Archive of Our Own

The water far below them was a dark, shimmering black. Zuko could see the reflection of the nearly full moon, just glimpses of its pale face on the waves, as they flew through the clouds. Flashes of Appa’s shadow on the water pulled him back to a far different time, years ago, when he wasn’t privy to the lives of the people now sitting in the saddle with him. It was strange to think that it had just been five years since he’d discovered Aang, because it didn’t feel that long at all.

He could feel the chill settle over him as they flew through the air towards the Southern Water Tribe, growing ever colder with every cloud the sky bison barreled through. The clouds had been slowly clearing since they passed over Jongmu Island, where they’d seen the snow-capped mountains and frosted landscape, the first sign of winter Zuko had seen so far this year, despite being already halfway through the season.

As they passed through another cloud, he shivered, drawing his arms up from where they’d been hanging off the saddle to wrap around himself. There was a soft rustling behind him, probably from Sokka or Katara, and then he felt a soft but heavy thump against his back. He jerked up, whirling around. Sokka was lounging back in the saddle, looking at him expectantly. He looked down at the soft bundle that had been thrown at him, and when he picked it up, it unfurled to reveal a sealskin coat. Sokka’s sealskin coat.

“What?” Sokka said, when Zuko made no move to put it on. “I washed it.”

“Uh,” Zuko said, still staring down at the coat, “thanks.” It was thoughtful of Sokka— Zuko had few winter clothes, as the Fire Nation never really experienced a true winter. He pulled it on. It smelled like Sokka— musky, and always, inexplicably, a little bit like the sea.

When he looked up, Sokka was staring at him. His cheeks were a little windswept red, but he otherwise looked well at home in the cold, cold air, even just in his usual blue layered tunics with sleeves. “You, uh,” Sokka said, “you looked cold. I figured you wouldn’t have thought to bring one.”

“Well,” Zuko snorted, “I didn’t have much time to pack when you three grabbed me in the middle of the afternoon and told me I was taking a three-day vacation. You know, some people might have considered that kidnapping.”

“If we were kidnapping you, you’d know it,” Katara said from across the saddle. Like Zuko, she was half hanging off the saddle, her hand buried in Appa’s soft fur and her head resting on her arm. Sokka snorted, but crossed his arms, shifting so that his back was along the same side of the saddle as Zuko was. He propped his feet up on his still-open drawstring bag and looked up at the sky.

Feeling much warmer, with his hands hidden in his armpits, Zuko joined him in looking over the horizon. The clouds had pretty much cleared, leaving the brilliant white stars spread across the sky as far as they could see. And then—

Zuko gasped. They were suddenly awash in a bright green glow. The Southern Lights had appeared out of the sky abruptly, like a gust of wind reigniting a candle that had gone out— out of the darkness, there was light. He sat up straighter in the saddle as they flew under the first band of the Southern Lights, unable to take his eyes off the lights that twisted across the sky, solid greens meeting feathered reds that tapered off into the purple night. Only the bright white stars and the moon stood out among them.

They were mesmerizing. Zuko had seen them, of course, a long time ago when he’d been young and his mind had been less interested in the world’s great beauties. But he’d never seen them like this, not from a place where he felt like he could reach up and touch them, though he knew they’d forever be out of reach. As his eyes followed the lights, twisting across the sky like green snakes, he found himself doing just that— reaching for the lights as they danced across the sky.

He heard a sharp intake of breath beside him, jarring him from his enchantment. He curled his hand, pulling it back towards himself in embarrassment. He turned his head to the side to catch Sokka staring at him, his mouth slightly ajar. He was looking at Zuko with something like abstract wonder, akin to how Zuko was sure he’d just been looking at the lights. The Southern Lights were glowing in Sokka’s vibrant blue eyes as if they belonged there, and for a moment as they locked eyes, it felt like neither of them was breathing.

“We’re here!” Aang called, excitedly, jolting Zuko into looking away from Sokka. He flushed, embarrassed, as he glanced back at Sokka, feeling as though he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t have been. Sokka was no longer looking at him. He’d twisted around in the saddle to look over the horizon, where the dark, looming continent was growing every closer by the second.

By the time they reached the edge of the ice mass, Zuko could see the outline of the village, even in the blue-black of the polar night. It had changed since he’d been there last, a few years back. He’d meant to come again sooner, but as the years piled up so did his duties, and it wasn’t as easy to just take off in the middle of the night as it had been when he was just the prince. Sokka, being the Southern Water Tribe’s representative between the two nations for almost two years now, traveled between them far more frequently, and had tried to keep Zuko updated on his tribe’s progress. Still, it was something to see it himself in person.

Though no one could accuse the Southern Water Tribe of being a populated metropolis, they were no longer just a few tents centered around one barely-solid igloo, but a proper village, and Zuko found himself feeling rather proud of Sokka’s efforts in making this happen. As they flew in closer, Zuko could see the village now had a snow wall surrounding the nearly fifty igloos clustered around the one large igloo in the center. Just to the left of the village, an area about half the size of the village had been set up for the Glacier Spirits Festival that would take place on the following evening, the winter solstice. Equipment for stalls had been placed out, but not set up, as most of the morning would probably involve setting up for the evening festival.

Surrounding the makeshift festival grounds were other tents and huts. They seemed primarily to be ice shanties constructed by visiting waterbenders, but there were green and brown cloth tents that probably belonged to visiting Earth Kingdom citizens. It was late in the evening, so everyone inside them was probably already asleep like Zuko wanted to be.

Aang took Appa in towards the center of the village, where a man was standing outside the largest igloo. When they flew closer, Zuko identified the man as Chief Hakoda, who was waving up at them. Appa landed with a cloud of snow, which Aang cleared with a quick gust of wind as he jumped from Appa’s back.

“Dad!” Katara called, climbing to her feet, then sliding down after Aang. She embraced her father in a hug. Aang stood off to the side on his toes, trying not to look too much like he wanted to be involved in the hug. “Come here, Aang,” Katara said, exasperated, pulling him into the hug with her father.

“‘Course she left us with the bags,” Sokka said, rolling his eyes. He stood up and stretched before reaching for their tied-down packs at the end of the saddle. He passed them off to Zuko, who tossed them down Appa’s tail to roll down and hit the packed snow softly. With the last bag tossed, Sokka threw his drawstring bag over his shoulder, only glancing at Zuko before jumping down himself.

Zuko joined them, hopping over the side of the saddle and swinging down to land in the snow with a crunch. Katara and the chief had released each other, but she and Aang were hovering nearby. “Chief Hakoda,” Zuko said, bowing to the man.

Hakoda snorted, but bowed to Zuko. “Fire Lord Zuko.”

Behind him, Zuko heard snickering. “Good to see you, Avatar Aang,” he heard Sokka say in a fake, haughty voice.

“Pleasant greetings, Ambassador Sokka,” he heard Aang reply. Zuko whipped around to glare at them, just in time to see them bowing at each other. Off to the side, he could hear Katara stifling her laughter behind her hands.

“C’mon kids,” Chief Hakoda said, “leave the Fire Lord alone, spirits know he’s the only one of you with manners.” It only made them snicker harder, unperturbed by Zuko’s glares. Hakoda looked over the group, and said, “It’s a shame Suki couldn’t make it, she was the only other one of you to have any respect for your elders.”

“I have plenty of respect—” Aang started, but Sokka cut him off.

Sokka huffed, “Sometimes I think you were sadder about my breakup than I was.”

“She would have made a fine chief’s wife,” Hakoda shrugged. “Never even complained about the snow.” Zuko folded his arms, he had a feeling that comment was about him. What? He didn’t like snow, it felt wrong, in a way he couldn’t fully articulate. “And what about your other friend, the tough one?”

“Dad,” Katara said, “you know her name is Toph.”

“Yeah, like tough!” Aang supplied. Zuko wanted to smack himself in the face.

Hakoda chuckled, as Sokka said, “We weren’t strong enough to kidnap her, that’s what happened to her.” They’d already relayed the story to Zuko on the ride over, with what he was sure were greatly exaggerated reports of her apologies for missing the chance to see them all. He knew Toph hated ice— she couldn’t see on it, and she hated wearing shoes, which were an absolute necessity in the South Pole as she couldn’t heat her body as he or Aang could. The Water Tribes were some of her least favorite places and she only came under extreme duress.

“But you were strong enough to kidnap me?” Zuko said.

“Yeah,” Sokka said. “All we had to do was say, ‘hey, wanna get out of here for a few days?’ and you hopped on Appa. If you were the Avatar we would have captured you in like a week flat.”

