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It begins like this: the Gaang is flying to Ba Sing Se. They have a proposal for the Earth King regarding the Fire Nation colonies on the Earth Kingdom's west coast.
Zuko is going to Ba Sing Se because he's the Fire Lord, so that's pretty self-explanatory; Aang is going because he's the Avatar; Sokka is there as a representative of the Water Tribes (technically only the South, but nobody gets hung up on these technicalities, and also the truth is that this proposal wouldn't even exist without him); Katara is going because she felt like it. Toph, who fucking hates flying, will meet them in the city, as will Suki and the other Kyoshi Warriors.
So they're all there, riding on Appa - except Momo, who's riding on Aang's shoulder - and they're all joking and laughing because there's little else to do when you spend a week on a sky bison's back.
Zuko thinks he's about to spontaneously combust, because Sokka has been leaning on his shoulder for the past hour.
Fuck, I'm so gay, he thinks.
And, fuck, his friends have absolutely no idea that he is.
That's how he makes a decision.
"I'm gay," he blurts out to Aang, Katara, Sokka, Appa and Momo, interrupting whatever conversation was going on.
He's a bit sorry that Toph isn't there to hear it; but, in fact, he didn't even realize he was gay until one time he and Toph were talking about this and that and out of the blue she went, hey, I meant to ask, you're gay too, right? and everything just kind of clicked in place.
So. I'm gay, he says.
"Me too!" Aang quips. "Wait, no. Isn't that when you--no. Hold on. Kyoshi was a lesbian,” he ends up saying, in a kind of impromptu identity crisis.
"Okay," Zuko says, puzzled.
"Anyway! What's important is that you are gay," Aang finishes cheerfully as if he didn't just discombobulate himself for a moment. Then he shakes Zuko’s hand.
"Oh, that's so interesting!" Katara says. Her eyes are gleaming and she moves a little closer to him. "Is telling people about your sexual orientation customary in the Fire Nation?"
"Y--yes? Is it not customary everywhere else?"
"I mean, for me it's as if you just told me that you have black hair, but thank you so much for making us part of this custom! We really appreciate it, Zuko." She looks so pleased with the situation that, despite the absurdity of it, Zuko feels giddiness bloom in his chest.
"So, let me get this straight," Sokka says. He still hasn't moved his arm away from Zuko's shoulder. "Is this something that you Fire Nation people shout at random intervals? Like, one day we're gonna be in a Council meeting, and you're gonna go, I'm gay! and everyone will clap politely and then we'll continue as if nothing happened?"
"No! It's supposed to be a momentous revelation that you share once with the people you trust the most! In the plays--"
"In the plays?" Sokka repeats, while simultaneously Katara goes, "A revelation? Oh, Zuko! I didn't get that! Can we start over? I want to do it right."
Zulo takes a big breath. It's fine. It's all good. He started this, and now he's going to get through with it. "Yes. Fine. I'm gay."
"Oh, wow, really? Thank you so much for telling us!" Her attempts at acting are very endearing.
"Yes, thanks so much!" Aang says, joyous.
"I'm sorry, can we go back to this being a thing they do in plays? I feel like we didn't devote enough time to this being a thing they do in plays."
"Fine," Zuko grumbles. "In all the plays - well, not all of them, but, you know, a significant amount - there's this big moment when a character comes out and that kinda... changes everything? Like, there's this one play where the protagonist, Lin, has been betrothed to this guy Kozuo since she was a kid, but she falls in love with her best friend Asuka and she doesn't know what to do, and--okay, I'll spare you the details, but eventually she comes out to her mother and her mother says, you can exhale now, Lin, because she understands that keeping this secret was weighing on her, and that's supposed to be the emotional pivot of the story." He looks up at his friends, cringing at how bad his explanation was.
Sokka claps. "Wow," he says, and he sounds sincere.
Aang nods, stroking his chin with his hand. "Marriage affairs sound so complicated. I cannot wait to get married one day!"
Katara blushes. Zuko smiles at them.
That night, they camp out in a forest. Camping out means that Aang and Katara sleep on one side of Appa, and Sokka and Zuko sleep on the other side to leave them a sliver of privacy.
