Work Text:
Thursday, March 29, at 3:02 AM
From: Sokka Qanik <[email protected]>
Subject: Today’s Assignment
Hi, Professor Zhao!
I am so so sorry for the delay! This week has been extremely busy since hockey is finally winding down, and I wasn’t able to complete the assignment until just now. It’s attached to this email. Please let me know if there is anything else you need from me! Have a nice day! Or night! Or morning!
-Sokka
Thursday, March 29, at 6:48 AM
From: Zuko Huo <[email protected]>
To: Sokka Qanik <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Today’s Assignment
not prof Zhao. Good luck.
Sent from my SatoPhone
Sokka cursed under his breath, one hand frantically rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. The glare on his phone was too bright for his darkened room—blinds closed, lights off, thank fuck he didn’t have any morning classes.
Perks of being a college senior.
A bit less bleary-eyed, he lowered the brightness of the screen and scanned the email again. Five words—nine, if you counted the email signature—stared back, silently—and bluntly—condemning him. Zhao, his visiting professor of history from Caldera University, who time and time again made Sokka ask himself why the hell he was taking this for his humanities requirement, was a notorious hardass, and insisted on his writing assignments being turned in by 9pm the night before class. Sokka was already on his shit list after having written a scathing critique of the Fire Nation’s imperialist advances on the Southern Water Tribe—a topic near and dear to his heart, given that it was his great-great-grandfather who had been chief at the time. Apparently Zhao did not take lightly criticisms against his country.
Maybe if they toned down their genocidal tendencies, there wouldn’t be as much criticism. Just a thought.
But now, it being a full twelve hours after the deadline—and a mere three hours before class—and Sokka still not having submitted his assignment to the right email address? He’d never hear the end of it. And Zhao would fully dock him half a letter grade from his class participation.
Sokka had somehow managed to go over half a semester without having to email his imposing, bigoted professor personally. He had turned in every assignment right on time to the submission portal, which had already been closed at 3 in the morning when he went to submit. And this one time he had to email him, he somehow got the wrong email.
Groaning, he got up as quickly as he could manage, rushing to get dressed and head out the door. Technically he had time to kill, and he could always just email Zhao from his bed, but he liked separating his home from where he worked. Sure, often enough he was doing work past midnight at his kitchen table; but he preferred to associate his apartment with just sleeping and late-night studying. For work during actual human hours, he was a sucker for the coffeeshop study environment. The constant chatter about him that made him put on his large headphones at max volume, blasting a ten-hour clip of just white noise, was his jam.
It didn’t hurt that one of the baristas at his recently discovered hotspot was one of the prettiest people he’d ever seen, either.
Sokka had come across the Jasmine Dragon two weeks ago, and had made his visits almost regular. Still, he and Lee had never spoken much. Honestly, he couldn’t even tell you his last name if he thought about it. Sokka knew that delving into proper conversation, beyond the mandatory small talk, would result in at least two terrible consequences:
- He’d lose focus hopelessly.
- He’d fall in love with Lee.
If Sokka knew anything about himself with an absolute certainty, it was that he developed crushes quickly, and fell for them even quicker. He’d fallen fast and hard for Yue, before her semester as an exchange student ended and she returned to the Northern Water Tribe; and he’d fallen fast and hard for Suki, who he’d managed to stay friends with after she ended their casual fling to go out with one of the girls on her martial arts team.
At least Lee wasn’t particularly talkative, either. He kept his head and gaze down, only looking up out of politeness when welcoming customers to the shop and taking their orders. He rarely offered up anything more than Lots of work today? and I’m guessing you want the usual Earl Grey. Spirits, Sokka only new his name because of the little nametag he wore over his heart (and green apron). The man was truly an enigma, but Sokka prided himself on being particularly gifted at puzzles.
Sokka walked up to the counter, his hand already reaching for his wallet. He smiled at the barista, whose distractingly long black hair was pulled into a low ponytail swung over to the front of his shoulder. “Hey, man,” he said with an easy grin.
“Good afternoon, welcome to the Jasmine Dragon,” Lee said in his voice, shockingly raspy for someone who never smelled like smoke. He looked up and Sokka saw two golden eyes widen—one slightly pulled into a squint from the angry red burn mark surrounding it. Which, of course, Lee had still never volunteered to explain and Sokka could never bring himself to ask about. “Oh, hey.”
Sokka noticed the slight red twinge spreading over the man’s cheeks, and his smile only grew. “Hey.” Again. “Can I get the usual medium-sized Earl Grey, please?”
Lee nodded, tapping his keyboard. “Anything else?”
“Nah, thank you!” Sokka replied, taking out his card. Lee gave him his total, and he inserted the card, taking those few extra seconds to pull out some cash.
“I can bring that over to your table, if you want.”
“No, it’s okay—” Sokka began to protest, but the taller man waved him off.
“We’re really not that busy right now,” Lee said, starting to turn away with a smile. “It’s okay.”
Sokka tried to ignore the little flip his stomach did at the gesture. Ducking his head slightly, he pulled the card from the slot and slipped a few bills into the tip jar. Lee must’ve noticed by the way his blush only reddened and he hurried to go prepare the tea.
And if Sokka tipped a bit more than he’d originally planned, well, who was counting?
He took his usual spot in the corner between the wall and the window. He loved having the option to people-watch as a distraction from his work, but appreciated being able to sit facing the wall if he really needed to buckle down and concentrate. This time, beyond properly emailing Zhao—not just forwarding his original email, but actually groveling for Zhao to not penalize him with a zero—he didn’t have as much work to do. His capstone project for his major in civil engineering was due in just over a month, yes, but he had sent it in to Professor Piandao to look over for a second-to-last time. Through a series of late, late, late nights, he had also managed to catch up with his other classes, now that he was done playing for Republic City University’s hockey team. Still, he had bookmarked a couple of new articles from the White Lotus journal—a fancy academic journal that regularly published both political and scientific advances about the city, and, incidentally, one where Piandao was repeatedly published—that he wanted to read before History.
He looked up when Lee approached, holding his tea. “My hero!” he joked, reaching out to receive the cup.
Lee lifted the corner of his mouth in a small half-grin, before starting to turn around.
Sokka quickly scanned the coffeeshop—aside from the two of them, there were a handful of customers, and they were all sitting down with their drinks already. Plus Jin, the other barista, was restocking the bottled drinks shelf. Making a split-second decision, he reached a hand out, not enough to graze the barista’s elbow but enough that he noticed anyway. “Hold on, I just gotta send one email super quick. Do you want to take an unofficial break and just sit with me for a minute?”
Lee looked around the shop warily, as if making sure all the patrons could handle themselves if he took a quick five-minute interlude. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I guess I can do that, for a bit,” he nodded, taking the seat with his back against the wall.
Sokka smiled, opening his inbox and letting his fingers fly over the keyboard. He muttered to himself in a low voice as he emphasized how sorry he was for the even further delay in turning in his assignment than he’d expected. He double-checked the recipient’s address before triumphantly hitting “Send”, closing the tab and celebrating with a sip of his still steamy tea.
Lee raised his eyebrow at him. “Oh, you did mean super quick. What was it for?”
“The email?” Lee nodded. “Eh, I sort of had to turn in an assignment super late for my History class today. The professor’s a real stickler, so I had to lay it on pretty thick, and then maybe, hopefully, he won’t fail me for it.”
The barista cocked his head to the side. “History? Are you taking it with Zhao?”
“That’s the one.”
“Well,” Lee said with a deep chuckle, “you’re not the only one who turned it in late. Although with Zhao, the more you suck up to him, the better.”
Sokka grinned. “You’ve had him too?” Past tense, because he knew that if Lee was in his class currently, he would definitely have noticed.
Lee nodded again, rolling his eyes. “Guy’s a dick. If you’re not ready to sacrifice your life for the Fire Nation, he couldn’t give a smaller shit about your opinion.”
“Dude, right?” Sokka agreed, feeling slightly vindicated. “It’s like, if you’re gonna feed us your nation’s nationalistic propaganda, at least have the decency to not push it as a neutral perspective!” Lee cracked an exasperated smile at that, and Sokka mentally celebrated the achievement. But then his brow furrowed. “Wait, what did you mean—”
“Nephew! Taking your break already?”
Sokka turned his head to find the source of the call, but Lee was already standing up and heading back to the counter. Iroh, the kind older man that owned the establishment, had his arms crossed against his round belly, but the smile on his face betrayed his true mood. “You can get back to talking with your friend later, I need your help at the counter for a moment,” he said in his always jovial tone.
Lee turned around to shoot Sokka an apologetic look before following his uncle around the pastries to look at the order screen. Sokka waved him off, wordlessly telling him not to worry, as he opened up his articles.
A ping! drew his attention to his phone, and he noticed the unread email notification from a minute ago. He could feel his heart slowly sink its way down into his stomach.
Thursday, March 29, at 12:42 PM
From: Professor Zhao <[email protected]>
To: Sokka Qanik <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Today’s Assignment – Sorry!
Email had no attachments. See me after class.
Zhao
Not a week later found Sokka back at the Jasmine Dragon. After having been thoroughly chewed out by Zhao for “being irresponsible and not paying attention to detail, and didn’t you say you were in civil engineering? Attention to detail is of paramount importance, young man,” Sokka’s wounds had been soothed by Professor Piandao’s glowing review of his capstone project.
It was a proposal for a sustainable heating system that would both not be damaged by subzero temperatures, and not damage the ecosystem of the Southern Water Tribe. He’d pointed out the abundance of materials left in scrapyards after the War and the multiple invasions by the Fire Nation, and that difficulties in finding such resources could be circumvented by repurposing remains from old Fire Nation ships. Granted, his spring break back home had given him a possibly unfair advantage over the rest of his cohort, since he was able to actually access the primary materials he needed. (Being the son of Chief Hakoda definitely also helped.) But the original idea had been entirely his.