Zuko felt himself turn red, because it wasn’t that. He probably shouldn’t have taken three days off in the middle of everything he was doing in the capital, but Sokka had asked, and he didn’t even think about it. Sokka could have asked him to jump off a bridge and he wouldn’t have hesitated. He had it bad.

“It’s good to see you kids,” Hakoda said, dropping his hand on Sokka’s shoulder. “I know it’s late, so I’ll let you four get some sleep. I’m going to stay at Bato’s igloo tonight,” he nodded his head towards one of the still-lit igloos. “I’m leaving my igloo to you all, try not to melt it by morning.”

At the mention of sleep, it seemed the party’s energy seeped out of them, and they all nodded at the man. They all grabbed their packs from where they were dropped in the snow, and after feeding Appa, they filed into the warm igloo. Well, warmer igloo. Zuko crouched on the bamboo rush mat by the hearth, shooting a few more sparks into the dying fire as everyone else began unpacking. Zuko joined them, shaking out his borrowed sealskin-and-fur sleeping bag and laying it beside Sokka’s near the hearth. He fell asleep still wearing Sokka’s coat.

Sokka sat down beside Zuko, handing him a bowl of seaweed noodle soup that he’d just grabbed from Katara. She and Hakoda were kneeling by the fire, still stirring the soup with a large wooden ladle, and chatting idly about something or other that was too early for Zuko to really care about. When Sokka brushed their shoulders sitting down cross-legged, Zuko frowned, blinking over at the man. “Where did you get that coat? I’m still wearing yours.”

Sokka looked down, and then shrugged. “Borrowed one from my dad, since we’re about the same size now.” Zuko looked over Sokka, who had turned his attention to his food, and then over at Hakoda. Sokka was right— the two men were about the same height now, and if Zuko was honest with himself, Sokka was probably taller than him. The thought shouldn’t make him flush.

“Yeah,” Zuko just said.

Over by the fire, Bato, the chief’s right-hand man, pulled himself up off the ground. In his hand was a jar of white-fleshed fish in brine. “Would anyone like some pickled halibut?” Bato asked, offering the open jar to the room.

Across the room, where Aang was gagging on his own seaweed noodle soup, came a hearty, “No.” He looked a little green around the gills.

“Ooh, did Gran Gran pickle these?” Sokka said, sitting up straighter.

Bato laughed, “Yes she did. No one else in the village can get them quite like your grandmother can, not even my own mother, may her spirit rest.” Hakoda hummed in agreement, and he looked fondly over at them. Bato leaned down to let Sokka pick out a few pieces with his chopsticks, dropping them into his soup. When offered to Zuko, he politely took a few pieces and dropped them in his own bowl, though he probably wouldn’t have had an interest normally.

Zuko watched as Bato made the rounds to Katara and Hakoda, who each took a few pieces, before sitting down beside his friend and Katara. As Zuko was watching the trio of Water Tribesmen, he saw Sokka out of the corner of his eye trying to pick the fish out of Zuko’s soup while he was distracted.

“Hey, cut it out,” Zuko said, elbowing Sokka, and pulling his bowl away. “You have your own.” He held the bowl at arm’s length, trying to keep it from Sokka’s long arms. Sokka leaned over him, nearly half on top of him, his own bowl abandoned somewhere beside him as he reached for Zuko’s food.

“Yeah but yours looks so good,” Sokka wined.

“They look exactly the same,” Zuko said. “You picked which bowl was mine.” It wasn’t particularly hard to keep Sokka away from his food, knowing Sokka wasn’t trying too hard, but it felt nice to have Sokka’s attention on him, the warmth of his body at his side.

“You know we have more, Sokka,” Bato said good-humoredly across the room. The jar of pickled halibut sat open beside him, still a third full.

“But I want this piece,” Sokka said, just to be difficult. Zuko rolled his eyes.

“Fine, take whatever you want,” Zuko said, letting Sokka take the bowl from his hand. He plucked the fish right out of it with his fingers, eating them quickly rather than dropping them back into his own bowl. Zuko watched Sokka’s fingers with rapt attention, almost mesmerized as Sokka sucked the broth from his fingers.

He was barely coherent when the bowl was pushed back into his hands, fumbling to grasp at it while he still watched Sokka’s mouth. “Thanks, buddy,” Sokka said, returning to his own bowl.

“No problem,” Zuko croaked, and began eating the remainder of his soup. After a minute, looking down at his empty bowl, Sokka stood up and went to get seconds from Katara. He looked down at the jar, and then without a second thought, started fishing pieces out.

“Can I have the rest of this, Bato?” Sokka asked, angling the jar towards the man.

Bato shrugged, “Sure, go ahead, that’s what it’s there for. Your father and I knew that you four coming home for the festival would mean eating us out of house and home, so we made sure to stock up. There’s more in the ice cellar if you want it, from last summer’s fishing expedition, so you probably caught a few of them yourself.” Home, Zuko thought, as Sokka sat back down beside him. Sokka shrugged, seemingly satisfied with what he had.

He fished the remaining pieces out of the bottom of the jar, popping more into his mouth than his bowl, until it was empty, save for the cloudy brine and flecks of fish pieces. When he went to place the jar on the floor, he hesitated, hovering just above the mat, and Zuko got a bad feeling. When Sokka’s eyes met his, there was a mischievous smile there. “Hey Zuko,” Sokka said, the grin only growing wider, “I dare you to drink all of this.”

Not one to back down from any challenge, Zuko reached for the jar without hesitation. He stared Sokka down as he threw it back, choking down the briny, fishy liquid. He slammed the jar down on the ground, ignoring his queasy stomach in favor of keeping eye contact with the man. “Done,” he said, gaze not having left Sokka’s. Sokka’s grin only widened.

“Boys,” Katara sighed, and though Zuko couldn’t see her, he was sure she was shaking her head. Beside her, Bato and Hakoda were chuckling.

Eventually, Zuko’s gaze dropped to Sokka’s mouth and he had to look away as his stomach unsettled, for entirely different reasons.

“What’s the plan for the day?” Aang asked from where he was laying on his back, staring up at the dome of the igloo.

“I figured we could chill out until the festival is set up tonight,” Sokka said. “We can go penguin sledding or something till lunch, and then we can spot by Gran Gran and Pakku’s.”

“Sounds good,” Aang said with a yawn, still on the floor.

Zuko sat back, only half-listening to the conversation going on around him. He placed his empty bowl on the ground beside him, crossing his ankles as he watched Momo hop around the room, looking into empty bowls until he stopped at Sokka. The lemur climbed up Sokka’s shoulder, perching there, peering down at Sokka’s half-full bowl.

“Aang just fed you, Momo,” Sokka scolded, but made no real effort to displace him off his shoulders. Sokka’s knees just brushed Zuko’s as Sokka shifted to his knees, tucking his legs under him. On Sokka’s shoulder, Momo’s tail flicked up, resting on Sokka’s upper lip. His eyes flicked down, and when they looked towards Zuko, there was the same mischievous glint in his eye that he’d just given him.

“Guys, guys,” Sokka said, putting one hand on his hip, and the other began stroking Momo’s tail like a mustache, “who am I?” Zuko narrowed his eyes at him.

“Haru!” Aang said, sitting up with a wide grin on his face.

“No, no,” Sokka said. “This is a much more recent development than that.” He began speaking in a deep, mocking voice, “I think it’s high time that I start looking the part of being Fire Lord. If I don’t grow a beard it’s going to bring dishonor to all my children.”

Aang fell back laughing. Katara was snickering behind her hand, and Bato and Hakoda were exchanging amused glances. They hadn’t even seen it.

“I do not sound like that!” Zuko said. “I said I was going to try something different.” He’d wanted to change things up last summer when Mai had ended things the previous time, and he’d gotten about three months into growing out a beard before she took pity on him and took him back— on the condition, of course, that he shave it off and never try again. That had been a fair stipulation, he hadn’t liked it either— he’d woken up one morning and realized that he recognized the face in the mirror, and it wasn’t his own.

“Sure you don’t, Hotman,” Katara said, and then instantly looked down at her bowl like it was suddenly very interesting. He shot her a glare, but she wasn’t looking at him.

Hakoda stood up, glancing over at one of the time candles, and said, “Alright, well, you kids enjoy yourselves. Bato and I have festival duties to see to, we’ll see you tonight.” Hakoda offered a hand to Bato, pulling him to his feet. The two men left the igloo, leaving the four of them in relative silence.

Eventually, they finished off the last of the soup, letting Katara clean it out with her waterbending, with only minor complaints from her. Aang pulled them all from the igloo and, after feeding Appa, took them all down to where the otter penguins congregated. They’d all been penguin sledding before, but it had been a while for all of them, so half the morning was spent trying to relearn how to catch an otter penguin without falling face-first into the snow.

