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One day, maybe two weeks after Sokka just straight up adopts Zuko, Katara comes back to her dorm room to find it plastered with post-its.
Turtles will give you up, says one.
Turtles will let you down, says another.
Turtles will run you around and desert you, reads a third. The rest are in a similar vein. Katara groans and unlocks her door.
“What are those all over the door?” says her roommate, Song, looking up from her computer. Katara sighs.
“Thanks for the decorations,” she says sarcastically when she arrives at dinner. Sokka looks extremely proud of himself.
“What?” says Zuko. Katara hands him the stack of post-its, and he and Aang pore over them.
“These were all over my door when I got home.”
“Why?”
“When I was little, I picked up a turtle to move it across the road. And it peed on me. And somebody has never let me forget that.”
“Why would you do that?” Aang asks Sokka, making a distressed face.
“It’s a sibling thing. You don’t have siblings, Aang, you wouldn’t get it.”
“You’re right, I don’t get it. Do you have siblings, Zuko?”
“A sister,” says Zuko.
“Older or younger?”
“Younger.”
Katara remembers what Sokka told them and asks, “Will you tell us about her?”
“Her name’s Azula, she’s sixteen, and she has anger issues. I was mom’s favorite, and she was dad’s, so she’s probably just as fucked up as I am, only in very different ways. I haven’t seen her for more than a few minutes at a time in three years, so I don’t really know.”
“How do you mean?”
“You have to be perfect for Dad to love you.”
Aang never gets a chance to ask for elaboration, because Zuko’s sleeve gets stuck on a promotion for a concert as he reaches for the salt, and Sokka chokes on his drink.
“What the fuck?” He’s staring, horrorstruck, at Zuko’s arm, even as he hacks into a napkin.
Zuko yanks his arm back instantly, foregoing the salt.
“I’m actually not hungry,” he says stiffly, picks up his plate with one hand and his bag with the other, and walks away.
Katara can only think of one thing that makes Sokka look like that. She meets Sokka’s eyes and mouths Scars? He nods, still looking sick.
Katara grabs her own backpack and plate and stands. “Stay here,” she tells them.
“What’s going on?” asks Aang, voice fading as she walks to the exit. The last thing she hears is Sokka.
“Let Katara handle it.”
She spots Zuko’s plate in the dish return and rescues it, then goes back to the cashier and asks for two carryout containers. She doesn’t believe for a second he really wants to skip dinner—and neither does she—and it’ll give him a moment to regroup.
She expects to go to his room and knock on the door, but she finds him before she gets there, huddled under a tree in the dark, clutching his own forearms. She sits down a few feet away, and Zuko startles.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he mutters.
“Okay,” says Katara. “But don’t you want to know why Sokka knows exactly what he’s looking at?”
That gets him to glance at her.
“Does Sokka…?”
“No,” says Katara. “Me.”
Zuko stares for a second, then stands up abruptly and walks a few steps so he’s illuminated by a nearby streetlamp. He pushes up his sleeve. Katara follows, and looks.
They’re burn scars, warping and discoloring the flesh. Some of them are years old, and some of them are fresh, pink and shiny.
Katara pushes up her own sleeve, and lets him see the thin, parallel lines marking her skin.
“I have cigarette burns on my thighs,” she says, answering the obvious question.
“I didn’t do the one on my face,” Zuko says, answering a question that’s frankly so horrifying it hadn’t even occurred to her.
“Good,” she says fervently.
“How long has it been for you?”
“Since I was thirteen. I stopped for a while when I was fifteen, and again when I was sixteen, and then I switched to burns, and the last time was eight months and sixteen days ago now.”
“I was fourteen,” he admits. “After my face healed. I needed the pain back.”
She lets out a little noise like she’s been punched. “That’s…”
“Really fucked up, I know.”
She takes his hand and squeezes it.
“When did Sokka find out?” He doesn’t squeeze back, but he doesn’t pull away.
She laughs a little, though it isn’t funny. “Like, a day after I started. I think it killed him when I made him promise not to tell Dad.”
