe it’s standard Fire Nation equipment. Swords, sadism, lockpicks. 

Without anything forcing them up, Zuko’s arms drop immediately. And in a show of far more consideration and kindness than Azula has shown her brother so far, the girl catches his wrists and lowers his arms into his lap slowly. The movement is, from what Sokka has seen so far, uncharacteristically gentle .  

 Zuko groans. A low, gutteral sound that’s involuntary. 

Sokka’s stomach tightens at it further somehow. He thinks that anxiety has tied his intestines into ugly bows, and he’s never going to be able to untangle it. He’s close enough to Azula’s face that he can feel the hiss of her breath against his face. It’s hot and smells like smoke. 

She meets Sokka’s eyes for a second. “Get him up.” 

Sokka doesn’t know what exactly about him has indicated that he’s going to be her ally in this, but the annoying thing is she isn’t wrong. Sokka doesn’t know if there are even sides in this situation, or if it’s just narrowed into the focus of being with whoever isn’t dumping jelly-eels on peoples’ faces. 

Sokka has no other options here. He stays, and lets Cheif Arnook do worse to him and maybe die if the man decides he’s had enough of sanity again and takes a brief vacation. He doesn’t know where his sister and Aang are. Azula is the only way out of this cell in one piece. Sokka has spent enough time staring at the four walls trying to figure out how to leave to not be acutely, painfully aware of that.

So Sokka doesn’t do more than hesitate for a moment before he moves to Zuko’s side and swings the boy’s arm across his shoulders. He wishes that the prince was more conscious for this, because Sokka has to wrap his bad arm around Zuko’s waist, and every jostle makes his nerves ache to his teeth.

But slowly, laboriously, they do get off the floor. 

And that doesn’t fix anything, actually.

The dead jelly-eel is still on the floor. The fruit is still smashed to pieces and smeared, the juice having long since frozen solid. It looks like a murder. Like Sokka bashed the fruit’s head open and left the body out to rot. 

He kind of did. He feels bad about that, all of the sudden. The fruit did not want to be eaten, the least he could have done is given it a proper send off. By like, eating it or whatever. 

The water benders stand between them and the door. It’s an odd feeling, being on this side of that. Sokka can’t remember a time in his life where he’s seen the water tribe colors and not felt a sense of relief and comradery. He didn’t think that there would be a time when he was staring them down and all he felt was fear. 

These people are not his friends. The fact that they’re from the water tribe doesn’t mean that they’re friends or that they’re going to help him. They made that pretty clear by leaving them both in here to die.

Sokka looks at Azula’s back, and waits. 

It seems like it’s all he does these days--wait. 

Azula takes a step forward. It lilts some, but she stays upright as she approaches the exit. Her voice, when she speaks, is authoritative. “Move.” 

“No,” Chief Arnook says. “We had a deal.” 

“Our deal meant more to me before I knew that you almost killed Zuko.” 

Cheif Arnook’s expression flickers with frustration. Then anger. “I sent the letter signed with his blood. I gave you his shorn hair. Do you really expect to walk in here and find him whole ? How naive are you, little girl?” 

“ I’m not the naive one here,” Azula promises. She unsheathes a long knife from her belt. It glints in the green-ish lighting, making it look almost sickly. The metal is pitch black, and not one that Sokka recognizes. “ Move.” 

“You’re not walking out of here,” Chief Arnook warns, “not unless you’ve signed that treaty. I’ll just keep you both down here. Ozai will send another representative. I have his entire family. His children. His brother. He’ll be forced to make a move.”

Azula laughs. The sound is sharper than it should be, and Sokka curls back from it. “You believe my father is capable of far greater sentiment than he is. The weak get left behind.” 

“He wouldn’t abandon you.” 

Chief Arnook is stalling. It takes Sokka a second to realize that, because he’s so tense and exhausted that every other thought is when can I put Zuko down but the long drawn out emotions-packed conversation is not to force Azula to bare her soul out to him. It’s to keep them in this cell. 

He must have sent someone for reinforcements. 

Spirits.

If they don’t leave now--

“Azula,” Sokka hisses before he can stop himself. Her name sounds weird out of his mouth. He’s not sure that he’s ever said it outloud before. 

It’s all the invitation that Azula needs. She punches Cheif Arnook in the face. The blow has enough force behind it to send him staggering backward a few feet, and she draws the blade up and lurches toward the water benders. 

For all her grace, Sokka rapidly becomes aware of two things: Azula is not fire bender, if her lack of use is any indication, and she’s absoluetly shit at fighting. Her balanace is uneven, like she can’t seem to remember where the ground is, ever, and the motions of her dagger are clumsy. She’s not Suki. She’s so far from Suki it’s kind of funny. Suki could wipe the floor with her multiple times over.

Sokka wasn’t expecting that.

Zuko is a force of nature. He’s awful to fight against. Azula could probably be beaten by a dedicated turtle duck. It surprises him. It seems wrong. He swears that tales of the powerful fire benders of the royal bloodline have been passed around for as long as he can remember. He’s pretty sure if they had a secret non-bender in the family, everyone would know by now.

Large groups of people are incapable of keeping secrets. 

Azula struggles. Loudly. She’s bloody by the time that Zuko manages to drag enough awareness together to push away from Sokka and throw a stream of fire at a water bender’s face and stop them from slicing the girl’s head off. Sokka has to catch him to stop him from falling flat a moment later, but between the two of them, the six water benders are on the floor, struggling to get back up, or dead.

Sokka tries to just not think about that--how there’s more dead bodies to send out to sea.

Sokka helps Zuko over the threshold of the doorway, and takes a look into the adjoined hall for the first time in days. Seeing anything beyond the staggering sameness of the cell makes his eyes ache. He grits his teeth to stop himself from crying. 

Azula, panting, stops before she exits the cell behind them. Her hair is messy around her face, and the perfect facade she strolled into the cell with isn’t there anymore, if it was ever more than an act to begin with. 

“Let’s see,” Azula says, tucking her hair back from behind her ear. “I have my brother, the Avatar is a few doors down, I’m forgetting something… oh, yes, that’s what it was.” 

She plunges the blade into Arnook’s stomach to the hilt. Sokka sucks in a sharp breath. Can’t exhale the air to form any words. Arnook wheezes. Azula twists the blade in a slow, painful circle before she tears it out of the man, soaked with his blood. “What’s the matter, Chief? Damage must be done, right?” 

“Azula,” Zuko’s voice is hoarse. 

“Coming, Zuzu,” Azula reassures flippantly. She wipes the worst of the blood off on Cheif Arnook’s clothing before joining them in the hall. She pulls the door closed behind her--it slams with a familiar clang that has Sokka flinching--and takes hold of Zuko’s other arm, dragging him forward. 

She probably just killed Cheif Arnook, and the most she can manage is vague annoyance. Sokka doesn’t know how she can be so indifferent to it. Sokka’s hands aren’t blood free and he’s not pretending they aren’t. He knows that he would kill again for his family if he needed to, but he doesn’t know if he’d be capable of that level of cold, detached vengeance. 

Azula grabbed one of the lights before she stepped out, and the green glow is casting long, uncomfortable shadows along the walls.

Their progress is slow. Sokka can’t find it in himself to talk. He’s too cold and hungry and miserable, and he thinks he might be in some sort of shock, too, just because his body hasn’t had enough going on the last few days, so might as well add that too at this point. Why not?

The escape is not clean. It’s messy in more than one way. The body count climbs. 

Sokka detaches. He doesn’t remember a lot of the journey upstairs. Just patches. All he thinks about is keeping Zuko moving and how much he wants to chew off his own arm to make the burning pressure ease. Zuko’s awareness fades, and by the end, Sokka and Azula are dragging him.

When they finally break into upstairs, Sokka is so stunned by the sheer amount of space that he drops Zuko a bit. Azula swears under her breath. Her furious eyes snap up to him. “ Focus.” 

“Sorry,” Sokka says, and he hauls Zuko back up without thinking. He jostles something, because Zuko’s aborted scream cuts out, half strangled in his throat. “Sorry.” 

“Stop,” Zuko gasps, wrestling in their grip, “ stop.” 

“Don’t be a baby,” Azula hisses. 

“He needs a healer,” Sokka says, trying to keep Zuko still. It’s a momentous task. He doesn’t think that Zuko is really aware of who they are. Or where he is. He’s just curling instinctively to get away from the pain. Sokka kind of wishes that he would pass out, because it would be easier for all of them. 

“I have supplies on my ship,” Azula snaps. She’s moving them toward an exit. The days locked inside of the cell seem to have reset his brain completely. He can’t remember where they are. It’s the middle of the night. The room is empty. Sokka can see the gleam of the Moon reflected in the nearby rivers. 

They only make it a few more steps before Zuko collapses his to his hands and knees, slipping out of their grip. “I can’t,” Zuko is begging them. It makes Sokka anxious to witness. “I can’t. Please. Please.” 

Azula’s face, when Sokka catches a glimpse of it, is disturbed. She looks like she doesn’t know what to do. Sokka doesn’t either. He fumbles, stares at Zuko’s crumpled form, and just blanks out for long seconds. 

“He needs a healer,” Sokka reiterates. 

“I don’t have one.” Azula’s dagger is pointed in Sokka’s face. He lifts his hands without thinking.

“Hey--wait, I have not--” 

“Where do I find one here?” Azula demands. “Tell me. Now. I was in negotiations with other officials, they’ll come looking. I don’t have a lot of time, which means I really don’t have a lot of patience .” 

Sokka tries not to look at all the blood smeared down the blade, evidence of just how serious Azula is about this. Sokka doesn’t matter to her. He was just convenient. Zuko is in no state to advocate for Sokka, not that he’s entirely sure the fire bender would. 

“You just killed the cheif, do you really think that they’ll help you?” Sokka asks.

“I’ll make them.” 

Of course she will. Yeah. Fire benders and their freaking brute force. Why would they think that anything is impossible and people can’t be bent and forced to do their bidding? A hundred years of war has proven how stubborn they are.

“No, you won’t,” Sokka says. The blade gets pressed harder against his throat. Sokka lifts his chin, trying not to back up. Azula’s eyes are narrowed. She opens her mouth, likely to say something nasty, when there’s a loud exchange of shouts from behind them. A bell starts ringing. Sokka can hear echoing movement. 

Spirits. 

They’re screwed. 

“I’ll--my sister,” Sokka blurts, “My sister will help Zuko. She’s a healer. She’s one of the best.”

Azula looks like she couldn’t really care less about that. “Where is she?” 

“I don’t know,” Sokka admits, wincing some. “She was with Aang--the Avatar, and then I got arrested and it’s just been a mess and I don’t know where she is.” 

Azula’s teeth grit. “Then let’s go find her.” 

It’s really not Sokka’s fault that they’re in the middle of this mess. He wasn’t the one who stabbed an important guy. Or just some guy, for that matter, she really doesn’t need to be so pissed with him. 

Sokka and Azula drag Zuko back up. He’s sobbing openly again, and he won’t go quiet no matter how many times that Sokka pleads with the boy to. They’re headed in the direction of Sokka’s room with the others, because he doesn’t know where else to start looking--he prays that the two are still here and that Katara didn’t abandon him the moment the opportunity presented itself--and when Zuko’s crying almost gets them caught again, Azula makes a sound of impatience and shoves her brother to his knees and then proceeds to wrap her elbow around his throat, other hand pressed against his skull. 

“What the hell---?” Sokka starts to exclaim, grabbing her arm. “Hey! I thought you wanted to help him, not kill him!” 

“Shut up ,” Azula snaps, eyes narrowed with focus as Zuko wrestles in the grip instinctively. He goes limp a few seconds later, unconscious, but not dead. Sokka checks. He feels absurd for doing so at Azula’s annoyance, but she’s giving him a lot of mixed signals here.

Sleeper choke hold.

That’s nice.

Spirits, this family has issues. 

“Okay,” Sokka says, faintly, “yeah. That happened.” 

“Help me,” Azula snarls. Sokka does. Grabs Zuko’s limp arm, and then they’re off again.

Here’s the thing. The last place that Sokka had actually expected to find Katara and Aang was their room. He’d thought they’d be incapacitated, or in jail or something, because surely there’s no way that Sokka gets jailed for days and both of them do nothing. And Katara and Aang are in the room, asleep.

Well. Presumably were asleep, because Sokka and Azula’s entrance isn’t quiet.

Sokka stares at his sister and Aang, and they stare back at him with equally wide eyes of disbelief. “Hey guys,” Sokka says, struggling to take them in. They’re fine. They’re completely fine. Where were they, then? “I made some new friends. They bite.”

“Sokka?” Katara’s face is pale. “Spirits, what happened to you?” 

She moves toward him, dropping her defensive stance. Aang doesn’t. He’s looking between Zuko and Azula, his eyes, from what Sokka can make out in the moonlight, are endlessly wary. Katara doesn’t even touch him before Azula’s sword is thrust to her throat, the tip digging into her sternum.  

“Hey!” Katara shouts. 

“Azula,” Sokka warns. “If you hurt her--” 

“You’re going to help my brother,” Azula says. It’s not a request. Just a flat statement. Sky is blue. Sun shines. Katara is going to help. 

Katara’s eyes flick back to Sokka. Her shoulders are getting tense. “ Why would I do that?” 

“Katara,” Sokka implores. He takes in a deep breath. Tries to force his thoughts away from when can I drop Zuko. “We have to go. Now.” 

“I--” Katara looks back at Aang.

“Look, we---” Sokka sucks in a sharp breath between his teeth. Confessing this feels like watching Katara’s face fall when Dad told them he was leaving for the war. “We killed people. Arnook is probably dead. If we stay, we’re not going to leave. We have to get Aang out of here.” 

“You what?” Aang’s voice isn’t pitchy. It’s almost hoarse. Still, the horror isn’t hard to miss. The look that he gives Sokka. It’s something that makes him ashamed to be alive. Sometimes there are moments when Aang does something that reminds Sokka of what he’s going to be, and that he’s not just an annoying kid who’s being wrangled into a long roadtrip. This is that. Aang looks old. Worn. Angry. 

That’s the Avatar, and he’s revolted with Sokka . 

“Boo-hoo, we can cry about it later,” Azula snaps, “we have to get to my ship before they get more water benders.” 

“We’re not going with you,” Aang says, before Katara or Sokka can even think to open their mouth. “Just take Zuko and go .” 

Azula’s answering grin is bitter and horrible and broken as she leans in close to Aang’s face and says, “Listen Avatar, I can either join your group, or I’ll do something unspeakably horrible to your friends. Your choice. My brother needs a healer. You’re an unwanted byproduct.” 

Katara grabs Aang’s arm when he takes a step forward. Sokka sucks in a sharp breath when the movement jostles the sword against Katara’s throat. A fine line of blood starts to trail down her skin. 

The three of them share a look. 

Katara’s eyes land on Zuko. Sokka watches the resolve settle and can’t help the rush of relief that crashes through him. “Aang,” her voice is soft, “we should help him if we can.” 

Sokka thinks that the kid is warring with the same thing Sokka is: the desire to help versus an instinctive need to protect at any cost--even if it’s selfish. But Aang is a better person that Sokka is, because it only lasts for a few tense seconds before he says, “Fine. But we’re taking Appa.” 

Azula’s sword draws back a fraction. “What the hell is an Appa?” 

Chapter Text

Sokka has grown used to packing in a hurry. He learned at a young age when to accept that he's never going to see something again. Sentimental items are to be kept on the person at all times or discarded. Right now shouldn't be any different, but it is. They've been here for weeks, Sokka had gotten comfortable. Stupidly. When the fire nation was on the horizon, Sokka hadn't thought he'd make it the night. Now, sorting as quickly as he can between priority items, all Sokka can think about is Yue. 

She saw him in that tunic. She laughed for the first time when he had that knife stuffed into his boot. She confessed she was engaged when he was using that hair tie. 

He shoves everything into bags with shaking hands. He can see Katara and Aang doing the same in his peripheral version. He wants to stop and demand answers from them. They keep looking at him, as if they're watching a spirit. Katara nearly slices her hand open on one of his hunting knives because of it. 

Sokka doesn't want to know what the look means. 

If they're relieved he's okay, or they're disappointed. His hand squeezes compulsively around his blanket at the thought. 

“Hurry up,” Azula hisses behind them. Her impatience is oozing into the room. Sokka had abandoned her brother to her when he went to pack. 

“We're going as fast as we can,” Katara says. 

There's a crash down the hall. All of them freeze. Sokka takes in a deep breath. “That's it, everything else gets left behind. Aang.” 

“Yeah,” Aang fumbles for his whistle. His hands are trembling. Sokka reaches out to squeeze his shoulder in reassurance. 

Sokka pulls on his coat and swings his pack over his shoulder. He grits his teeth against the swell of pain from the burn across his palm. The press of fabric against his skin makes his teeth ache. He'd rather have discomfort than frost bite again, but spirits.

There's more distant banging. 

Aang’s breathing has picked up. He blows the whistle again. 

“What are you doing ?” Azula demands. She's adjusted her grip on her sword. The blood slowly coagulating on the blade makes Sokka’s stomach turn. When does the violence get to stop? He's already grabbing his boomerang. Every other glance is directed toward the window. 

C’mon on, Appa. 

“I'm calling Appa,” Aang explains. Azula’s face had remained completely blank as the kid explained about the air bison. Either she doesn't know what it is, or she couldn't give less of a shit if she tried. Sokka thinks the latter. 

The door bursts open before Appa arrives. It's a half dozen water tribe soldiers. A few more water benders. Nothing unexpected, but the entire room goes still. Sokka stares down these people he's gone to war with, who he cleaned the streets with, went to funerals with, and tries to make himself see enemy . 

He can't. 

“ Katara ?” One of the water bender’s voice is thick with disbelief. “ You killed the Chief?”

“No,” Azula’s smile is sharp, “I did.” 