The pressure was twofold—he wanted his father to adopt these measures back home, so he wanted to do a good enough job that it would be a sustainable and environmentally-conscious way of proceeding; but he also wanted to submit this project as part of his portfolio. He was applying for an internship at the Republic City council for the next few years, and eventually hoped to become a councilman himself. He wanted this to show off his skills and make a good first impression, and a project under Piandao’s tutelage was definitely a positive way of doing it.
(Also, if Piandao kept encouraging him to submit his research to White Lotus, who was he to argue?)
He needed to add some final tweaks to it and look over his proposal for any grammar mistakes he’d somehow overlooked, before actually being able to present it in May. But in the meantime, there was still the matter of his other coursework. Maybe shifting his topic for Zhao’s essay wasn’t his best idea as of late, but he’d be damned if his nights scouring over old academic articles and primary sources in the depths of the library went to waste.
Wednesday, April 4, at 2:27 PM
From: Sokka Qanik <[email protected]>
Subject: Research Topic
Hi, Professor Zhao!
For the final paper, I’ve decided how to narrow down my topic. I know I initially said I wanted to study how Ba Sing Se’s infrastructure was redesigned before the Hundred Year War as a defense mechanism against the Fire Nation, but I read a couple of articles (attached) about the ensuing refugee crises in other nearby Earth Kingdom territories – I had no idea people used the Serpent’s Pass as a path into the city! – and I think I want to focus instead on how the urban design and architecture of the rings and outer wall also worked as a deterrent for migration, and the protectionist policies that followed.
Please let me know if there’s anything else I need to do to refocus my topic, and if the sources I’ve attached in this email are a good enough starting point? Thank you!
-Sokka
He sighed, hoping Zhao would be in a more forgiving mood than he had been a few days ago. His peripheral view caught a movement, and he looked up, finding Lee standing next to his table holding a cup. He lowered his headphones.
Lee’s hair was tied into a bun, with strands hanging down the sides of his—chiseled, flawless, impeccable—face, and he saw the slight pink that dusted his cheeks as he extended his hands to Sokka. “Um,” he began, “you seemed like you were in a rush, so I started your Earl Grey for you. On the house.” Well, he wasn’t wrong about the rush. Sokka had entered the shop and made a beeline to his corner table, only sparing a small wave at the brooding barista.
Bewildered, Sokka looked down at the cup Lee was offering him. His surprised expression gave way to a genuine smile, as he looked up at his server. “You’re a lifesaver, thank you!” He took the cup from his hands, immediately leaning to sniff its contents. “Low-stakes caffeine, my old friend, how I’ve missed you!”
Lee was staring at him now with (one fully, one partly) widened eyes, but his blush remained very much in place. “Low-stakes caffeine?” he repeated, confused.
Sokka shrugged. “Coffee make heart go too boom-boom,” he said resolutely, as if that explained everything.
Apparently it did. “Well, I’ll let you get to work.” Lee gave the slightest of bows, before starting to turn to head back to the counter.
Sokka took another sip of his tea before making the executive decision to make a move. As in moving to sit by the counter. As in across the counter from where Lee would be working.
As for making a move on Lee, well, he was still working on that.
He’d spoken at length to his sister and their group of friends, dissecting every blush, every tiny smile, every possibly flirtatious comment that Lee had given him. How’s that for attention to detail, Zhao?
Suki had smacked him upside the head, telling him to get over himself and actually properly test the waters. Katara had agreed, adding on the cautionary note to proceed extremely carefully so as to not unintentionally harass Lee at his place of work, where he had no escape and Sokka had all the bargaining power. Aang, his sister’s boyfriend, had simply nodded sagely before continuing to play with his magnetic marbles.
Toph had suggested a more brazen approach. “Leave your address and a date and time on a napkin,” they explained, holding one of the magnetic marbles up in the air and letting it go so it smacked against Aang’s pile. “And write, Wanna bang? If he shows up, he’s clearly interested, and then you can—” Katara had looked sufficiently horrified that Suki slapped her hand over Toph’s mouth to shut them up.
In the end, Sokka had decided to take a smoother, more subtle road. He was busy these days, anyways, so there was no rush. Plus, Lee always had a deer-in-headlights demeanor. The last thing Sokka wanted to do was be too upfront from the start. No, it was better to take it way easy, until Lee felt comfortable enough with Sokka to actually talk about himself.
Hence, moving to the counter! It was subtle enough that Lee wouldn’t be put on guard, and still left them the option to have a conversation. Sokka packed up his stuff quickly enough, eager to get started on this whole flirting business. He wasn’t bad at flirting—he prided himself on being quite good at it, actually—except when it was someone he was genuinely interested in. Oh, he could talk to pretty people at parties all he wanted, but someone he wanted to take out on a proper date? He lost any and all communication skills in those moments.
Lee had been in the middle of checking his phone when Sokka saddled up, plopping his backpack on the stool next to him. “Mind if I sit?”
The barista’s eyes widened. “Yeah—I mean no, sorry, you can definitely sit there!” he replied, tucking his phone away. He rested the heels of his hands on the counter, and Sokka tried really hard not to stare at his black rolled up sleeves, or the red—
Hold on.
That’s. That’s a whole tattoo. A tattoo of a red dragon winding around his forearm.
Sokka’s mouth went dry. So much for not staring.
He realized that Lee was staring at him expectantly, and tried to subtly close his mouth—when had it even opened? “Sorry, what?”
“I asked,” Lee started slowly, as if not entirely sure Sokka had snapped out of his trance, “what you’ve been working on recently?”
“Oh!” Now it was Sokka’s turn to blush a little. He loved his research and his projects, even the work he did for Zhao’s class, but to talk to someone about them was an intimidating prospect. He knew what he sounded like—he had been written up as a child on more than one report card as “too talkative” and excitable. Even now, he tended to start unloading information, never quite knowing when or how to make himself stop. His friends had gotten used to this, and encouraged his conversations, just without properly knowing quite how to respond. He picked his words carefully. “Just my final paper for Zhao’s class. Did you have to do one when you took it?”
The corner of Lee’s mouth quirked upwards. “Oh yeah, I remember that. I think I wrote mine about how the Fire Nation’s familial relationships and focus on paternalistic values impacted their decisions to use younger battalions in battles that failed their risk assessments.” He frowned just as quickly as he had half-smiled. “Didn’t go over too well with Zhao.”
Sokka let out a low whistle. “You really came for his whole country, didn’t you?”
Lee’s brow furrowed. “I mean, yeah, it’s my country too.”
“Oh.” Sokka realized then that he still knew absolutely nothing about his favorite barista. Although, now that he knew, he noticed some dead giveaways. Namely the fact that those brilliant golden eyes were emblematic of Fire Nation people. “I didn’t—I mean, I never—”
Lee waved him off. “Doesn’t really come up.” And he did seem genuinely unbothered. He crossed his arms, and Sokka’s eyes were definitely not bulging at the way his tattooed forearm flexed. “What, uh, what are you writing yours on?”
This was it. This was his chance to either offer a short reply and seem standoffish, or basically word-vomit on the very guy he was working up to ask out. Mentally weighing his options and taking a bit too long to respond, Sokka decided he might as well give his whole spiel. Besides, he figured if Lee was really that put off by Sokka sharing his interests, maybe that was a bigger problem. Here goes nothing.
As he launched into his explanation, even pulling up the maps and diagrams of the city that he had saved on his computer, he was struck by how easy it flowed out of him. He had never been the best at public speaking, usually starting his ideas off rather confidently but tripping up over later sentences, or trying to rephrase ideas halfway through having verbalized them. He’d gotten better at it over the years, and had even attended several public speaking seminars in preparation for presenting his capstone project proposal. Still, that was rehearsed. This mini presentation on a paper he had never intended to explain out loud was entirely improvised, and it was going so well. And Lee was a prime audience member: he actually engaged and asked questions, only occasionally holding up one finger to turn and take care of a customer. Sokka even found himself jotting down some of Lee’s questions for further research, opening a new document when Lee went to restock the bottled drinks.
When the barista came back, Sokka leaned forward, asking, “So what do you study anyway that makes you know so much about this?”
Lee’s good eye twinkled, as if he’d just been waiting for the question. “I’m a master’s student here, I’m writing my thesis on refugees from the Hundred Year War.”
If Sokka had a checklist with attributes that drove him crazy, the top one would be “Smart” (followed immediately by “Could kick my ass”). He tried to ignore the blush that was surely by now visible on his face. “That’s—that’s really cool,” he croaked out. He cleared his throat, hoping to salvage a bit of his dignity. “That’s awesome, man,” he tried again, this time sounding more like a person and less like a frog. “Any, uh, article recommendations? You know, for my paper?”
At that, Lee turned a bit sheepish. “I don’t think my sources would work for you. I’m focusing on Fire Nation refugees, not Earth Kingdom ones.”
Sokka tilted his head in consideration. Huh. Now that he thought about it it made sense, but he hadn’t actually considered the possibility that there had been Fire Nation citizens just as desperate to escape the death and destruction of the war as people from other nations. Granted, they did have institutional advantages, but he supposed that a war-ravaged territory, especially in the colonies, was still the same for everyone. “I hadn’t even thought of that. I should probably include something about them in my paper, huh?”
Lee shrugged. “If you’re focusing on the architecture, I guess it doesn’t necessarily mean you need to consider the ethnicities of the refugees, but it could be worth mentioning.”
“Cute and smart, what a catch!” slipped out of Sokka’s mouth before his trash brain could even register it as a thought. He almost swallowed his tongue in shock, except that the mortified glance he stole at Lee made him change his mind. He’d seen Lee’s slight blush, but this—the shade of red that he saw creeping up his neck and over his ears—was too delightful for him to offer an apology. The barista quickly stammered an excuse and rushed into the back, past a very confused Jin exiting through the door at the same time.
Sokka watched, a bit entertained, as Jin followed him with a turn of her head. When she looked back at Sokka, she gave him an amused look. “Dude,” she deadpanned, “I think you broke him.”
Wednesday, April 4, at 3:44 PM
From: Zuko Huo <[email protected]>
To: Sokka Qanik <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Research Topic
I hope it goes well. Still not Zhao.
