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[south pole, southern water tribe, winter]
Sokka is born in the dead of winter with a red dragon curling down the left side of his back.
His parents don’t know what to make of it, because even as far down as the South Pole they know that dragons are extinct, wiped out years ago by the same people that want the Water Tribe gone. They hope it signifies a kind of solidarity with his soulmate.
Sokka doesn’t want to know what it means. (He knows what it means. The dragons were the original firebenders, and the firebenders that are alive, are—)
Especially when a year later, his sister is born with another kind of tragedy wrapped around her neck— a blue arrow as a choker.
So soulmates are another thing Sokka adds to the list of things he chooses not to believe in. Magic water powers, past lives, and a twelve-year-old boy with Katara’s betrothal necklace tattooed around his neck among them.
—
[fire nation capital city, fire nation, summer]
Zuko is born in the sweltering heat of summer with a sword down his spine.
The braided grip traces up his neck until it meets his hairline. The guard meets between his shoulder blades. The black blade spans the length of his spine and doesn’t stop growing until he does.
It’s not a woman’s weapon, even if the Fire Nation knows that women can fight as well as men— every woman that can’t fight is one less soldier on the battlefield of this endless war— but it does not belong to a woman. He knows it's not a woman’s weapon like he knows the Fire Nation is intolerant, that in marriage, marks mean less than someone’s gender, and that he has to work twice as hard to make up this disgrace to his markless father. Work twice as hard as Azula, markless as their father, has never had to.
He asks about his mother’s, once, when Azula mocks Zuko for being weak, for having attachments. His mother shields her face when she tells him it’s impolite to ask. And maybe it isn’t. But his father is watching, so he doesn’t ask again.
[makapu village, earth kingdom, spring]
Sokka adds fortunetellers to his list of bullshit.
He doesn’t ask about his love life like Katara does. What is there even for Katara to ask, except for a confirmation of what they already know? Except she’s fourteen and knowing for certain that Aang is her match is something romantic and far off, even though Sokka knows that Aang would marry her tomorrow if she hinted that she wanted it.
Aunt Wu tells him anyway.
She tells him things he doesn’t want to hear, things he already knows. She tells him that his match is a powerful firebender. She tells him that his match is a man. She tells him that they’ve already met. He chokes on his bean curd puffs and spends the entire day trying to prove her wrong to a village that won’t listen. (But she isn’t.)
—
[makapu village, earth kingdom, spring]
The fortuneteller offers to read their fortunes when they come barreling into her pitiful Earth Kingdom town, and Zuko doesn’t want to hear it. (She tells him anyway.)
She tells him that he’ll catch what he’s chasing, but not before losing everything he ever wanted. She tells him that his future is full of struggle and anguish unless he accepts what the spirits have blessed him with, and that the warring dragons inside him will win unless he picks a side. He has picked a side. There was never any choice in the matter. He doesn’t want to know about the man who surely has a scar in place of a soulmate.
When she’s done speaking, he has half a mind to burn down her whole village. His uncle reminds him they’re on a schedule if they want to catch the Avatar. His spine runs ice cold.
[shu jing, fire nation, summer]
Sokka trains.
He’s accepted a lot of things over the past year. He knows that spirits are real and mostly want to eat him. He has felt Aang’s immense power in the face of great tragedy. He’s seen that not every firebender is as corrupt as their leader. He’s seen that not every Fire Nation citizen is as cruel and unforgivable as Katara seems to think.
Not every one. But most of them.
So he trains. Because he’s just— he’s just the weapons guy in a world where people can bend metal with their hands.
His master, Piandao, is one of those Fire Nation citizens capable of being something more. Is something more.
When he holds out Sokka’s finished sword, freshly dipped in water to cool, there’s a conflicted look on his face. “I’ve seen this sword before,” he says. He never elaborates.
—
[shu jing, fire nation, summer]
A long time ago, Piandao had a young student skilled in dual broadswords. The Fire Lord’s grandson had been exceptionally skilled and eager to please, and had been a far more excellent student than his family had been customers.
Prince Ozai had shown him the young man’s bare back, and asked if he knew the sword, or the sword maker. Piandao had truthfully told him that he had never seen the sword before in his life. He declined to mention that he recognized his own craftsmanship in the blade. And he declined to mention that he simply hadn’t crafted that particular sword yet.