Zuko is about to fall asleep when Sokka speaks.
"Hey, I didn't say it properly earlier, but thanks for sharing that stuff with us today. Not just the gay thing--I mean, especially that, but also, you know, the play? It's nice to hear about other cultures. And like, about the stuff you enjoy about your culture."
Zuko's heart swells with fondness. He turns around to meet Sokka's gaze.
"Thank you. And, same goes for me."
Sokka nods. He's lying on his back, with his arms folded behind his head, and he looks so comfortable that Zuko would honestly want to get closer just to see if he can feel some of that serenity too.
"If you don't mind, I would like to partake in your custom," Sokka says with the hint of a smile.
"Oh?"
"I'm bisexual."
If Zuko's own coming out didn't feel momentous, this one surely does. He's speechless for a long, long moment.
"Hi, bisexual. I'm Zuko."
Sokka laughs. "You're ruining my moment!" he protests, but he doesn't sound too upset about it. Zuko starts laughing, too.
"Sorry. Had to."
"Ah! Stabbed in the back with my own weapon!"
Zuko's laugh fades softly. He lies on his back, too, safe in Appa's fur, and looks up at the night sky.
"I didn't actually ruin something, did I?" he asks after a while.
"No. It's like Katara said, I would have felt the same amount of emotion if I told you I have blue eyes." He's quiet for a while, too, but then he continues. "I kind of get it, though, I think? Like, yeah, I have blue eyes, I'm bisexual, I'm an amazing sailor, this is me and I'm beautiful."
"Yes!" Zuko explains, sitting up and turning towards him. "That's it, you get it! You are beautiful! I mean, uh. Ah. Like. The point of this is. Recognizing. Your own inner. Beauty."
"Yes. Thank you, Speeches Lord. I got that." He's grinning. Zuko decides it's time for a swift retreat and wishes he could fall asleep at will so he won't have to think about what he just said for the next three hours.
The day after arriving in Ba Sing Se, he and Aang train together at the crack of dawn. They meditate, then do some firebending exercises, then spar for a while. Once they're done, they sit in the middle of Iroh's courtyard and drink some water.
"I've been thinking about what you said the other day. Your revelation," Aang says.
"Have you?"
"A lot, actually. You know, identity is a delicate concept for us Air Nomads. I think it's a bit different than yours, it's more about doing than being. And, like, we don't really conceptualise marriage as you do. Monks don't need to call each other spouses, they just decide to spend their life - or a period of their life - in the company of another person. Or, like, when it comes to having a child - that doesn't make you a parent, it just means you've had a child, who will be raised with all the others. But at the same time, things were always going to be a little different for me. I am the Avatar, and that is an immovable state of my being, you know? And now, even if I weren't the Avatar, family is important to Katara, so it's become important to me, too. And I want me and Katara to have one, one day. I want to be part of that family. And, actually, I feel like we are a family already, all of us. So, your words, they reminded me that there is beauty in being something and choosing to make that part of your truth."
"The state of being in itself has an inner beauty," Zuko muses, smiling. "Sokka said something similar, too."
"So, yeah I'm happy for you. But also, like - and I don't want to erase everything that we just said - but are you planning on doing anything with this whole being gay thing?"
With a laugh, Zuko rises to his feet and offers his friend a hand. "Not much I can do right now. Come on, let's get back inside. The others must have woken up by now."
The truth is, there is something he'd like to do with this whole gay thing. More precisely, there's something he'd like to be. It starts with S and ends with okka's boyfriend.
There is, however, a slight issue, which is that it's very much not advisable to go up to one of your best friends and say, "I've had feelings for you since we broke into a high security prison to free your dad and your girlfriend, but I kind of treated my feelings for you as background noise because I was afraid they'd come between our amazing friendship and partnership, especially on top of everything else that we both had to deal with in the last six years. But then two months ago you told me about your plan to bring to life our idea of a place where people from all over the world can live together in peace, and as you were explaining your proposal to me I realized that I'm madly, devastatingly in love with you, but I can't tell you that, because we're going to Ba Sing Se to put your plan into motion, and if I confess my love and you don't feel the same way things will become so awkward between us and you'll end up feeling like you have to abandon this project even though it's yours, and I refuse to put you in that situation."