Sent from my SatoPhone
After that initial bold move, Sokka had gathered the courage to make the counter his new usual spot. He got to face away from the distractions of the people around him, while at the same time giving him the out of talking to Lee whenever he wanted to take a break. He’d gone back to the Jasmine Dragon three times since then, each time sitting at the second-to-last seat on the counter, far enough from the register for his laptop’s charger to be plugged in but close enough that he and Lee could still have a comfortable conversation.
Not that they spent much time talking. For his part, Sokka was trying to focus as much as possible, and had set timers on his laptop to lower his headphones and finally, finally, engage Lee in conversation. And now that he was at the counter, he saw that behind the glass Lee also kept a very full notebook on hand, where he repeatedly went to jot down some notes—for his thesis, as Sokka came to find out. If he leaned forward enough, he could just make out a stack of books behind the register, which Lee constantly referred to when there were no customers in line.
But when they were able to spare some minutes and talk to each other, Sokka was pleasantly surprised at how much he could get Lee to talk about himself for someone who seemed so shy and withdrawn. He learned that Lee despised boba, despite it being one of their most popular items during the summer. He learned that his favorite season was fall, actually, and that he liked stepping on the crunchy leaves, since where he grew up it was mostly summer all year round. He learned that Lee also wanted to become a diplomat, maybe a Fire Nation ambassador to Republic City.
He tried not to get excited at the fact that they would both end up in Republic City.
He also learned that Lee cared. He saw it in the way that his golden eyes blazed with light that must’ve been harnessed directly from the sun when he spoke about the Fire Nation, and how passionate he was about learning from the former empire’s past mistakes in order to avoid dire political situations in the future. He saw it, too, in the way Lee’s eyes softened impossibly when Iroh came down from the apartment above the shop that they apparently shared, to check on his nephew. And from the way Iroh absolutely beamed at Lee whenever he wasn’t looking, the love was very much mutual.
And Lee had learned things about Sokka, too. Sokka told him about his group of friends: his sister, Katara, who was in her second year of nursing but was also getting a certificate in women’s studies; Katara’s boyfriend, Aang, who was a kid genius who spent his free time reading to children at the library; Suki, who was a martial arts prodigy with medals lining her walls who already ran her own self-defense training; and Toph, who had been practically adopted into the Qanik family after they’d been the recipient of one too many ableist microaggressions from their parents, and was a legend in their own right at the junior martial arts center in the city.
He told him about his crippling impostor syndrome, and how his civil engineering advisor had coaxed confidence out of him. To his great surprise, Lee shared that Piandao was not only good friends with his uncle Iroh, but had also been his advisor as an undergraduate as well. Sokka also told him about his plans of being a councilman in Republic City, hopefully starting through an internship for the City Council after graduating.
He thought that the look Lee shot him, of utter pride and amazement, would be forever emblazoned into the back of his eyes.
There was deeper family stuff that Sokka knew he could get into, and, by the way Lee seemed to shut down when he spoke about Katara, that Lee could get into—but he didn’t want to push too much, too fast. The last thing he wanted to do was scare him off, and not just as a romantic prospect, either. Lee had genuinely become, over the span of a few short weeks, one of his closest friends. They shared a sense of insecurity and newfound sense of self in common, and for that Sokka was incredibly grateful. Even if they never changed their friendly dynamic into anything else, Sokka was more than okay with that.
Sokka walked into the Jasmine Dragon one Friday, and instantly felt that the vibe was off.
For starters, Iroh was seated at the counter, nursing a still steaming cup of tea. Lee was hunched over on the barista side, talking to him in hushed tones. Next to him was a tall, imposing girl with long black hair cut sharply into bangs straight across her forehead. She looked uninterested, chewing gum and drumming sharp red nails onto the counter, but her other arm—rubbing slow circles onto Lee’s back—said otherwise. Sokka’s gut clenched at the sight, but still he entered the store cautiously, catching Jin’s eye from the register.
“Morning, Jin,” he said softly, gripping the straps of his backpack.
The girl rolled her eyes playfully. “My guy, it is fully after one in the afternoon,” she joked, already putting an Earl Grey packet into a cup for him.
He gave a slight nod at the sight a few ways away from them. “What’s, uh—who’s that?”
Jin looked over as well, as if she’d forgotten that there were other people near the counter. “Oh. That’s Mai, his ex-girlfriend.”
Sokka tried, he really did, to keep his stomach from folding. So what if Lee had an ex-girlfriend? So did he. That didn’t mean he was less into men—well, one in particular. He was so focused on that tidbit that he hadn’t realized Jin kept talking.
“—and today was her weekly call, which, I guess unlucky Friday the thirteenth, but he always ends up a little worse for wear after they talk,” she finished up.
Sokka gave his head a slight shake. “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch all of that.”
Jin just stared at him with wide owl eyes. “His sister. In an institution back in Caldera City. She called him today, and he’s not doing too hot.”
Sokka frowned. He couldn’t imagine being unhappy after getting one weekly call from Katara. Well, maybe he’d be unhappy that the calls were so infrequent. They had the annoy-each-other-to-death dynamic, sure, but they both knew that they’d die for each other in the blink of an eye. “Oh. Um. Should I…?” He gestured helplessly at the bunch.
Jin gave him a soft smile. “Go easy on him, he doesn’t like to talk about it—but I’m sure he’d appreciate you checking up on him,” she explained in a quiet voice.
Gathering his bundled nerves, Sokka walked to the end of the counter. Iroh was the first to spot him, setting down his mug and smiling. Sokka couldn’t help but smile back.
Mai caught his eye, and the arm rubbing Lee’s back slowed, even if her fingers tapping the counter sped up. Her expression remained impassive, but her eyes took on a fiercely defensive edge. “Oh. Blue Eyes.”
Before Sokka could process her comment, Lee looked up—and he saw the red rims around his bright eyes. “H-hey,” he breathed, straightening his back slightly. He turned to Mai and nodded, and she walked around the counter to follow Iroh to a nearby two-person table, not once taking her eyes off of Sokka. Lee watched as they both walked away, before turning his attention back to the boy in front of him. “You, uh—you can sit down. If, if you want.”
Carefully and slowly, as if to not frighten a flighty animal, Sokka took a seat directly across from Lee. The taller man ran a distracted hand through his hair, which was fully down, sagging over his shoulders. Had he not been clearly distraught, Sokka might’ve appreciated the look. “Hey, man. How you feeling?”
Lee let out a raggedy breath. He inhaled, seemingly about to say something, but then just let the breath out. To Sokka’s horror, he could see his eyes starting to water a bit. Shit. He had to intervene, and quickly.
He did it in the best way he knew how. Growing up, his father had always taught him and his sister that empathy and relatability were key. So he figured he should try to open up first, and see if Lee might want to follow. “My dad was sent on an exchange program with the Northern Water Tribe for six months when I was little,” he began, keeping eye contact, blue on gold, with the beautiful and pained soul in front of him. “It was part of the water tribe reconstruction agreement from after the war, but the North had some uprisings and complications from religious nuts and nationalists. What was meant to be a half-year trip turned into four, and our only connection to him was a phone call every two months, as part of their security arrangement.”
Lee was watching him carefully now, his eyes brimming with less tears than before. So Sokka soldiered on. “My mom was already gone by then, caught in the crossfire of a fight, so, uh,” he tried hard to hide his sniffle, “my Gran-Gran was the one who raised Katara, and she was the one who raised me. But, um, I know what it’s like. To not get to talk to your family for so long, I mean. So, yeah.”
For a beat he thought he’d said something wrong by the way Lee was staring at him blankly. But then he saw his frown soften, and heard him say, “That’s rough, buddy.”
Sokka had to keep himself from barking out an incredulous laugh. “Spirits, I feel so much better now!” he joked, rolling his eyes in good fun.
Lee shrugged, his mouth seeming like it wanted to smile but his heart wasn’t in it. “I thought you were supposed to be comforting me?”
“You’re right, you’re right,” Sokka said, holding his hands up in mock surrender. But when he put them down, he looked at Lee with concern in his eyes. “But really. How are you doing?”
Lee took a deep breath. Then another. Finally he closed his eyes before starting to speak. Sokka sat in silence as he learned about Azula, Lee’s younger sister, who had put on a bold face when their mother left them at a young age. Who had refused to leave their father’s side, even when Iroh offered to fight him for custody. Who broke down only when their father was convicted for conspiracy, although the hard edge in Lee’s voice told him there should’ve been additional charges. Who Lee and Iroh had pooled in every last penny to find a comfortable institution in Caldera City where she could stay. Who seemed to do fine on her own, even if she wasn’t the type to tell them if something was wrong until it was too late. But Sokka listened with a sinking stomach as Lee told him how every time she called, she seemed to relapse, crying about their mother leaving as if she was only learning of the fact for the first time; how she would always ask when their father would come pick her up, then repeat it louder and louder when they couldn’t answer, until she was in hysterics at having been abandoned.
At this, Sokka caved and reached one brown arm across the counter, to rest his hand on Lee’s painfully clenched knuckles. Lee looked up sharply, and Sokka could feel his heart break when he saw a single tear run down his unscarred cheek. “You did not abandon her,” he said emphatically, his thumb running over the back of Lee’s hand. The barista slowly, without making eye contact, turned his hand over so he could grip Sokka’s. “That can’t be an easy situation to deal with, and I’m so sorry you and your family are going through it. But,” he added, “it is not your fault. And you’re doing the best thing you can.”
Lee braved one look into Sokka’s eyes, and must’ve seen something surprising in them, for his face crumpled and his body was wracked with sobs. Immediately, Mai seemed to materialize next to him, putting one hand gently on the still pristine side of his face and slowly guiding it into her shoulder. Lee’s arm snaked around her, pressing her against him as the dark spot on her burgundy top spread—but his other hand squeezed Sokka’s.
When Sokka made eye contact with Mai, he half expected her to stab him with one of her nails. Instead, he found her scrutinizing gaze roving over him, as if scanning his potential threat level. He guessed she found none, as she gave him an approving nod and mouthed, “You can go.” Trying not to feel too dejected, he slipped his hand out of Lee’s and turned to leave, only to almost run into Iroh.