She doesn't even waste a second before swinging her sword at the threat. She misses by more than a foot, and the weapon slams sharply against the floor. She makes a noise in her throat as the movement over balances both her and her brother. They go crashing violently toward the floor together, a tangle of messy limbs and sharp objects. 

The soldiers still don't attack them. Sokka’s fingers have gone white around the boomerang. He moves toward Azula’s side, trying to help her up. He can hear the slosh of water in Katara’s hands, the faint dripping as droplets spill to the floor. 

Azula shoves his hands off, hissing, “ Fuck.” 

“What are you doing?” The male voice is loud, and familiar. Sokka goes stiff at it, hand clamping on Zuko’s limp bicep with more force than he intended. “Did they already escape? Who --” Hahn comes to a stop after shoving his way to the front. His eyes snap between Sokka and Ozai’s children. He goes an interesting shade of pale. “Sokka?” 

“Hahn.” 

“Spirits, what did they do to you?” Hahn whispers. 

Sokka scoffs. “Nothing.” 

That was kind of the point, wasn't it? 

Appa’s shadow fills the window. Aang makes a sound in the back of his throat, almost like a click. Momo lands on his head, making a louder noise, like he’s trying to establish dominance. 

One of the soldiers takes a half step forward, but Hahn grabs his arm to stop them. “No. Let them go.” 

Azula freezes. 

“Hahn,” Katara warns. She's ready to fight. Sokka would slide her all the way over to wanting to.

“Just go ,” Hahn insists. He's looking at Zuko now. 

Azula doesn't waste the opportunity. She fumbles for her sword, then shoulders her brother again, hauling him toward the window. Sokka grabs hold of the prince’s other arm to help. Katara and Aang are only half a step behind, the kid flipping backward to land on the air bison's head. 

No one tries to stop them. Sokka tries to take relief from that, and finds only renewed dread. 

000o000

It takes over an hour before Sokka stops shaking. Another one before he's able to breathe easily and press his back against the side of the saddle. The rush of adrenaline that's been carrying him through the last few days has left him to die, and Sokka is only glad for it. Every muscle hurts, and the pain in his arm is growing. But laying flat on his back, good arm tucked under his head, staring up at the sky, none of it matters. 

The sky is dark, but the stars are bright, and the Moon is calming. Not full, but any sliver of it Sokka can see only reminds him of Yue’s smile. 

Katara already dressed the worst of Zuko’s wounds. She’d healed what she could, and started on others. They don't have a lot of bandages, and no medication, but there's not much else they can do beyond wait for his fever to break. When Azula had asked about his face, Katara had grimaced and said that it would be better to wait until the morning before looking at it. 

Azula hadn't seemed happy. Sokka is getting the impression that's just kind of her default state. 

Now she's sitting at Zuko's head, almost hunched over him, visibly trying not to fall asleep. Sokka would think it was insulting if he didn't understand it so much. Azula is in the middle of a group of strangers with her half-dead brother prone in front of her. If their situation had been reversed, and Sokka was watching over Katara, the only reason he'd sleep is if he was dead.

He doesn't have any plans to do anything to Zuko. Not anymore. Not that he ever really did. He just feels tired. And nauseated. And, if he’s willing to stop lying to himself for ten seconds, protective. 

Your dad told you, on purpose, that he wants you dead? 

Katara sits down next to him eventually, settling on her back. Even in the darkness, Sokka can tell that her face is tight. 

“You were with Zuko,” Katara’s voice, when she finally speaks, is horrified. Sokka rolls his head to look at her on instinct, the urge to soothe that edge of panic rushing through him. “I didn't know. Sokka, I swear that I didn't know.” 

“I…” Sokka swallows thickly. He wants to tell her that he knew that, but he doesn't. “Aang saw me get arrested.” 

“We went to Arnook,” Katara explains, an edge of desperation entering her tone now. “And he said that you escaped custody. We thought…we were waiting for you to come back and you didn't. I thought…” his sister sucks in a shuddering breath. “Time kept passing and I thought you'd…you weren't going to come back.” 

A soft, mournful sound escapes her, and she reaches up to bite at the back of her hand. It's a habit that their mom used to do, one he hasn't seen Katara mimic in months. 

Sokka reaches out to grab her hand in the dark, and peel it back from her teeth. “Katara,” he's never been great with feelings. Not any that he can't joke about. He wants to reach deeply into whatever insecurities Katara is having and squeeze them away. “I would never leave you.” 

“You're so upset about Yue,” Katara whispers. “I-I didn't know you were with Zuko.” 

You should have , a dark, treacherous part of his mind hisses. What has Arnook done to prove himself trustworthy since his daughter died? Sokka wouldn't have believed shit. But Katara is only fourteen. Aang is twelve. They've never needed to develop the same mistrust for authority that Sokka has. They're not stupid, they're just kids. 

Kids who shouldn't have to deal with this. They shouldn't have had to see the grotesque massacre of Zuko’s face, or get threatened by the princess of the fire nation. This isn't fair. None of this is fair. 

Her face, Sokka. You should have seen what they did to her face. 

If it's anything like what Zuko looks like now, he understands why it's haunted her for years. Sokka sighs and presses a soft kiss to Katara’s forehead. “I'm here, okay?” 

“I'm sorry,” Katara buries her face into his shoulder. 

“I know,” he reassures. He tries for a weak smile and nudges her. “Hey, I gained a free royal family. Who can say they went to prison and got that ?” 

Katara cuffs his head, scraping her fingers across his wrist, and Sokka inhales sharply, jerking upright with an aborted sound. 

“Sokka?” Katara is panicked now. “What's wrong?” 

He tries to steady his breathing, clutching his wrist against his chest. It's just pain. He's been in pain before. It's fine. Breathe. Breathe. 

Aang is twisted around on Appa’s head. Azula’s head has raised. Sokka tries to ignore the scrutiny, focusing instead on Katara's fingers digging into his shoulder as she turns him. 

“I'm okay, it's not that bad,” he wheezes. He lets Katara take his hand, pulling up his sleeve. One of her hands goes back to her mouth, muffling the whispered curse. 

Sokka let's his eyes drop to the injury. It's still pretty dark, but even he can see the severe discoloration of his skin. The awkward shape of his fingers, like they're paralyzed in a spasm. 

Alright. So that's not ideal. It could definitely be worse, but it's not, uh, great .

Katara’s hands reach tentatively for him again. When she tries to stretch out his fingers, Sokka gasps, jerking the limb away from her without thinking. 

“Sokka,” Katara says. Just that. 

“I had to get the jelly-eel off of him,” Sokka explains through gritted teeth, “it was eating through his knee. I just--” he cuts himself off, jaw tight. He's not ashamed to have helped Zuko. He just wishes he could have thought of something else before sacrificing his hand. 

“Yeah,” Katara agrees, faint. She sucks in a breath. Looks up. “Azula, can you give me a flame to see by?” 

Azula’s eyes narrow. “So you'll look over him in the dark, but not my brother?” 

Katara’s mouth gets unhappy. “I told you, I don't want to put a concentrated flame near his eyes right now.” A hesitation. Longer. Then, “Azula, please .” 

He doesn't know what it is exactly that makes her cave, but it isn't the pleading. Maybe it's just annoyance. Azula sighs laboriously before scooting away from Zuko until she's close enough to touch Sokka. She doesn't, just lifts out her finger. It takes a second, then a sputtering, weak flame bursts to life at the end. It's red, and has nothing of the burning heat that Sokka has come to expect from other fire benders. 

It is enough to see by, and Sokka feels his mouth go completely dry. It doesn't feel real, looking at it. It's not his hand. It's something else entirely, an amputated arm he found discarded. One from the streets of Agna Qel'a. 

His skin is going black. Red, ugly purple. Shades of garish blue at the fingertips. It's weeping pus where skin was broken, and the putrid scent of rot makes salvia build in his mouth. 

His hand is rotting.

Skin all stretched up and wrong. Sokka didn't know that a jelly-eel did this. He's only heard stories about it burning the flesh, about how it was like acid. He didn't know it could do this. He didn't know it was poison. Not…not like this. 

He bites the inside of his of his lip until the pressure makes his head hurt. 

“Oh,” Aang’s voice is faint. Sokka’s head snaps up. He didn’t realize that the kid had left his perch on Appa’s head until that second, but the Avatar is leaning over him, his face trying for blank, but settling on an opaque gray. 

Sokka resists the urge to jerk his hand back and hide the injury. Protecting whatever innocence Aang had was probably a lost cause the moment he crawled out of the ice. Before that, even. 

Aang’s big eyes look up at him before he glances back at Zuko, whose limp on the other side of the saddle, breathing unsteady. When he catches Sokka’s gaze again, confusion is moldering into resignation. 

Spirits, Sokka hates this. 

“It’s really not that bad,” Sokka promises, “I mean. That’s why we’ve got two of everything, right? Spares. Look at this, I’ve got a whole functioning arm,” he flexes his hand out, stretching it out slow and awful before reaching up to scratch his fingers over the top of Aang’s head. It doesn’t have the exact effect of ruffling hair, but eh. The air bender flinches, head ducking on instinct, but he’s smiling when he looks back up. 

“Yeah, I guess you only need one,” he agrees weakly. He perks up some, eyes glinting to match Sokka. “Y’know… I use my feet more than my hands, I bet losing an arm wouldn’t even stop me from bending.” 

“Oh, really ?” Sokka challenges. “Go twenty-four hours without using one arm, I dare you. Start now.” 

Aang sticks out his tongue. “Easy.” 

Is he going to be able to use his arm? Is he going to have to lose it? Sokka had tried to prepare himself for the possibility of a lot when Dad left, but he’d always thought that the worst thing that would happen is death. Katara’s, mostly. But it had never really occurred to him that living could be just as much of a punishment. 

“Are you serious?” Azula’s voice cuts into whatever semblance of calm that Sokka managed to settle on Aang. The kid freezes immediately, and Sokka levels a murderous glare at her, one that the fire bender meets head-on. “How dare you make light of this. Your skin is rotting, you’ll likely need to lose the limb, which means that Zuzu’s face--” she cuts herself off, but the anger is still blistering. 

Oh. 

Sokka looks back down at his arm, imagines that across Zuko’s face instead. 

The nausea comes back with full force. 

“It wasn’t on his face that long,” Sokka tries to reassure. “He’ll be fine.” 

“Oh, I’m sure,” Azula snarls. The flame goes out with a sputtering hiss. The darkness is overwhelming, and it makes everything seem a lot less funny. Settles like a cold, dark blanket. Sokka takes in a deep breath. 

“I kept him alive,” Sokka promises, “we can deal with everything else.” 

“ You ?” Azula’s finger jams into his shoulder. She’s not nearly as afraid of breathing into someone’s personal space as Sokka thinks she should be. The ease with which she encroaches in makes him very aware of how used to being in control she is. “What did you do? Your beloved water tribe is the reason that my brother is dying. You may talk a big, whiny story about how the fire nation is wrong and terrorists, but what about you? This is the type of behavior we should strive to?”

A surge of anger rushes through Sokka. “You just murdered half the city!” 

Azula laughs. “Zuko wasn’t in the fight, you dum-dum.” 

“He kidnapped Aang!” Katara’s equal fury is a welcomed interjection. “I don’t agree with what happened, but if you were expecting everyone to be okay with the attack on Agna Qel'a, then you’re stupid.” 

Zuko’s sister makes a noise of disgust. Her finger withdraws from Sokka’s shoulder, which is probably good, because Katara looked like she was ready to lean over and bite it off. “My father was right about all of you.” 

Sokka rolls his eyes. “Uh-huh. Anything a genocidal maniac says is something we should accept into our worldview. Like father, like daughter, huh? I mean, you immediately murdered someone, so I guess I shouldn’t have expected anything different--” 

Azula’s hand, hot to the point of pain, wraps around his throat. Fingernails digging into the side of his neck, thumb pressing into his esophagus. Sokka releases a ragged noise, hands coming up to grab at her wrist instinctively. 

“ Sokka !” Katara shouts, and he hears the sound of water sloshing somewhere distant. It’s hard to hear anything over the rush of blood in his ears. 

“Say that again, barbarian.” Azula hisses. 

“Stop it!” Aang shouts. 

She isn’t letting up the pressure. Sokka slams his palm into her wrist weakly. His other hand won’t unclench enough for it to be useful to him. The idea of even trying makes him want to scream. 

There’s a rush of air, crackling and sharp over his ears. Azula gets yanked off of him, smashing harshly into the other side of the saddle next to her brother. Appa growls in warning, but all of them ignore him. 

Azula sucks in a gasping breath, hand coming up to her chest. That’s all that Sokka is privy to before Aang slides in front of him, staff held in both hands. 

Sokka inhales raggedly, coughing. He squeezes his eyes shut, blinking several times, but it doesn’t help with the instinctive watering. 

“Sokka,” Katara grabs his face with both her hands, “are you okay? Sokka?” 

“Fine,” Sokka rasps. His throat aches, but it’s nothing permanent. It’ll be sore, probably, but he doesn’t think that Azula squeezed hard enough that it’s in danger of any swelling. Still, his sister’s fingers prod along him, searching for damage. 

Katara’s hand lays flat on the side of his neck, over where Azula’s fingers pried. When she peels them back, he can see sticky blood. His own hand slaps over the area. It’s bleeding? Ow. Yeah. Definitely bleeding. Not a lot, but it’s enough to freak his sister out. 

“‘m good,” Sokka says again. “Katara. Promise.” 

She buries her face into his shoulder. Sokka takes in a deep breath, coughing roughly. 

Aang crouches in front of him. Sokka wishes that he had two functioning hands to pull the two of them against him. They’re freaked. Sokka is freaked. Azula is scowling at them from across Appa’s back, but if Sokka didn’t know better, he’d say that it was filled with more jealousy than anger. 

Katara splits the rest of the bandages in half and wraps Sokka’s hand. He knows that his little sister is exhausted, and he tries to protest her healing him, but the stubborn set to her shoulders makes it die in his throat. Katara needs to do this, and it’s not exactly hurting him to let her. He lets her take his hand, and he has to admit, being able to flex his fingers at all is actually kinda nice. 

He’d forgotten how much that he liked being able to do that until it wasn’t a viable option anymore.

Azula doesn’t try to kill anyone else before the sun rises, which Sokka takes as a win. Maybe a meager one, but gotta take them where they are. Katara sleeps in fits next to him, trades Aang out for steering Appa, but the kid just sits next to him, knees pulled up to his chest, and stares blankly at the big emptiness of the ocean around them. 

When the sunrise has passed, Aang directs Appa to land on a sea stack to rest, and he and the kid clamber off the saddle. Sokka’s legs are unsteady. He tips, smashing face-first into Appa’s leg. He pats the rough fur absently. “Good air bison. Favorite air bison, even.” 

“You don’t know any other air bisons,” Aang points out behind him. The kid sounds annoyingly awake for not having slept a wink all night. 

“Doesn’t mean he’s not my favorite.” Sokka grumbles. He raises his head, pinning the air bender beneath suspicious eyes. “Are you saying that Appa isn’t your favorite? You knew other air bisons you little traitor.” 

Aang looks horrified. “No, of course not.” 

Sokka snickers, moving to pick through their packs to dredge together some sort of breakfast one-handed. He keeps one eye up, where Katara and Azula are leaning over Zuko again. Time to cast judgement as come, and Sokka isn’t looking forward to what it’s going to be. He doubts that anyone is going to be happy with it. 

Sure enough, when Katara swings over the edge of the saddle, there's a stormy, furious look affixed to her. She makes a pointed gesture back toward Azula. “She's so--” Katara lets out a short, loud noise of frustration. 

Sokka rolls his eyes mildly. He stares down at the flint. He wonders if he can convince Aang to light the fire without making it obvious he can't use both his hands. “That's very descriptive, thank you, Katara.” 

“‘You must have failed all your classes’,” the mocking voice is high and irritated. Sokka spares a glance toward the saddle. He's decently sure that Azula can hear them. He’s also pretty sure his sister knows that. That doesn't seem to be a concern. “As if she's ever bothered to learn any healing. I bet she'd die from a paper cut.” Katara seethes. Then, darker, “I hope she dies from a paper cut. Her royal pain in the--” 

“How is Zuko doing?” Aang asks, pointedly. He's rifling through the pack for dishes. Sokka doesn't have the heart to tell him that he knows they don't have any. He saw them on his abandoned bed just before he jumped out the window. 

Katara deflates. Her voice drops a lot lower as she plops down next to him. “He's…it's bad.” 

“Is he going to die?” Aang is whispering, too, hands still over the pack. Katara shakes her head. 

“I don't think so. Well. I hope not. His fever is lower but he still hasn't woken up. He's not getting back use of his eyes.” 

Sokka's eyes drop to his hand before he can stop himself. 

Aang exhales sharply. It's not anger or disappointment, and when Sokka looks up at his face, it's impossible to read. The kid is normally an open book, and this sudden, stiffness makes Sokka suspicious. 

“Are you sure?” Sokka asks. 

“Yeah,” Katara brushes stray hair from her face. “Maybe a more advanced healer could do something, but I don't want to accidentally rupture something. The face is tricky.” 

“You're a great healer,” Aang reassures. 

Katara huffs. It's surprisingly bitter. Sokka nudges her knee. She sighs. “I just-- I spent so much time trying to get them to teach me to fight, and the skill I really needed to know was healing .” Her face sours. 

Sokka grimaces at the irony. Yeah. That's real funny. Universe is having a big ol’ chuckle at their expense, he's sure. 

“How'd Azula take it?” Sokka gestures to his face. 

And just like that, the bitterness is swept away and replaced with deep irritation. It's an expression that even Sokka hasn't been able to get from her in a while. Katara isn't someone blessed with endless patience, especially for people she doesn't like to begin with, but it takes effort to get on her nerves to this extent. Azula clearly put in that effort, time, and consideration. 

“Poorly,” Katara says darkly. 

“Denial,” Sokka nods knowingly.

“Being a bitch.” Katara corrects in a mutter. Aang gives her a look for the language. They've long since grown immune to it. Sokka is sure they'll break him down eventually, too. 