After a while, Zuko gave up and sat on the snowbank, watching them. The blue shadows of the polar night were jarring enough, not even accounting for the cold seeping into his bones. He could feel it too, the lack of sun, just on the wrong side of strange. On the other hand, Katara, sliding down a snowbank, almost had a glow about her that seemed more defined than the shine of the moon down on Sokka and Aang. He wondered if it was because of the winter solstice that thinned the veil between the spirit world and theirs this time of year.

He was feeling the seep of cold into his bones, his fingers tingling to a numbing degree. He rubbed his hands together, but it wasn’t enough generated warmth. He closed his eyes, drawing sharp, cold air into his lungs and warming it until it felt like someone had lit kindling in his chest, and he expelled the hot air, a white cloud blooming before him. He took a few more regulating breaths until his fingers no longer felt so stiff, and his face was warm and bright.

Sokka and Katara had just come over the hill on a pair of fat penguins that didn’t want to travel any farther. Getting up, they watched Aang sail into the air and disappear over the horizon with a shout, scattering a rookery of penguins, and not surfacing again. Sokka was breathing heavily, his own breath fogging white, and some of his hair had slipped from his wolf tail and hung down over his face. Sokka absentmindedly pushed it back over his head, the bulge of his biceps outlined through his coat. Sokka looked over his shoulder, gloved hand still raised, and caught Zuko’s eye, grinning. Zuko sucked in a breath, his heart stuttering as he looked at Sokka. He had no idea what he did to Zuko.

Rather than deal with that, Zuko reached to his side to ball up a clump of snow until it vaguely resembled a snowball. Sokka’s attention had turned back to Aang, who had jumped back over the hill and was getting chewed out by Katara. Zuko raised his arm and threw the snowball. It connected with the back of Sokka’s head, exploding and coating his back with powder.

Sokka whirled around, a look of wide-eyed betrayal on his face. Not a second later he was bending down to scoop up a ball of snow, and stumbling forward to throw it poorly towards Zuko. It was easy to duck, though some of the crumbling snowball got him anyway.

Aang looked delighted at the development, and yelled, “Snowball fight!”

“I want Aang on my team!” Sokka said, looking pointedly at Zuko.

“What?” Katara said, outraged. Her arms were crossed on her chest, and she was glaring at Sokka.

“What— this isn’t—” Zuko spluttered. “We’re not doing teams.”

“If anything,” Katara said, hands on her hips, “I should get Aang on my team. He’s my boyfriend.”

“So?” Sokka said, diving behind a snowbank to rapidly pack a snowball. “You get to see him all the time. It’s my turn with the Avatar.”

Katara turned her gaze to Aang, who shrugged sheepishly. “He called it, Katara! Sorry!” And then he was diving to Sokka’s side.

She whirled around, her eyes intense and her fists curled at her side. She stalked over to him, and with a raise of her hand an ice wall shot up between the two of them and Aang and Sokka. “We’re going to crush them,” she said, a fire in her eyes.

“That’s cheating!” he heard Sokka say from the other side of the wall.

“You have the Avatar,” Zuko called. “But I have your sister.” Katara was, between her and Aang, the better waterbender. He packed another snowball tightly with his gloved hands, but it crumbled quickly. He wasn’t quite sure what he was doing wrong, he’d seen people make them before, and it hadn’t looked particularly hard.

Katara, on her knees in the powder, looked over at his snowball. “It’s too dry,” she said, taking pity on him. She scooped up a handful of snow to show him. In her own gloved hands the ball, too, fell apart easily. “It has to be a little wetter, the heat from your hands helps pack it together.” She didn’t take off her gloves, though, she just breathed on it, and in an instant, the ball froze together. Taking the cue from her, he held the ball in front of his face, and let the heat roll off his body until the snow was no longer quite such a fresh powder.

There was the sound of a snowball crunching against the ice wall Katara had built, and they both looked up. Before they could even stand to retaliate, there was a whooshing sound, and a snowball came flying and curving over the wall, barreling into Zuko, and knocking him back. He groaned, pulling himself back up. “Now that’s cheating,” he said, brushing off the snow.

He peered around the side of the ice wall, and seeing the tail of Sokka’s wolf tail just over the edge of the snowbank, he threw the ball to where it exploded into Sokka. Sokka yelped, flailing, and falling into the snow. Aang’s head popped up over the rise. He reached for another ball that Katara had prepared, throwing it at Aang, who simply knocked it away with a gust of icy air.

The fight went on for some time after that, Aang and Katara getting progressively more creative in their snowball throwing— from Sokka feeding snowballs into Aang’s wind funnel, to Katara simply lifting a pile of snow and dumping it on their heads— while he just tried to knock the smirk off of Sokka’s face with some good, old fashioned snowballs. The walls between them shifted, growing closer with each frustrating miss, and Sokka ducked out into a roll to try and catch them unaware. Zuko was panting and feeling the burn of his muscles as he dodged another snowball, now facing Sokka in what had formerly been the eastern side of their field.

He could see Sokka eyeing the next patch of snow, and Zuko reached out for one of the snowballs he’d just spent five minutes packing while Sokka had hurled projectiles at him with increasingly poor aim. Not that Zuko had gotten much better, especially after Sokka had gotten hot and shed his coat, showing off his glinting arms. Zuko had nearly been taken out while distracted by them, only ducking at the last second as he regained his composure.

But when Zuko stood up, Sokka joined him, and with a glance over at Aang— who was in a standoff with Katara diagonally to them— Sokka yelled, “I’m taking one for the team!” and then he lunged for Zuko, tackling him into the snow.

Zuko had no time to react, and found himself thrown bodily into the pile of snow behind his makeshift wall, and Sokka breathing heavily on top of him. Sokka’s hair had fallen out of his wolf tail again, and was plastered across his forehead, a few strands dangling down over his eyes where he was looking over at Aang. There was a smirk plastered on his face, his eyes sliding back to Zuko below him, who luckily still had the startled expression on his face from when he’d been taken down, and not something stupid, like adoration.

“Good idea!” Aang called, and out of the corner of his eye Zuko could see the airbender leaping from his own foxhole and landing before Katara. Aang reached for her, wrapping his arms around her, and they were falling together in the snow. And then— Zuko looked away, embarrassed, as they kissed in the snow.

Sokka seemed to be seeing the same thing, as his face morphed into a disgusted frown. He rolled off of Zuko, and hopped up, offering his hand to the man still on the ground. “That was not what I meant,” he huffed. He quickly brushed himself off, and when Zuko reached to do the same, Sokka reached for him. “Here— let me help,” he said, and Zuko found he couldn’t resist him. He let Sokka turn him around and bush the snow off his back, enjoying the feeling of Sokka’s hands on him probably a little longer than he needed to. He hoped Sokka chalked his red face up to the cold.

When he turned back around, Sokka was side-eying Aang and Katara in the snow. He reached down to scoop up a ball of snow, and then threw it directly at them. Aang sat up, blinking at them, bleary-eyed. Served them right for being in a relationship— hadn’t they claimed they were taking him away from the city so he could forget about Mai?

Katara also shot them a glare, but didn’t fuss when Sokka told her they had to go see Gran Gran. Zuko, however, lamented the loss of his view when Sokka scooped up his coat from the snow and pulled it back on before they headed back towards the village.

They walked side by side towards the Glacier Spirit Festival, their shoulders jolting together. The polar night was bright on the cloudless night, the moon wide and hovering, joining the dozens of lanterns lit ahead of them. The lanterns, nestled in the snow, lit the path towards the small festival area ahead of Sokka’s village. There were already plenty of people under the lanterns suspended on strings among the several dozen stalls that had been set up while they’d been playing around all day, when crowds had flooded in from Jongmu Island for the evening.

Aang and Katara were a few feet in front of him and Sokka, chatting animatedly, their hands clasped together easily. Zuko glanced down at Sokka’s hand, the man oblivious beside him, and thought, just for a moment, about reaching down to take Sokka’s hand. He didn’t, of course, because Sokka was his best friend.

When they reached the festival, they were funneled in between the two lit lanterns hanging from poles marking the festival’s entrance. They were pushed closer together, closing the gap between the four of them. Sokka’s shoulder bumped into him, and he could smell the scent of plum blossoms wafting off of Katara’s hair as they shuffled into the crowd. Zuko could hear the pounding of drums and the end to a work shanty, hearing the echo of I’ll wind it with yours and we’ll drift off course, through the bustle around them.