So yeah. He's fucked.
Although the meeting with the Earth King goes super well, they're asked to come again in two days and present the idea to his ministers, because the king has been trying to be a bit more democratic. The one-day break suits them well: Aang wants to accompany the Kyoshi Warriors to the lower ring, where they've scheduled a ceremonial performance for the public; Toph and Katara have a meeting with a university professor to talk about metalbending. Zuko is more than happy to help his uncle at the tea shop and Sokka is more than happy to help him.
Having Sokka serve tea in an Earth Kingdom uniform means that by mid-afternoon the shop is packed with teenagers who are only there to ogle at him, which Uncle Iroh finds incredibly amusing to the point where all his jokes about how popular Sokka is start to feel like deliberate jabs at Zuko's sanity. The crowd only dwindles in the evening, when Zuko is already feeling a little pissy at his friend for being so hot that they couldn't get a break for hours.
The annoyance is surface level, though, because as soon as Sokka crashes on a bench next to him, putting down his tray with a heavy sigh, Zuko wishes he could bury his face in the crook of his neck and sleep there.
"Already tired?" asks Uncle Iroh as he walks by. "Your friend, I can understand, he's had to fend off horny teenagers all day, but you, nephew? That clearly means that you haven't spent some time here in way too long."
"You know, I think he's right."
"Please don't encourage him," Zuko says, exhausted.
"By the way," Sokka whispers, keeping his eyes trained on Iroh as he serves tea to someone near the shop entrance. "Have you told him about… you know?"
"Oh! I haven't. You're right, I should tell him now."
Once Uncle comes back, Zuko says,
"Uncle, I'm gay."
"Yes," Uncle Iroh replies absentmindedly, brushing past them to get back to the kitchen. Then he halts, takes a couple of steps back, and goes, "Zuko! That's wonderful! Thank you for sharing the news with me."
"Your initial reaction makes me wonder if this was news to you at all, but thank you."
"Oh, don't mind that, old men are always distracted." They smile brightly at each other. "Alright, well. I'll leave you to it."
Zuko doesn't know exactly what he means but he's getting the distinct feeling that yes, indeed Iroh has been teasing him all day.
"So I was thinking," Sokka says, and when he says that, that's a threat in itself. "If you decided to tell us about that, maybe you've also been thinking about, like, going on dates with dudes and stuff? So I was wondering if you'd like to go on one."
"What?”
"I mean! If you'd like to ask someone out or get a boyfriend or whatever!"
Zuko violently shakes his head, still speechless. For a moment he'd thought--
"No. Well. There's nobody on my mind right now, but theoretically speaking, I guess, sure."
"No, that's cool, so I guess I'll have to play matchmaker."
"You don't have to."
"Okay." He sounds a little relieved, but not as relieved as Zuko is, because if Sokka started trying to introduce him to people he's deemed suitable for him to date, Zuko would probably ask a Kyoshi Warrior to end his misery.
"Hey, why did Aang ask me to tell him about lesbian culture?" asks Toph in the middle of the night after barging into his room and startling him awake.
"I came out to them," Zuko grumbles into his pillow. "Shouldn't you be in bed? Are you having trouble sleeping?"
"No. It's girl talk time."
"Since when do we do girl talk?" he asks, but he's already sitting up.
"We haven't spent some quality time together in months, Sparky." She flops down on the bed in front of him.
"Ten minutes, and then we go back to bed. I have a meeting in the morning, and today was exhausting."
"Yeah, yeah, a horde of teenagers tried to get into your boyfriend's pants, so exhausting. Dinner took one hour and he still managed to tell me about that three times."
He sighs. "Speaking of that, he asked me if I'm planning on dating people now. Maybe telling them was a mistake. We should all be focused on our proposition to the Earth King, not on who's dating who."