Since they have no bowls, it limits their options for breakfast. Katara recongizes his one-hand problem almost immediately and shoos him off to take care of preparation herself. Sokka finds his mood dropping at being regulated to the helpless pile. 

Breakfast is long and awkward. Aang manages to coax Azula down from her brother, but their options are pretty limited given the circumstances. Mostly they just eat dried berries and meat. Sokka and Katara bully Aang into eating their one roll, cause the kid won't touch the jerky. 

Azula, to her credit, doesn't complain. Much. Her eyebrows raise with judgement, and she makes faces, but she doesn’t sit and bemoan the lack of usual royal accommodations. Which is good. Katara probably would have tackled her. 

Azula eats at the edge of the sea stack, lands dangling over the side, and with her back to them, it's impossible to read her expression. Part of him is relieved to not have to monitor someone else.

“Let me see your hand,” Katara orders. Sokka obediently offers it to her. She unwraps the bandage enough to take a peak, lips setting into a thin line of unhappy. 

“What are we going to do now?” Sokka asks. 

“We'll watch it to see if there's any further decay and then--” 

“No,” Sokka interrupts, “I mean about them.” 

Aang frowns. “I don't know. We can't just leave them here. Zuko needs a healer.” 

“They're Ozai's kids,” Sokka points out, “and you're the Avatar. We can't exactly take them with us. We've gotta get you to…” well, actually they don't have to get Aang anywhere, do they? They already made it to the water tribe. Mission accomplished. Now what? “I don't know. The earth kingdom, right? You need a teacher.” 

Aang looks miserable at the reminder. “Cause that worked out for Agna Qel’a.” 

“Aang,” Katara admonishes, “that wasn't your fault.” 

“I know,” Aang says. He holds out a handful of berries to Momo, who crawls closer to sniff them. The little demon has been clinging to Aang like he's the only one who won't eat him since they left. Sokka feels bad about it, but not enough to put any effort into helping the lemur relax. “I just…I don't want anyone else to get hurt.” 

It's a little late for that. 

“I know, bud,” Sokka promises, “but the fire nation isn't going to stop.” 

“So…” Katara releases a soft sigh. “Ba Sing Se?” 

“I guess,” Aang doesn't sound happy about it. “I want to talk to Bumi first.” 

“Didn't he like adamantly refuse to teach you while trying to kill us?” Sokka points out. The words are more dry than he intended for them to be, but he didn’t walk away with warm fuzzies about the guy. 

Aang levels a sour expression at him instead. “He was just trying to play a game. He wouldn't have hurt anyone. Bumi isn't like that.” 

Sokka’s ribs remember being systematically crushed a little differently than Aang. “Sure, bud.” 

Internally, he groans. He doesn’t want to talk to Bumi again, he very much does not want to talk to Bumi again, but he also gets how important the relationship between a mentor and a student can be, and if Aang wants to be picky, Aang gets to be picky. Sokka can give him that, at least. The kid barely made any progress with water bending when they were in the capital of it, like the only person he has ears for is Katara. 

“Okay, so Omashu, then somebody else or Ba Sing Se if King Bumi is…reluctant,” Sokka agrees. Murderous again, he adds mentally. Katara seems to pick up on his unspoken thought because she smacks his knee. Ow. What, does she remember being crushed differently? Because it wasn’t like getting cuddled. For the spirits’ sake, what is wrong with these two? 

Katara nods. “What about…?” she lets her eyes drift toward Azula’s back. 

Sokka finds, to his great displeasure, that the thought of dumping the two in the middle of Omashu, waving, and then letting Zuko to succumb to his injuries leaves a bad taste in his mouth. Leaving them doesn’t feel like a viable option any more than killing them does. For all his faults, Sokka can’t say that execution is one. Maybe that makes him a bad protector. He wonders if Dad would have had any problems with it, or he would have just put the two out of their misery. 

Azula jams her sword into the ground, using it as a make-shift crutch to shove herself upward. She turns toward them, and her expression is perfectly calm. Sokka can tell that she’s furious. “You agreed to help my brother,” she says, cold. “I would hope that even to a settlement as backwards as the southern water tribe, your word would mean something.” 

They really can’t help themselves, can they? Sokka bites the inside of his cheek. 

“We’re not going to let him die, he’s just a kid.” Aang says, standing up to look up at her. He’s got his Avatar voice on, the one that makes him sound a little older than twelve, but not by much. The problem with Aang, Sokka has come to learn, is that he constantly wants to mediate. The real world doesn’t always function with mediation. Sometimes, the only thing that can resolve issues is the threat of blood. Azula seems to understand this, which is terrifying. 

The girl presses a her hand against her chest. “How…sentimental. I didn’t realize you cared so much, Avatar.”

Aang bristles with-- protectiveness . Sokka stares at him, completely and utterly baffled. The last thing that Zuko did was kidnap him, drag him out of the middle of the fight which nearly let the Moon get destroyed. All the prince did before that was chase them across the world. When, in the midst of any of this, has Aang had the time to get attached? 

“You don’t need to be so mean,” Aang says, “we’ll help you even if you aren’t.”

“I’m a mean person,” Azula promises, which neatly skirts around any sort of accountability. 

Katara has gotten up to her feet as well, and Sokka drags himself upright so he’s not the only person sitting down. The change in elevation makes him dizzy. He has to grit his teeth to fight the urge to sway. 

“Our priority is Aang,” Katara says, flat, “and if you compromise his safety in any way, you’ll find I can be a mean person, too.” 

“Please. If I was going to-” 

“I’m not done. You’re the daughter of Ozai,” Katara interrupts, “tell me one reason why we should trust that you won’t betray us and take Aang the moment we’re in cinvialzation.” 

Azula’s teeth set. It takes her a moment to speak, and the words are more measured, less biting, but her eyes are strangely dead. “Zuko’s wellbeing is the only thing that matters to me anymore. Ozai is a bastard. Take care of my brother, and I won’t do anything to your precious Avatar.” 

Sokka stares at her, and tries not to feel unsettled by the statement. He doesn’t know why it bothers him so much, only that it does. He’d heard all of Zuko’s never ending loyalty for his father a few days ago, despite Ozai’s terrible parenting choices. All the fire nation soldiers that Sokka has spoken to have done the same thing. He’s never heard one flagratenly disown him like this. 

“Okay,” Aang agrees, “we’ll help Zuko, I promise.” 

Azula huffs and returns toward Appa’s side. She struggles to get herself up, like she’s afraid to put any pressure on her feet or ankles, which makes it kind of rough, but then she’s gone, back to haunt her brother’s side. 

Sokka whirls on Aang, and hisses, low and sharp, “Okay, spill.” 

“What?” Aang’s enormous eyes get bigger somehow, wide with innocence. The little shit knows exactly what Sokka is talking about, but has spent far too much of his life in trouble to admit it immediately. Jokes on him, Sokka helped raise Katara, and he absolutely was a part of his own upbringing. “Spill what?” 

Sokka jabs at Aang’s shoulder until Momo makes a loud sound and hops onto Sokka’s shoulder, staring beady eyes down at the kid, too. 

“Sokka,” Katara tries. 

“You and Zuko,” Sokka jabs Aang again, who is finally starting to look the barest edge of annoyed. “What’s up with you? Do you have a crush or something? Because I promise that there are waaaay better options.” 

Aang goes red all the way up to the tips of his ears, and weirdly, his gaze flicks toward Katara before coming back to Sokka. “No! That’s not what this is.” 

“Okay, then what is it, Mr. Goody-Goody?” 

“I just--” Another jab. And another. Aang finally grabs his wrist to stop him. “ Stop it! He saved me.” 

Sokka blinks. Katara blinks. He thinks the universe blinks. Katara says, toneless, “What? When?” 

Aang takes a half step back. “After you guys got sick, and I had to go get those frozen frogs,” Sokka has vague memories of this, mostly just dreaming about his mom’s hands on his hair and then waking up to something horrible and slimy in his mouth, and Aang’s terrified, wide-eyes looking down at him. “I got captured by the fire nation.” 

“What,” Sokka’s voice is flat.

Aang’s shoulders creep up higher, but his eyes look so old suddenly. Sad. “I just--I don’t think that he’s all bad, I guess. No one ever really is. I don’t know if we can be friends, but I want to try and help.” 

Sokka shares a long look with Katara. He can see the same grim acceptance he feels in her face. Aang and his stupid heart is definitely going to get them killed. Sokka pulls his eyes away, returns them to the kid, and forces himself to say, “Aang, how did you meet Bumi?” 

“Huh?” Aang snaps back to attention, and that look is replaced with confusion. 

“You’re trying to make friends with someone who killed you, and Bumi tried to kill us , and now you’re making me question your ability to pick friends. Is the attempted murder requirement before or after you talk to them?” 

Aang sputters. “Hey! That’s not what happened!” 

Katara laughs, loud and unexpected next to him, and Sokka allows himself the satisfaction of seeing her smile to ease something tight in his stomach. “Sure it’s not,” his sister teases. 

“ Katara !” Aang whines. 

They clean up, and they’re back in the air after about another hour. Aang reclaims his perch on the front, and Sokka circles around the saddle for a few minutes as he restlessly scratches at the skin above the bandages and pretends he has feeling in his fingers. After a while though, he finally finds himself stopped in front of Zuko and Azula.

Azula’s head is bowed over her lap, elbows resting on her sword, which is lain over her crossed legs like a board. She looks up at him through messy framing pieces of hair to glare. 

Zuko is on his back, hands resting on his stomach, leg propped beneath one of their travel packs. Probably to reduce swelling, but it doesn’t seem like it’s helping much. Like Sokka’s hand, his knee is bent at an awkward angle, like it got stuck in a cramp and never released. He can see a thick wad of bandages starting just below his knee nearly to his hip. 

His face has an ice pack pressed against half, held in place with a secure wad of cloth. His breathing is unsteady still, and he looks like shit. Thin, pale, and exhausted, even though he’s unconscious. The little skin that Sokka can see peaking out from underneath the bandages on Zuko’s face is that same blistering purple and black that his hand is. 

Sokka’s fingers squeeze instinctively. 

Azula’s glare intensifies. “What do you want?”

“How is he doing?” Sokka asks. 

Azula’s hand moves to the hilt of her sword. “He’s fine.”

Okay, nevermind. This line of questioning is not neutral. Sokka shifts gears, crouching a little, so he’s not leaning over her anymore. “Can I ask you something?” Azula’s narrowed eyes challenge him, but she says nothing, so Sokka considers that a yes. “Did something happen with your dad? Zuko said that his dad wants him dead, but he still practically worships the guy, but you…don’t seem to like him that much.” 

Azula cold eyes stare back at him. For a long minute, Sokka doesn’t think she’ll answer him, then she releases the hilt of her weapon. “The Fire Lord doesn’t tolerate imperfections, and I am full of them. I’m under no illusions as to being able to earn back his love like Zuzu is.” 

Sokka frowns. “What does that mean?” 

Azula smiles, but the expression is without mirth. “Our father sent him to find the Avatar three years ago.”

Sokka does some rapid math. “But Aang wasn’t--” 

“Exactly,” Azula interrupts. “He was never supposed to come home. Zuko hates me, and I hate him, but he’s all that I have now. That has to mean something.”

Azula’s voice is cold, but Sokka can hear the undercurrent of fear and desperation in it. And he thinks he understands, maybe better than anyone hear, what she’s feeling. Because if Zuko doesn’t accept her, and doesn’t want to keep her, then who will? 

Sokka stares between the two siblings, and all he can dredge up is a wealth of pity. What the hell, Sokka thinks, almost wild, did Ozai do to you two?   But maybe a better question would be what didn't he? 

Chapter Text

Zuko is unconscious for the remainder of the day, and well into the next morning. Traveling is long, and mostly tedious, only broken up by Katara having to fish with bending, attempting to teach Aang, and this resulting in a water fight that left both of them soaked and he and Azula mostly annoyed and still hungry. 

Sokka’s exhaustion finally gets the better of him after dinner, and he passes out before the sun has even set, only waking up when Katara shakes him to check on his fever and his hand before rolling over and letting the entire world pass him by again. He dreams about the cell. The cold creeping into his bones, and the nauseating pulse of panic and pain in his stomach. He dreams about Zuko’s screaming, and the numbing sensation of peeling the jelly-eel off of him. 

He dreams that Aang is there with them, and when Sokka pulls off the jelly-eel, it lands on the kid instead, and his gut-wrenching cries is what snaps Sokka awake with a hiss of panic. Aang is fine, he always is, sleeping soundly next to him for once. For someone so young, Aang has a lot of nightmares. That’s what his dad would say, at least. Sokka and Katara have always had plenty, and Sokka never understood why it bothered his dad so much when Katara couldn’t sleep through the night for almost a year after Mom died. Gran-Gran always waved away Dad’s concern, though, saying that it was to be expected given the war. 

Aang didn’t grow up in the war, but he still sleeps like he did. 

Sokka closes his eyes again, settles his breathing, and feels Aang’s small hand clasp his. Sokka squeezes it back, but the contact helps him relax, finger pressed up against Aang’s pulse point. The kid is fine. He isn’t in any pain. He wasn’t in the cell, and neither was Katara. The only one who shares that horror with him is Zuko. 

Zuko, who comes to groggily nearly thirty-six hours after passing out in Agna Qel’a, while Sokka is convincing himself he doesn’t want to rot on the saddle, and he is hungry enough to get up, even if Azula, Katara, and Aang are all arguing about fish again. 

Zuko’s voice is thin, and confused, but mostly scared. “Sokka?” 

Sokka’s head snaps up at the sound, and he all but throws himself into a seated position to pin his eyes on the prince, certain that he imagined it. Zuko is trying vainly to reach up for the bandage wrapped over his eye, missing it every pass, nearly jabbing himself in the other eye for good measure. 

Sokka moves across the saddle, grabbing Zuko’s hand to stop him. The fire bender flinches violently, his breath escaping him in one gust. “Hey, hey, hey. You’re good, it’s okay,” Sokka promises, “it’s just me.” 

Zuko’s breathing isn’t steady. “Where are we?” his voice is trying for authoritative, and failing. “It’s warm.”

Sokka’s stomach twists. It isn’t. It’s cold enough that Sokka hasn’t bothered to remove his coat. They’d bundled Zuko in every spare blanket that they had, and he knows that Azula has been trying to keep the worst of the frost bite out of his fingers, but it’s still cold enough to warrant complaining, and Zuko still fixates on the warmth.

The cell had been cold, in a way that even death isn’t. Because death is the slow, creeping sensation of losing heat. Of there having been any to begin with. But that cell, it wasn’t like that. It was only cold. So cold that it ached. 

“We’re out,” Sokka decides on, easing into it. “We’re okay. Promise.” He pats the teen’s chest twice before leaning back, looking for his sister’s long hair in the blur of people on the beach. They only landed ten minutes ago, how could Katara have disappeared that quickly? She’s not Aang, who has the tendency to vanish like a goblin creature. He spots Azula and Aang kneeling over the fire, Aang settling some smaller sticks into the cabin method for lighting that Sokka has been teaching him. Azula is lighting some smaller brush, looking like the fire is a personal insult to her. 

No little sister. 

“Katara!” Sokka shouts, “Katara, get up here now!” 

 At the sound of his voice, Azula’s head snaps up. 

Zuko’s free hand clenches around Sokka’s wrist, the grip white. He’s trying to drag himself upright, his face clenching with pain as his leg is jostled. 

“Sokka,” he’s so fucking scared. He didn’t think that Zuko knew how to be afraid. The idiot challenged Katara to a duel on a full moon, lost, badly, and then had the audacity to ask her for a rematch. 

The terror pulls on something in Sokka’s chest, makes something instinctively protective claw to the surface. “Breathe,” Sokka instructs, loosening his grip and wiggling until he can clasp Zuko’s hand instead, squeezing. “Hey, we’re good. Katara is my sister. She’s been trying to heal you.” 

Zuko is frozen for another second before he shudders. “The water bender.” 

“Yeah,” Sokka’s smile is weak. “The water bender. Taking her sweet time. Katara!” This time the yell makes Zuko wince. “Sorry.” 

Aang lands on the saddle, a rush of air skittering across the floor and ruffling Sokka’s hair. The kid’s balance isn’t even offset in the slightest even though he dropped about ten feet, freaking air benders, and he rushes toward them, staff clenched in both hands, looking for a fight. “What’s wrong? Sokka?” 

“Nothing’s wrong.” Sokka reassures, “Zuko’s awake.” 

Aang’s shoulders drop, the relief obvious. “Oh.” 

“Will you get her?” Sokka asks. “Where is she?” 

“Fishing,” Aang explains. His eyes land on Sokka and Zuko’s clasped hands, flick toward Zuko’s unseeing eyes, then he nods. “I’ll be right back.” He swings over the edge of the saddle, shouting another “Katara!” as he goes. 

“The Avatar is here,” Zuko says, the words almost flat. Sokka shrugs. The fire bender takes a deliberate breath, hunching over himself. He doesn’t let go of his hand, and that, more than anything, lets Sokka know how unsettled he is. 

Azula makes it before Katara does. She swings her legs over the side, sees her brother and goes still. Her eyes get wide. For the first time, she actually looks younger than Zuko does. Her mouth moves for a second, then she sees Sokka staring at her, and her face gets hard again. 

“Hey, Zuzu,” Azula’s voice is even. She doesn’t get closer, just stands next to the edge like she’s braced for a quick retreat if necessary. 

Zuko’s head raises. He doesn’t quite stiffen. He doesn’t really anything. It’s not until his breathing hitches that Sokka realizes that he was looking for relief. Even though he was angry with Katara and Aang for doing nothing, he was still glad to see them. He still felt safe, like he could breathe easy and leave his back exposed, but Zuko isn’t like that. Neither is Azula. If anything, they both look like they’re in more danger. 

“Azula?” Zuko’s free hand comes back to peel at the bandage over his eye. Sokka swats his hand back. “What are you doing here?”