The old man was smiling up at him, holding his now empty cup. “I’m—I’m so sorry, Mr. Iroh, I didn’t mean for—I didn’t want to make him—I mean,” he stammered, but Iroh held his hand up.
“Please, do not apologize,” he said, so softly that Sokka almost couldn’t hear him. “My nephew has many candles burning inside of him, and he tends to ignore some more than others, until they are burning him from the inside. Left unattended, they would consume him.” He shrugged. “You should not feel bad for showing him that his spirit almost caught fire.”
Sokka wasn’t entirely sure he was following the metaphor, but he got the sense that he would when it mattered. “I just, I know it’s a personal topic. I didn’t mean to overstep, and I don’t mean to do it now, but,” he took a breath, “I’m sorry to hear about your niece.”
Iroh’s smile turned sad. “Azula was not so lucky. She did not have friends who noticed her inner fire. And I failed to notice it, as well.” His eyes brightened, and he turned back to look at Lee, who was now breathing more normally. “I am glad he has you in his life now. You bring out in him a light that does not burn him. And I can tell he cares for you.”
If he was confused before, Sokka was now downright shocked. “He—do you—?”
The old man’s eyes now had a nearly mischievous twinkle to them. He passed his mug over to Jin, before steering Sokka towards the door. “He needs to just feel his emotions today. But please, do come by again soon. Anyone who gets my nephew to talk about his family with such ease gets his tea on the house.” With that, Iroh flipped the sign from “OPEN” to “CLOSED”, and patted Sokka on the back before closing the door behind him. Sokka looked over the man’s shoulder at Lee, who quickly averted the gaze he could feel had been trained on him.
He replayed Iroh’s words in his head. You bring out in him a light that does not burn him. As he walked to Zhao’s class, he could feel his steps take on a hopeful bounce.
And I can tell he cares for you.
After his last visit, there seemed to be a dam that broke between Sokka and Lee. Not all of their conversations were so fateful and deep, but they were certainly longer exchanges than before. And although Sokka still found times to slip in a lighthearted compliment about Lee’s eyes or something equally as flirty, he also got to hear a lot more about Lee himself. Weirdly enough, they bonded over having lost their mothers at a young age, albeit in different ways; and having prodigy sisters, even if one was no longer considered as such.
But beyond that, they bonded over their tastes in music. Wildly different, of course—Sokka liked really loud music that forced him to focus on just the music and nothing else, whereas Lee liked softer, more romantic music that soothed him and calmed him down. They also bonded over their love for Fire Nation food, which Sokka had tried when he dragged his friends around the world as part of his high school graduation gift trip. He’d tried to brag to Lee about the spiciest food he had consumed there, only to be promptly shut down when Lee told him about the Spirit Pepper, the spiciest pepper on the planet, that he and his sister had dared each other to try as children.
They also bonded over their subscription to the White Lotus journal. Sokka loved reading the history pieces, of course, but he mainly cared about the political ones and the ones relating to the environment. Lee, on the other hand, carefully printed not just the political ones, but also the philosophical and literary ones. He paid particular attention to international affairs, and had lit a match to the gasoline that was Sokka’s criticisms of the isolationist policies of the Northern Water Tribe, arguing that that exact mentality was what had led the Fire Nation to develop its staunch nationalism.
And Sokka was man enough to admit that having an intellectual equal who he could have these discussions with turned him on just a little bit.
In fact, Sokka had done nothing but gush to his friends about Lee. During their weekly Saturday mover nights, he would always recap in excruciating detail his past week’s interactions with the barista. Suki, who was after all a good sport and a supportive ex, had taken one for the team and volunteered to go with him to the Jasmine Dragon after her practice was over. The group had decided that at least one of them had to make sure Lee was real, and that Sokka was not just having repeated hallucinations of his dream man.
That was why the following Thursday found Sokka’s leg bouncing up and down, out of Lee’s sight behind the counter, as he waited for Suki’s practice to end. He had gravely miscalculated the time it would take her to get ready, and had arrived half an hour too early. Now the time he had wanted to spend outside of the shop telling her to be careful with what she said and “Spirits help me, Suki, if you pull out that picture of the sand statue I made for you when we dated, I will spontaneously combust”, would be spent anxiously awaiting her arrival.
If Lee noticed his nervous energy, he was polite enough not to say anything. He instead busied himself with the customers, only stopping by Sokka’s end of the counter every once in a while to check in on him. Sokka had told him he was waiting for a friend, and he tried not to let his embarrassment show at the fact that, to an outsider, it looked like he was being stood up.
Finally, finally, the bell above the door jingled, and Sokka looked up to find two green eyes surrounded by bright red makeup staring at him from the entrance. “Suki!” he yelled cheerfully, practically jumping out of his seat before he remembered that she was heading his way to sit down.
Lee also looked up, recognizing the name. He gave a small wave, which Suki returned as she approached the register. “Hi, welcome to the Jasmine Dragon,” he said, his cheeks taking on a slightly pink tint. Sokka understood—his ex was objectively one of the most attractively intimidating, and intimidatingly attractive, people he had ever met.
(Honestly, he could say the same thing about Lee’s ex-girlfriend. Huh. They had a similar type.)
“Hi!” she said cheerfully, resting her hands on the counter as she leaned back to examine the menu. “It’s so nice to meet you! I’ve heard so much about you!”
Sokka nearly had whiplash as he turned to look at Lee’s reaction. The barista’s blush got much darker, and he ducked his head down. “Uh, you—you too. Suki, right?”
The girl beamed at him. “The one and only! Looks like our buddy likes to surround himself with pretty people, am I right?” She shot him a gratuitous wink.
Lee’s cheeks nearly matched Suki’s eyeshadow at this point. “Y-yeah, I mean—I mean, I guess?” He cleared his throat nervously, and Sokka had to admit he was impressed with his composure. “So, uh, what can I get for you today?”
Suki hummed, her neatly manicured fingers tapping at some unknown rhythm. “It’s getting kinda warm out again, I’ll just have an Earl Grey milk tea with pearls and little ice, please!”
Lee shuddered, ringing her up and muttering something about traitorous tapioca as he turned away to start preparing her order. When the card machine beeped, Suki walked over to Sokka’s seat, plopping down next to him. Sokka knew she usually just sat on his lap if it was for a short time, but he guessed she didn’t want to give Lee any impression that the two of them were together. What a woman.
With Lee still out of earshot, Suki leaned over conspiratorially. “Spirits, Sokka, he’s cute,” she whispered, elbowing him. Sokka grinned, happy that he had her approval. While they were no longer together, she was still fiercely protective of him—and vice versa, as evidence by his vetting of her new girlfriend, a bubbly girl from her studio named Ty Lee—and knew him in both a romantic and best friend setting. She, more than almost anyone, knew who he’d work well with. “What’s your game plan today?”
Panic. Internal panic. That was his plan, because truthfully he had no plan. And so far, the only people that had witnessed his—adorably—clumsy attempts at flirting had been Jin, giggling from the coffee machines; Iroh, watching knowingly as he overlooked the shop’s paperwork at nearby tables; and Lee himself, who was always shyly and blushingly receptive. But Suki, who had been the one making the moves on him when they first started seeing each other, had no clue the absolute mess he became when he got too flustered, or when he got nervous, or when he was at the receiving end of one of Lee’s burning inquisitive looks.
“Uh,” he began, but that was as far as he got before Lee was back with Suki’s plastic cup. Suki made excited grabby hands, and he promptly gave her the drink.
“Thank you, good sir!”
“You’re welcome,” Lee answered warmly, making eye contact with Sokka when he gave a shy smile. His insides suddenly felt toasty. Lee began to turn away, only to seem to realize something and turn back at the pair. “Oh, I meant to ask—how’s your project with Piandao coming along?”
Sokka, relieved that there was a direct question, launched into a detailed review of Piandao’s feedback, and the logistics of submitting it to the Republic City Council’s office. He felt a sort of tunnel vision as he spoke, one where there was only his treasured final project, and the man eagerly listening to him talk his ear off. He knew Lee focused more on philosophy than engineering and architecture, and that there was no way on earth that the taller man was able to understand everything he was saying to him; and yet Lee engaged him, asking him clarifying questions about specific terminology and even pushing him to consider new aspects of what he was saying—similar to their conversation about Zhao’s paper, but this time Sokka knew Lee was out of his depth. Still, truth be told, he didn’t think he would ever tire of obsessing over his work in front of Lee. He hoped he would never have to, either.
Almost twenty minutes later, when a new customer entered the shop and Jin had stepped into the back, Lee regrettably stepped away to tend to them. Sokka felt slightly breathless, not just from having been looped into an intellectual back-and-forth with Lee, but also having maintained steady eye contact with possibly the most beautiful man alive. He’d almost forgotten that Suki was there, were it not for the slurping noises and the sound of plastic crunching as she gulped air, trying to inhale the last three tapioca pearls in her cup. Her eyes were studying him, narrow, with warrior’s precision. “Well?”
She finally sucked up the pearls and took a second to chew, before smirking at him. “Sokka,” she said in a quiet voice, “I can’t tell who is more enamored of the other.”
His eyes widened, as did his smile. “Really?!”
She rolled her eyes, swatting the side of his head playfully. “Look, not to toot my own horn, but I’m hot,” she told him blankly with a shrug. He nodded—she was sweet and humble, but also realistic, and she wasn’t wrong at all. “And homeboy over here did not once turn to look at me while you were talking to each other.”
Huh. Sokka had seen Lee blush when he first served Suki, but now that he thought about it, the barista hadn’t broken eye contact with him either during their exchange, despite the brunette sitting right next to him the entire time. He felt a fluttering somewhere within his ribcage, and couldn’t help the endearing smile that threatened to absolutely take over his face as he looked over at Lee, still waiting for the customer to place their order. Lee looked over for a second, flushing once again when he met Sokka’s eye and immediately facing the customer again. Sokka could hear Suki’s quiet laughter behind her hand, and hope soared in his chest. Maybe she and Iroh were onto something, after all.