Sokka’s hand closed around his wrist, pulling him along through the crowd as Sokka was pulled along by Katara’s latch on his collar, and then suddenly they were two rows over, and they could breathe again. And then Sokka’s hand was letting go of his wrist, and Zuko was chasing the warmth. He sighed in relief at no longer being crowded together with so many people, though he missed the feel of Sokka pressed to his side.

Farther back into the festival, Zuko could finally see what had taken the villagers all afternoon to set up. The festival around them was brightly colored, even in the relative dark. Most of the stalls had been erected by waterbenders, ice counters in between the sparse wooden and cloth ones from visiting merchants. Pops of color sat in between the blue ice: the yellow and red robes of Air Acolytes, a few green Earth Kingdom coats, hot foods cooking over roaring fires. Paper lanterns hung from each stall, each decorated with symbols of the moon or wolves or the ocean.

None of them were in a particular hurry to go anywhere. It was Zuko’s first time at the festival, though he knew Sokka came back every year since the Great Comet for it, he’d never had the time to come before. Well, he didn’t have the time now, but he’d made time. Aang and Katara seemed to know what they were doing, while Sokka seemed content to hang back with him and let the two of them lead the way. Katara stopped to inspect a Northern Water Tribe stall full of waterbending scrolls, while Zuko stood only half watching the musical group playing on the circular ice platform at the center of the festival.

“I know it’s not what you’re used to,” Sokka said, unprompted. Zuko turned to him. “The uh, big festivals with a lot of color and food and festivities.” He seemed almost a little embarrassed, though Zuko didn’t know why.

He took in the atmosphere around him. People milled around, walking slowly through the stalls, not seeming to be in a real rush. Even the music seemed a little understated, with a lone singer and only his drummers as backup. But it was… nice. “No, I like it,” Zuko said, definitively. “People seem to really be enjoying themselves, and not just because someone put a lot of time into planning some sort of big show.” The enjoyment seemed to come from the company, and the spirituality of the event, something that had long since been lost to the Fire Nation.

Katara was moving on from the stall she was at, and so they ambled behind her. Aang flitted between each stall, and Zuko was sort of surprised Sokka wasn’t with him— Sokka loved this sort of thing, getting to shop and eat and be merry with his friends. Instead, he hung back with Zuko.

“When I was young,” Sokka said, glancing over at Zuko but not keeping his eyes on him, “the Glacier Spirit Festival was just a time for older folks to pray but now it’s— it’s got tourism,” he said with a flourish. Zuko could see most of the visitors to the festival were from the Northern Water Tribe from the purple of their coats, but it was still encouraging, he knew, to see the south recovering after all this time.

“You’ve done a lot to help your tribe, Sokka,” Zuko said, and he meant it.

Eventually, Sokka did let something catch his eye, and he joined Aang in hopping stall to stall, even taking a double-take at the sales once in a while. He only bought a few trinkets— another bone-and-tooth choker, though it looked exactly like the one he was currently wearing— and then stopped at a stall to haggle about the price of some northern snow candy.

Zuko hung back, leaning against the stall, when a red Fire Nation uniform caught his eye. He stood up straighter, looking towards where a single Fire Nation man stood stiffly at the edge of the festivities, looking both cold and uncomfortable, for two entirely unrelated reasons. Though Zuko was a little far away to see his face under the helmet, he suspected that the man was probably Ambassador Zahnt, his own emissary to the Southern Water Tribe, as Sokka was theirs to the Fire Nation.

“Here,” Sokka said suddenly, holding up a stick of amber candy in front of him. Zuko startled, his eyes focusing on the candy. He reached for it without thinking. His eyes flicked back to the stall, where the vendor was pouring hot syrup into the fresh bed of snow, and then winding the taffy-like candy on bamboo sticks.

“You got me one,” Zuko said, looking back to Sokka. “Thanks.”

Sokka shrugged, his cheeks a little red from the cold, and took a bite out of the candy, tearing it with his teeth. “I don’t actually spend like… any of my money when I’m in the Fire Nation. Consider it repayment for the hundreds of dinners you’ve bought me back home.” Zuko stopped. Home. He watched Sokka, munching on the candy, who didn’t seem to realize what he’d said.

His attention was drawn away when he heard the drunken shout of, “Zahnt!” At the edge of the festival, a couple of Water Tribe warriors, clearly already a little drunk, were approaching Ambassador Zahnt. Sokka’s eyes followed where Zuko was looking.

Zuko stiffened a little, but rather than accost the man, one of the Water Tribesman threw his arm around Zahnt’s shoulder, jolting him and knocking his helmet astray. “Zahnt,” the warrior repeated, pulling him close to knock the sides of their heads together. “My man,” he said as another one of the men plucked the pointed helmet off Zahnt, and tossed it to the third man. Zahnt weakly grabbed for it, looking more exasperated than anything, “when are you going to come out with us?”

Before Zahnt could protest, the man in possession of the helmet said, “C’mon, man, we’re about to grab some airag, join us. Kantak’s sister’s gonna be there.”

“Hey!” the one he assumed to be Kantak said, swiping at the other man, but he didn’t let his arm around Zahnt’s neck slip. “Ignoring him—”

“Think this one’ll stick around?” Sokka hummed beside him. Ambassador Zahnt was the third Fire Nation ambassador they’d sent to the South Pole since the end of the war. Though the posting was only two years, the ambassadors had the opportunity to continue their posting if they so chose, but so far none of the previous Fire Nation ambassadors had. They watched as the three Water Tribesmen lead Zahnt away, and he shrugged.

They followed Aang and Katara around for a little while longer, swapping out their candy sticks for roasted Arctic hen, and sitting cross-legged in the snow to watch an acrobatic performance like they were children again. The troupe was a Northern Water Tribe acrobatics group, and though they weren’t as skilled as the Ty Sisters, Zuko cut them a little slack for having to do everything the Fire Nation acrobats had to do, but on ice. Zuko often couldn’t stay upright on his own two feet on the ice, much less his hands.

Sokka was laughing at the comedic performance when Zuko looked past the performers, catching sight of Chief Hakoda and Bato. The four of them hadn’t seen the chief since arriving, but Zuko wasn’t surprised. He knew how hard the Southern Water Tribe had been working to put on the festival, and how many duties the chief had considering how few people the Southern Water Tribe still had. Zuko almost elbowed Sokka to draw attention to them, but the two men seemed preoccupied. Bato had his arm thrown over the chief’s shoulder, like Kantak had thrown his arm over Zahnt’s, and they both had their heads thrown back, laughing. As Zuko watched, Bato released Hakoda’s shoulder, but dropped his hand down on the man’s arm, lingering. There was something private about the moment Zuko felt uneasy watching, so he turned his gaze back on the acrobats. He quickly forgot about it, attention lost to the performance.

When the performers were finished, ending with a great flourish in a cloud of steam, there was roaring applause and a hat handed around. They tossed a few coins their way, and stood, stretching their stiff, cold legs. With his hawk-like vision and constant desire for attention, Aang spotted a games booth far down the row, surprising none of them.

“I think it’ll be fun!” Aang said, balancing back on his heels. Sometimes, Zuko thought, it was like Aang still didn’t know how tall and gangly he’d gotten, being seventeen and full of life.

Katara eyed the stuffed-seal toys piled up at the back of the booth, where a stack of bottles was sitting. “It would be cute to have one of those seal toys to remind me of home…” She looked over her shoulder at him and Sokka, “You two in?”

Sokka pushed up his sleeve, “A chance for free stuff? Do you even have to ask, Katara?”

Zuko shook his head, he didn’t particularly want or need any kind of toys now that Kiyi was getting older and moving out of her toy phase, but watching his friends attempt to win one from a swindler seemed amusing enough. “How does it work?” Aang asked the vendor, an Earth Kingdom man wearing a green striped hat.

“Well, young—” the vendor started, cutting himself off when he saw who had stopped at his booth. He looked around at them, his eyes lingering on Zuko’s scar just a hint too long to have not recognized him, though he was in Water Tribe blues, and swallowed. “Well, young Avatar,” he started again, with fake gusto in his voice, “you see these bottles right here?” he lifted one of the bottles— metal, and by the way he was holding it, heavy— in the small pyramid of them. “You just collect yourself a snowball— one you made yourself, no tricks here!— and if you can knock all of these bottles down in three hits you get a prize!”

“Sounds easy enough,” Sokka said, his coat sleeve sliding back down his arm. “I’ll be right back,” he told them, and dashed off the festival grounds into the snow at the end of the row. He had a look of concentration on his face, his tongue poking out the side of his mouth, as he compacted nine snowballs. He stacked them precariously in his arms, carrying them back to the table and only dropping one. “Here,” he said, shoving three at Aang, and then another three at Katara.