“Yes, how dare you tell all our friends something that will distract them in… so many ways that I can’t even name one right now. There's just too many. Katara might even go as far as to pull out a list of romantic date locations in the middle of your meeting with the Earth Kingdom Council.”
"Fine, fine, I got it. I'm the one who's getting distracted, I know." He lets himself fall back on his pillow. "But. Shit. Who wouldn't be distracted in my place? Sokka wanted to set me up on a date. Sokka. The person I would like to gently kiss under the starlight."
"Okay wow. You know, calling him your boyfriend becomes way less fun when you start waxing poetry about him and I have to live with the knowledge that I'm the one who brought it up."
He smiles. "I wish I'd been there with you guys when you were the one who was down bad."
She puts her face on his blanket and leaves out a muffled scream.
"I'm not telling you anything ever again."
"I thought this was our girl talk moment."
"No. Girl talk moment over!"
She stands up. As she's leaving, he calls for her and she stops.
"I know girl talk is over, but if you're having trouble sleeping you can always take your futon here. Or if you want to scare me in the middle of the night or anything."
A moment of stillness. Then: "Okay," she whispers.
Their two weeks in Ba Sing Se are so packed with work that they barely come out of it unscathed. On their last night in the city, even Toph goes to bed early. Zuko, however, lingers outside, on his Uncle's patio. He can hear Iroh snoring in his bedroom.
When he hears the door slide open behind him, he turns around, his heart thumping for no reason. He doesn't even know what he's expecting. Or who. He calms down once he sees that it's Katara who just joined him outside.
"Didn't think I'd find you still up," she says.
"Thought I'd make today last a little bit longer."
She picks up her skirt and sits next to him on the wooden floor.
"I'm a little worried, so I'm gonna be blunt," she says.
"Of course. Are you okay?"
"I am, thank you. But did something happen between you and my brother?"
He frowns. He wasn't expecting that. "Not that I know of? Why?"
"Earlier today I was talking with him, and I mentioned you in conversation, just in passing, and he let out one of his huge dramatic sighs, so I asked him if something was wrong and he said, and I quote, no, well, a bit, but it's a non-issue, and then he told me that he wanted to sleep and to please not tell you anything."
"Uh, thanks for… the vote of loyalty?"
"Oh, I would have done the same for him if you'd reacted like that."
"Yeah, no, I figured. But I don't know what he was talking about, I mean, nothing happened between us. We were so busy with meetings that we barely had the chance to talk."
"Really?" she says, sounding surprised. Then her eyes narrow with suspicion. "Because he talked plenty with the rest of us. And you also talked plenty with the rest of us. So it seems to me that he's the only one you didn't find the time to talk with."
He thinks about it for a moment. "Now that you mention it, I did wonder if he was avoiding me a couple of times. But it makes no sense! We had a really fun time working at my Uncle's teashop! And then all we did was have all those meetings!"
"Huh," she says. Then she shrugs. "Maybe it really was a non-issue. Sorry for bringing it up, I guess?"
"Don't mention it. I would have been worried, too." In fact, he still is. But he can't wrap his head around what went wrong between the two of them, so he just ends up asking Katara to stay with him for a little while longer before they go to bed.
While Zuko, Aang and Sokka are supposed to leave in the morning, Toph and Katara will stay there for two more weeks for their metalbending business, after which Aang will come back to pick them up. But once they're all ready to set off, Sokka says,
"I think I'll stay here, too."
"Oh."
"I know you're not as good as me, but I'm sure you can make some excuse for why the Southern Water Tribe Ambassador had to stay in the Earth Kingdom for a few more weeks," he tells Zuko.
"Sure, I--I'll come up with something."
"Thanks, buddy."
Zuko takes a mental note of the fact that Sokka hugs Aang goodbye, but not him. Aang seems rather unfazed by his decision and just tells him that on the corner between his friend Shigeo's house and that street vendor who sold really good oranges there's a great restaurant, but Zuko sees him share a look with Katara that makes him wonder if she told him, too, about her worries.
They don't talk about it during the trip back to the Fire Nation, but it never really leaves Zuko's mind completely. He brings it up days later, once they've already sighted the coast, and he brings it up very laterally.