When the coffeeshop started to fill up with the student crowd, Suki suggested they go back to her gym so she could show him what her girls were working on. She got up to toss her cup away, and Sokka approached the momentarily empty register where Lee was jotting down some notes, likely for his thesis. “Hey, we’re gonna head out,” he said, slightly startling the barista. “But I’ll see you tomorrow or something?”
For once, Lee didn’t blush. Instead, he gave a genuine smile, a slight dimple forming into his right cheek and spirits, fuck, he has a dimple, shit. “Okay, yeah,” he said, nodding. “Can’t wait.”
“Sokka!”
He looked over his shoulder at Suki, who was holding the door open and windmilling her arm exaggeratedly, motioning him to go out. He turned his head back towards Lee, whose eyes were impossibly wide at that point, the look of a man having an epiphany sprawled across his face. Sokka supposed he was just slightly shocked at the fact that he hadn’t blushed at one of his attempts at flirting, and winked at the man for good measure before half-jogging behind his best friend.
Sokka did not, in fact, see Lee the next day, as he found himself drowning in work. Piandao had asked around the White Lotus headquarters or wherever renowned scholars gathered to talk about their work, and had found Sokka various new sources of both literary and raw material for him to study for his project. Apparently his colleague Pakku, who was a stuffy old man from the Northern Water Tribe, owed him a favor, and so had decided to let Sokka into the storage of the Republic City Museum of Anthropology. While he’d obviously not been allowed to retrieve any of the items in question, he had spent hours of his Friday and the rest of his weekend scouring their materials from the various invasions into the two Water Tribes. He’d even brought Katara along, sneaking her in without a permission card (and unbeknownst to Pakku) to look at the waterskins and weapons from behind the scenes.
His Saturday night, as always, had been spent with the gang watching a mover. And as always, they spent half the mover talking over it loudly. Suki gave all of them a recap of her “Lee stakeout” at the Jasmine Dragon that week, and Sokka was half-annoyed, half-entertained at the collective sigh of relief he heard when they all finally confirmed that he was not, in fact, hallucinating the perfect barista.
But it was Aang’s idea to escalate his flirting a little. Sokka should’ve expected such a roundabout, passive suggestion to come from the kid, but even he had to admit it wasn’t a terrible plan.
So that following Tuesday, Sokka and Suki were studying in the Jasmine Dragon once again. Sokka was putting in the final touches to the outline for his final paper for Zhao’s class, and Suki was watching the playback from one of her recent competitions, scribbling down critiques for herself and her students.
He was finally, finally, done with the outline—still an entire day early—but knew there was work to be done on the ordering of his ideas. He wasn’t quite sure whether he first wanted to explain how Ba Sing Se’s social reorganization pre-invasion had factored into its hostile architecture, or provide immediate context for the Earth Kingdom’s refugee crises. He figured biting the bullet and going to see Zhao in person was the best idea, and pulled up the syllabus to try to schedule it in. As much as he hated talking to Zhao one-on-one, as the man still seemed to think he was an irresponsible child, he knew he wouldn’t lose points for talking to him. He would, however, lose points if his essay didn’t flow.
Fuck. He had a meeting with Piandao that had already been rescheduled around his museum time with Pakku.
He shook his head, begrudgingly opening up an email to Zhao.
Monday, April 23, at 3:27 PM
From: Sokka Qanik <[email protected]>
Subject: Office Hours
Hi, Professor Zhao!
I’m not able to make your regular office hours, but would you have time tomorrow afternoon to meet? I’d really like to discuss my outline for our upcoming final paper. Thanks!
-Sokka
With that, Sokka closed his computer, taking one shaky sip of his drink—black iced tea, this time, as even he couldn’t stomach a warm drink in the current weather—before Suki looked over and winked at him. Let’s do it? she mouthed, and Sokka nodded.
Lee was standing towards their end of the counter at this moment, sealing the top of the latest customer’s boba tea. When Sokka and Suki had arrived just half an hour earlier, he had stood by and talked to them for a while before his attention had been called elsewhere. Sokka had been watching for what Suki had pointed out last time, and effectively Lee had not stared at Suki more than during the short quips and jabs she’d made during the course of conversation. And even then, they had been quick glances, before the barista turned back to look at Sokka. The younger man had felt his confidence build up in the meanwhile, and knew his two-step plan would work.
Maybe. Probably.
“So, Sokka,” Suki began, a bit too loudly to be considered normal. Lee barely looked up, handing the customer their boba and waving them off. “Katara and I were thinking of going to the mall or something this Saturday afternoon. What are your weekend plans?”
For someone who was supposed to be having a flippant conversation, Sokka’s heart was pounding with nerves. He saw Lee’s ears perk up slightly as he wiped down the side of the counter. “Actually, Suki, I don’t really have any plans yet,” he replied, equally loudly. Some patrons around the coffeeshop were starting to sneer at their volume, but he paid them no attention. He only needed the one man to hear him. “No plans at all. No plans, schedule empty! Ha-ha.”
Suki glared at him, and rightfully so. He was being way too obvious at this point. Tone it down, pal. “Cool,” she gritted out, shaking her head slightly and tucking her earphones back in. Lee gave them a small smile when Sokka looked up at him, and ducked into the back rooms for his break.
Sokka’s phone pinged, and he checked his notification. A text from Suki!
You fucking obvious buffoon. I love you so much, but you idiot. How did I ever date you?
Sokka looked up, an amused expression on his face as his best friend was still staring daggers back. He mockingly blew her a kiss, before his phone pinged again. He scrambled to open his laptop, wanting to check the new email from Zhao.
Monday, April 23, at 3:34 PM
From: Zuko Huo <[email protected]>
To: Sokka Qanik <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Office Hours
I’m still not Zhao, but I’m free this Saturday afternoon, if you wanted to do something?
Sent from my SatoPhone
Fuck. Not Zhao. Sokka really had to save Zhao’s contact so he’d be the email that popped up first.
And weirdly enough, this stranger was asking for his availability? No. Nuh-uh. No way. Sokka had spent too much time with Suki in her self-defense gym, and had seen one too many true crime documentaries that started out via mistaken emails, to just agree to meet up with an unknown person alone.
(Okay, one true crime documentary that started out via mistaken emails. But really, was that not enough for a guy to be cautious?)
He looked up quickly, checking if Lee had returned from his break—but to no avail. Instead, he busied himself with a quick response to whoever this stranger was.
Monday, April 23, at 3:36 PM
From: Sokka Qanik <[email protected]>
To: Zuko Huo <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Re: Office Hours
Hey dude, sorry I keep emailing you! I’m actually busy, but thanks! Take it easy
-Sokka
Sokka downed the rest of his tea, even going as far as slurping up the ice through his straw, as he anxiously waited for Lee to come back out from his break. Aang’s advice had been simple. Make sure he knows you’re available, then check if he’s available at the same time! If he’s interested, maybe he can connect the dots and ask you to do something with him!
Well, much to Suki’s chagrin, he had already painstakingly done the first step on the list. Now he just had to wait for Lee to come back out.
When the door creaked open, Sokka’s head shot up only to see Jin step out, looking slightly morose. She approached Sokka with a tense smile and asked, “Want me to throw away your cup for you?”
Sokka nodded, thanking her quietly as he tried to peer into the back room. He thought he could see Lee’s back, hunched over a table—but then the door finished swinging shut, and he was out of it again. “Hey, Jin,” he called out nervously, wringing his hands under the counter and out of her sight. “When, uh—when is he coming back out?”
At that, Jin gave him a whole frown. “Look, Sokka,” she said, her voice taking on a harsher edge than anything he’d ever heard from the sweet girl, “he has a lot on his plate. Don’t make this worse for him right now, okay?”
Sokka’s heart was pounding, but now less because of excited nervous energy and more because of actual worry. “Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” At Jin’s disbelieving stare, he tried to amend his statement. “I just wanted—”
“He’s stuck here working this afternoon,” she snapped, her hand crushing Sokka’s empty cup out of frustration. Suki was drawn to the noise and gently lowered an earphone, curious. “And like I said, he’s really busy. Can you please just be kind enough to find another place to study today?”
Suki drew in a breath, very much looking like someone about to give someone else a piece of her mind, but Sokka stopped her with a gentle hand on her arm. “Okay. Yeah, I can do that,” he answered, feeling and sounding resigned. “Just—I hope he’s okay. Okay. We’re gonna go now.”
“Thank you,” Jin muttered quietly, arms crossed as she watched the pair pack up their belongings. Suki was still occasionally shooting her hostile glances, but Sokka couldn’t find it in him to care. He didn’t like the feeling of being shut out, and he wondered what on earth had happened during the break for Lee’s mood to change so drastically.
He hoped when he next came in that maybe it would be less busy and he’d be able to ask him properly.
And maybe ask him out properly. Yeah. That might work too.
Sokka had spent almost equal parts of his time parsing through his notes from the museum visits with Pakku, and dissecting his latest visit to the Jasmine Dragon. He truly had no clue what had happened that Lee had been so unwell, and Jin so tense and upset, that he’d been practically kicked out of the coffeeshop. At first he’d considered the possibility that Azula had called again, but he instantly discarded the idea. He knew that if she did, Iroh would have been listening in as well—and instead he’d been going over the shop’s finances as he usually did, in a small two-person booth. It could’ve had something to do with Lee’s thesis, of course, but he knew from their conversations that the thesis was going well and wasn’t even due for another few months.
Scratch that. Sokka had probably spent more time thinking about Lee than he had about his own final project. This was getting to the point where his focus was entirely divided, which wasn’t unusual for him, but it was getting a bit too overwhelming. So instead of continuing to ruminate on his own, he decided that the best course of action would be to just go ask the man himself.
Of course, this would also be a fantastic opportunity to see if Lee might be interested in doing an activity with him that Saturday afternoon, as well.