He slapped down a few coins on the table, and took aim for the far-right stack. Despite his performance earlier in the snowball fight, Sokka’s throws were usually pretty accurate, especially at things that didn’t move, Zuko knew. The first snowball exploded on impact with the bottles. Sokka’s face was almost comical in his disappointment, but he didn’t let it deter him. He threw the next two in quick succession, but both similarly exploded, and only managed to make the top bottle wabble.

“Ooh,” the vendor said with a fake wince, “that’s none for the young gentleman. Next?”

Katara looked at the snowball in her hand, a look of concentration on her face that greatly resembled Sokka’s, and she pushed the snowball down harder in her hand. Though she didn’t have a tell, Zuko was sure she was waterbending it into a better snowball, like she had shown him how to do during their snowball fight. She threw the snowball, and it knocked the top bottle off her pyramid.

“That’s one for the little lady!” the vendor said. “Now, can you get the last five?”

Katara looked towards the bottles, a look of particular determination in her eyes that Zuko was familiar with. She clenched her hand around the snowball, packing it in, and she was throwing it with force. It only knocked off one more bottle. “Ouch,” the vendor said, but Katara was throwing the last one, only knocking the last bottle from the second row. Katara was frowning, her eyebrows in a deep furrow as she looked over at the bottles. “And what about the Avatar?” the vendor said.

Aang perked up, “Sorry, Katara!” he said. “I’ll win you a seal toy, though!”

Katara narrowed her eyes at the stack of bottles, and then at the vendor. “Aang!” she said, turning on her heel. “Can I talk to you?”

“Yes?” he said, looking up from packing his own snowball. She grabbed his bicep and leaned in, whispering in his ear. His confused expression quickly morphed into a grin and he nodded. The vendor looked nervous. She nodded at him, and he finished packing in his snowball. The snowball flew past him, and Zuko felt a gust of wind ruffling his hair. All six bottles clamored to the ground. Aang grinned.

“You— they—” the vendor spluttered, and looked to Katara. “You said something to him!”

“I wished him luck!” Katara lied. “Aren’t we supposed to win a prize?”

“He cheated!” the vendor said, gesturing at Aang. A few people around them had stopped, taking an interest in the scene. Zuko crossed his arms over his chest.

Aang, ever the picture of innocence, pointed at himself. “Me?”

Sokka, beside Zuko, gasped and clutched at his chest. “You’re calling the Avatar a cheater? The Avatar! A cheater?” Zuko hid his smirk behind his hand.

The vender spluttered, looking between Sokka and Aang, “I— no, of course not,” he said, wiping his brow.

“Great!” Sokka said, perking up. He held out his hand, “A seal for my sister?” The vendor handed it over, and Sokka handed it off to Katara.

“Want me to win you one, Sokka?” Aang said with a mischievous smile, and the vender only got paler, looking back at his supply of toys.

“Obviously!” Sokka said, slapping down a yuan piece onto the ice counter. “One more round for the Avatar, my friend!”

Just as last time, Aang hardened the snowball, throwing it with a gust of wind, knocking down the bottles at once. The vendor handed the second toy to Aang, and Katara seemed satisfied. She grabbed Aang’s hand, pulling him away before he or her brother could get any more ideas. Zuko reached for Sokka’s arm, rolling his eyes as Sokka looked back, winking towards the stall.

Holding out the stuffed seal toy in front of him as they walked, Aang said, frowning, “This isn’t a… real stuffed seal, is it guys?” When both of the Water Tribe members were suspiciously silent, he paled, “Is it?”

Katara rolled her eyes, plucking the toy from Aang’s grasp and shoving it at her brother. “Thank you for winning this stuffed seal toy for me, Aang,” she said, leaning over to press a kiss to his cheek. “It was really sweet of you.”

“Yeah, thanks Aang,” Sokka said, raising his voice an octave to imitate Katara. He leaned down and quickly left a peck on Aang’s cheek too. Instead of going red, like Zuko surely would have, Aang just grinned.

“No problem, Sokka!”

“I kinda feel bad for that guy,” Katara said, glancing back through the rows to see the games vendor swamped with a bunch of children wanting to win a seal toy like the Avatar.

“What?” Sokka said, his arms around the stuffed toy. “We swindled the swindler,” he shrugged. “You’re crazy if you think that he wasn’t swindling us.”

“I know that,” Katara snapped. “That’s why I had Aang cheat. We just have to remember that swindling never pays.”

“Swindling sometimes pays,” Zuko pointed out, looking towards the toy in her arms. She blushed, clutching the toy closer to her chest.

“Yeah,” Sokka said, swinging his own toy, “Zuko should know, he’s swindled lots of people, and look where he is— he’s the Fire Lord. Swindling pays, Katara.” Zuko snickered, meeting Sokka’s eyes, who winked. Zuko didn’t even feel like correcting him on the swindling lots of people part.

Katara turned around, walking backward to glare at them. “Those are two entirely unrelated things, Sokka, and you know it.”

“Yeah,” Aang nodded, but it wasn’t clear who he was agreeing with. “Too bad Toph isn’t here, she loves this kinda stuff.”

“Yeah,” Katara echoed, clutching her stuffed seal. She stopped suddenly, nearly causing them to run into her. She was looking up and behind them. “Oh, hi Dad, Bato,” she said. The three of them turned, spotting Chief Hakoda and Bato a few feet away from them. They must have missed walking past them. The chief and Bato were speaking with a woman from the Northern Water Tribe, but when she saw their company, she bowed and made her exit.

“Hey, kids,” Hakoda said, dropping his hand from where it had been on Bato’s shoulder. He angled away from the other man, turning towards his children. “Having fun?”

“This is much better than last year,” Sokka said, clutching the seal toy next to him.

Hakoda laughed, “That’s just because Gran Gran made you sit out half the night with her to appease the spirits.” Sokka made face, and Zuko laughed. Sokka? Appease the spirits? Sokka shot him a glare. “We’ve been invited to dine with Chief Arnook, would you all like to join us?”

Sokka pressed his lips together, and didn’t say anything.

Katara looked to Aang, who nodded. “Sure, Dad.” Looking towards Aang, she said, “I’m sure we can find you something at one of the Earth Kingdom stalls that’s vegetarian, Aang.”

“Sokka?” Hakoda asked, a hint of concern in his voice at his son’s lack of response. Zuko looked over, and Sokka was looking towards the moon.

Zuko opened his mouth to decline the offer, on some excuse of being the Fire Lord, but Sokka got there before him. “Nah, me and Zuko are gonna hang around here a little longer.”

Hakoda pressed his lips together, a near mirror of Sokka, but nodded. He patted his son’s shoulder, and the four of them were off in the same direction of the northern woman who had left earlier. When they were gone, Zuko looked back over at Sokka, who was no longer looking longingly at the moon.

“Sorry,” Sokka sighed, rubbing the back of his head. “I didn’t even ask—”

“It’s fine,” Zuko said quickly, and it was. He didn’t particularly care about sitting through another state dinner, even a fairly informal one, but even if he did, he’d easily skip it for Sokka. Over Sokka’s shoulder, he spotted the group of Water Tribesmen and his own ambassador. An idea popped into his head. “Hey, do you wanna get drunk?” Zuko said.

Sokka let out a relieved sigh, “Oh, spirits, please.”

He let Sokka lead him through the crowd to a stall selling bottles of something called airag. The bottles were made of ice, and were sitting in a basin of snow. The drink itself was a milky white in a frosted bottle, and it seemed like it was a popular drink, as they had to wait behind a few Northern Water Tribesmen to get it. When Sokka paid the vendor, a Southern Water Tribesman Sokka seemed to know well, he shoved one of the bottles at Zuko, and immediately turned to head away from the festival. Zuko dutifully followed him.

They were halfway between the festival grounds and the village when Zuko tried the drink. He tipped it back, and the center of gravity of the bottle sent it spilling forward into his mouth without warning. He practically choked on the thick, milky liquid, but swallowed it down, only spilling a few rivulets down his chin, which he wiped off with his gloved hand. He coughed, and Sokka hit his back. He could still taste the sour tanginess of the alcohol, and the acidic fizz of the carbonation.

“Oh spirits, what is this?” Zuko croaked, holding the bottle out in front of him, with a disgusted look on his face.

“That’s a Southern Water Tribe delicacy, you absolutely uncultured hog money,” Sokka said.

“But what is it?” Zuko said his voice still rough from the coughing. Sokka patted his back again.

“Fermented seal’s milk,” Sokka supplied. He took a moment to take a swig out of his own bottle.