He was not the young prince’s soulmate, but someday, that young man would stand on his doorstep with a far greater destiny than he’d come looking for.
Years later, he watches the familiar sword fly off alongside the Avatar and knows that soon, the lotus tiles will fall.
[ember island, fire nation, summer]
Zuko rarely chooses to be shirtless. He likes high collars that hide his neck, and until his banishment, chose to wear his hair long enough to hide the lotus at the end of the straight sword.
Visiting the beach, being shirtless is unavoidable. But what’s the point of hiding it when no one knows him here? What’s the point when everyone he knows has already seen it?
When the four of them hash it out around the fire, he’s reminded of when they were children. Azula likes to collect secrets and people almost as much as she likes to torment people with those secrets. She spent their childhood pitting her only two friends against each other, against Zuko, using the dirty secrets printed on their skin as leverage.
Azula is strangely quiet this time, and Zuko thinks it’s because they’re already doing a pretty good job of tearing each other apart.
Mai’s words about Ty Lee needing ten boyfriends cut sharp when Zuko knows it’s Mai’s knives that adorn Ty Lee’s calves. He thinks they can all be happy if they just keep pretending otherwise.
[fire nation capital city, fire nation, solar eclipse]
Azula taunts Sokka. In the underground bunker, knowing there’s only eight minutes left of the eclipse, he falls for it.
When his back is turned to her, she calls out, “Don’t you want to know where I’ve seen that sword before?”
He doesn’t let it bother him. They have more important things to worry about than some cryptic Fire Nation bullshit.
But when she talks about Suki, he loses it. He knows they don’t share marks, but not for the first time, he wishes that he had a fan spread across his back instead of a fire-snake.
[western air temple, air nation, summer]
Sokka admits that Zuko isn’t that bad. He’s only been around for like a day and a half, but he hasn’t actively tried to kill him in that time, and Aang needs a firebending teacher, so… whatever. Just another not as bad as he could have been firebender added to his ever growing list.
But when Zuko loses his stuff half a day into it, and Toph recommends, “Going back to the original source,” Sokka makes light of it. It’s fun to tease the guy. Let him jump into a volcano or whatever, Sokka doesn’t care.
It’s not until Zuko says, “The original firebenders were the dragons,” that Soka drops his sword and starts paying attention. The loud clanging is ignored, and they continue discussing it as if his whole world hasn’t shifted. Aang doesn’t seem to remember the angry red beast on his back, but Katara does, giving him a sidelong glance across the fire.
Sokka doesn’t sleep that night, because every time he closes his eyes he sees the raging dragon coming towards him, the faceless rider poised to strike.
—
[western air temple, air nation, summer]
He and Aang discuss it on the way back to the Air Temple. “Do we tell everyone about the dragons?” Zuko asks, but is it really a question? Aang is like an open book on the worst of days and a raging waterfall on the best.
The second they hop off the bison’s back, he’s running to his friends— their friends?— and is telling them all about how dragons are still alive. Aang is halfway through telling them about their dragon dance when he mentions the red and blue dragons, and there’s another loud clattering. They all turn to Sokka, who’s dropped his sword. Sokka is scrambling to pick it up, and when he does, he wraps his fingers around the hilt, protective.
“Sorry,” Sokka says, but his voice is weird. “Ol’ butterfingers Sokka here. Keep, uh,” he says, and his voice is like a squeak, “keep talking about the, uh, red dragons.”
No one else seems to think it’s weird, but after that, Zuko keeps one eye on him through the rest of the demonstration. Sokka makes light of it all, teasing them— teasing him— incessantly, and though they all laugh, Zuko doesn’t know why it bothers him so much.
[boiling rock, fire nation, summer]
Sitting in Azula’s airship after rescuing his father and Suki from Boiling Rock Prison, Sokka knows he should be grateful they all made it out alive. And he is— he’s so grateful, but it doesn’t come in the form he expected. Even when he throws his arm around Suki, holding her close, he feels an emptiness he’s not sure he’s ever felt before. His hand still tingles from where Zuko had helped him up on the roof of the gondola and— Zuko.
He’d been fine with the man before— and really, he had— but this was something else. He was grateful Zuko was there. He was glad the firebender had joined them.