On his way to the shop, he quietly rehearsed how he’d ask him out, under his breath. “So,” he began, “I’m free Saturday afternoon, if you’re free Saturday afternoon, and want to do an activity, together, on Saturday afternoon, when I’m free—” he paused, both vocally and physically, and smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand. Get your shit together, man.
He tried to remind himself that this was how people did it. This was the natural progression of their conversations. Lee had been receptive to all of his advances so far, and this wouldn’t be so out of left field that he’d get laughed in his face. He had nothing to worry about! So why was he so fucking nervous?
He entered the coffeeshop, where Jin was standing at the counter using her phone. She looked up for half a second, saw who it was, and slowly diverted her attention back to her screen. Sokka tried to not take it personally.
He saw Iroh sitting at his usual booth, and went over to him once he didn’t see any sign of Lee. “Hey, Mr. Iroh,” he greeted, his hands nervously fiddling with the straps on his backpack.
Iroh looked up, smiling at Sokka in a way that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Good afternoon, my boy,” he said warmly. “Take a seat and enjoy a cup of tea with me please. Jin?”
The girl looked over at them, and nodded even as she rolled her eyes and turned away to start making what Sokka assumed was a tea for him. When she came out and left it in front of Sokka, he could see it was a warm, small-sized Earl Grey, not his summertime black iced tea. Petty.
“Is Lee not working today?” he asked, blowing on his tea a bit to cool it down.
Iroh took a sip from his half-empty cup and sighed. “My nephew is meeting with my friend Professor Piandao. He and my old friend have some new ideas to discuss for his thesis.”
Oh. Sokka drew in a visibly relieved breath. So it was just a thesis thing?
Iroh must’ve picked up on it, because he set down his cup. “He is busy with schoolwork today. But I am afraid that is not the only worry in his mind.” At Sokka’s silence, he shot the younger man a pleading look. “My nephew is not a very open person. I daresay you’ve gotten more out of him in the past few months than many have in his entire lifetime!” He let out a hearty chuckle before looking somber again.
“He is very reserved, and in his lifetime he has had many good reasons to be this way. My brother—his father—was never the most welcoming when it comes to matters of the heart. And my nephew has internalized much of that negativity, and has been afraid to put himself out there, as the young ones say.”
Sokka nodded. Lee had said very little about his father, but Sokka was never under the impression that the man was a particularly kind soul.
“He has a difficult time talking about his feelings and his family history, and for that I am grateful that he has you in his life. But he is still new at this, and like any newborn he is very sensitive to the delicate complications that come with making oneself this vulnerable. Now, young man, I do not fault you for your emotions,” he said with a calm tone, giving Sokka a grim smile, “but my nephew has many wounds to heal from. I make the humble request of an old man that you allow those wounds to heal for a moment. He will be there at the end of the day, but he just needs some time.”
Sokka frowned. Had he not been giving him enough space? He’d never meant to pry or push Lee to dealing with his personal problems or share more than he was ready for. But then again, Sokka’s tolerance for his own oversharing was very high; maybe conversations he’d considered innocuous were actually invasive and demanding. A pit formed in his stomach as he realized that maybe he’d forced Lee into sharing more about himself than he had wanted to. Was that the problem? “Mr. Iroh, I’m so—” he took a breath, unsure of how to proceed. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to make him do anything he was uncomfortable with, I’m so sorry.”
Iroh shook his head gently. “Do not apologize for how you feel. Like I said, give him some time. He will find a way to care for you that does not burn him.”
It sounded as much as a dismissal as anything Sokka had heard from the older man. He could feel his eyes starting to sting, and he gave Iroh a slight bow before getting up to walk out the way he came in. His new comment was not lost on him.
He will find a way to care for you that does not burn him.
Sokka desperately hoped that was true. But the words were already chipping away a hole somewhere in his chest.
Sokka tended to avoid things he was dreading. And he’d definitely be lying if he said he wasn’t dreading returning to the coffeeshop, especially after his cryptic conversation with Iroh. But he knew he needed to go back and apologize for pushing Lee’s limits, and for poking and prodding too much into his personal life. As much as he’d just wanted to comfort the other man, he understood that maybe he’d taken advantage of the more vulnerable emotional state Lee had been in. Although whether it made sense to him or not didn’t really matter: he needed to make things right. He owed the barista that much.
So the next Tuesday, after having buried himself in his work—and some healthy procrastination—for the entire weekend and Monday, Sokka had resolved to return to the coffeeshop, even if it was with his metaphorical tail between his legs.
He wasn’t planning on staying too long during this visit. Sure, he hoped he’d be able to take his regular seat at the counter, and stay talking for at least an hour; but he had not been banking on it. He trusted Iroh’s judgment when it came to Lee, based off the nearly palpable familial love between the two, and knew he should give Lee space after he apologized. But first…
The little bell jingled over his head as he entered the Jasmine Dragon, his feet feeling like lead as they dragged him inside. He could practically hear his blood rushing in his ears, and he tried to look confident as he walked up to the register. Jin, whose quiet fury he still remembered with a shudder, was fortunately nowhere to be seen; and he’d shown up earlier than usual to make sure he avoided the post-lunch rush. So the coffeeshop was decently empty, except for him and the handsome barista behind the counter.
“Hey,” he breathed out, relieved that he’d at least have some privacy for when he talked to the other man.
“Good morning, and welcome to the Jasmine Dragon,” Lee responded, not looking up from the screen. “What would you like to order?”
He must be tired, he doesn’t recognize my voice. “Someone’s on autopilot this morning,” he joked, feeling a millisecond of relief when Lee looked up—only to have it come crashing down as a wave of ice washed over him.
Lee’s eyes, usually so bright and golden and eager, were unrecognizably cool, as he blinked at Sokka. He inhaled through his nose, and repeated, “What would you like to order?”
Sokka was decidedly not a fan of the little twists and turns his stomach was doing. “Um, I’ll—I’ll just have the medium black iced tea, please,” he muttered, significantly scaling back his energy. He knew apologies weren’t supposed to be fun—or funny—but he’d hoped he might get Lee to at least crack a small smile before he got into it. “Hey, um—I just, I wanted to apologize,” he started.
“That’ll be two yuans, please,” Lee interrupted, glancing up quickly from the screen.
Sokka fumbled for his card, handing it over before he readied himself to try again. “Listen, man, I’m sorry if I, like, made you uncomfortable, or pushed you too much.” Lee was quiet as he prepared Sokka’s drink, so the younger man took it as permission to continue. “Well, no, not sorry if I made you uncomfortable. Clearly I did. I think I just pushed our friendship a little bit too much, and you probably felt forced into opening up more than you should have.”
“More than I should have,” Lee echoed, putting a lid on the drink. He let out a dry, sardonic laugh. “Right.” He placed the drink on the counter, crossing his arms and finally keeping eye contact with Sokka.
He sighed. “Look, I really valued our friendship, and I’d just—I would love it if we could maybe, I don’t know, reset?”
Lee’s nostrils flared at that. He looked slightly intimidating that day, his hair let simply down his shoulders and giving him a rather imposing demeanor. “I’m sorry that you feel this way about our friendship,” he sneered in a dangerously low tone, almost spitting out the word friendship, “but you don’t just get to reset it when things get tough. I clearly made a miscalculation, but this isn’t just something I can immediately get over.”
Sokka was at a loss. It seemed he had severely misjudged just how much he’d pushed Lee, and he felt a growing pit in his stomach at the idea that Lee thought their friendship was basically irreparable at that point. “I—”
“I get that it’s not your fault, and you shouldn’t feel like it is,” Lee plowed on, his voice slowly starting to rise, “but this was kind of a big deal to me. And it clearly wasn’t for you. And I can understand that, but Sokka,” he paused. “When you give some of yourself to a person who just happily throws it in your face, it hurts, dude.”
At that point, Sokka felt his defenses start to go up. He hadn’t meant to throw anything in his face! Hell, he’d never even brought up the incident of Lee crying in front of him again! “Hold on, I never meant to do that,” he tried to explain, hating how desperate his voice sounded but knowing it was borne purely out of sincerity. “And I hadn’t meant to intrude, either. I’d just come in to say hi, grab some tea, maybe study; but I hadn’t expected you to—”
Lee’s face crumpled at that for half a second, and Sokka knew he had really stepped in it now. But in an instant, the other man’s walls were back up, and Lee had schooled his face into an emotionless mask. “I apologize for my unprofessional behavior,” he said in a tight voice, and while his face was taut with seriousness, Sokka could clearly see the pain in his eyes. “It won’t happen again. But,” he pulled a straw from his apron, balancing it perfectly on the drink lid before him, “if you won’t be ordering anything else, I have to ask you to leave.”
Sokka could’ve sworn he’d just been punched in the stomach, at the way his gut clenched and the wind was knocked out of him. “Come on, man—”
Lee cleared his throat. “If you’re not going to get anything else, please, I am asking you to—”
“I don’t know what’s going on with you, but can’t we just—”
“Please, Sokka.”
It was the crack in the please that did it. Sokka had seen Lee cry, sob, in front of him, and had heard him talk about the painful memories of his family. But he had not once heard his voice crack, like it was buckling under the weight of the emotions behind his words. Sokka supposed he’d tried to do what he came for—apologize, and his apology had clearly been rejected.
Well…
Let’s be real, he thought, slowly grabbing his drink and straw. Lee clearly did not want to return to their old friendship, and clearly did not want to stay in this new one. My apology wasn’t rejected. I was.
In a last-ditch effort to save face, Sokka took what breath he had left in his lungs, and said as he looked right into Lee’s rather red-rimmed eyes, “Okay. But just remember, I tried to fix this. You’re the one shutting me out.”
If he’d turned around after storming out of the Jasmine Dragon, he might’ve seen the way the barista doubled over in heaving breaths once he was alone in the coffeeshop.
And if Lee had been watching Sokka walking outside, he might’ve seen how he furiously wiped at his eyes before tossing his drink into the nearest bin.
Sokka might not be the most socially savvy, and he certainly wasn’t a mind reader, but he knew when he wasn’t wanted. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that whatever he’d done, Lee was not ready to forgive. And that, however he felt about the other man, it was clearly, painfully one-sided.