“Good to see you too,” Azula scoffs. “Thank you for rescuing me, dearest sister. Thank you for bothering to answer the ransom, dearest sister. Thank you, Azula.” 

Zuko’s expression gets annoyed. His fingers go bone-white over Sokka’s. “Where is Father?” 

Azula’s eyes shudder. “He’s not here.” 

That makes Zuko relax, of all things. He stops trying to break Sokka’s tendons with sheer force of will, slumping, taking in a deep, unsteady breath. Azula watches it. Her arms fold across her chest, and the self-comforting gesture is almost glaring with how obvious it is. 

Sokka doesn’t know where to start with them. He can’t imagine being that scared of Dad.

He forces himself to focus, turning back toward Zuko. The idea of facing his back to Azula makes his skin crawl and itch. She still has a sword. If she decides that Sokka isn’t being helpful to her brother, he’s under no illusions that she’ll cut him out of Zuko’s social circle. “You don’t remember her being here? What’s the last thing you remember?”  

Zuko releases Sokka’s hand finally, only to press his palms against his forehead. His fingers scrape against the rough frizz of his hair. It’s longer than Sokka thought it would be, but it’s been what? Two? Three weeks since they cut it off? 

“Uncle was there,” Zuko says after a moment, “they…the Chief had a fish?”

“Yeah,” Sokka confirms. The fire bender hadn’t been nearly as terrified as he should have when the fish was brought into the room. Sokka wonders if he even knew what it was before it was dumped onto his face. Prince Iroh, at least, had been aware, and he’d been terrified enough for both of them. 

“I remember pain.” 

“Yeah,” Sokka’s voice is quieter. “Me too.” 

Zuko’s tongue runs nervously over his lower lip. His head raises again, like he’s trying to search out Azula. “Father answered the ransom? Uncle said…I thought that he wouldn’t…” the slightest edge of suspicion now, “why did he send you? ”

Azula rolls her eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself, Zuzu. Father didn’t send anyone. Do you really think you’re that important to him?” 

Zuko flinches.

“Hey,” Sokka snaps. “Write the attitude smaller, princess.”

Azula sneers at him. Sokka has rarely been this tempted to hit someone. Before he can act on the urge, Katara and Aang return from Katara’s banishment. She ignores Azula entirely, moving toward Zuko. Sokka shifts out of the way, letting his sister drop to her knees in front of the fire bender. 

“Hey, Zuko,” her voice is surprisingly gentle for all the wariness in her body language. “It’s good to see you up. I’m going to check your fever.”

Zuko doesn’t argue. Katara rests her hand against his forehead, front and back, frown deepening. She pinches the inside of his forearm, watches the skin tent for long seconds, then turns back toward Aang. “Get him some water, Aang?” 

“On it,” the kid chirps, and he’s gone again. How can so much energy be stored in a body so tiny? 

“Are you in any pain?” Katara asks Zuko, reaching up to his face, starting to gently peel back the bandages. Azula does come closer now, looking morbidly disgusted and resigned. 

“It could be worse,” Zuko answers after a moment, fingers fisting in the blankets strewn on his lap. 

Katara doesn’t look reassured by that answer, which is fair, because it doesn’t really answer the question. Any pain can technically be worse. They want to know what the pain level is now, not what the potential could be. 

“Bud,” Sokka mutters, rubbing his fingers across his glabella with force. 

Katara finishes pulling off the bandages. Sokka feels his breath hitch, staring at the damage. He doesn’t know if it’s as bad as it was after the initial injury, or it’s worse now, because he didn’t have enough light to see it by properly. Historically, a rotting corpse doesn’t make for the best light source. 

The discoloration is what Sokka notices first. The burned tissue over his left is a deep red in the center, getting lighter as it circles outward. The mark from the fish is like a trail of oozy blood. It’s scabbed over mostly, but that only makes the vicious streak of red more obvious. Sokka can see the impact that the jelly-eel made, than the trail of the fins, and where it slid off his cheekbone to land in his lap. It landed on his eye socket. 

Azula and Katara are both indifferent to this sight. They’ve probably seen it too many times to be affected by it anymore, but Sokka’s stomach turns violently. Chief Arnook didn’t almost kill Zuko, he definitely took his other eye. Sokka abruptly understands why Katara didn’t want to try and touch that. He doesn't think that he would either. The damage is in the eye, it’s not just the skin around it, or the tissue having gone inflamed in warning. 

Sokka bites his lower lip. 

Zuko grimaces, trying to squint his eye open to little success, making a low noise of pain. He slaps his hand over his eye, fingers scratching sharply into his scalp, breathing in.  

“Don’t,” Katara warns quickly, reaching out to grasp his shoulder, “don’t open your eyes yet, okay?” 

Zuko’s breath hitches. “What’s wrong with it?” There’s an edge to his voice that makes Sokka’s heartrate pick up speed and he bites his lower lip compulsively. He looks at Katara’s profile, but her face is just as unhappy as he is. 

“Nothing,” Sokka blurts and Katara slaps his arm. “ Ow . Okay, so it’s not great. I’m trying not to freak him out.” 

Zuko gasps in, once. Katara, glaring, reaches out to grab his wrist and gently tug it away from his face. “Hey, we’re working on it, alright? We don’t know anything definitive. Can I see?” 

Zuko doesn’t look like he wants her to, but he doesn’t fight her. Just lets her pull back his hand and gently prod along the edge of the scab. Her face gets less grim the more she pokes at it, though, which Sokka is tentatively taking as a good sign before she opens her mouth. “The damage is a lot better today,” she says, like Zuko’s face couldn’t be a demon in the spirit world.

“I can’t see,” Zuko says. 

Katara sits back, “Anything?”

Zuko squints at her. Sokka thinks that he’s trying to glare, but it’s kind of muted by the whole it-hurts-to-move-face-mucles thing, so it mostly just comes across as vaguely pathetic. “It’s…blurry. Like I’m seeing shadows.” 

Katara frowns. It’s obvious to Sokka that she has no idea what that means long-term, but Azula folds her arms over her chest, and snaps, “What?” 

“I don’t know,” Katara says, then guesses, “It could be a sign of his sight coming back, but I’m not sure without having a basis point. We’ll just have to keep watching it. When the swelling goes down, I think that will help.” 

Sure. 

But that doesn’t negate the jelly-eel trying to burn through his eyeball. But whatever. Hold onto the hope for the future and everything. Things will get better if they have a positive enough attitude, that’s exactly how this works. 

Aang returns with the water, and Katara checks over Zuko’s leg while he slowly drinks from the waterskin. Sokka had sort of forgotten about the damage, but the wrinkled, blistered tissue is actually worse around his knee that it is his face. Sokka looks over his memories of dragging a hobbling Zuko out of the cell in a new light. Zuko wasn’t trying to be frustrating, that much is obvious, he’d just been in too much pain to even walk by himself. 

The thought is sobering.

“Let’s get some food in you,” Katara decides about Zuko, and then that’s that. Azula lingers nearby, like she wants to reach out and touch him to make sure he’s real, but instead, she maintains a careful distance and watches. 

Sokka eyes them with a frown. He can’t remember ever being that afraid of Katara. 

Zuko tires out quickly, feverish and exhausted, and within an hour he’s curled back up to sleep again. Sokka leaves him to it, and goes to help Katara with preparing the extra fish to make some jerky they can take with them on the way. Mostly, he’s regulated to settling them inside of the pan on the fire and watching to make sure they don’t overcook while they dehydrate. 

Then everything is loaded back up onto Appa, and they’re heading back toward Omashu, Sokka studying the map, scrutinizing their current trajectory. 

Azula approaches him after a few minutes of this. Her face is steel, and her fingers are flexed out, like she’s nervous but trying to hide it. She’s doing a good job, because she just looks pissed off. “You should know something,” she decides. 

Sokka immediately feels dread ooze down his spine. “What do I need to know?” 

“Omashu,” Azula says the word stiffly, “it’s fire nation territory.” 

Omashu is--wait, what? Sokka stares at her. He looks back down at the map. Stares at her again. He sits back on his heels. “You didn’t think to mention this earlier?” 

Azula’s glaring, like he’s the one that wronged her somehow. “It wasn’t relevant information.” 

“Wasn’t relevant--we’ve been going to Omashu since yesterday!” Sokka is going to hit her with this map, just this once. Zuko won’t know. It’s not like he can see, and he’ll blackmail Aang and Katara into silence. It will be fine. Just one little knock-out smack. Sokka throws up his hands. “Unbelievable.” 

“I told you now, didn’t I?” Azula asks, irritated. 

“Yeah, but I would kind of liked to know before I psyched myself up to seeing the guy who crushed me one time,” Sokka counters. With retrospect, he probably shouldn’t yell at her, because now he’s only ensuring that she won’t come to him in the future with new information, making it a big, bad, scary thing. But he’s also so irritated that he can’t breathe. “Whatever. Spirits. Aang, did you get all of that?” 

Aang did, he’s twisted around in the saddle, looking like a hit puppy. “Is Bumi dead?” 

Azula shrugs. That nervous jitter again, like she’s expecting them to shove her off the side of Appa for whatever comes out of her mouth. Sokka doesn’t like that look very much. He’s irritated with her, but not enough to kill her. “Last that I heard he was, but I don’t attend many of my father’s war councils.” 

Well. Yeah. She’s like fifteen or sixteen. How old is Zuko? Seventeen? His late teens, Sokka thinks. Not much older than he is. Dad would never let Sokka sit in on a war council, and he’s fifteen, not a child anymore, despite what Dad kept insisting to him. Sokka had always found it kind of bitterly funny when Dad would decide he was just a kid, and too young for anything. Too young for a war council, the one that took his parents and most of the village men away, old enough to be left in charge of more than fifty people, while raising his sister. 

But the point is--Azula is young . Why would she have that information? That’s something that Prince Iroh would have. Someone who is actually involved in the war. Azula isn’t. Honestly, until Zuko decided to become the largest pain in the ass known to man, Sokka didn’t know that he wasn’t all cozy in the palace, hiding from the war with the rest of his family. 

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Katara promises with a smile. 

Sokka bites his tongue to stop himself from saying anything. They really don’t need his growling pessimism right now. Given how quickly the fire nation is willing to decide an execution or slaughter is in order, he doubts that Bumi is alive. Probably not fine , to say the least. 

“Okay, great,” Sokka interrupts his rapidly souring thoughts, “so Ba Sing Se?” 

“I don’t know any other earth benders,” Aang says, quiet. He sounds…nervous. The kid has never met a social hurdle he wasn’t willing to throw himself into head-first. “What if we can’t find someone who wants to teach me?” 

“You make friends expeditiously,” Sokka reassures, “trust me. I don’t think you’d be able to not find a new teacher.” 

Aang doesn’t look reassured.

Sokka isn’t either. He doesn’t say anything about it, just grits his teeth and buries his face back into the map.  

000o000

After they make camp on a beach again, near a dense forest with a small town in the distance, Sokka wakes up to the sound of a sharp of someone breathing hard. Panicking. He’s already rolling over, groggy but painfully conscious before he registers what he’s doing. He groggily stares out at the campsite for Katara, but she’s still asleep, breathing easily on his left. Just past her, Aang is on his back, face relaxed. 

Sokka’s eyes move from them to Azula and Zuko. 

Azula is sitting up, hunched over herself, breathing heavily into her hands, breaths unsteady and hitching. She’s not crying, but it kind of sounds like she wants to. Sokka frowns. He watches her for a second, debating with himself about whether or not he should get up. Azula doesn’t really strike him as the type of person who would want to have this pointed out, but she’s also just…she’s a kid, like Aang is. Sokka doesn’t really want to leave her alone in this. She seems--

Scared. 

Not just unsettled, but that terrified, dark thing that crawls to the forefront of Katara when she dreams about their mom again. 

Ultimately, before he gets the chance, Zuko releases a soft breath before reaching out to rest a hand on her arm. 

Azula flinches, twisting to look down at him. 

“‘Zula?” Zuko says, softer than Sokka had been expecting. “Y’kay?” 

He thinks it’s the most that the two have said to each other the entire day. Azula and Zuko don’t talk to each other. It’s weird. Sokka isn’t meaning to spy on them, but he’s disgustingly curious about them, and he can’t seem to stop himself. Besides, they’re stuck on an air bison, and it’s not like they have a lot of things to look at except each other. 

Zuko has the excuse of being more asleep than not, but whenever he is awake, it’s like he’s doing his best to avoid his younger sister’s existence at all costs. Azula isn’t like that. She’s orbiting her brother in a way that’s obnoxious and deeply pathetic, but she still won’t talk to him, just looks at him, like that will fix all of their problems. 

Sokka doesn’t know if this is a result of the northern water tribe, or if their relationship has always functioned in silence.

It seems lonely. 

Azula’s expression gets tight. “Everything’s fine, Zuzu. Go back to sleep.” 

Zuko does. Azula doesn’t seem surprised by that, instead getting to her feet and moving further into the tree line. Sokka waits a second before slowly crawling up after her. She’s taken perch next to a tree, her body one tense line. Her hair is down, messy across her face as she runs her fingers through it.

It makes her look older. 

“Hey,” Sokka whispers. She doesn’t startle. Must’ve heard him get up, then, because Sokka has spent too much time hunting on ice to not be quiet when he walks. “Are you…” he has to clear his throat. “Are you good?” 

“Fine,” Azula doesn’t even look back at him. The dismissal is pointed, and cold. Sokka doesn’t move. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

Azula does spare him her attention, but it’s only to scowl. “What,” her voice has dropped with venom, “makes you think that I want to talk about this with you?” 

Sokka withdraws. He glares back, folding his arms across his chest. Spirits, he doesn’t know why he bothers with anyone. There’s a reason that the only people that he watches out for are Katara and Aang. At least they give a shit when he wants to help them. They don’t make him feel this insignificant. 

“Nothing,” Sokka mutters, “I was just offering. Whatever. Go back to your beach moping, princess. I’m going back to bed.” 

He turns, intending to do just that, but stops at Azula’s stilted, “Beach moping?” 

She doesn’t want to be left alone, if she’s reaching that low for something to keep him here. Sokka debates about being an asshole and continuing to leave versus the merits of somewhat having Azula on their side. Azula their friend equals Aang safer for longer, and that ultimately wins over. Sokka looks back at her. “Standing forlornly, contemplating the mysteries of the universe, but you’re really just moping with existential dread.” 

Azula blinks. 

Sokka shrugs, “It works better on a beach. Ocean is less judgemental than trees for some reason.” 

“You speak from experience then, I take it?” Azula asks, heavy with her judgement. Killjoy. 

Sokka takes in a deep breath, exhales it slow and patiently. He studies the angles of her face he can see from this angle. Like most fire benders, Azula’s eyes glimmer softly in the dark, reflecting like an animal’s. It’s unsettling. “Can I ask you a question?” Sokka drops all pretenses of banter. Azula’s face blanks, fist tightening in her armor. “Why are you afraid of Zuko?” 

Azula clearly hadn’t been expecting that question, because her expression twists with open surprise. “What?” 

“Did he hurt you?” Sokka is trying to keep the grimmness out of his voice. When Sokka was five or six, there was a boy that he used to play with who was covered in bruises all the time. Sokka had eventually fessed up to Mom, who confronted the boy’s mother, only to learn that it wasn’t her. The boy’s brother had been hitting him after fights with her. It had been a mess for a few weeks, while the village tried to sort out what to do with them. Sokka remembers the horror the most, looking down at his baby sister, and realizing that he could hurt her.

The innocence of being a big brother had been scraped away from him. Dad always said he regretted that.

He’s been watching the two of them all day though, and the way they behave around each other isn’t normal. 

Azula, though, she’s gotten stiffer. A bubbling sound escapes her, one that takes Sokka a second to recongize as laughter. “Zuko would never hurt me.”

Sokka shakes his head. “He’s not a very good person. If he did something then--” 

“He didn’t.” Azula interrupts, face getting sour. “He couldn’t.” The amount of bitterness in her voice is painful. “He’ll stand by and watch me get hurt, but he doesn’t have the balls to do it himself.” 

The implications of that are not warming. Standing by and watching is almost worse than doing it, in Sokka’s opinion. He’d at least want to know someone tried to stop it. 

Katara and Aang didn’t do anything while he was in prison and that, more than anything, is what hurts. He wishes they had just tried, just once, just hadn’t believed Arnook, because Sokka knows now that no rescue was coming, and he was an idiot to hope for one, and he hates that sinking, ugly feeling settling in in him like rot. 

“I don’t understand,” Sokka says. “You rescued him, but you don’t even like him?” 

Azula brushes hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. “It’s complicated.” 

Obviously. 

“I don’t know if--” 

The arrow comes out of no where, burying itself into the tree next to Azula’s head. The two of them jolt violently, Sokka swearing explosively as he turns toward the source, only for another arrow to make a warning shot at his leg. Sokka jumps back, “Hey, what the f--!” 

A dozen or so people burst from the darkness of the woods, hounding in on them, weapons drawn. Their faces are covered save their eyes, and the weapons that they’re holding are old. The armor is patched together from various nations, and it takes Sokka all of about a second to clock them not as professional soldiers. 

Bandits. Bounty hunters. Doesn’t matter. 

Sokka is filled with a righteous amount of overconfidence, but even he isn’t stupid enough to think that he can take on twelve men unarmed, in the dark, with an alley he can barely trust not to throw him at the enemy for fun. 

“Run,” Sokka tells Azula, then reaches out to grab her wrist and yank on her, “Run!” 

Azula does. Unsteady, nearly falling flat on her face as she turns sharply, but Sokka’s yanking seems to be enough motivation to keep up. They aren’t far from the camp, not enough that Sokka can lead their attackers in the opposite direction, or do anything to protect them.

An arrow whizzes past them.

They’re toying. No one’s aim is this shit.

Sokka does the only thing he can think of, which is to make the highest, most obnoxious screeching sound as he pounds through the woods, slapping into every bush and branch he can to make Katara and Aang aware of him. 