“They didn’t have anything normal?” Zuko said, “Like, mulled wine, or vodka?”

Sokka shrugged. “This is a special drink from my tribe, it’s only served once a year at the winter solstice because of how rare seal’s milk is and how difficult it is to collect.” Zuko did not want to know what that meant. “They probably had something more attuned to your delicate Fire Nation sensibilities,” Sokka said, bumping into his shoulder, “but I thought this would be fun.”

“I don’t have delicate sensibilities,” Zuko said, taking another drink just to prove it. Sokka laughed, and instead of heading towards the village, Sokka turned north and began climbing a high snowbank.

Zuko wasn’t nearly intoxicated enough to write off his bad climbing on the alcohol, even with the sharp taste of strong spirits, so he cursed the snow. When they’d both made it up, they sat at the top, looking over both the village and the festival though both were far off and a little fuzzy. Sokka dropped the toy seal in the snow between them, and Zuko realized he’d forgotten Sokka had been carrying it. Zuko peeled off his gloves, having become tacky with airag from when he’d nearly spilled it on himself, and seeing Zuko do it, as if to prove that he was just as capable of holding an ice bottle without gloves, Sokka dropped his own into the pile.

They sat for a while, drinking from their individual bottles, until Zuko felt as fuzzy as the festival down below. When he looked over, Sokka was staring up at the moon. His eyes were a little glassy, and Zuko felt the overwhelming urge to speak.

“It’s a shame Suki couldn’t make it,” Zuko tried, and then immediately cursed himself. Spirits, why did he have to try and distract Sokka from one ex-girlfriend with another? “She would have really liked the acrobat show,” he finished. Suki and the Kyoshi Warriors had left his service a year back, deeming the Imperial Firebenders finally up to par, and honestly, he found he missed them.

Sokka didn’t speak, but when Zuko looked over, his face was a little red. Zuko watched him take another drink from his bottle, nestling it back in the snow, before clearing his throat and speaking. “It’s not that she couldn’t come,” Sokka said, and though Zuko was a little ways away from full clarity, he thought Sokka might be embarrassed. “I didn’t invite her.”

“Uh,” Zuko asked, “why?” He looked at Sokka in confusion, and maybe it was the airag clouding his mind, but he couldn’t think of a single reason Sokka wouldn’t want to invite Suki. Their breakup had been entirely mutual, and almost two years ago, besides that. He’d seen them together as friends since then.

“I didn’t want you to think…” Sokka said, and then started again. “The festival’s on the winter solstice, when the veil between our world and the spirit world is the thinnest, and they’re supposed to come out and join us. It’s supposed to make this a pretty romantic festival and—” he froze, a little like a pig deer in the firelight.

“Oh,” Zuko said, rubbing his hand on his thigh, his own bottle of airag abandoned between his thighs. “Is this because of Mai?” he asked, because his friends had been walking on eggshells lately, and it was never usually like this was them. They always punched each other in solidarity, said, that’s rough, buddy, and kept going.

Maybe it was because it had been six months since he’d seen her, when his friends knew that, usually, he and Mai were never apart more than a month or two before one of them came around again. But not this time. Zuko knew they weren’t getting back together, not after this. It wasn’t that they hadn’t parted amicably, but… this time, he knew his heart was invested elsewhere.

“Yeah,” Sokka said, choking. “Yeah,” he took another drink from his bottle. His was two-thirds empty, and Zuko knew he should be keeping up. “You’ve been so bummed lately. I’m sure she’ll come around, you’re a great guy.”

Zuko felt pained as he said, “Mai and I are not getting back together.”

Sokka winced, not sounding fully convinced as he started, “I’m sure—”

Zuko did not want to be having this conversation. Not now, not with Sokka. He felt a warmth dance across his fingertips, melting the handle of the bottle in his hand. He knew if he didn’t stop it, he’d say something he wasn’t sure Sokka would like to hear. “Sokka, stop it! I don’t want to be with Mai!” He swore, pulling his dripping hand from the bottle, and inspected it. It didn’t melt through, but the handle had a distinct imprint of his hand.

“Oh,” Sokka said, and Zuko looked up sharply. He was quiet. “Do you want to know the real reason I didn’t invite Suki?”

“Was that a fake reason before?” Zuko asked.

“I wanted to spend time with you,” Sokka was a little red, but he was sitting still in the wake of the confession.

“Oh,” Zuko said, unable to look away.

“Things are… different now,” Sokka said, rubbing the back of his head. “It’s been almost two years since I became the Southern Water Tribe ambassador to the Fire Nation, so I know we see each other all the time but…”

“I know,” Zuko said, his voice almost cracking. Things were different, with girlfriends and duties and obligations, sending them to different places even in the same palace. He hadn’t had time to sit down with Sokka, his best friend, in ages. He’d even willingly played a game of Pai Sho with him last week just to be around him.

He took another swig from his bottle, his hand fitting the indent perfectly. He was looking down at the bottle between his legs when suddenly, everything was green. He looked up, and the Southern Lights were above them again, without warning. They twisted across the sky, weaving between the white stars and the round moon. The tapered ends were the same bleeding red, but this time they hinted at purple. It was beautiful. But instead of looking at the sky, he looked over at Sokka’s hands, wrapped around the neck of the bottle. He wanted to hold his hand.

“My Gran Gran used to tell me that the Southern Lights were the spirits dancing in the sky, which was always why they came out this time of year.” Zuko flicked his eyes up from Sokka’s hands to his face, which was washed green. “I used to think that was just… old superstition, and now…” he shrugged, looking up at the moon.

“Yeah,” Zuko said, just to say something. Sokka’s eyes were glassy again, and when he took another swig from his bottle, Zuko was sure that Sokka was finished talking. But after a few minutes, he heard Sokka speak softly beside him.

“You’re my best friend,” Sokka said, and it sounded like a sigh.

“I know, buddy,” Zuko said, fingers itching to reach out for Sokka’s. Instead, he reached over to squeeze Sokka’s shoulder. “You’re mine, too,” he said, his voice cracking.

“I’ve never had a best friend before. Not before you.” Zuko choked, his fingers loosening on Sokka’s shoulder. Sokka wasn’t usually like this when he was drunk. He was the kind of guy who would laugh at nothing, and propose they go do something monumentally stupid that Katara would yell at them later for. Zuko, if anything, was the melancholic one when he drank alone.

He was far enough into the bottle that he did the first Sokka-esque thing he could think of. He shoved a handful of snow down Sokka’s collar.

“Hey what’s—” Sokka said, spluttering. He recoiled from Zuko, reaching frantically to try and reach the snow down the back of his coat. He hopped up, knocking over his bottle of airag, though the bottle didn’t have enough left in it to spill out onto the snow. He was jumping, trying to pull at the back of his coat, and Zuko couldn’t help himself, he had to laugh, clutching at his sides.

Sokka eyed him, and Zuko didn’t have fast enough reflexes like this to react when Sokka lunged for him. “Sokka!” Zuko laughed when they began tumbling down the hill, Sokka’s fists clutching to the front of Zuko’s coat as they rolled.

They came to a stop at the bottom of the hill, with Zuko on his back and Sokka on top of him. He was more than a little dizzy, both from rolling down the hill and the airag, so he didn’t hold it against himself that he found himself distracted by the curve of Sokka’s biceps where Zuko had his hand curled around Sokka’s arm to keep them together. It wasn’t the first time that Sokka had overpowered him while sparring because Zuko had been too distracted by Sokka’s muscles.

He felt Sokka’s hot breath on his face, and when he looked up, he froze. Sokka was hovering just over him, his legs splayed on either side of Zuko’s, and one strand of hair had fallen on his face. Sokka’s eyes flicked over his face, and then down to his lips. Sokka’s tongue flicked out, wetting his lips, and for a moment, Zuko thought Sokka was going to kiss him. His heart hammered in his chest.

But, of course, Sokka didn’t.

A breath passed, and Sokka was pulling off of him. He jumped up, suddenly full of chaotic energy with every heave of his chest. “I bet you ten copper yuan I can cartwheel back to the village faster than you,” Sokka said. He held up his arms towards the sky and barreled forward, not in a cartwheel but in a handstand. He immediately flopped on his back, but was up again without a care.

Zuko laid in the snow a moment longer, his arms spread to his sides, breathing heavily, staring up at the moon. This is on you, he thought to the moon spirit, and pulled himself up.

