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After Burning, After Freezing by zukkaenjoyer
Fandoms: Avatar: The Last Airbender (Cartoon 2005), Avatar: The Last Airbender (Live Action TV 2024)
22 Aug 2025
Tags
Summary
This story follows them through the years, focusing on their healing after the war. Zuko never learned how to rest. Sokka never learned how to stop holding everyone else up.
Snippet:
Zuko makes an expression like he’s about to plunge into ice water: “I visited my father again this evening,” he swallows hard, “If you ever see me turning into him I want you to…I want you to end me.”Everything tunnels in.
“No.”
Zuko pauses, runs his hand through his hair, hard, like he’s trying to dig something out of his skull.
”I’m not... right. Not inside. The war’s over, and I thought I’d be at peace. But I’m not,” he squeezes his eyes shut, “Two years have passed. I sleep, and I see visions, fire. I see myself burning everything. Sometimes it’s Sozin’s dragon. Sometimes it’s…memories.”
Sokka watches him and it’s awful, because he recognizes himself, his own version of this. And he wants to fix it, he needs to fix it, needs to get that look out of Zuko’s eyes, but he’s not even sure where to start.
So he says the only thing that feels honest: “It’s okay. I get nightmares too.”