Azula stumbles over something, smashing violently to her hands and knees. She releases a sound of pain, but Sokka doesn’t spare a second before he’s grabbing her around the waist and hauling her back up. 

They stumble back to camp, where Aang and Katara are indeed up, and Zuko is even attempting to get to his feet. 

“Sokka, what’s--?” Katara, already reaching out for him. 

“Bandits!” Sokka shouts, flailing, making a frantic hand gesture behind them, “Or something!” 

He lets go of Azula to drop to his knees next to his pack, digging out the boomerang. He clenches it between white knuckles and he turns back toward the woods, waiting. It doesn’t take long before the men explode out from behind them. 

Sokka does a rough analysis of the situation, mentally calculating what he needs to prioritze. Katara and Aang are better long distance fighters, Sokka is close combat, and Azula is. Awful. Honestly Sokka’s not sure that he wants to include her in the count because all she seems to be able to do when she fights is fall over. She may have gotten Zuko out of the northern water tribe’s cells, but that seems to have been based on pure adrenaline and spite alone.

Sokka plants himself in front of Zuko.

Azula, like an idiot, moves to the front. She doesn’t even have a weapon, her sword still tucked into her sleeping mat. 

The bandits stop for a second, looking over their ragged group, and Sokka sees their eyes linger on Appa, hungry. A cold, angry wash of protectiveness crashes through him. Not Appa. They can take Appa over his cooling body. 

Aang seems to share the sentiments, releasing a sound of anger before spinning his staff over his head and slamming it onto the ground. There’s a rush of air that blows past Sokka, ruffling his hair as several of the closer bandits are thrown off of their feet. 

Katara withdraws her bending water and slaps it out like a whip. 

And Azula stands there, not even casting a flame to hold like a threat. Her fists are clenched and her body is tense, but she’s not prepared. It’s nothing like what Sokka has seen from other fire benders. Which she is, because she lit that fire for his hand. She’s just apparently spirits-awful? 

The fight doesn’t last long. 

Not for lack of trying on the bandit’s part, but despite their numbers, a master water bender and air bender aren’t exactly a fair match. Within five minutes, they’re scrambling onto Appa, dragging Zuko up with them. 

It’s only then, as Sokka is attempting to catch his breath and calm his racing heart, that Azula leans down to wrench the arrow from her thigh. Apparently she didn’t do as good of a job dodging the arrows as Sokka first thought she did, and he feels the blood drain from his face at the realization.

Katara makes a thin sound. “Azula! Spirits, here, sit down,” she reaches out to grab her arm, pushing her toward the ground. Azula glares at her, but allows herself to be pushed. Zuko’s head snaps up at the noise, though.

“Azula?” he calls, shoving off of Sokka to try and make his way over to her. 

“Zuko,” Sokka tries to grab him back with minimal success. Spirits, it’s like trying to hold onto water. How are the two siblings so slippery as completely whole human beings that light things on fire periodically. 

“What happened?” Zuko demands, nearly tripping over Momo, who takes that moment to boldly stand in his path and lick his eye suspiciously at him. Aang snatches him off the ground with a muttered chastisment. 

“It’s nothing serious,” Katara promises, she’s prodding over the wound, peeling back the tear in Azula’s pants to look at the wound better. “The arrow came out whole, and I don’t think the shaft got broken on the way out.

“I’m fine, Zuzu,” Azula promises, “just got shot.” 

“You,” Zuko’s brow pinches. “Got shot?” 

“Yes.” 

“You got shot?” 

“You heard me the first time.” 

“How?” Zuko demands. Now he sounds more confused than he does worried, like Azula is supposed to have skin impervious to metal or something, which is pretty freaking ridiculous. She got scraped up on their fight out of Agna Qel’a, why would she have a supernatural arrow dodging ability?

Azula rolls her eyes. “With an arrow.” 

Zuko doesn’t miss a beat. “What’s wrong with you?” 

“Nothing’s wrong.” Azula says, shoving off Katara to push her way up to her feet. “I just didn’t see it. It happens.” 

“Not to you. You’re-- you. No,” Zuko reaches out, managing to catch his sister’s arm in a vice grip. “What’s wrong with you?” 

“ Nothing ,” Azula says between her teeth, trying to pull out his grip. Zuko doesn’t let her. “I’m perfectly healthy, just like you intended me to be when you left me.” 

Zuko actually does stop then, his grip slipping. It’s only to stare at her with open confusion. “What are you talking about?” 

Azula’s face is angry now, blistering with an anger that Sokka hasn’t seen since before she gutted Cheif Arnook. It’s biting, but above all it’s cold. “Funny,” there is no humor in her tone, “Father sent you on a quest to find the Avatar, and in the three years you were gone, the only thing you managed to find was how to lose your brain.” 

Zuko’s expression is darkening. “What is that supposed to mean?” 

Azula turns, jamming a finger into his shoulder. He doesn’t flinch back from her, but it looks like he wants to. “Agni, Zuko! Do you want me to spell it out for you? Fine! You know how Father is, how exacting he is with his perfections, and you also know that there is nothing that you or me or even Mother could do that would live up to them.”

“That’s not true,” Zuko protests, “Father loves us.” He says this like a threat, with a level of bitterness that makes Sokka’s stomach hurt. “You can’t do anything wrong, he’s always loved you the most.” 

“The fuck he does!” Azula’s voice is rising in volume. 

“No,” Zuko shakes his head, “no, he loves us. He loves us. He’s our father, he wants me back, I’m going to restore my honor, and then our family will go back to normal. We’ll go home.” 

“Love? He just wants weapons, do I look like a weapon!?” She gestures at herself. 

“Yes!” Zuko protests, “You’ve been a fire bending prodigy since you were born, Father has always wanted you, and now? You’re going to make him get rid of you, like he did with me, and that’s--you don’t want to do that. You don’t.”  

Azula laughs. The sound is splitting. “Really ? Why, I had no idea. Why do you think I’m out here, Zuzu? Because I just love living on the streets, reveling in my disownment?” 

Her--

Wait. Wait, what? She said that she was sanctioned by the fire nation when she came to get her brother from the chief. Sokka doesn’t know what the treaty she signed looked like, but it must have been something massive, for Chief Arnook to even agree to let her see her brother. He wouldn’t have given up his biggest bargaining chip without a fight. 

Not for the first time, Sokka looks at Azula, and all he has is questions. 

If she wasn’t sent by her father, then did she defect to go get him?

Zuko’s face has gone white. “What disownment?” 

“The northern water tribe sent their ransom written in your blood,” Azula says, and it’s dripping with venom, “and had your hair and Uncle’s stupid lotus chip, and you know what our father said?” she’s breathing heavily now, leaning into his face, pouncing like she’s been waiting for the opportunity to say this for weeks, “ Nothing. He didn’t give a shit about you, he didn’t send anyone back for negotiations, he didn’t care if they were bluffing. If the next thing they sent us was your head, I doubt that he would have bothered to open the bag.” 

Spirits. Sokka can’t imagine Dad doing that to him or Katara. Even if he ran off to join the war, at least he wasn’t trying to get them killed. He still cared about them, he would have done something if someone ransomed one of them. He wouldn’t have just left them there to die. 

Zuko’s mouth parts, but no sound escapes him.

The silence is thick enough that it’s like a physical weight, draped between the five of them. 

“I was the only one who wanted to help you,” Azula’s voice is deathly soft, “and our father caught me before I left, and do you know what he did when he caught me? How much he hates you? He trussed me for trying, Zuko. Because of you.” 

Sokka’s brow pulls with confusion. The term doesn’t really mean that much to him, his first thought is of cooking, mostly, but it clearly means something else to the two siblings. Zuko isn’t breathing anymore. He sucks in a ragged sound, like he’s going to cry. 

“I--” his voice breaks. “But Father loves you.” 

Azula shoves him. Zuko stumbles back, crashing onto his ass. “You stupid turtle duck! You broke our family and you don’t even have the fucking balls to confess it!” 

“Me! ?” Zuko’s head snaps up to her, scrambling to back up, like he’s afraid she’s going to go after him with a sword. Azula looks unsteady enough to do it. Shove him to the ground again and beat him. 

“Mother is dead because of you,” Azula shouts, “and Uncle left because of you. Father hates me because of you .” 

Zuko makes a thin, wounded noise. For a momet, they’re not crowded on some sea stack, hunched over Azula’s injury, Sokka is back in that cell, and Zuko is pinned in place, both of their breathing ragged and the shivering slowly sinking up their bodies, rotting them. Your father told you that he wants you dead on purpose? 

None of this is Zuko’s fault. 

Sokka finally manages to gain hold of himself enough to grab hold of Azula’s arm. His skin is hot to the touch. “Azula, hey, enough! ” 

She ignores him entirely. “You left me there!” Azula shouts, “All of you left me with him!” 

“Do you think that I wanted to!?” Zuko has managed to find his anger, crackling and sharp. “I have been trying for three years to get home and I couldn’t . Do you think that I never thought about you, or what Father might be doing to you?” 

“Oh, that’s fucking rich, considering--” 

“I thought he loved you too much to hurt you.”

Azula looks like he slapped her. “Well,” she exhales hard, “he didn’t. Congratulations. You’re wrong about something else.” 

“Hey!” Aang throws himself between the two of them, stupid and trying too hard, like always. “Stop it!” 

Zuko manages to make it back to his feet. His glare is furious. Azula is crying. Sokka doesn’t know when she started, but the rawness to her face is terrifying. “Look at that,” Azula’s voice is cold, “you’ve found more people to bully me for you. Just like Uncle. You happy, brother, or is there still one more person you haven’t turned against me yet?” 

“That’s not--” Zuko snarls. Stops. “Fuck you.” 

“Yeah,” Azula smiles, “fuck you too.”

Chapter Text

For a long minute, no one moves. No one talks. They just stand, waiting, for someone else to decide to sacrifice themself to the tension.

It’s--

Thick.

He doesn't know what to do here. When he and Katara argued, his father rarely intervened, but Gran-Gran was always snapping at them to apologize and putting herself in the middle of it. They would say sorry, and then wouldn't mean it, and just ignored each other until tempers cooled. They learned to fight each other more effectively, faster, out of Gran-Gran’s eyes. 

But Azula isn't Katara, and proves that much when she storms off down the beach, the fury radiating off of her like an aura. She doesn't look back, like she’s too disgusted that she can't even bear to look at her brother. Sokka never felt like Katara didn't love him when they fought, no matter how many times she said she hated him, but there's no underlying care to her, or to Zuko, just cold, stale and empty. 

Zuko doesn’t move. It’s not, Sokka can tell, because he wants to stay on the floor, but because he can’t get up. He’s not familiar enough with the territory to do something irrational and violent, though it’s clear that he wants to. Turns out, he does possess some level of common sense, and remains rigidly fixed there, head tipped in the direction of his sister, listening for her. 

Azula doesn’t come back, and she doesn’t look like she has any intention of doing so any time soon. Which is good. Sokka doesn't want to stop them from beating each other to death. 

Aang rocks forward on his heels, then back, then forward again. He opens his mouth, closes it. He looks at Katara, fists squeezed around his staff with enough force that Sokka can see the tendons of his fingers. 

Katara takes a few steps closer. Her hand is tentative when she rests it on the fire bender’s shoulder. “Zuko?” 

The boy flinches. Whether it was at the contact, or her voice, Sokka doesn’t know, but that raw, painfully animalistic part of him rears its ugly head again. It’s like a primal instinct for defense. And in the three years you were gone… Sokka realizes, with nausea, that the reason that Zuko isn't like other members of his tribe, like Bato. He didn't develop that instinct as a result of being at war. He wasn't in the middle of a conflict and got redirected to tracking Aang. 

Aang hasn't been a magnet for the fire nation since he woke up. They didn't have anyone watching that ice. 

Zuko has been looking for the Avatar for three years. The Avatar, which has been encased in ice until a few months ago. Zuko, whose father couldn’t be bothered to answer a ransom. 

Zuko, whose father told him he wants him dead on purpose and fucking meant it. 

Zuko. 

Zuko who is scared and lashing out like an animal because that’s how he survived being raised by Fire Lord Ozai. Not his father, but the Fire Lord. There is something deeply wounded, broken, in Zuko. Something that Ozai snapped in both his kids--any expectation for gentleness. Kindness. Consideration. 

And the thought pisses him off. What the hell did Zuko and Azula do to receive such a cold shoulder? They're fumbling and awkward and violent, but they're not unloveable. It's so easy to take care of people, and to look out for them, and make sure they're okay and healthy. He's been doing it with Katara for years . The entire village. And Ozai can't be bothered to even want his kids period , let alone want them alive ? 

“Hey,” Katara gentles her voice. 

“Don’t touch me,” Zuko snarls, snapping out with surprising speed and force to pull out of her grip. His voice is thick with unshed tears, “I’m poison.” 

Sokka’s heart squeezes. 

“Zuko, no ,” Katara straightens quickly. She grabs him again, and this time, Zuko shoves her, hard. Katara slams into the ground, wheezing.

“I told you to stop!” Zuko shouts. 

Sokka rounds Zuko’s form to grab his sister’s arm. Half puts himself between them, even though he really, really doesn’t want Zuko to be a threat to her. He doesn’t want Zuko to be a threat to anyone, because he thinks, despite his best efforts, he’s gotten fucking attatched again. 

“Okay, alright,” Sokka placates. “Don’t shove anyone else.” 

“Why not ?” Zuko hisses, “The water tribe can’t get messages across unless it’s with violence. Maybe I’m finally speaking your language.” 

That’s not what that was, Sokka wants to say. Wants to snap. But he stares at Zuko, half dead, barely upright, face flushed with fever, and realizes that Zuko is trying to bait him. He wants someone to hurt him, physically. At a bare minimum, he clearly wants to keep yelling. He barely said one word in response to Azula’s ten. And fine. He wants to be upset, he can be upset, but he doesn't get to use his sister as a punching bag. 

Sokka pushes up, pulls Katara with him, and brushes sand off of her coat. Then he leans forward and flicks Zuko on the forehead. He jolts, hand snapping up to the area, hunching in on himself as he searches vainly for Sokka. 

Katara relaxes minutely at his action, like it's somehow a promise that Sokka’s not going to let this dissolve into another screaming match. As if he has any control over that whatsoever. Zuko is volatile. Sokka is just Sokka, and that's never been enough. “Okay, bud,” he agrees easily, “but before you start impressing us with your bilingual skills, do you want to sit down?” 

That throws him. “What?” 

“Sit. With your butt. On the sand. You’re going to fall over.” Sokka points out, trying to keep his voice neutral, but he can hear the concern. He reaches out and pulls on Zuko’s arm. Sure enough, the boy nearly pitches toward the ground, eyes getting wide. 

Zuko lands on his ass with an oomph, but seems more surprised than hurt. 

Sokka sinks down to the ground with him. “I think,” he drums his fingers over his leg, trying to make light of all the shit that they just heard as he says mildly, “that your sister has some unresolved issues with you.” 

Zuko huffs. He means for it to be funny, but the fire user chokes on something that’s trying to be a laugh, but ends up being a choked, whispering hiss, clogged in his throat. He lifts up his hand, biting on the back of the skin, sinking his teeth in . He shakes his head once. 

“She should,” Zuko whispers, “she’s right.” 

“I don't know,” Aang says, “she was angry. Nobody is really truthful when they're angry.” 

“Right,” Zuko scoffs, “anger is truth.” 

“Sometimes,” Aang agrees. He squats down in front of Zuko, digging his staff into the soft flesh of the sand. It gleams in the soft lighting. “Not always though.” 

Katara sits down too. Her expression is filling with pity. “Zuko.” She doesn't seem to be able to say anything. 

Zuko takes in a shuddering breath. He buries his face into his hands. “I wish,” his voice is low, “that you had just let them kill me. It would have been better for everyone.” 

Sokka flinches. “Okay,” Sokka protests, “first, no. Second, no. Third, no. I'm not cool with leaving people to die. It makes me itchy.” 

“So long as you're comfortable,” Zuko says, voice flat. He blows out an explosive breath, shuddering. It's almost a wheeze. He doesn't look up at them, addressing the sand. “My father always said that she was born lucky, and I was lucky to be born. I didn't think he'd hurt her. He loves her.” 

But not me, goes unspoken. Sokka kind of wants to squeeze him. Zuko feels tenuously breakable right now, like spun glass. Sokka forces himself to focus on more than the last part of that. “Your dad has hurt you? Does he do that a lot?” 

Dad wouldn't. He believed hitting kids was wrong. Gran-Gran did a couple times with Sokka when he was being particularly insufferable, but Sokka never told Dad about it. He wasn't sure what he'd do. He didn't want him to agree, or change his mind and start hurting Katara instead of wielding patience like a weapon with her nightmares or anxiety. 

Zuko shakes his head. “It was just discipline.” 

As opposed to hitting them for fun? Sokka guesses he should be grateful for that. The Fire Lord seems like the kind of person who would hunt people for sport.

Aang’s face has gone uncomfortably upset. Enough that Sokka isn't sure if he's going to cry or shout when he says, flat yet blistering with emotion, “Parents shouldn't hit their kids.” 

“How would you know?” Zuko's tone is biting, “You've never had any.” 

Aang’s eyes go dead. He looks at once so much older and younger than twelve. Sokka studies him, and all he sees is grief for Gyatso written all over his face. He'd recognized a hundred year old rotting corpse on the spot as his mentor. Aang may not have had parents, but he had Gyatso, and that was basically the same thing. 

“Yeah, I guess not.” Aang says. “What would I know?” 

“Aang,” Sokka murmurs, and just that. 

The kid is already turning, wounded, and starts working his way toward Appa, tense everywhere. “I hope you feel better, Zuko.” 

Katara turns sharply. “Why would you say that?” 

“I told you,” Zuko snaps back, “I'm poison.” 