"Aang. Do you ever go to your past lives for… advice?"
"Sure," Aang replies while he keeps juggling balls of air to pass the time. "They helped me a lot of times. Or, I guess, they helped me find answers that were already within me."
"And do you ever go to them for… relationship advice?"
Aang stops juggling. "Well. I try not to think about them when Katara and I… you know."
"No! Not that kind of advice. Just general. Relationship. Advice."
"Oh! No, I guess I never tried. But why?"
"I have a sort of problem. It's a non-issue, really.” He cringes internally when he realises those are the same words Sokka used, according to Katara. “But I wouldn't mind some advice. Except you and Katara have been in a stable relationship for 6 years so you have no firsthand experience with this particular thing? And Toph, well, you know, I can already hear her asking me if I banged my head on a cactus."
"Yeah, that makes sense. Well! There's a first time for everything." He sits with his legs crossed and his hands touching. He closes his eyes. Then he reopens them. "Wait, I don't know what I should ask."
"Ah. Right. I haven't told you what the problem is yet. It's, uh. Ah. That's so embarrassing. I'm pretty sure that Sokka is the love of my life."
Aang jumps into the air, ecstatic. "That's amazing! But…" He comes back down on Appa's back like a deflated balloon. "You said there's a problem."
"Yes. I don't think it would be a good idea to ask him out, because what if he rejects me and things turn sour and we can't work together anymore? But I'm also not ready to date other people, because, you know, it would be shitty to date someone when I'm in love with somebody else."
"Yes," Aang concurs.
"But you know how he's been avoiding me for our entire stay in Ba Sing Se? And he wouldn't come home with us?"
"Yes," Aang concurs again. "What's up with that?"
"I've been thinking about it for days and I'm pretty sure I figured out where things went wrong. He offered to find me someone to date and I turned him down and I think I offended him. So either I never bring it up again and wait for him to stop being mad, which could happen tomorrow or next year or never, or I accept the offer and date the people that the man I love thinks would be suitable for me to date."
Aang looks pensive. "Yeah, neither of those seems like a very good prospect. You're right, I'm gonna ask Roku about it."
Zuko freezes. "Wait, Roku? Can't you ask Kyoshi or something?"
"Well, usually it's easier to get in contact with your immediate predecessor. Whenever I spoke to the Avatars that came before, it always felt less like a conversation and more like a dream."
"Oh. Then maybe it would be best if we didn't ask anybody else. I'm not really looking forward to my great-grandfather knowing about this."
Aang shrugs. "Okay," he says. He sits in a more comfortable position. "You know… remember when I told you that it felt great sometimes to just be something? Well. I think this might be one of those occasions where you actually also have to do something. Like, for example, ask for his forgiveness for causing him offense and then maybe also ask him out so that other than being the love of your life he can also, you know, date you."
Zuko puts his head in his hands and groans. "Maybe you're right. Fuck."
He's got about three weeks to come up with a speech before Sokka comes back. By week two and a half, the best he's got is "I actually turned down your offer because I have a secret boyfriend on Ember Island."
When Suki invites him for tea with Ty Lee and Mai, he welcomes the offer. He really enjoys having tea with them, even though at first he was afraid that it would feel like a fucked up double date where two of the people involved are actually exes.
Of course, it doesn't take long for his friends to realize that something's on his mind. He ends up admitting to his ex girlfriend, to Sokka's ex girlfriend, and to Sokka's ex girlfriend's girlfriend that he's been meaning to tell Sokka how he feels about him.
"Finally," Ty Lee says.
But, he continues, he's been held back by the potential consequences of their relationship on international politics.
"Zuko, Sokka adores you," Suki tells him kindly. "Even if he turned you down, that wouldn't mean he doesn't think the world of you. I doubt he'd go as far as to abandon his project just to avoid seeing one of his best friends."
"And what if he decides to give up on the project to spare me the heartbreak of seeing him at every meeting?"
"Then you could just tell him that it's fine and you're capable of being professional while you're both doing your job."
"I don't know. It still sounds so risky. I don't want to do anything that might end up harming him."