“Do your parents not know?”
“I told Dad when I was sixteen and it was pretty obvious it wasn’t going to get better on its own. We lost our mom when I was little.”
“I’m sorry,” he says softly, staring at their joined hands. “That’s something else we have in common.”
There are a lot of things Katara would rather have in common with someone than everything they’re talking about, but she doesn’t say anything.
“My uncle caught me at it when I was fifteen. He looked really sad, and came back the next day with a mountain of research on harm reduction.”
Katara feels a surge of affection for the mysterious uncle.
“So Sokka’s not freaked out?”
“Oh, he’s freaked out,” says Katara. “But not in the ‘oh my god he’s suicidal I need to call 911’ kind of way.” They both shudder. “More like, he’s decided you’re one of his people and it hurts him to know his people are hurting. The most annoying thing he does is when you tell him you’re fine, sometimes he’ll just stare at you, like he’s trying to figure out if you’re lying. And he got kind of overbearing last year when he wasn’t around and he started asking ‘how are you’ in that special voice every time I talked to him on the phone.”
“Special voice?”
“How are you,” Katara repeats, exaggerating the worry in her tone. When Zuko just stares, she shakes her head. “It’s not important. Anyway, just let him give you an extra long hug and make sad puppy eyes at you for a day and he’ll be fine. Don’t tell him I said this or I will put centipedes in your pillowcase, but he’s a good brother.”
Zuko looks extremely alarmed.
Sokka takes another bite of chicken, but it’s dry and tasteless now, and he puts his fork down.
“Sokka?”
Aang looks frightened.
“I can’t, it’s not mine to tell,” Sokka says, even though he’s already told Katara, because Katara understands, and had already guessed anyway. It’s so, so selfish to feel like he’s been stabbed, when he isn’t even the one who’s hurting badly enough to…to do that, but he does anyway. He knows he hasn’t always been successful in hiding it from Katara, and he knows she feels a little guilt-tripped into quitting because of that, and that makes him feel even worse, and—
“Can I give you a hug?” says Aang, and Sokka nods desperately. Aang comes around the table, plops down in Zuko’s vacated chair, and wraps his arms around Sokka. Sokka clings back, and it helps, a little.
Eventually he pulls himself together enough to finish his dinner. Aang grabs his plate from where he left it, but stays in his new chair.
Sokka’s just trying to decide if he should text Katara or just go back to his room when she texts him.
We’re sitting on the grass in front of Merion if you want to join.
He shows Aang and jumps into high gear, grabbing his backpack and hustling his dishes into the dish return. They power-walk toward Merion, and Sokka feels perhaps disproportionately relieved when he sees them sitting together, eating from two takeout containers.
“Katara says you’ll want to give me an extra long hug,” says Zuko, setting his food down, and he holds out his arms a little awkwardly.
“Oh, thank god,” says Sokka, and flings himself down into the embrace. Zuko pats him on the back a little and lets Sokka cling.
“I’ll stop making it about me any minute now,” he assures them, slightly muffled by Zuko’s shoulder.
“You’re fine,” says Zuko, and he sounds okay. "I'm glad you care."
Aang sits down beside them, and Zuko adds, “You’re probably wondering what the hell is going on.”
“Yes,” says Aang.
“I’m a self-harm addict,” says Zuko bluntly, calmly. Katara has never put it quite like that, and Sokka postpones his plans to let go for a few more minutes.
“Oh,” says Aang quietly. Then, “What do you need from me?”
“Just treat me like normal.”
“Okay. I can do that.”
“I’m one, too,” says Katara with a deep breath, and Sokka is so proud of all three of them.
“Thank you for trusting me. Both of you,” says Aang. And then, “Can we get in on this cuddle puddle? I’m feeling kinda left out.”
Sokka laughs wetly and Zuko laughs less wetly and beckons, and Aang and Katara knock them over onto the ground.
“I love you guys, okay?” says Sokka.
“Gross,” says Katara, which means I love you too.
Aang says, “Aw, you guys,” and Zuko smiles.