“He's twelve.” Katara is defensive, but she's not necessarily angry . She's got her problem solver face on, and Zuko is her new project. Sokka grimaces. “You don't get to talk to him like that just because you're upset.” 

“I don't see what the big deal is.” 

“He kind of did,” Sokka interjects, “he had mentors. He may not have lived with blood family, but he still had family.” 

Zuko’s brow pinches. “Blood is the only family that matters . Everything else can be discarded or left for dead.” 

And just like that, so much of the fire nation has been explained to him in one guttural gut punch. Awesome. Outsider bad, inside good, squash all the nations so they're inside and good. Leave so many of their soldiers to die along the way. 

“Okay, I'm just not even going to touch on the myriad of ways that's both weird and deeply concerning,” Sokka starts, “but know I'm thinking about it forever. Your dad hurt you?” 

Zuko tenses up a bit, but not with dread or horror like Sokka was expecting. Instead, his cheeks have warmed with embarrassment. He bites his lower lip, looking away from them. “Sometimes.” That embarrassment dulls some, and is replaced with a stale acceptance. He rubs underneath his eye, tracing the scar up to his messy, deformed ear. “...sometimes.” 

And. 

Huh. 

Okay, Sokka had never been close enough to Zuko’s face before with a light source to actually make out the shape of the scar, but even underneath the spiraling mass of the fresh injury of the jelly-eel, it's remarkable, honestly, how much that looks like a fucking handprint. 

Palm, right over his eye socket. Spidery fingers disappearing up his scalp, clamped over his ear. 

He wasn't held down. Sokka can see the lighter edges contrasting with the deeper center, where the pressure was the most firm. His head had snapped back, which is probably the only thing that saved him from a full hand print instead of the vague outline of one. 

Ozai. 

Ozai fucking did that. 

Ozai burned half his kids face off? 

“What the fuck?” Sokka breathes. Then, louder, “ what the fuck?!” 

Zuko flinches. He twitches back from Sokka on some impulsive prey instinct, that crawls to the surface again. His mouth is tight. 

Katara isn't stupid. Her hands have come to cover her mouth, and she looks just as sick as Sokka feels. Nauseated and wrong . “When did he do that?” Katara’s words are so soft, so careful, so hopeless. 

Sokka wonders dully if he can see it now. See exactly what the fire nation did to Mom.

“Before I was banished,” Zuko says, slower. “I insulted him.” 

“So he burned half your face off?” The words are blistering and incredulous out of Sokka’s mouth. He can’t string thoughts together for long seconds, just stares at Zuko’s furrowed brow and wants to shake him even harder. He’s confused. He’s not angry, or even defensive, just genuinely, honest-to-Tui and La confused. Like the fact that Sokka is taking his side is incomprehensible. 

Yeah. Call Sokka crazy, but he’s maybe against burning kids faces off. 

“Zuko,” Katara is furious, she’s biting on her tongue. “That wasn’t okay. Parents shouldn’t hit their kids. They shouldn’t mutilate them.” 

That wipes the confusion right off. “He didn’t mutilate me.” 

“Was that the other father that burned half your face off?” Sokka demands.

“I was a child. I needed to be taught a lesson.” 

“You were a child, you needed to be kept safe!” 

That stops Zuko again. Dead cold. The breath that he sucks in his sharp and almost whimpered. Pained. “No,” Zuko says, shakes his head, “It was necessary. It had to be necessary.” 

Sokka looks at him, and looks at him some more. He wants to reach out, but he has no way to explain that to Zuko’s rampant denial. Sometimes people are just fucking assholes. There isn’t some greater meaning behind it. Sometimes they just suck.

Sokka and Katara share a look over Zuko’s shoulder. There’s no point in hiding it. It’s not like Zuko can see it. He wonders what it would have taken for Dad to ever do that to him, and Sokka realizes, sick, he doesn’t think anything could have. Hakoda isn’t that type of person. He would never even lay hands on his soldiers, let alone his family. Sokka doesn’t even think gross, horrific war crimes would do it.

Let alone speaking up at a meeting.

“I don’t,” Sokka stumbles on the words. Exhales. “I don’t think it was.” 

Sokka drops his eyes away, trying to offer some margin of privacy, when Zuko begins to cry. You know, Sokka thinks, miserable, you already know that. Spirits, how you already know that, Zuko.

000o000

Aang is gently running his hands through Appa’s fur, fingers working through tangles with a patience that belies the rigid set to his shoulders. Sokka didn’t really mean to run into him. He’d been looking for the fish net for Katara, who’d intended to go get them something for breakfast, and instead of seeing their supplies, he was met with a faceful of twitchy twelve-year-old. 

Sokka gets the net. Aang says nothing. He goes and gives it to Katara, who is helping Zuko upright carefully. She’d insisted that it would be good for him to walk around so his muscles don’t atrophy, but Sokka thinks she’s just trying to distract him from his misery. It’s a kind thought, though it seems to have backfired entirely. Zuko looks more miserable, having been reminded of his helplessness. 

Sokka goes back to Appa, and Aang still hasn’t moved.

It’s a suspiciously long time for him to hold still in one spot. Sokka gathers up his patience, big handfuls of it, and feels it just slide right through his fingers. The amount that he wants to play emotional coat holder is astoundingly low. He doesn’t even have the energy for himself, let alone the kid.

He did a bang-up job with Zuko. Made him cry. He doesn’t need an entourage. 

He lets his head fall back, withholds an audible groan, and curses himself for falling prey to such disgusting things like empathy and compassion and love over and over. He forces his feet forward and takes the seat next to the kid. 

Aang looks at him, but returns his attention to the tangles. Sokka drums his fingers on his thighs. He waits a while, then says, “Zuko’s kind of a jerk.” 

“I know,” Aang says, muted but patient. 

“I don’t know if you should believe him about everything he says when he’s angry.” 

“I know, Sokka.” 

“Do you want to tell me what it is you’re thinking then, kid?” 

Aang exhales softly. He lets his head tip forward to rest against Appa’s side, and the sky bison lets out a soft rumble of reassurance. Aang smiles, but it’s bitter and small. He pats Appa twice. “I didn’t have parents.”

“I mean--”

“Gyatso wasn’t my father, he was my mentor.” Aang bites his lower lip. “I’ve always wondered what it would be like. I guess I have my answer now. It’s exactly the same. Your father isn’t even here, Lord Ozai isn’t here either. There’s no one that stays.” 

Sokka has to bite his tongue to stop himself from yelling at him. “It’s not the same.”

“It is.” 

“When my dad was around, it was different. You could rely on someone else to take care of you. To help. It was--” it was a relief, not to have to be the one that everyone is turning to. Not to have to be strong all the time. To have a space to just be a kid. Sokka lost that safety net when Hakoda left, because his dad was the only person ever willing to be that for him. Katara may try, but there are walls that he can’t yank down around her. “It was different.” 

“Maybe.” 

“Dad didn’t…” but Aang is right. At the end of the day, whether or not there are parents, none of them have them. They might as well be a group of orphans for all that their collective parents give a shit. Dad did go. He didn’t stay either. Sokka’s mouth twists miserably. He sighs, loud. “You’re going to make me beach mope, Aang.” 

Aang’s head whips up. He doesn’t look amused at the joke, more wildly terrified, and Sokka’s brow furrows at the intensity there. It takes him long seconds to process the look on Sokka’s face, and then his own to settle, kind of, into something placid. “That’s not funny.” 

“That’s what you called it,” Sokka points out, slowly. He nudges Aang’s knee. “Hey. What’s with you and Katara? You’ve been acting weird ever since we left Agna Qel'a.” 

Before then.

He wasn’t expecting Aang to give an actual answer, and his stomach goes tight when the boy actually speaks. “I’m scared, Sokka. Katara is, too.” He resists the urge to prod, resists, more, the urge to reach for his boomerang. It’s still out there somewhere. He thinks he dropped it during the fight with the bandits, because he doesn’t have it on him anymore. He should find it. They might come back. Aang doesn’t even look at Sokka, addressing Appa’s fur. “Ever since Yue died, you’ve been…” his voice gets smaller, “you wish you’d died with her.”

There’s a cold rush of paralyzing terror when Sokka realizes how true it is. “ What ?” 

“We’re not stupid,” Aang whispers. “We looked for you Sokka, everywhere. I was…I was going to hurt Hahn, badly, and Katara had to--stop me. He told us that you threw yourself out of a window to avoid a trial.” His wide, young eyes look up at Sokka’s stiff body, “We couldn’t find you. Then the chief said the same thing. We were looking for your corpse.” 

Katara lied to him. She said that Arnook told them he had him in custody. Not that she thought he was dead. That’s why neither one of them had managed to form words when he showed up with Azula, a mostly-dead Zuko strung between the two of them. 

More, implications slowly set in. If Arnook lied to the Avatar, what was he planning to do with Sokka? Had he thought that far ahead? The man hadn’t seemed able to do much beyond think in stiff, incomplete patches. The entire government had its legs knocked out from underneath itself and no way to scramble but upright. They were celebrating Yue’s birthday. They weren’t ready for war. No one had breached Agna Qel'a in over half a century. 

They weren’t prepared for it physically, and no one was prepared for it emotionally. The only voice of reason was Pakku, and Arnook had gotten pretty tired of listening to him. Took the fact that he was talking to Prince Iroh as a sign of betrayal and conspiracy, instead of efforts to smooth things over. Pakku was trying to get Zuko, Iroh, and probably the rest of the fire nation war captives out of Agna Qel'a because he could tell that having them there was making Arnook spiral.

No one planned for Sokka to end up with Zuko. Not even Pakku. There were so many people working to their own agendas, or off of feelings, and it made an enormous mess that no one could fix. Not even Pakku. How many more people told Arnook he was being an idiot, how many more ended up in prison for being a traitor? What the hell had the man been hoping to achieve? 

Nothing. 

He hadn’t wanted anything. And the moment that the catastrophic damage was shown to the the Agna Qel'ans, they immediately backed down in horror. Even Hahn. It’s all good and fine to cause damage until the evidence of it is smeared in your face. 

Sokka reaches for Aang’s hand. He grasps the stiff fingers in his own and pulls the kid into a hug, pulling his head against his shoulder. “I’m not going anywhere,” Sokka promises, “I’m not leaving you guys,” Aang buries his face against his neck, rough patches of unshaved baby hairs scratches at the skin. He wraps his arms around Sokka’s waist in turn. He seems small and fragile in his arms. So easy to break. It only makes Sokka hold him tighter. He closes his eyes, letting the knowledge sink. 

They didn’t leave him in the cell. They didn’t go anywhere. They didn’t do nothing. They were terrified kids working with the knowledge that they had, with no reliable sources of information. They would have found them eventually if Azula hadn’t. 

“Of course you were scared. You guys wouldn’t last two days without me,” Sokka proclaims, trying for humor. “Neither one of you can read a map.” 

Aang laughs, but it’s wet. “I could learn.” 

“Uh-huh.” He rests his cheek on Aang’s head, scratching his skin against the peach fuzz. Such a weird sensation. “You need to shave, little mister.”

“Sokka?” 

“Mm.”

“I love you,” Aang says it quickly, like he’s not sure if they’re the right words, or he doesn’t want to get caught admitting it. 

Sokka’s stomach twists with guilt. This entire time he was worried about Katara and Aang leaving him, and they were worried about the same thing. He still has them. Yue is gone, but he doesn’t want to leave them. He never did. Maybe part of him wished that he’d gotten to bury her, but he…he wants to think, at least now, that he wouldn’t have been selfish enough to leave them.

He pulls Aang back to plant a kiss on the kid’s forehead with a loud mwah sound. Aang yelps with disgust, wiping at his forehead and shoving away from Sokka. “Aw, kid, that’s so sweet. Love you too. Now, c’mon, let’s get out that map, we’ve gotta find Azula and then get supplies.” 

Ugh. That’s going to be fun. 

000o000

Sokka finds Azula angrily peeling apart a stick. It’s precise how she does, fingernails digging just underneath the bark to scrape it off in long strips. Efficient and cold. Her knuckles are bloodied and torn, and the trees around them are riddled with evidence of her abuse. 

“We’re packing up,” Sokka says, when her cold eyes look up at him in question. “We’re gonna try and hit a nearby town for some stuff.” 

“Do you have money?” Azula asks, pointed, and scrapes her fingers along the rough bark. She doesn’t even look up at him. 

No. “We’re working on it.” 

“I see,” Azula rolls her eyes. Sokka barely refrains from pointing out that she didn’t come with money herself, and her judgement isn’t helping anything. What stays his tongue isn’t a desire to be kind, it’s the split knuckles. Azula isn’t exactly stable. She killed someone in cold blood a few days ago, she looked ready to do the same with Zuko a few hours ago.

Sokka forces himself to take a breath. To be the adult. “Do you want,” he falters. Talking with Katara and Aang never leaves him fumbling this much. He doesn’t feel like he knows what emotions are and he’s trying to describe an abstract concept to her. 

Azula’s eyes get mean. She huffs, mirthless and bitter, flicking the last remains of the stick off her fingers. “Do I want to what ? Discuss my feelings? You want to offer to be a listening ear , Sokka?” 

He thinks it's the first time that she’s called him by his name, and it makes him regret telling it to her. His teeth set. “You don’t have to be such a brat,” he says.

Azula gets up to her feet, stiff and wobbly. Sokka watches her unobtrusively, and tries not to feel guilty about it as he does so. She said that she was trussed, but he’s not sure what the hell that is. It’s not a term that he’s familiar with, not that he’s that aware of a lot of fire nation things anyway. It had meant something to Zuko though. Had drained the blood from his face and left him staring at her like someone had tried to murder her. Done worse than murder her. 

Sokka really doesn’t want to know what the hell qualifies as a terrifying punishment to him given that getting half his face burned off wasn’t that big of a deal.

Azula had spat it. Like she knew exactly how much it would hurt Zuko to know.

Sokka bites his lower lip, and pulls his gaze away. Azula follows after him, limping. She’s doing a good enough job hiding it, but now that Sokka is looking for it, he can’t unsee how unstable her movements are, like something integral was broken inside her spine. 

He opens his mouth. Closes it slowly.

“I think my brother said plenty to explain my brokenness,” Azula says. 

Sokka sighs. Tries, vainly, “You two have issues, you know that?” 

The fire bender sneers at him. “Not everyone gets blessed with a bosom friend for a sibling. Your sister coddles you like a child.” 

Coddling? Sokka blinks once. Twice. “You,” he lifts up his wrapped hand and gestures at it vaguely, “ know that I was like, graphically injured three days ago, right? I’m probably lucky that it didn’t need to be amputated.” 

He’s lucky that he can use his fingers, period . 

Azula doesn’t look impressed with him. That’s fine. She’s not exactly impressing him either. Tui and La their family is so weird. The more they talk, the more that Sokka realizes that it’s like they grew up in an upside down world, where everything is opposite. Parents don’t give a shit and burn faces half off and do… something to their daughters, and disown everyone left and right. Cast judgement for needing accommodations and healing. This isn’t love. It’s not--

It’s not anything. 

He and Azula make it back to camp without another word exchanged between them. Probably for the best, if he’s being honest with himself. Katara takes about one second to look Azula over before she’s shoving cooked fish into her hands and saying, sharply, “Eat something before we go,” and then she’s back to instructing Zuko’s clumsy hands on where to put the drying fish jerky.

Sokka is getting tired of eating straight fish, but it’s free, and it’s easy. 

They’re probably going to be eating fish for a lot longer. Ba Sing Se isn’t as close as Sokka would like it to be. 

Azula doesn’t complain while she eats the fish with her bare hands, and Sokka wonders for the first time just how hungry she must be to withhold all her complaints. If it’s court etiquette or she’d eat anything they denied to give her like it was a gift from the gods. Maybe some mixture of both. It makes him sad, kind of, to see it. He knows when to hold his tongue and not complain, but only around people he doesn’t trust. 

Azula and Zuko skirt around each other, which is more impressive given Zuko’s current state. They don’t exchange words. Zuko seems to have grown a second pair of eyes on the back of his skull solely for Azula, and it’s awkward to watch their frosty silence. 

When the jerky has been wrapped, the remnantents of their camp cleaned up, and Katara given him and Zuko another look-over--Sokka’s hand is doing better, but he still can’t move any of his fingers without pain, and Zuko is. Zuko. He needs pain medication and physical therapy and no matter how much water Katara throws on him to fix him, it just doesn’t seem to be helping all that much, which he knows disheartens her--they clamber back onto Appa to find the nearest town.

The silence stretches out uncomfortably as they fly, and it’s not for lack of trying on Sokka’s part. Any conversation he tries to make with Katara is stilted because the things he actually wants to talk to her about, like the whole situation at Agna Qel’a he doesn’t want to bring up around Zuko and Azula, because he doesn’t want her to get into a conversation like that around them, and Aang is not a good conversationalist, having decided to become quiet and contemplative for once in his life. 

The only person that will vaguely engage in conversation with him is Zuko, and that gets Sokka vicious glares from Azula, who seems to have decided that her brother talking is a personal affront to her. All they’re doing is discussing the differences between food in the fire nation and the water tribe, and she keeps sneering.

Sokka, because he’s insufferable and well aware of it, talks louder. “Our food has flavor. I have no idea what you’re talking about. We have spices.” 

“You don’t know what spices are,” Zuko snorts. “I’ve eaten your food.” 

“Okay, first of all, literally when? Second, that is so unfair. Just because we want to be able to taste our food instead of pain in our mouths doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have flavor.” 

Zuko hides a smirk. Sokka is satisfied with that. They don’t really talk about anything heavy, brushing over as many light subjects as they can, but it’s hard to avoid bombs given their history, and Sokka is awkwardly skirting around another water tribe bad comment when Katara says pointedly, “If you’ve never been to a water tribe when you weren’t attacking it, how would you know anything about it?” 

Zuko’s lips thin with annoyance. “My education isn’t lacking, I am a prince.” 

“Uh-huh,” Sokka says, dryly, “and that fixed you.” 

The fire bender’s eyes narrow. “What is that supposed to mean?” 