He wants to reach out and squeeze his hand again, to say thank you, but he knows it wouldn’t be welcome. A thoughtless helping hand during battle was one thing, but your ‘barely-a-friend’ friend wanting to reach out and hold your hand? Something else entirely. Zuko might be one of the better people to come out of the Fire Nation, but Sokka knows that the intolerance to that sort of thing was bred into the Fire Nation before Aang was even born.
It should unnerve him the way that Zuko won’t stop staring at him across the airship control room, as though he’d solved some long-forgotten puzzle, but— they’d evened the score between them, hadn’t they? This made them friends, didn’t it?
(For the first time in Suki’s presence, Sokka doesn’t once think about wishing that she was his soulmate.)
—
[boiling rock, fire nation, summer]
Zuko had seen Sokka’s sword before. He’d known, in theory, that it was a straight sword with a braided grip, and Sokka carried it around like it was a piece of his soul just as much as Zuko’s own firebending was. But he’d never seen it unsheathed, hadn’t even considered the sheer importance of it, even seeing Toph’s black meteorite band.
But nothing compares to the jolt of lightning he feels when Sokka pulls the blade from its sheath to face off against Azula, and Zuko sees, for a brief second, the glint of his reflection on the black blade. Azula sees his moment of hesitance and strikes out against him, because of course she knows. His sister has always been one step ahead of him.
“Oh, Zuzu,” Azula taunts, “haven’t you figured it out yet? You were always meant to be a traitor.” It’s meant to distract him, to throw him off balance, but he doesn’t let it. Sokka doesn’t seem to have picked up the meaning, and maybe it’s better that way.
And the fight is quick. He stands between her and Sokka, which should have been a sign of weakness, but it isn’t. They work together like they’ve been fighting side by side for years, him fending off the fire while Sokka lashes out at her between strikes.
They don’t manage to make any real progress— any of them— but by the end of the fight Sokka’s hand is in his. He’s pulling the Water Tribesman from the crouching position he’d fallen into on the roof, and they’re watching his sister sail away in the opposite direction. When Sokka pulls away, sheathing his sword, it’s the first time Zuko has felt a true absence of heat in a long time.
On Azula’s airship, when he has time to think, Zuko wonders if Sokka knows. Maybe he figured it out a long time ago, when Zuko was still figuring himself out. But by the way Sokka doesn’t give him a second glance, by the way his arm falls easily over the shoulders of the Kyoshi Warrior, Zuko knows he doesn’t know. It doesn’t matter. This is just another burden for him to bear alone.
[ember island, fire nation, t-4 days to sozin’s comet]
Growing up in the South Pole, Sokka never had much cause to strip down to his waist. Traveling with Aang changed that, of course, as the oceans were no longer covered in ice. He’d never been particularly shy about his body, so stripping down in a river to bathe or take a swim didn’t bother him. Katara already knew about his mark, and since he grew up in a time of dragons, Aang didn’t stop to consider it for a moment longer than remarking how cool it was. Toph, in all of her blind glory, couldn’t even see it.
Suki never mentions it, and he never asks about hers, and he thinks that’s okay. They’re the only two non-benders in Team Avatar, and maybe they can work things out with the soulmate thing too. Not everyone can have their fruit pie and eat it too, Aang.
So when they all head down to the beach to splash around in the sun on their day off, he doesn’t hesitate to strip down to his sarashi on a beach full of friends. And besides, being in the Fire Nation, he figures that he probably has the most normal tattoo out of all of them.
Still, he finds it unnerving to have Zuko stop his attacks on Aang long enough to get a good glimpse of the dragon on his back. Maybe he’d been wrong in thinking that it's not that unusual of a Fire Nation tattoo.
—
[ember island, fire nation, t-4 days to sozin’s comet]
Zuko sees his mark on Sokka’s back at the beach. Like on the gondola, days ago, it throws him off long enough for Aang to get away, but he can’t help it. He’s spent half his life wondering what form his soul took outside his body, and then the other half not wanting to know.
He’s not sure whether knowing is better or worse. A dragon. A red dragon, mirroring his own scar down to the color. He wonders how none of them have ever picked up on it. Selective interpretation, he thinks.