Zuko heard the crunch of snow and then suddenly there was some sort of meat kebab in his face. “Got these from one of the vendors packing up,” Sokka said, waving the kebab in his face. Zuko tried to focus his gaze on the meat stick, but honestly, his head was still throbbing from the previous evening. Instead, Zuko looked up to Sokka’s face. Sokka seemed unperturbed from a hangover, taking a bite out of a second kebab. “It’s a little cold, but not the worst.”

“I could heat them up,” Zuko offered, reaching for the stick Sokka had offered him. He let go of the stuffed seal toy he’d been clutching since Sokka had left to go pester the vendors. They’d been shooed out of the igloo that morning by Hakoda, all still half-nursing hangovers, to go help clean up the festival grounds. They’d spent an hour or two picking up trash to be burned, but after that, neither Sokka nor Zuko had been much help in dismantling the ice stalls the waterbenders had assembled.

“Oh, shit, you’re a genius, Zuko,” Sokka said, dropping to sit beside him. He kicked away the frozen solid bottle of airag they’d abandoned the previous night, and handed the second, half-eaten stick to Zuko. Zuko held out his free hand, lighting a flame under the kebabs until they were sizzling again. Sokka groaned when he took a bite out of his, “This is so good.”

Zuko chuckled, and looked over down at the festival grounds. Katara and a few young students from Master Pakku’s waterbending school were dissolving the ice stalls into piles of fresh snow, and washing away any other proof that the festival had taken place at all. The little waterbenders were struggling to hold the water in certain forms, so Katara was running back and forth between the children to show them how it was done.

He and Sokka had accidentally left their gloves and Sokka’s seal toy in the snow the previous evening, and when they’d finished with the trash, they’d begged off Katara to go look for them so Sokka wouldn’t have to explain to their father that he’d lost his best gloves. Knowing they’d be useless at that point, she’d waved them off. She hadn’t even managed to keep Aang on the ground with her. He was flying around on Appa’s back with a few of the young waterbenders, conjuring a heavy snow cloud and bending it into funny shapes.

It wasn’t long before the cloud spread across the sky, darkening the already pitch polar day. Zuko lit another flame in his palm to stave off the cold, holding it out between him and Sokka, the orange glow lighting both their faces. The fresh powder of snow came quickly after that, landing on both of them and making the fire hiss and sizzle. He was staring at the orange flame when Sokka reached over, brushing the snow from Zuko’s hair.

Sokka seemed to realize what he was doing, because he froze. Already committed to it, he shook his head, dislodging the snow on himself, and pushed Zuko’s front fringe aside. It always fell from his topknot, and he’d been considering growing it out again. Sokka withdrew his hand, and Zuko tried not to lean after it.

They heard the crunch of snow under feet and heard the slightly labored breathing of Katara as she climbed up the hill. There was a sheen of sweat on her brow and she was smiling, “Well that was quicker than I thought. Did you guys find your gloves?” Sokka nodded, and Katara knelt in the snow, holding her hands up to Zuko’s offered flame. “Wanna head back to Dad’s igloo to get warm? Aang’s probably gonna be a little while, so we won’t be able to leave for some time anyway.”

Sokka nodded, and Zuko took the kebab sticks from Sokka, burning them up in his hand before extinguishing his flame and putting his gloves back on. The walk back to the village was significantly colder than it had been earlier with a clear sky, so they huddled together like a group of otter penguins until they reached the igloo. The sealskin door flap had already been pinned open, so the three of them, stiff and cold, filed silently into the igloo.

They must have been exceptionally quiet, because the two men inside the igloo didn’t seem to notice their entrance. Chief Hakoda and Bato were already inside the igloo. They stood close together on the opposite side of the igloo, in what couldn’t be anything else but an intimate conversation. Their forearms were clasped together, and their heads were bowed, Bato’s ducked down to be close to the chief’s. Zuko froze. This was not a conversation between friends. And suddenly, all of the casual touches he’d witnessed over the past two days made sense.

The three of them were too far away to hear what was being said, but it was clear that it was a private moment, one the three of them had unwittingly walked into. Zuko could see that beside him, both Sokka and Katara stood in shocked silence, coming to the same conclusion that he was.

At that moment, Bato’s eyes flicked towards the entrance, towards the three of them, and suddenly the two men were leaping apart to a reasonable distance. The way their bodies had been angled before hadn’t been entirely damning, if not for the way they looked almost guiltily away from each other and how quickly they’d parted.

“Dad?” Katara said, the first to speak in an almost deafeningly silent room. She spoke softly, questioningly, as if she were afraid of startling her father.

Hakoda grimaced. “Katara—”

“I should go—”

“No, Bato—” Hakoda said, reaching for Bato’s arm to stop him. Both men grimaced as if they weren’t sure where to go from there.

Zuko closed his eyes. He felt like he was interrupting a private moment, but couldn’t take a step without interrupting further. When he opened them again, Katara had stepped forward, a hand almost outstretched, hovering. Beside Zuko, Sokka was rigid.

“Are you and Bato together?” Katara asked, softly. She looked between the two men, who still weren’t looking at each other. “It’s okay if you are.” She spoke reassuringly, as if not to startle them, like she was approaching a wild animal.

“I know it’s okay,” Hakoda sighed, shaking his head. He looked over to Bato, and there was a clear fondness there. Love, maybe. Zuko was never very good at that sort of thing. Just look at his position— he’d followed a man all the way to the South Pole. Bato looked at the chief reassuringly, with something like hope in his eye. “I just—” he sighed, sounding exhausted. “I just didn’t want you to think that I was forgetting your mother,” Hakoda said, his eyes misty.

“Oh Dad!” Katara said, launching herself halfway across the room at the man. “We’d never think that, would we Sokka?” she asked from where she was buried in her father’s arms. Rather than waiting for her brother to speak, and from Zuko’s sidelong glances at him, he wasn’t sure he could, she said. “It's okay. She’s been gone for a long time. You’re allowed to be happy.” Her own eyes were flooded with tears.

“She’ll never be gone, not to me,” he said, clutching her close. “I see her every day in your faces.”

“I know, Dad, I know.”

“Sokka?” Hakoda said from over the top his daughter’s head, a hint of worry in his voice, as if he was waiting for his son’s final judgment. Sokka was still stiff beside Zuko. Zuko risked a glance over at his friend, who looked like he’d been frozen in a block of ice.

Katara turned her head from the embrace, narrowing her eyes at Sokka as if daring him to say otherwise. His sister’s sharp gaze on him seemed to snap him out of it, because Sokka said, “I’m happy for you guys, really. Congrats, Dad, Bato. Does that mean we have to call you Bado now? Dado?” Sokka laughed, but it was a little wooden. Zuko could see, out of the corner of his eye, that the smile didn’t quite reach Sokka’s eye.

Hakoda’s son’s acceptance seemed to make the tension leach out of the man, and he opened his arms wider for Sokka. Only Zuko seemed to see how stiff Sokka still was as Sokka crossed the room to join the hug, but maybe overlooking it was part of their survival. If they didn’t look at it, didn’t acknowledge it, it couldn’t hurt them.

“You can still call me Bato or Uncle Bato,” Bato said with a chuckle. He stood off to the side of the three’s embrace, but Katara was opening her arms wide, gesturing for him to join them. Zuko wondered if he could back out of the room yet, hoping not to be noticed, but before he could, Sokka was pulling away from the hug.

“I, uh,” Sokka said, extracting himself from the hug. “I have to— I’ve gotta go find Aang,” he said, turning on his heels, and for a lack of a better word, fled. There was a rush of cold air as Sokka left the igloo.

Zuko, still in slight shock, heard Hakoda sigh. “I should go after him,” Hakoda said, rubbing his hand through his hair. Katara still had her arm around him, holding firmly in place as if to ground him.

“Don’t worry about Sokka,” Katara said, and Zuko could hear the undercurrent of disapproval and anger in her voice. “He’s probably just hungry or hungover or something.”

Zuko knew he wouldn’t have a better time to slip out than right then, so he backed out until he felt the arched entrance frame, and ducked out himself.

He didn’t have to look too hard for Sokka, finding him sitting by the ice docks, looking out over the water. He had his knees pulled up to his chest, an unusually vulnerable position for Sokka. He didn’t look up when Zuko sat down beside him in the snow. It was cold, but at least Aang had cleared the sky of any clouds. The moon, no longer full, was still bright above them.

Zuko wasn’t willing to say anything first, so he sat beside his friend, and pulled his own legs up to his chest.

“I can’t believe my dad and Bato are together,” Sokka said, finally. He rubbed the back of his head, freshly shaven from that morning, despite Zuko’s warnings against it considering their hangovers. “It’s just—” Zuko looked at him.