“I just think,” Sokka says, slowly, “that maybe you shouldn’t decide that everything is awful before you’ve experienced it yourself. The cultures you’re taking over aren’t in their natural state when you attack them, so how do you know what they actually are?” 

Zuko’s mouth closes. Even Azula’s eyes have narrowed some.

Sokka resists the urge to throw up his hands. Have to start somewhere, he guesses, even if it’s something that feels fairly obvious to him. But he hasn’t spent his entire life being drowned in fire nation propaganda, so he guesses he’s not the one who's been told his entire life that the sky is purple when it’s blue. 

They reach a small town in the evening, and Sokka hops off of Appa, grateful for the opportunity to move his legs and stop being stared at by the angry fire benders. The town isn’t much, and Sokka and Katara privately draw straws on who’s going to stay behind and babysit, which Sokka loses, and he grumbles loudly about. Katara looks relieved, and Sokka guesses that’s for the best, even if he has to suffer. Katara takes Aang with her. The kid has perked up considerably at the idea of getting to be around people who aren’t wishing war crimes on him, and Sokka softens at it. 

He lays on the dirt next to the fire after scavenging for dinner--more fish jerky, yay, but he did manage to find berries and some mushrooms that won’t kill them, which both Azula and Zuko looked relieved at--and tucks his good arm underneath his head, letting his bad one lay across his stomach. He keeps a half eye on the siblings, who are sitting on either side of the fire, and seem to be aware of every breath the other is taking.

Zuko looks exhausted. And like he’s in pain, which just reminds Sokka of the fact that he’s been facing nerve damage without even a semblance of pain medication. Sokka’s teeth set. His own arm has gone through waves of throbbing, but mostly settled on a dull ache, enough to remind him that it’s there, but not enough that he wants to gnaw the skin off again.

Sokka takes in a breath and looks up at the sky. The Moon is only showing a sliver, working slowly toward the first quarter. Has it really been that long since Yue died? Since the attack on Agna Qel’a? It seems like it’s been so much longer and shorter all at once. 

Zuko lays down on the dirt next to him, after carefully working around and kicking him once. Sokka refrains from yelping at him like a startled cat, but only because he doesn’t want Zuko to startle back and fall on his ass in the fire. The boy seems equally miserable, and his expression is set. 

Sokka says nothing. Zuko doesn’t either. Sokka doesn’t know whether or not to be grateful that Zuko has extended this level of trust to him, or mortified. There’s something warm curling in his stomach though, so he decides the former. 

Behind them, Azula jabs at the fire with shaking, uncoordinated movements. 

Sokka rolls his head toward Zuko. The boy has placed his bad ear to Azula, and he seems aware of Sokka, tilting his head in his direction slightly. Sokka asks, low enough that he doesn’t think Azula can hear them, “What’s trussing?” 

Zuko’s expression clenches. “It’s a punishment.” 

“I picked up on that, but like…how?”

Zuko’s lips press together, and he looks like he’d rather talk about anything else, but he explains, haltingly, “In the fire nation, there are three punishments for treason: banishment, death, and trussing. Trussing can only be done to fire benders, and it’s meant to bare permanent shame, because you’ve lost all your honor and status. You can’t fire bend when it’s done.” 

Which, again, is a consequence, but not the actual action. The hell is this thing if Zuko has to talk in such looping circles about it? 

“Okay,” Sokka agrees. 

Zuko’s dead gaze looks up. “They chain you, and then they slice the nerves of your hands and your legs. You can’t bend . I don’t know…I don’t know how she’s walking.” 

“With pain ,” Azula inputs. Both of them freeze, and Sokka props up on his elbow to look up at her. She stares at him from between the fire, which glints in her dark eyes, reflecting hauntingly. 

Zuko clearly bites his tongue. 

Azula’s eyes are cold. “I’m not useless.” 

“No one said you were,” Sokka points out. 

“I’m not useless,” Azula repeats, and this time it’s for Zuko, “so stop treating me like I am. I’ll manage.” 

“You can’t bend, Azula,” Zuko whispers. “You were a prodigy. You…” 

“I’ll bend again,” his sister snaps, “I’m not useless.” 

Sokka’s eyebrows raise slowly. “Did your dad say that? After he…” he gestures at her vaguely. He wonders if she’s still injured. Zuko was held by the water tribe for almost a month. Maybe it’s already healed, and that’s why she’s functional at all. 

“I’m sorry,” Zuko says, “Azula, I didn’t want…” 

“We don’t always get what we want, Zuzu,” Azula snaps, and jabs her stick into the fire. The spray of sparks makes her flinch back. Sokka lays back down, and closes his eyes. He shudders. What would he have done if that was Katara? If it was his little sister that lost her ability to bend to save him? 

Ah , Sokka realizes. Zuko hasn’t been talking to Azula because of guilt, not anger. There’s pain in his face, and longing. Azula, from behind the fire, looks the same. 

Sokka squeezes his hands into fists. Okay. Fine. They wanna be verbally constipated? Good fucking luck. Sokka is great at making people talk. The best, even. He’s going to fix this. The only reason they’re both like this is because of him. He knew what Pakku meant the first time and did nothing. He should have done something. So he’s going to do something now. 

Plan make them talk is go . Well. As soon as he figures out what the hell step one should be. 

Chapter Text

Katara returns with Aang a few hours later, having managed to procure a room and board in the local town in exchange for some help bustling tables in the tavern on the lower levels. Sokka grits his teeth at the idea of it, but doesn’t protest actively as they load up everything. Appa has to be left in the forest, which none of them are happy about, including Appa, who makes his displeasure known by scowling whenever one of them tries to make eye-contact and brushing them off roughly. 

Sokka throws up his hands in exasperation with a sharp, “Fine, be that way, see if I care that you’re happy and fed and don’t have leech-flees growing in your fur,” and it’s not until Aang glares at him while they’re walking that Sokka swallows his pride and asks, “what?” 

“He’s just scared,” Aang says, like that’s the answer to all of life’s greatest questions. Someone, somewhere, is always scared, and that’s just that. It’s not like they can do anything to fix it. Sokka resists the urge to roll his eyes. Aang looks like he wants to smack him. “Every time we’re apart lately something bad happens. You nearly lost your arm, Sokka.” 

Oh.

It’s protectiveness. That’s…actually kind of sweet. It makes Sokka guilty to have been so exasperated, but the hulking shadow of a sky bison breathing down his neck threatening to eat anyone that looks at them wrong is maybe not the best strategy for fixing everything. It is appealing though. Momo sits on Aang’s shoulder, tail curled around the base of the kid’s neck. Sokka feels weird about it for reasons he can’t place. 

He scans the street idly as he passes. There’s cooking bread being sold, kids running out in the street with pinwheels laughing. The barkeeper looks irritated already. A woman is shouting at her grandchildren. Someone else is furiously talking to what looks like the only form of law enforcement in the town. This isn’t a fire nation territory, and there are no soldiers milling. 

Which is probably for the best, given who’s with him. 

When they arrive, the inside of the inn smells strongly of wet, rotting wheat. Sokka doesn’t know what the origin is, only that it’s not comfortable, and trains his control of his gag reflex. Half the town is clumped around the tables, and the five of them stick out painfully against that. Not locals, but not passerbys either. They look like orphans lost in the war, and that makes them pitiable enough to remember. That’s dangerous . 

Sokka does his best to ignore their stares. Katara goes up to the innkeeper without hesitation. His name is Shen Lu. He’s a hulking man with thin strips of hair across the top of his balding head, and a thick mustache that’s gone fuzzy at the edges. The only employees are female, and Sokka’s mood lowers considerably further at the realization that he can’t help his sister. 

He doesn’t want this to be Katara’s responsibility, and he really doesn’t want anyone to look at her the way they’re eyeing the other serving girls. There’s something unmistakably lewd about it. 

Katara smiles at Shen Lu, and she gives Sokka a pointed glare, as if she can see what he’s thinking and says, “I’ll be fine , Sokka,” and he ignores her completely and turns back to the Innkeeper and says, “Does the room and board come with meal?” 

Shen Lu looks like he wants to say no, but he looks between the five of them. Sokka’s never been more grateful to look this side of profoundly pathetic. Zuko is barrely upright, hobbling heavily against Aang’s staff, Azula’s face has gone patchy with bruises from their fight with the bandits, and her knuckles are swollen and broken. Sokka’s--messy. All of them look half-starved and rumpled. War orphans. The saddest war orphans, with no money, and no family. 

Shen Lu cracks. Sighs. “Sure, kid,” and then the four of them are herded into a corner while Katara goes to put on a uniform.

It’s not a brothel, Sokka reminds himself ad nauseam, even though every single person that lays their eyes on his sister makes him want to stab them through the throat with his boomerang. Aang has to keep kicking him under the table and his eyebrows arch higher and higher every time Sokka looks back at him as if asking what? 

Aang is too young to understand this, he thinks, and is almost grateful for it. Katara isn’t. She knew what she was getting into and decided the benefits outweighed any risk to her. 

“She can do this, Sokka,” Aang says through a spoonful of stew. There’s potatoes and carrots in it. It’s lumpy and seasoned perfectly. Sokka hates it on principle, even though he’s been fantasizing about food that isn’t fish or berries for days. 

“I know,” Sokka answers sharply, because that’s so remarkably not the point it’s almost offensive. 

They stay put until the worst of the dinner rush leaves, and Katara is allowed to sit at the table with them, holding her own bowl of stew and looking pleased. “This won’t be so bad,” she decides, “Shen Lu said that he’ll pay me double if I help with the cleaning tomorrow morning, too, so we should be able to make it to Omashu if I work here for a week.” 

A week is a long time. Feels like an eternity. Sokka doesn’t think that his nerves can handle her working here for that long without him skinning some of the locals. He has to bite his tongue twice before he manages a neutral, “That’s great. Thanks, Katara.” She starts to frown, so he adds, brushing non-exist hair off his shoulders and popping his chest out, “You think I could pass for a lovely lady?” 

Katara rolls her eyes. “No one would mistake you for a girl.” 

He squawks. “I could be! I’ll have you know that Suki thought I made an excellent girl.” 

She had, laughing earnestly as she helped him smooth over the paint on his lips. It’d been fun. He’d thought he’d be more humiliated to be dressed to the nines, but Suki’s praise and her warmth had made him preen.

“Who’s Suki?” Azula has said almost nothing since they arrived at the inn, so her voice is startling. Aang and Sokka carefully maneuvered the seating placements so Azula is on Sokka’s left, and Zuko on Aang’s left. They’re not next to each other, they don’t have to look at each other. They’ve spent the entire meal glaring anyway, Azula’s stare particularly vicious.  

“Oh.” Sokka pulls his spoon out of his mouth. “A Kiyoshi warrior.” He deliberately doesn’t look at Zuko, “Her island got attacked, we were helping for a bit.” 

And Azula ruins his careful omission by looking at her brother and saying flatly, “What did your beloved uncle think of that? Father was humiliated at your rashness. Kiyoshi Island is a sacred place, Zuzu.” 

Zuko’s sightless eyes drop to his bowl. Sokka thinks it’s more a habit than anything else. He’s been wrestling with the utensil the entire meal, keeps jabbing the spoon into the wrong place or nearly knocking over his bowl. Aang has kept careful watch of both, grabbing the bowl to stop it from spinning and wordlessly pushing Zuko’s wrist in the right direction when it strays too far. 

“It was a mistake,” Zuko says. A mistake? He has to stop himself from snapping. People died . But yeah. Big ol’ oopsie. Sokka jabs more stew into his mouth to keep his thoughts to himself. It won’t help anyone if he starts something. At least Zuko is acknowledging it wasn’t a good thing. A mistake is something. 

Azula’s face reflects some of Sokka’s frustration though, and the thoughts that have been swirling behind her eyes the entire night settle. She looks at Katara. “Is Shen Lu looking for any more help?” 

Sokka thinks that his eyes nearly pop out of their skull. He turns on her rapidly, swallows without chewing. “ You?” he sputters, and she looks at him like he’s stupid. He makes a vague gesture in her direction. “You’re… you. The Fire Nation doesn’t get their hands dirty. Isn’t this…I don’t know, beneath you?” 

“My mother,” Azula’s lips curl unhappily around the word, “was insistent on the importance of menial work. Foolish nobility often fall prey to their own entitlement and get trapped inside their learned helplessness. I’m no fool.” 

And, Sokka realizes, if she’s working, she’s not going to be trapped with Zuko in one room, but still gets to be possessive about his health and wellbeing from afar. All the normal, healthy sibling dynamics that Sokka has come to expect from her. 

He shares a look with Katara, and feels resignation set in both of them.

“I’ll ask,” Katara says, with far more cheer than Sokka would have been capable of faking. 

Shen Lu is. Sokka is relieved to realize that on a surface level, Shen Lu does appear to care about his workers. Or maybe he’s just so intimidated by Azula’s glare that he doesn’t want to try anything. Sokka hates how reassuring it is that she’s there, but it is. 

Azula, at least, wouldn’t let anything happen to herself or Zuko. Sokka is reasonably sure that bubble of protection extends to Katara, given that she’s the only thing between Zuko and death right now. Azula killed people for Zuko. Katara is just too…nice. 

Shen Lu gets tired of them sitting there, and he herds them upstairs to the inn as Katara and Azula are cleaning up dinner. The room is small, and it has two beds. Sokka looks back at Shen Lu, and has to resist the urge to lift up his hand and gesture at all five fingers to indicate how many of them there are. Idiot. 

“This is great, thanks. We’re going to need one more,” Sokka says, smiling. 

“I’ll get you a cot,” Shen Lu grunts, then leaves. Probably not to do that. 

“Okay,” Sokka draws out the o. “He seems awful. I kind of love him for it.” 

Aang rolls his eyes, hopping onto one of the beds. The mattress sinks deeply, and Aang yelps with surprise, hopping back off and nearly crashing face first into Zuko. He barely catches himself in time and blurts, “Sorry, Zuko!” before he throws himself onto the other bed. 

Zuko hobbles around the space carefully. He balances stiffly on one leg to wave Aang’s staff around uncomfortably in front of himself before hobbling forward a few more. Pity rises in Sokka’s stomach. Zuko is trying to manage, and Sokka can see that, but it’s clear that he’s not sure how to cope with this yet. Is maybe still in denial that it’s something he has to do at all. Sokka gnaws on the inside of his cheek and gets closer. 

“Hey,” he says softer, and Zuko’s head turns in his direction. That was definitely his bad ear. Spirits. “Sorry. Um. I was just gonna…do you want help? Getting to a bed? You look like you’re about to fall over, bud.” 

Zuko scowls. It looks instinctive more than genuine. Then his expression crumples, and he sighs and nods. Sokka reaches over and puts tentative fingers on his elbow to help steer him without shoving or yanking him. He helps Zuko to the sinking bed, then takes a seat next to him when Zuko carefully puts Aang’s staff on the ground and rubs delicately at his face, as  if the skin itches. It must. Sokka knows that his own is starting to peel in uncomfortable patches. He wants to scratch off everything down to muscle tissue, but he knows that Katara will kill him if he tries. 

“Thanks,” Zuko says, stiffly, like the word is unfamiliar to him.

“Yeah,” Sokka answers. “Can I get you anything else?” 

“No.”

Aang hops off of the other bed and lands in front of them. He’s full of pent-up energy, having eaten properly for the first time in days, slept, and been around other people that aren’t them. He’s going to drag them into a game if Sokka isn’t careful, and he’s not in the mood at all. 

“Are you in pain?” Aang asks. Both Sokka and Zuko look at him, and they don’t answer, and Sokka’s eyebrow lifts in question. Aang flushes. “Zuko? Your face has gotten all scrunched up.” 

Zuko’s face, which has, in fact, gotten all scrunched up, smooths. He scowls, then stops himself, then sighs and tilts his head back. “It always hurts.” 

“Yeah, feeling that.” Sokka grumbles, and looks down at his hand. He flexes his stiff fingers out slowly. The skin has lost most of the allure of awful purples and black, but it’s still bright red and the tissue is wrinkled and tight. It’s not comfortable, and it’s disgusting and contagious-looking. 

Sokka drops back on the bed dramatically, throwing out one of his hands and letting his good arm dangle over the edge of the bed. Aang comes over and jabs him in the stomach. “Are you dead?” 

“I think so.” 

“I want to check on Appa.” 

“No, you don’t,” Sokka says, and when Aang starts to make an indignant protest, Sokka adds, “you want to set something on fire. Spirits, kid, just sit down for like two seconds, how are you not tired?” 

“How are you not bored ?” 

“Didn’t Katara take you out literally all of today?” 

Aang pouts. His eyes get dangerously big and pleady. Sokka feels himself cracking. 

When Katara and Azula come upstairs, Aang has wrestled Sokka into a game of marbles that he’s definitely cheating at. Zuko passed out a while ago despite the noise, and he doesn’t stir even when Azula collapses heavily on the opposing bed. Katara wrestles with her shoes, slumping heavily beside her. As Sokka expected, Shen Lu did not bring them a cot. It’s going to be an awkward sleeping arrangement, but Aang is pretty tiny and Zuko is compact. Sokka thinks they can share a bed without it being too cozy. 

“So?” Sokka asks, slapping Aang’s hand away when he reaches to pocket a marble when he thinks Sokka’s attention is diverted. He freaking knew it. 

“It’s definitely busy,” Katara says, “I think it will be okay.”

“Speak for yourself,” Azula mutters, and rolls over. She makes no move to even kick off her shoes. Her hair has gone messy across her shoulders, finally slipping out of her perfect topknot. It’s longer than Sokka thought it would be. “Will all of you be capable of keeping silence now, or will I have to slit vocal cords in order to sleep?” 

It’s impossible to know if she’s joking, but he doesn’t think she is. Sokka tenses. Katara gives her an unimpressed look. He gets the sudden impression it’s not the first threat against someone’s person she’s given tonight. That, absurdly, makes him feel better . 