Dragons were noble and majestic creatures, capable of such great and powerful things. In each of Zuko’s visions about the creatures, the red dragons had always represented the honor and goodness he had tried so hard to capture, and there it all is, laid out before him on someone else’s skin.
(And who is he to be deserving of the title dragon? He chases after Aang.)
That evening, they sit around the fire and talk about them. Soulmarks.
Aang and Katara are easy. They line up cheek to cheek and show off Aang’s replica of Katara’s mother’s necklace, the one Zuko got to know so well, and Katara shows off the blue arrow at the base of her throat, easily concealed by her mother’s real necklace.
Toph is easy too. She doesn’t have one, and she doesn’t mind saying it. Her parents were always more bothered by her lack of one than she is but— she’s blind, what use does she have for a thing she can’t even see? And besides, she doesn’t need anyone to complete her. She’s her own person.
After that, Zuko finds himself growing increasingly uncomfortable, as though the air is being sucked out of the room.
Suki doesn’t know what hers means, and it's in a place she doesn’t like to show off in public. Zuko wonders if Sokka’s seen it, like how Zuko’s seen the channel network down Mai’s back that shows the lines where her chi flows.
Sokka shrugs, and it’s easy for him to put it out there, they’ve all seen it. “Yes, my soulmate is probably a firebender!” he says, can say, because he doesn’t know. “Clearly, looking at Zuko, they’re not all bad.”
Zuko can’t stop himself from asking, meeting Sokka’s eyes across the fire, but there’s no light of recognition there, “Do you know who it is?” And Sokka shrugs, declaring it one of life’s great mysteries.
He doesn’t want to talk about it when their gazes turn on him. They make assumptions— is it someone he left behind in the Fire Nation? He looks away when he agrees with them.
Toph brushes past him when they all part ways. She says, “I know you’re lying.”
[wulong forest, earth kingdom, sozin’s comet]
Sokka loses his sword.
It falls off the airship into the Wulong Forest, disappearing into a rain of fire. It’s a small price to pay for his and Toph’s life, but it still hurts like the loss of a limb, even more so than the loss of his boomerang, or even his broken leg. He knows now that he’s a lot more than the boomerang guy, and he thinks that his sword somehow represented his growth over the last year.
“Hey Aang,” he says, looking over the ashen forest, “can you do something for me?”
—
[fire nation capital city, fire nation, sozin’s comet]
Zuko’s always been careful about not being shirtless around people, but especially Team Avatar. Especially after Boiling Rock. But he’s not thinking about that when Katara’s glowing hands are on his abdomen, healing him. When her hand is on his shoulder, helping him up. When her hands are peeling away his robe from where it melted against his skin.
She gasps, her fingers reaching for his spine before he realizes his mistake.
“Don’t,” he croaks, but it’s too late, she’s seen it, touched it.
“I’m sorry,” she says, but her eyes are wide and gaping. He makes her swear not to say anything.
When the rest of Team Avatar returns, he shrugs back into his half-burned shirt to conceal his back. Sokka is limping, Toph is burned, and his father is still alive. But he can’t keep his eyes from the Water Tribesman leaning on Suki.
When Sokka returns, his sword is no longer with him. Zuko doesn’t know whether to feel pained or grateful. He thinks maybe that their time has passed. He lets Sokka be happy with Suki.
He thinks he can be happy with Mai.
[fire nation capital city, fire nation, autumn]
When he hears about the latest attempt on the Fire Lord’s life, Sokka leaves for the Fire Nation capital immediately.
It’s been three years since Zuko’s coronation, but the attacks never seem to stop coming, and even the Kyoshi Warriors can’t protect Zuko from all of them. Sokka hates it. Hates it even more that he wasn’t there this time to stand between Zuko and whatever was trying to take him from this world.
It’s like he’s stepped back in time when he pushes into Zuko’s room. The girls at the door don’t stop him, and he knows he would have been willing to put up a fight if they had. Zuko is sitting on his bed, struggling to put his arm through one sleeve of his robe. He’s not wearing any bandages this time, so Sokka can see the full array of purple and red bruises across his back. But that’s not what draws his attention.
“I don’t need your help,” Zuko calls from the bed, tired, exhausted, like he’s had this conversation a dozen times.