“Is it a bad thing?” Zuko asked, his voice cracking. He’d been so certain that Sokka had known that Zuko was interested in men, and he’d been almost entirely convinced that Sokka was as well, even if he’d never actually seen Sokka date anyone else beside Suki, not like Zuko’s few flings between splits with Mai.

“No!” Sokka was quick to say, meeting Zuko’s eye as if to assure him. “It’s just… Bato’s always been an uncle to us, you know? He grew up with my dad, and I thought they were like brothers. They were best friends.” He looked down, his fingers curling around a bit of loose snow from the quick snow earlier. “It’s just made me reconsider a few things.”

“What things?” Zuko asked, but Sokka wouldn’t quite look at him.

“Just— things,” he said, and stood up abruptly. “I’m going ice fishing. It’ll probably be really boring, you don’t have to come.” What he really meant was, don’t come. And then he was gone. Zuko didn’t bother watching Sokka head back towards the village. Zuko could still feel his absence minutes later.

He sighed, rubbing his hands over his eyes. Why was Sokka being like this? It felt bigger than just finding out his father was seeing someone else. Zuko hadn’t reacted like this when he’d learned his mother had remarried, even when he’d discovered he had a half-sister. But, he supposed, Zuko’s relationship with his parents had always been so different from the one that Sokka had with his father, and even his late mother. They’d always been happy together, even when they weren’t.

“How are you doing, kid?” Zuko heard a voice say. He blinked his eyes open, squinting up at Bato.

Zuko just stared up at the man for a moment, thinking surely he was hallucinating. “... I’m fine? How are you?”

Bato laughed, taking a seat next to him. “I’m okay, I’ve survived a lot worse.” He hummed, and then looked at Zuko, “I came out here to give Hakoda and Sokka some space, if he decided to come back to the igloo, but… You were looking a little gloomy. Is it about that girl? Uh… Meng?”

“What?” Zuko said, and it took him a moment to figure out what the Water Tribesman was saying. “Oh. No. I was— Sokka,” he said, and then shut his mouth. He could see Bato’s knowing expression, and felt his face redden. “I was thinking. About Sokka.”

“Well,” Bato hummed, “we had a feeling Sokka wasn’t taking it as well as he was pretending to.”

“That’s not— he’s just—” but what was Sokka doing? He couldn’t even defend him because he didn’t know.

Bato looked at him sympathetically. “It’s okay. Koda and I— we talked about it over the years, telling the kids. But Hakoda was always worried that the kids might not take it so well after all they’d been through, so... “ He shrugged, “It’s a moot point now, but it didn’t bother me. Our people— we’re a tolerant bunch, but a private people. It doesn’t really matter what you’re doing if you keep it to yourselves.”

Zuko nodded, swallowing down a lump in his throat. “I was sure Sokka knew that I—” he said, but there was a hint of doubt there. Had Sokka just not said anything because his people kept that sort of thing to themselves? But Sokka had never been private about anything he did, from his relationship with Suki to the easy way he stripped down at the beach every year. If something bothered him, he was usually the first one to voice it.

Bato nodded, looking over the water towards the docked ships. “Hakoda’s gone looking for him.”

“He went—”

“Ice fishing?” Bato chuckled. “He’s just like his dad.”

Zuko tried not to look too much like he was stealing glances at the Water Tribesman next to him, but eventually he gave up and asked, “How long have you been together?”

The man beside him got a fond look on his face, “Since the war, in a way. We’d been friends for a long time before that. A lot like you and Sokka, actually.” There was a certain glint in the man’s eyes when he looked over at Zuko. Oh. So Bato knew, then. Hakoda most definitely did, if Bato knew. Was Zuko that glaringly obvious?

He swallowed again, “Was it difficult? Going from— being friends for so long to being together?”

Bato laughed again, but it wasn’t mocking. “The war didn’t exactly make it easy. Not a lot of time to stop and talk about things, then.”

“Sorry,” Zuko said reflexively.

“It wasn’t your fault, spirits, you and the Avatar are the reason we’re all here.” He looked off over the water, towards the cutter ships bobbing in the water. Since Zuko hat sat down, several ships full of visitors had left, back to their own ships on Jongmu Island. When Bato spoke again, Zuko jerked up, as he’d almost forgotten the other man was still there. “When it came down to it, we wanted to say something, in case one of us didn’t make it. Some things just need to be said.”

Zuko felt a shiver down his spine. He’d never felt like that with Mai. There’d never been a time— not even when he was in danger of being assassinated every week— when he felt that he just needed to just… put it out there that he loved her, even if they couldn’t be together. Especially if they couldn’t be together.

“And then, well, I got injured— you were there,” he laughed, but all Zuko could think about was Sokka. Zuko hummed in agreement, but he thought that the Water Tribesman could tell his mind was elsewhere, because he didn’t stick around much longer. Bato eventually made his excuses and went to look for his partner, leaving Zuko alone.

He sat and watched the ships leave for a little while, but it was hard to tell for how long in the polar night. By mid-afternoon, no one had come looking for him, but he was feeling stiff and cold. He wasn’t sure what might await him back at the chief’s igloo, and if Sokka would be there. He stood, dusting himself off, and headed around the village’s wall. He wasn’t sure where he was going, only that he needed to move.

Maybe he didn’t know, but his feet did, as he found himself walking towards the same snowbank he and Sokka had sat at that morning and the previous night. When he looked off towards it, he spotted Sokka already sitting there. He ignored how his heart sped up at the sight of the man sitting there, and matched it by hurrying over to join him. Sokka didn’t look up when he joined him.

“How was ice fishing?” Zuko asked.

“It was good,” Sokka said absentmindedly. But when he looked over at Zuko, his expression surprisingly open.

“Didn’t bring back any fish though,” Zuko teased.

“I didn’t bring them here,” Sokka scoffed, shoving Zuko. His ungloved hands were warm against Zuko’s shoulder.

Zuko turned to him, and asked, unusually serious, “Are you okay?”

Sokka sighed, his eyes flicking down, and then over to Zuko. “I talked to my dad.” Zuko nodded, but didn’t supply that he spoke to Bato. He wasn’t sure where Sokka currently stood on that— he’d been pleased when his Gran Gran had remarried, but he’d never known his own grandfather, not like he’d known his mother. “I wasn’t— I’m not upset about my dad’s relationship with Bato.”

His fists curled, and he was looking a little agitated. “I’m— I’m fine with my dad and Bato being together, and that’s not— it’s not even up to me. That’s not an issue, and it— it makes a lot of sense, and they’re clearly in love or whatever, and Bato’s basically already my dad, but, ugh,” he said, and buried his face in his hands. “I want them to know that I— I support them and this— me— isn’t about them, I’m just…” he sighed, and when he looked over at Zuko he looked astoundingly vulnerable. “I talked to my dad.” He made no move to elaborate, though it looked like he wanted to.

Zuko swallowed. “What did you talk about?”

Sokka’s hands were curled into a fist on top of his thighs. “That I—” His eyes flicked up to Zuko’s.

And then Sokka was leaning forward, kissing Zuko. Zuko gasped into Sokka’s mouth, shocked. He didn’t even have time to close his eyes and lean into the kiss when Sokka was pulling away. His face was flushed, and his eyes were dark.

Zuko opened his mouth, but was unable to speak.

Sokka, too, looked frozen. “Oh. Shit. I shouldn’t have done that.” He fell back on his heels, away from Zuko, and then he was standing. He turned, but Zuko suddenly felt a burst of fear that if he didn’t stop Sokka now, this thing between them would be irrevocably damaged. He scrambled to his feet, only slipping once on the hill, and lunged for Sokka.

They fell together down the hill, in a parody of the previous evening, until Zuko was on top of Sokka, and he wasn’t letting him go. Sokka’s bright eyes were staring up at him, and he was breathing heavily. “What was that?” Zuko demanded, daring Sokka to look away.

“I always thought we were just like that,” Sokka said, his chest heaving. “Best friends— minus a few months we spent trying to kill each other,” he said, but the usual teasing wasn’t there. “And I thought it would always be like that. That it always had to be like that.”

“Like what?”

“Living parallel lives and never touching!”

“Oh.” Maybe Sokka wasn’t as oblivious as he thought— maybe Zuko was. He leaned down and kissed Sokka, closing his eyes this time. He felt Sokka gasp against his lips, moving against him. But as much as he wanted to keep kissing Sokka, he knew he had to say something first. It needed to be said. He pulled back, Sokka chasing after him with a confused look. He dropped his head back down, watching Zuko wearily. “I like you Sokka,” he said. It felt freeing. It felt like it needed to be said. Sokka’s confused look melted into a smile, slowly at first, and then it spread across his face. And then he kissed him again.