Aang seems more amused than anything else. Why wouldn’t he be? He didn’t see what she’s capable of. The violence. She murdered someone in front of Sokka, the threats of bodily harm seem a lot less funny and a lot more real to him.

“We’ll be quiet,” Aang promises, pocketing the marble. Sokka glares at him murderously. 

“No we won't,” he snarls, and leaps for him, shoving him to the floor. Aang squeals, and there’s a desperate heave of limbs. Five different marbles come rolling out of the air bender’s pockets.  

Sleeping arrangements work like this: Katara says, “I’ll take the floor!” with far too much chipperness, and Sokka immediately kicks her onto the bed with Azula. He says, “I’ve got it,” and Aang kicks him back to the other bed, citing “grievous injury,” and Sokka can’t even be mad at him or feel guilty because the kid lays down on the floor and makes it look like the most comfortable thing on the planet, blanket tucked around his shoulders, hands behind his head. 

Sokka climbs into the bed next to Zuko, and thinks it’s probably kind of messed up how little it takes him to relax. He spent days locked in a room with this boy. The idea of being afraid of Zuko is kind of ludicrous now, even after everything. 

He falls asleep uneasily, and wakes up to Aang crawling into the bed next to him some indeterminable amount of time later. He tucks his head over the boy’s and wraps an arm loosely around his shoulders, dozing off without so much as a word exchanged between them. 

Sometimes Sokka wonders what it is that Aang has nightmares about, because his life seemed so empty before he slept for a hundred years. He didn’t have time to collect battle scars until after they broke him out. Sokka imagines that he has plenty now. Starting with the genocide of his people, ending with the recent betrayal of the water tribe. It’s just strange to have a starting date. Sokka feels like his life has been one endless rolling ball of them, and he had to learn to roll with the punches before he learned to roll over. 

War does not raise happy children , Gran-Gran said to his father once, when Hakoda was talking about him and Katara late at night. It’s not supposed to. Sokka wasn’t asleep yet even though he was supposed to be hours ago. Sometimes he would stay up to listen to them talk. His father worried about Katara’s nightmares, he worried about Sokka’s inability to ask for help, he worried and worried and worried. 

And then he left anyway, because none of it had really mattered to him enough to stay. 

Sokka wakes groggy and uncertain later to the sound of Azula moaning in her sleep. Rustling. Katara gently murmuring her name. He thinks he hears Azula crying softly, but he’s not sure. Zuko has gone completely stiff beside him, clearly far more awake than Sokka is. 

He doesn’t see anything that happens next. He falls asleep again.

Katara wakes him up before the sun has risen, and she has to tell him twice that she needs to look at his before he understands a word of what she’s saying. He outstretches it to her like he’s presenting a floppy noodle, and his sister rolls her eyes and unwraps the worst of the bandages. Sokka does his best not to disturb Aang, still sound asleep against him. Aang doesn’t sleep easy. He and Katara have an unspoken pact to let him sleep as much as possible whenever he does crash.

Katara’s expression gets tight as she pokes at him. Sokka manages a soft hm. She smooths her face out when she sees him looking like she has to, and then smiles with little sincerity. “Your skin is sagging and rippling, like it’s detached from the bone. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about. Go back to sleep, I’ll see you in a few hours. Azula and I need to go.” 

“Don’t be stupid,” Sokka pleads with her, “we’re not that desperate for money yet.” 

Katara’s eyes soften. She leans forward and presses a soft kiss to his forehead. “I can take care of myself, Sokka. Get some more sleep.” 

And he does, processing little of their conversation. Tries not to feel like an asshole for it later, when he wakes up and realizes that he’s done little to contribute to their living situation. He wants to do something. He’s tired of laying around all day or waiting for something to happen or being in pain. He has to do something before he loses his mind. 

He nudges Aang awake, who blinks at him sleepily, burying his face into Sokka’s chest like a disturbed, sad cat. Sokka pokes him more. “I want to check on Appa,” he says. Aang immediately shoots upright. “Wake up Zuko.” 

Their free meal is exactly one free meal, Shen Lu doesn’t feel that bad for them, evidently, so Sokka, Aang, and Zuko all pick through their rations for the riveting beloved meal of berries and more dried fish. Sokka hopes that his sister and Azula thought of taking some before they started their shift. 

He sees them in the tavern when they pass through, and he waves at Azula, who glares at him. Sokka really appreciates how welcoming and loving and warm she is. It truly makes him feel wanted. It makes him wonder about Ozai, and what he was like as a father, if Azula is so cold and Zuko is so stiff. 

Appa seems pleased with their impromptu visit, and Sokka helps Aang with coming out his fur for a while, until both of them get bored with it. He turns back to Zuko, seated against a tree, bad leg outstretched in front of him and hand limp in his lap. “Hey, Z,” he says, “what do you like to do for fun?” 

Zuko looks up at him. “Fun?” 

“Yeah. You know. Recreation. Fun. Activities, hobbies?”  

Aang looks deeply invested in this question. Zuko’s expression rolls through many emotions, most of them indecipherable before he says, “Serving my father is ‘fun’.”

Spirits spare them. Ozai might as well have put a dagger to his throat for daring to think about anything other than what would please him best. At least, for all Hakoda’s faults, he didn’t do that. 

Aang wrinkles his nose. “That’s not fun.” 

“And you get to decide that for me? Why did you ask me if you didn’t want my answer?” Zuko snaps. Harder than he meant to, if the way his shoulders sag is any indication. He says, in a mumble, “Uncle had music night on the ship sometimes. I play a few instruments.” 

“Oh,” Sokka says, surprised. Audibly. Enough Zuko flushes a little. “No, I mean. It’s cool. I just wouldn’t have suspected…you, um, don’t seem like the music type.” 

Gran-Gran played an instrument and she sung. Neither Sokka nor Katara shared her gift for it in any capacity. They both couldn’t create more than something that could be classified as torture. 

“I’m not good,” Zuko says, with a surprising amount of bitterness. 

“Oh, c’mon, don’t be mean,” Sokka protests, “I’m sure you’re great.” He turns toward Aang,  suddenly curious, “Do you play anything?” 

The boy shrugs. 

Zuko adds, quieter and miserable, “I draw. I used to draw.” 

“Oh, hey, me too,” Sokka says, with more excitement than he should. He remembers Zuko’s eyes a second too late, watches the strain enter the boy’s face. Sokka winces. “Sorry.” He switches gears entirely, trying to calm instead of poking at this open wound further, “Have you ever done any clay sculpting at the rivers?” 

Zuko hasn’t. They spend the rest of the afternoon getting down and dirty with the mud, shaping little bowls and cups and uneven canteens. It makes Sokka feel useful, replacing their lost equipment, and that makes him feel better and less horrible about leaving everything to Katara and Azula. 

The next few days pass in a bored, sludgy blur of sickness. Sokka’s skin has started to peel off his arm in thick, disgusting patches. He knows that it’s freaking out Katara, and if he’s being completely honest with himself--which, conveniently for the mental breakdown he’s stuffing deep down in his chest, he isn’t--he’s beginning to panic himself. Zuko’s face is doing the same thing, and his leg. It looks like strips of skin are falling off to reveal fleshy meat and fat underneath, and it’s disgusting to look at and smells even worse. Sokka thinks, distantly, that their skin might have begun to rot off . 

“I don’t know what to do,” Katara whispers on day five since they got here, looking terrified and fourteen . “We need to buy more medicine.” 

What medicine undoes this? Sokka’s head has begun to hurt all the time. He knows that he’s developing a slight fever, and his heart is beating wildly out of alignment. It makes him dizzy. And exhausted. He spends a lot of time sleeping. He knows that he’s freaking out Aang, which is making Katara freak out, which is making Azula freak out, but he can’t stop it. 

He and Zuko end up tangled together more than once, seeking out each other’s body heat in their sleep. It’s humiliating. And kind of relieving, not to be alone, pressed against Zuko’s side, knowing that there is someone else there, and he’s not alone in that cold, dark cell. 

The black and gray skin falls off in uneven patches, and then, finally, it stops. The fresh skin grows in underneath, like it was always there to begin with laughing at him, and Sokka is so relieved he could cry. 

His fever breaks without another incident, Zuko a day behind him. His fingers flex without pain, even if it’s stiff, and Zuko looks less like his face was held against a hot pan. He gets his good eye to squint open--progress, even if it’s still just blurry shapes--and Sokka is able to make out the shape of his original scar. The handprint . 

Azula hovers. Like an angry wasp, but she hovers, and she seems worse for it. Tense and rattled and jittery. He wonders if she’s ever seen her brother that vulnerable before, or if their life in the capital of the fire nation sheltered them from even severe illness. Zuko doesn’t strike Sokka as the type of person who was ever ill as a child. 

Finally, when the tension grows too thick to bear anymore, as Azula stares unblinkingly at her brother’s sleeping form late evening, Sokka rolls his eyes. He jabs her arm, “Come on,” he says, tilting his head in the direction of the door. Katara and Aang already fell asleep. They were let off early, Shen Lu either taking pity on them or offering it as some sort of thank you. There’s a village festival going on for another hour or two or three, a celebration of a good harvest. 

“No,” Azula says, annoyed. 

“You never do anything,” Sokka protests, “one hour, then we can come back up here, and you can brood.” 

“ No.” 

Azula scowls as they walk down the stairs, and out of the building, and onto the street. She scowls at anyone who gets closer than ten feet, scowls at Sokka, and looks so miserable to be out here that Sokka almost feels bad enough to take her back inside. 

The village has been strung up with lights and candles, and the smell of freshly baked food fills his nostrils. He can see people milling every way he turns, games set up for children and more of those horrible, flashing pinwheels being passed around in hands. It reminds him strongly of the festivals they used to do for each solstice, and a wave of homesickness crashes through him with violence. It doesn’t help that every man he turns to in the crowd he wants to be from his village, and transposes a few faces that he knows aren’t here. 

He wonders what Gran-Gran did this year, if she even bothered to celebrate with her entire family gone. His father would be disgusted with him, for leaving her so alone. He’s a terrible grandson, just like his father, abandoning everyone on a whim. 

The most fancy looking dishes and treats need to be paid for, but Sokka finds a few vendors willing to offer it to them for free if he smiles big enough and makes enough excited gushing. Sokka can see that Azula likes the orange sticky rolls even if she’d never admit it on pain of death, and lies to say he doesn’t like his and offers it to her instead. 

They try the local sushi, and both end up trying not to gag in front of the patron. 

It’s…fun. Azula makes good company, even if she’s annoyed. She seems willing to try everything, as if she needs to learn the intricacies of this small village so she can know how best to take it over in a few days. It makes him roll his eyes. 

He runs head-long into a girl, who can’t be much older than Aang. She glares at him furiously, “What where you’re going, dipshit.” 

“Whoa, okay, hi to you too,” Sokka says, and opens his mouth to snarl something equally nasty, when he notices the vacant gray to her eyes. She’s blind. Very blind, if the emptiness to her stare is any indication. 

She stomps her foot, somehow managing to catch his eyes perfectly to level a lethal glare at him. “You got something to say to me? You’re not from around here, are you?” 

“Shoo, little nuisance,” Azula says. “Go bother someone else.” 

The little girl shoves Sokka. His balance tips, and he crashes into Azula violently, swearing. The fire bender catches him, though she nearly falls with him. What the hell is wrong with that kid?  

“Asshole,” Sokka mutters. Azula snorts. She shoves him back up, and Sokka lets her. They keep moving through the crowd, and though he looks for her to avoid her, the angry little blind girl doesn’t reappear. 

The one thing he hadn't counted on is how quickly his own stamina would falter.

“You shouldn’t be walking this much, you’re still sick,” Azula says to him, eventually, when Sokka nearly face-plants for the third time in as many minutes. He waves a hand. His balance is still a little shot, but that’s fine. Not like he needs that. “ Spirits.” 

He grabs hold of her wrist, “Ooh, look, that guy is doing puppets.” 

Azula groans , but she lets herself be led over. Sokka watches the fire nation propaganda with rapt attention, laughing with the fire lord is dragged out. He looks like a balding demon creature. Truly the lord of all the land. When he looks up, he sees, to his amazement, that Azula looks like she wants to laugh. 

It’s an expression he doesn’t think he’s ever actually seen her make before. Azula isn’t a happy person. Neither is Zuko. They never laugh because they’re happy, they laugh because of disbelief and pain and hurt. They don’t smile, like they don’t know how. It makes Sokka’s stomach squeeze and squeeze and squeeze. 

He doesn’t know what to do about them, what to do with them, only that he knows he wants to fix it and can’t. But a stupid little puppet show that presented her father as a fool can . 

Sokka gasps dramatically, grasping her arm. “She smiles?” 

Azula’s face drops. She lifts a hand, touching at her lips. Not covering, just touching, like she’s not sure what her face did. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she snaps, right back to seething, but this time, Sokka can tell it’s forced. “It was stupid.” 

A wave of pity and anger and sadness swirls through him. “You can laugh, Azula,” he promises, squeezing her wrist in the dark, “I’d like it if you did.” 

Just once. Your father couldn’t have stolen that from you. 

Her eyes regain a level of steel that is genuine with its wrath and disgust. “Spare me your inanity,” she mutters, but she seems almost jealous of him. 

Sokka frowns. “Hey,” he says, and he keeps it gentle. There are kids still running around behind him, and people talking every way he turns, and food being passed through hands and everything is so overwhelming and dizzying and, somehow, perfectly still. “You’re allowed. You're so serious all the time, relax .” 

“I tried your disgusting rolls, didn’t I?” Azula says, “It could have been poisoned.” 

“Uh. Okay. So many questions, number one being: do you normally think all the food you eat might be poisoned?” 

She gives him a look. “I’m the daughter of the Fire Lord.” 

Ah. The amount of people who want her dead or hurt or captured is not a small one. Hell, look at what happened to Zuko. Her paranoia makes sense, and it wasn't founded on nothing. Still. Sokka smiles, “Oh, you mean the balding tired man who talks like this?” he pitches his voice at the end the way the puppetmaster did, leaving it wailing like a teenage girl. “I’m so scary, everyone should be scared of my balding head.” 

That laugh does bubble out of Azula, startled and sharp, but there. It lights up her face in a way that makes her face look a decade younger, and Sokka smiles at her, unable to help a rush of fondness. She relaxes at his face, as if she was expecting a rebuke instead. 

“He has hair,” Azula says. She smirks, “He’s proud of his luscious locks.” 

Did she just make a joke? Sokka sputters. “I’m sorry, his what?” 

“Where did the sticky roll man go?” Azula asks, “I want another one.” 

“Wh--hey!” Sokka tries to snatch her arm when she walks off, but he misses, and she vanishes quickly in the crowd. He doesn’t let the swell of panic overwhelm him, because his village is still small enough to only be a few hundred people, and Azula is recognizable, with her pale, perfect skin and unmistakable posture. He’ll find her. He just needs to find the sticky orange roll man first. The kids have mostly been sent to bed, and the alcohol was brought out a while ago. Probably time they head back to the inn, unless Sokka wants to learn what kind of drunk Azula is. He’s guessing angry, but he could also see an argument made for weepy, and that would be a sight. 

Sokka works his way through the crowd, and, somehow yet again, misses the little blind girl until it’s too late. He stumbles into her, or maybe she puts herself in front of him, he doesn’t fucking know, and he scrambles back, apologizing again. “Sorry, sorry, I swear I don’t see you, which I know is all kinds of messed up because like I should, but--” 

“Lost your escort, pretty boy?” She lifts her chin, eyes defiant, and smirks. “Gotcha.” 

“What the fuck are you--?” Sokaa starts, but she nods to someone behind him, and Sokka thinks fuck, a second before hands clamp around his mouth and wrench his hands behind his back. Two separate pairs, he can feel the rough calluses. Sokka screams into their fingers, trying to snap out his teeth and bite down on them, but he can’t get his jaw free.

He’s shoved forward by the hands, pushed and wrestled, ignored by the increasingly drunk, adult crowd as he searches desperately for Azula. He doesn’t see her. 

Panic seizes him, clawing up his throat. Fire nation soldiers? Bounty hunters? Someone must have recognized him. They have wanted posters for him. Sokka is a known criminal. 

Fuck. 

Fuck. 

Not now. Not when things were finally starting to go okay. When they were getting money, and Azula and Zuko could stand to be in the same room, and his arm was healing, and Aang and Katara looked relaxed again. Not now. Not fucking now. 

He fights harder, but all it does is tire him faster. He’s dragged out of the crowd entirely, and pushed through an alley between two houses. The little girl is following them, he can hear her footsteps. She fucking scammed him. Is she even blind ? How did she nail him down as a mark so quickly when all she did was shout at him before? 

He’s pushed roughly toward the forest, into the darkness. He can make out lamps the deeper they go inside, a camp has been set up. Shit. Shit. Shit . 

The bandits. Maybe it wasn’t just bandits. An assassination attempt? Azula said there’s no shortage of people that want her dead. Will she notice he’s gone? Will she care? Will she tell Katara and Aang? Fuck. They thought he ran off on his own last time to throw himself from a balcony. Will they think he abandoned them this time, too? 

Sokka is hyperventilating. He can hear it wheezing. The hand is not removed from his mouth. 

He’s shoved past men whose faces he can’t make out. Something about them seems familiar, but not in a way he can place with how badly he’s shaking. His vision is blurred to a single point, the tall, imposing man standing in front of the campfire. 

Sokka is pushed forward, released all at once, and he stumbles roughly, crashing to his knees in the dirt and rough pine needles. He snaps his head up, starting to stagger back, but stops. 

Disbelief numbs every part of terror in him, oozing into something painful. Dread and hope and anger take its place. 

He knows this man. Knows the soft yet rough edges of his jaw, his long hair, his coat. The scars on his hands, the bulking figure that hasn’t lost any of its size in the years he’s been gone. He looks exactly the same and nothing like he remembers.

Sokka sucks in a sharp breath, then a sharper one, and gasps out, “ Dad?”