“I wasn’t going to offer it,” Sokka says, his voice barely containing his fury. Zuko whirls around at the sound of his voice, but winces at his bruised ribs and can’t turn enough to face him, leaving Sokka with the perfect view of his back.
The sword.
His sword.
His space sword, undeniably his. There was none other like it in the world. Zuko has seen it dozens of times, fighting side by side. He’s seen Sokka’s back, with the red dragon, and oh spirits, things fall into place alarmingly fast.
And by the way Zuko sits, back straight, he knows. And he knows that Sokka knows now, too.
“I admit the dragon on my back might be up to interpretation, but Zuko,” he says, and his voice has gone flat and cold. Zuko is wincing, slowly turning himself around to face Sokka.
“Sokka,” he groans.
For years Sokka has felt an undeniable connection to the man, and he’d— he’d thought it was all in his head. That what he’s been feeling was just him. That it was just because of Zuko. He’s wondered, just briefly, if Zuko was his soulmate. But every time that dash of hope had risen in his chest, he stamped it out, thinking, it can’t possibly be him. For so many reasons. Because Sokka’s soul? Sokka’s soul was simple, and undeniable, and probably as annoying and as unable to give up as his boomerang. And Zuko would have said something. He would have been vocal in his rejection of it.
But instead, he stayed silent. For years.
“If you didn’t fucking want me, Zuko, you could have at least had the guts to say it to my face.”
Zuko is wincing again, and Sokka hopes it hurts his bruised ribs. “It’s not that.”
“You knew this whole time, and I—” he looks away, stupidly. “I thought it was Mai this whole time. You let me believe it was Mai.”
—
[fire nation capital city, fire nation, autumn]
Zuko had not been, contrary to his own misguided beliefs, better off with Mai. And she certainly hadn’t been better off with him. It turns out that settling for someone doesn’t make anyone happy. It doesn’t make anyone less in love with someone else.
“I spent— three years in love with you thinking you belonged to somebody else,” Sokka says, and Zuko can’t look him in the eye.
“It’s not the first time anyone has loved another that didn’t belong to them. I watched you love Suki,” Zuko points out.
“That’s not— the same.”
“So should I have told you?” Zuko says, meeting Sokka’s eyes. “What would you have done? Would you have left her and dated me just because of a tattoo you don’t even believe in?” Sokka winces away, and Zuko knows he’s gotten him on that. Sokka had admitted his doubts in believing that the spirits could tell them who to love. “Or would you have told me, ‘sorry Zuko, I’ve got something real in my life’?”
“This is real,” Sokka says.
Zuko turns his head, and he’s wincing. He can’t— he can’t get his arms through this blasted robe, and— those are Sokka’s hands on him.
“Don’t hurt yourself,” Sokka says gently, reaching for the robe.
He stiffens under the touch, and he doesn’t know if it's because of the injury or if he’s afraid of what it means. Sokka’s hands guide his arms through the sleeves, but he rests it on the crook of Zuko’s elbows. His hands leave Zuko, and he finds himself chasing the touch. He’s always chasing his touch.
“Why don’t you let yourself have nice things?” Sokka asks, and Zuko closes his eyes.
“Because they can be ripped away from me.”
And then— Sokka’s fingers brush between Zuko’s shoulder blades, and an electric current passes through him. By the way Sokka pulls back his hand, Zuko knows he can feel it too. It’s like his body is a livewire, like lightning is passing through it, but without the possibility of being burned.
“I lost my sword,” Sokka says, an unfathomable segue.
“What?” Zuko says.
And there— Sokka’s fingers are back on Zuko’s back, tracing down his spine like it might contain a blade. The electric current is gone but it still sends shivers down his spine.
“During Sozin’s Comet I lost my sword. I was injured and we all barely came out of it with our lives, but all I could think about was my sword. After everyone healed, after your coronation, I asked Aang and Toph to come with me to go back and look for it. And we found it, the three of us. Because, Zuko,” he presses his palm into Zuko’s spine, “if you lose something precious you don’t just let it go, you go looking for it.”
“Oh,” Zuko says, and Sokka is slipping the robe over his shoulders. He kneels on the bed beside Zuko and reaches for the belt, tying it. And when he looks up, its blue eyes on amber. And then it doesn’t matter, because their eyes are closed, and Sokka’s lips are on his.