"You're unbelievable," Mai scoffs. "Like, is that it? You're just worried about this passion project of yours?"
"It's more than a passion project!"
"Then listen. If things turn sour, which they won't, but if they do, I'll be your spokesperson at every single fucking meeting with him. You'll never have to see the guy again."
"You'd do that for me? Why?"
"Because you're my friend and I love you? Duh?"
"But Mai, that's a huge commitment!"
"Fucking unreal--yes, I'm aware, I'm telling you that I don't care much about this project either way but if you tell me what to say at the meetings then I'll say it for you and I'll make sure everyone in the room comes out of it on your side. Is that enough for you to stop behaving like a chickenrabbit?"
"I--uh--I guess--I mean, thank you so much, that's huge."
"You're welcome. See? Wasn't hard."
When Sokka comes back, it almost looks like things are back to normal. But if he avoided Zuko before, now he's way too cheerful. Worried but not discouraged, Zuko asks him to train with him in the morning: nothing like some good old sparring to remind him that they're still best friends.
However, after about three minutes of homoerotically wielding swords in a circle of sand, Sokka suddenly lowers his weapon.
"You're distracted," he tells Zuko. "You okay?"
Zuko sighs. He also drops his sword. "Is it that obvious? Okay. Well, I suppose this had to happen at some point."
"What had to happen?"
He's scared to even look at his friend in the eye but he does so anyway. "There's something I've been meaning to tell you for some time. When we were in Ba Sing Se and I turned down your offer to set me up on a date, I had a very specific reason to do so, and I'm gonna tell you about it in a second, but first I want to apologize sincerely for the offense that I caused you with my refusal. I still stand by it, but if there's anything I can do to make up for it…"
"Hold on. Hold on hold on hold on." He's got his hands in his hair. "Did you think I was mad at you because you… said no when I told you that I could set you up on a date?"
"Yes?"
"Oh. I--no." Sokka smiles. He's amused, but he also looks a little sad. "I wasn't mad, so you can stop worrying your pretty face about it, yeah? I was--listen, let's do yours first, I kinda need a minute to figure out how to tell you what I probably need to tell you." He takes a big breath and squares his shoulders. "What was this specific reason, do you have a secret boyfriend on Ember Island?"
"No, but I'm actually pretty impressed you said that because I did consider telling you that. But no. The reason why I don't want you to find me a boyfriend is that of all the people I could potentially date, the only one I would really like to date right now is you."
"What?"
"Fuck. I knew it, I just ruined everything. Shit."
"No! No, you didn't ruin anything. It's just. You know when you thought I was mad at you because you didn't want me to find you a boyfriend? Like, until ten seconds ago? Which, by the way, I kinda get because I was acting super weird and I didn't tell you why, but also I really don't get, because, what? But anyway the reason I was doing that is not that I was mad, it's that I was trying to keep my distance for a while so I could nurse my heartbreak after I tried to ask you out and you made a horrified face and said, and I quote, what, and then I had to backtrack and pretend I was asking you if you were planning on dating people."
"Oh. So you were--hm." He's speechless for a second. "So. You, uhm. You asked me out a month ago."
"Yes," Sokka confirms.
"But… why did you think I was rejecting you? You literally also just said what when I asked you out."
"Well! Yeah! Because I wasn't expecting that, so. So yeah! You know when you eat too much ice cream all at once? I got--"
"Brainfreeze. Yeah."
They stare at each other.
"Okay so we're not telling anyone else what happened, right?" Sokka says.
"I'm probably gonna tell Toph."
"Yeah, me too. And Katara. And Suki."
"And Aang."
"Shit."
"This is embarrassing."
"Yeah." There's a big grin on Sokka's face now. "Tell you what. Why don't we let all of this stew for a second while we go back to sparring."
"Please."
"And then let's say that whoever wins gets a kiss."
Zuko smiles back at him. "Oh, you're gonna lose so bad."
"Yeah, yeah, keep wishing. You're gonna have to settle for the consolation prize."
"Yeah? And what's that?"
Sokka winks. "You're about to find out."