He hadn’t returned to the Jasmine Dragon that week, as per Lee’s clear request. Instead, he kept himself busy with his paper and his project, both of which were coming along nicely. His paper for Zhao was due in two weeks, when the exam should have been scheduled if they’d had one, and he had already incorporated his museum observations into his project, which Piandao had been particularly pleased to look over. And to avoid going into the coffeeshop while he worked, he had holed himself up in the library, trying to stay out of sight of the creepy librarian that seemed to have some kind of vendetta against college students who did work on electronic devices and not by hand.
So he worked in the depths of the bookshelves, until he was able to drag himself somewhere that was neither the coffeeshop nor his own apartment. That Saturday mover night was held in Suki’s house, where her girlfriend was also crashing. The group had picked some animated mover about a moon princess or something—to be honest, he had been rather withdrawn since arriving, still feeling like a kicked dog from his last interaction with Lee, and hadn’t offered an opinion or paid attention when it came to picking a mover.
The six of them were sprawled across Suki’s studio’s floor, on a colorful array of throw pillows. Nobody seemed particularly engrossed in the mover either, but rather there were several small side conversations going on around him. The only ones not participating were himself and Toph, who was entertaining themselves by eavesdropping in each conversation intermittently.
Finally, it seemed his sister had had enough. She paused the mover and turned sharply to look at him. “Okay, Sokka, what’s going on?”
Toph, whose back was resting against the front of Sokka’s legs, turned to face him. “Yeah, Snoozles, you’re oddly quiet—and I know you haven’t fallen asleep yet!”
He clenched his jaw, letting go of the pillow he had been clutching to his chest. “Guys, I think I really messed up with the guy from Jasmine Dragon,” he confessed. He explained how Lee’s mood had changed drastically during his break when Sokka and Suki had gone to the coffeeshop, and how he had all but ended their friendship during his last visit. “I’m not sure what I did,” he defended quickly, “but I know I did something. And he kicked me out when I went back! I know his uncle Iroh said something about him needing time to heal, and I thought I’d known what he meant, but—”
“Lee can’t be Iroh’s nephew,” Toph interrupted, scratching the back of their head confusedly.
“Well, he is, Toph,” he countered, kind of annoyed. “But that’s not important! Now if you’d just let me—”
“No,” Toph said slowly, rolling their milky white eyes, “Lee can’t be Iroh’s nephew. I know Iroh, and he only has one nephew.”
“What?” It was Sokka’s turn to sound confused. “Toph, what the fuck are you talking about. Lee is his one nephew. Wait, how do you even know Iroh?”
Toph shrugged. “He’s nice to me, and he doesn’t do that stupid ‘But you’re only one person’ thing about my pronouns.”
Ty Lee suddenly perked up from her spot resting her head on Suki’s lap. “They’re right, Iroh does only have one nephew! Zuko!”
Sokka swears to this day that he could physically feel his stomach sink like an anchor. “What?”
“Mm-hm!” she responded, sitting up eagerly. “He’s an old friend of mine!”
“But—but that doesn’t make any sense,” Sokka argued, his voice equal parts desperate and confused. “His nametag—”
“Says ‘Lee’,” Ty Lee responded calmly, “because his ex-boyfriend showed up once at his old place of work, being super threatening, and Iroh didn’t want anything like that to happen.” She rolled her eyes. "Men are so fucking creepy. But Iroh let him have a fake name tag so that he wouldn’t have any more stalker issues.”
At this point, Sokka was trying to stay calm, breathing in and out deeply. “So,” he started, “so Lee’s real name is Zuko. Not Lee. That’s his fake name?”
Suki rolled her eyes, putting an arm around her girlfriend. “Dude, how do you not know your crush’s real name?”
“It never came up!” he responded, sounding extremely high-pitched. “I didn’t even think to ask! I assumed, like any normal human being, that his name, on his nametag, was his real name! Excuse me for not triple checking!”
A lightbulb seemed to go off in Aang’s head. “Wait, Sokka, isn’t Zuko the guy you emailed accidentally like three times?”
And suddenly, like a puzzle with the last pieces being connected, it all made sense. “Oh, fuck.” He whipped out his phone and scrolled through his last few emails. Monday, April 23. The day he’d made it painfully obvious just how available and free his schedule was that Saturday afternoon.
I’m actually busy, but thanks!
Sokka could’ve kicked himself then and there.
Suki grabbed his phone, scrolling through that email exchange and connecting the dots the same way he did. “Oh. Oh, Sokka, shit.” She delicately placed his phone back into his hands, and raised her arm. Instead of swatting him on the head as she usually did, though, she just ran her fingers through his hair, trying to calm him down even as he was rapidly starting to panic. “Breathe, honey, breathe. You had no way of knowing!”
“Hell-ooo,” Toph interjected, picking their nose. “Can someone explain for the blind kid?”
Ty Lee, who had read the messages over Suki’s shoulder, looked over at Toph. “Sokka unknowingly rejected Zuko asking him out, apparently!”
“After you made it clear that you were free,” Aang supplied, sounding quiet. “Oh shit, dude, I’m sorry.”
Sokka was trying very hard to concentrate on still breathing in and out. Shit was exactly right. He tried to imagine how that exchange had gone in the eyes of Lee—no, Zuko. Sokka and Suki flaunting how free Sokka was that Saturday afternoon. Zuko gathering his courage and replying to Sokka’s email, doing exactly what Sokka had hoped he would do. Sokka’s flippant rejection—and outright lie, Zuko knew he didn’t have any plans that afternoon, and Sokka just had to say he had other plans in his email. Sokka felt like the world’s must clueless jackass. And he could feel his heart crumpling like a piece of paper.
“What are you going to do now?” Katara asked softly, watching him with concern in her eyes.
“I need to apologize,” Sokka answered, eyes darting back and forth on the floor as he tried to come up with a new game plan. “And explain myself. And then maybe—”hopefully “—make it all right again.”
Sokka swore he wasn’t procrastinating on his email to Zuko, since that was the only way of communicating with him that didn’t involve just showing up at his workplace and making him feel uncomfortable in his space. It honestly should not take this long to write a simple email, and yet.
Sokka had spent the better part of his Sunday mentally beating himself up. He had no way of knowing Lee wasn’t his real name, sure, but he still couldn’t help but feel guilty for how Zuko must’ve interpreted his email rejection. Maybe if he’d been less obvious about being free on Saturday, maybe if his email hadn’t said that outright lie. It was all moot, of course; he had no way of turning back time, and really should be focusing on how to make it better in the present. But every time he opened up his email, he couldn’t help but feel his gut clench with guilt and worry.
And now Jin and Iroh’s behavior made sense. In their eyes, too, Sokka must’ve been this douchebag that showed up, periodically flirted with Zuko, got him to talk about personal painful stuff, and, when the time finally came to do something about it, just out and dipped.
And of course, there was his last conversation with Zuko. He’d known the other man had been hurt when they talked, but he hadn’t realized the extent. Or how him wanting to “reset” their friendship just made everything a thousand times worse. And then when he’d just wanted to lick his wounds alone in the coffeeshop where he had to be working, Sokka had tried to confront him, seeming like he just wanted to keep revisiting his rejection. Shit.
He tried to talk himself out of wallowing and panicking, reasoning that if he continued to put off his email it would only make things worse and more irreparable. And finals season was approaching—despite having his paper for Zhao and his final project with Piandao be almost done, he still had two other actual finals to study for. He knew that if he didn’t reach out and try to talk to him now that he would be way too distracted during his reading days to do anything but panic and fail his exams.
So he decided to try and enjoy the nice weather by taking his laptop and his notebooks, and sitting outside in the grass for once on the university commons. After settling in, he pulled out his laptop, nervously cracking his knuckles before he got to typing his email. And this time, he triple-checked that it was going to the right address.
Monday, May 7, at 9:47 AM
From: Sokka Qanik <[email protected]>
To: Zuko Huo <[email protected]>
Subject: Can we meet?
Hey,
Do you have time later today to talk before reading days officially start? I think I need to explain some stuff.
-Sokka
He closed his email browser, instead starting to busy himself with his other schoolwork. He had exams for his advanced architecture class, and for his urban design class. Both of them promised to be challenging, but over the years Sokka had learned how to study in a way that worked for him. He might not be as naturally gifted as Katara, but he’d be damned if he didn’t work equally as hard to succeed in what he did.
He started organizing a schedule for himself for the following week, arranging and rearranging study breaks and the units he wanted to revisit. Making a solid study plan was the way to go for him; if there was one thing he was good at, it was following his own instructions.
He got lost in the details, going over the notes he had and checking to see if he needed to re-watch any recorded lectures or reach out to his professors for extra study supplements; and almost didn’t notice when his phone pinged from within his pocket. Heart beating wildly, he opened his email browser on his computer, breathing a sigh of relief when he saw his new message.
Monday, May 7, at 10:54 AM
From: Zuko Huo <[email protected]>
To: Sokka Qanik <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Can we meet?
I’m still not Zhao, Sokka.
Monday, May 7, at 10:55 AM
From: Sokka Qanik <[email protected]>
To: Zuko Huo <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Re: Can we meet?
I know.
That evening found Sokka anxiously sitting on a bench at the corner of the street, a few steps away from the Jasmine Dragon. Zuko had hesitantly agreed to meeting with him after his shift ended at eight, and Sokka had assured him that he just wanted to clarify some things and then leave him alone if he so desired. And truthfully, that’s all Sokka wanted to do. He could not honestly expect that Zuko would have any sort of feelings for him after that mess, or that he’d even be willing to stay friends after he had been made to feel so betrayed. But Sokka wanted him to know, more than anything, that Sokka had never meant to hurt him, and that Zuko had done absolutely nothing wrong in terms of opening up and letting himself be seen.
When he heard the familiar bell ring, Sokka looked up from where he’d been staring at the floor, his leg as usual bouncing up and down anxiously. He watched as Jin and Iroh walked away from the shop in one direction, Jin turning every few steps to stare daggers at him, while Zuko busied himself with locking up the shop before heading his way.
Sokka stood up and wiped his sweaty hands on his jeans. Zuko’s hair was braided loosely down one shoulder, and this was not the time to stare, but dammit this wasn’t doing anything to calm his nerves. “Zuko, hey,” he greeted, tasting the other man’s name in his mouth. Spirits, did he like the sound of it. And he very much liked the person attached to it.
“Hi,” the taller man said quietly, and Sokka hated the way his newly shy demeanor made him feel. “What, um—what did you want?”
“Take a walk with me?” he blurted out before he could stop himself. Zuko hesitated for a second, before nodding and walking by his side. Sokka waited until they were at the edge of campus, just a block away, and then he began. “So I know you must hate me right now—and you have a good reason to!” he quickly added, holding up his hands. Zuko neither nodded nor shook his head to deny it, but he still remained attentive to what Sokka was saying, so he took it as a good sign. “Um, first of all, I guess I’m sorry I kept emailing you by accident.”
“I know,” Zuko answered, his gravelly voice sounding incredibly attractive—focus, Sokka!
“Heh. Yeah, fair.” A beat of silence. Then, “Look, I know I got my wires crossed. I definitely was giving you very mixed signals, and I’m—Zuko?”
The taller man had stopped a few steps ago, staring at the ground looking positively miserable.
“Is everything okay?”
“Listen, Sokka,” he began, his voice laced with a quiet fury. “I know what you’re trying to do. It’s really not necessary.”
Huh?
“I’m a grown adult, you don’t have to worry about letting me down easy or whatever it is you’re going for,” Zuko continued, not once making eye contact with Sokka. Sokka hated that it hurt Zuko, and definitely felt the way his own insides were twisting and turning in on each other.
“No, Zuko, I—”
The barista finally looked up, and Sokka’s heart actually broke at the dejected tears swimming in the golden eyes before him. “Dude,” he said in a pained voice, “I’m begging you. I know how rejections work, and I know I probably read too much into things, and I’m really sorry I made you uncomfortable. I dumped way too much personal shit on you, and you didn’t deserve that, and I definitely made myself your problem, and I’m sorry for that. But I don’t really feel like talking about this any further now that I already know how it’s going to end.”
“No,” Sokka breathed, walking up to him just as Zuko was starting to turn the opposite direction. “No, no, no.” He stopped the taller man with a hand laid gently on his arm, and when he saw that Zuko didn’t flinch or pull away he slowly traced it down the tattooed forearm to his wrist. “Please, just listen. I was a literal idiot. I didn’t even—” he let out an incredulous laugh, desperately running his free hand through his loose wolftail. “I didn’t even know your name was Zuko!”
“What?” Now it was Zuko’s turn to sound shocked and confused.
“Yeah,” he said, nodding furiously. “I had no idea your name was Zuko. I didn’t know you were the guy I was emailing!”
Zuko looked like he was trying really hard to not be hurt by the fact that Sokka hadn’t even known his name. Fuck. Sokka tried to stammer out an explanation. “I just—your nametag. It said Lee. I thought you were Lee.”
A look of understanding finally dawned on the taller man’s face. “But—but your email,” Zuko started, slowly drawing his arm away from Sokka’s grip.
Sokka softened his hold on his wrist, only to hold his hand instead. “That day, I was trying to get up the nerve to ask you out!” he explained, taking the way Zuko’s hand relaxed as a sign to lace their fingers together. “I don’t know if you could tell, but I was trying to be really fucking obvious about how free I was on Saturday, because I was trying to check if you were available so that we could go on a date together or something!”
Zuko just blinked at him like an owl. “Oh,” he said softly, his hand finally, finally, folding itself around Sokka’s.
Feeling newly encouraged, Sokka took a step forward. “I didn’t know you sent me the email, otherwise I would’ve said yes in the biggest, brightest font I could find on my email server,” he admitted. He watched as a soft pink spread across Zuko’s cheeks, and relished in how much he’d missed the way the taller man blushed so easily at his advances. But all of a sudden his old nerves re-entered his body. “I—I totally understand if you don’t, uh, don’t feel that way anymore,” he stammered, his free hand nervously clenching and unclenching as he tried to calm his heart down. “I can’t imagine how shitty you must’ve felt, and I know it’s not easy for you to open up to people, and I don’t expect—”
He was stopped by a surprisingly warm and soft hand gently cupping his cheek. He looked at Zuko, who was still blushing, but watching him with an entertained expression. He quickly withdrew his hand from Sokka’s face. “I—sorry. But, um, no,” Zuko replied, looking like a man who was steeling himself to maintain eye contact. “I still very much feel that way. If, uh, if that’s what you were worried about. So. Yeah. Still like you.”
Finally, Sokka could feel his heart become a thousand times lighter. He smiled, taking another step towards him. “You like me, do you?” he teased, taking guiltless pleasure in watching the red on Zuko’s face darken.
“Shut up, Sokka, you’re literally in the process of asking me out right now,” he snapped, rolling his eyes, but the slowly widening smile on his face betrayed how entertained he was by this.
Sokka snapped his fingers jokingly. “That’s what I was doing, right!” Another step, and he looked at the other man curiously. “So just to check—if, hypothetically, I were asking you out right now, your answer would be…?”
Zuko gave a mock-frustrated sigh. “Yes, you moron.”
Sokka grinned. “And if, hypothetically, I were to, say, asking for a friend, lean in and—mmph!”
Zuko had tugged at Sokka’s hand, drawing him the few paces closer until he was finally able to meet his lips with his own. And maybe Sokka shouldn’t have been surprised at the softness of his lips, but what he definitely had not been expecting was the assured way that the taller man gave him a solid kiss.
He only took half a second to react, before his hand wound its way to the back of Zuko’s neck, gently resting his fingers in his hair—which, Sokka was pleased to discover, was every bit as silky as it looked—as he tipped the man’s head back, immersing himself into the exchange. They stood there for what somehow felt like both seconds and hours, breathing into each other everything they wanted to say, had wanted to say for months, but hadn’t. Sokka could feel how impossibly soft the other man’s lips were, and took the tongue swiping at his lower lip as an invitation to deepen their kiss. He almost forgot where they were standing, or that there was a whole world surrounding them.
Finally, feeling slightly out of breath, Sokka drew his hand down from Zuko’s hair, tracing the braid until it was resting against his chest. He slowly opened his eyes, loving how Zuko kept his own closed for a beat longer before he blinked to look at him, pupils fully widened. “As,” the taller man breathed, sounding as though he was unsure of how to continue with his sentence. “As nice as that was,” he started.
“And it was nice!”
“So nice!”
“I really enjoyed that.”
“Right. As nice as that was,” he continued, “I just—I would really like it if we, um, took it slow?”
Sokka hated the question mark at the end, and how unsure Zuko sounded. He reached down so that now both of his hands were holding Zuko’s. “We can take it as slow or fast as you want,” he promised, gently leaning his forehead against the other man’s. He didn’t know how to telepathically communicate that he didn’t care how quickly they took it, as long as he was still allowed in his life. That he just wanted time—to learn everything about the other man, to discover everything he liked and disliked and loved and hated. That he wanted to listen to Zuko talk endlessly about his thesis, which he was clearly so passionate about; and, in turn, to talk to him about the technical details of his final project, to share his love for knowledge and research with him. That he wanted whatever Zuko was willing to give him, so much that he could feel his heart aching with the Zuko-shaped space he’d reserved specially for him. Sokka took a deep breath before continuing. “Look, I really like you,” he confessed, “and I just. I’m really interested in seeing where this can go. What do you think?”
Zuko took a step back, searching the younger man’s eyes. Whatever he saw must’ve been to his liking, as his expression softened to an almost sappy gaze. “I really like you too. And I like that plan. A lot,” he said in an incredibly quiet voice, like he only wanted—needed—Sokka to hear him.
He smiled at the older man, before closing his eyes and giving his voice a serious tone. “But, Zuko,” he began, “I can’t—.” He pulled him closer, nuzzling into Zuko’s neck. “I hate being shut out. Please don’t do that to me.”
Zuko threaded his fingers through Sokka’s hair before gently tugging him away to look directly at him. “I know, and I’m sorry,” he said, rubbing his thumb across Sokka’s cheek. “And I promise—for you, I’ll try.”
Sokka gave up on reining in whatever hummingbird was trapped in his ribcage at this point, and he leaned forwards one more time to press his lips against Zuko’s in a chaste kiss, before letting go of one of his hands and starting to walk towards the coffeeshop again. “Can I walk you home?”
Zuko looked at him with surprise, before he grinned. “I’d really like that, yeah. What a gentleman.”
Sokka jokingly puffed out his chest, saying in a deep voice, “Southern Water Tribesmen are built different, what can I say?” Both men laughed, before Sokka added, “You know, for all that Zhao is an imperialistic dick, I gotta thank him from having a similar email to yours.”
Zuko suddenly sped up, letting go of Sokka’s hand. “You know what? I think I’ll take my chances. Maybe I’ll get mugged and never have to deal with you bringing up Zhao in a romantic context ever again.”
Sokka laughed as the other man got farther away from him with his speed walking, looking backwards every once in a while with a jokingly fearful sneer. But he knew Zuko would eventually let him catch up, and he was so excited to see where else they could go. “Zuko, wait up. Zuko!”
Wednesday, January 9, at 10:33 AM
From: Sokka Qanik <[email protected]>
Subject: Open House
Hey, babe!
You probably won’t look at this for a while since you’re in class—and I’m technically working, so don’t tell Jeong Jeong—but I just found this listing and it has an open house this weekend! Tara sent it to me, it looks awesome, and it’s just 2 metro stops away from the City Council building, 20 min walk from the Jasmine Dragon. It’s also w/in our price range. Lmk what you think!
Love you,
-Sokka
Wednesday, January 9, at 10:48 AM
From: Professor Zhao <[email protected]>
To: Sokka Qanik <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Open House
Not sure who you meant to email, but I’m not “babe”. Good luck.
Zhao