And here is what Sokka knows, above all else:
Zuko has been shown little kindness in his life.
Oh, he’s definitely had people be kind to him—Uncle Iroh has never truly hurt him or abused his trust, but that doesn’t make up for a lifetime of being told, in one way or another, with hands or words or actions, that he’s never going to be good enough.
It’s clear in the way that he doesn’t know how to take a compliment. They’ve been together for over three years now, and Zuko still goes red when Sokka casually sidles up and says something nice about him. It doesn’t even have to be that meaningful—it can be something as innocuous as calling him pretty, and Zuko still goes quiet and wide-eyed like he doesn’t know what to do with that. It makes Sokka want to do it even more, until Zuko finally understands.
How long will it take? A few more months? A few more years?
A lifetime?
But here’s the thing, and this is what Sokka knows like he knows his own need for breath:
Zuko will probably never really understand.
He’s never going to see himself the way that Sokka sees him, and this is just another truth, like the sky being blue and Aang being a cheerful dipshit. It just is, as much as Sokka wants to wave his arms in the air and scream about it.
Zuko always goes tense and silent when he wants something.
Even after all this time, he’s still reserved and tentative about asking for things, even when Sokka makes it clear that he’s ready and willing and one hundred percent down to give him pretty much anything he wants at any given point in time.
Zuko acts like wanting is something inappropriate and unseemly even though Sokka asks for shit all the time, even though Sokka’s pretty sure that he’s never once asked for anything truly unreasonable.
“You’re thinking really hard right now,” Sokka mumbles and toys with the dark hair curling at Zuko’s nape. “Talk to me.”
Zuko says nothing, just curls up a little tighter into himself underneath Sokka’s arm.
This is a sex thing, then.
Grinning a little, Sokka shifts his weight and rolls a little to boost Zuko on top of him, tucking the blankets back up around his shoulders and pulling him in so they're flush together like two fish in a basket. It’s both easier and harder to do than it used to be, because it took forever for Zuko to get to a point where he allows Sokka to move him around without instinctively fighting it tooth and nail, but also because he’s tall and packed with muscle, even with all the extra paper pushing Fire Lord stuff he does now.
Sokka manages well enough, though.
“Come on, talk to me,” Sokka prods at him. How can they possibly have done so much stuff together and Zuko’s still this spirits damned shy ?
It’s charming in its own way, and Sokka’s a flexible dude, but now he’s curious.
It comes down to the fact that Zuko just doesn’t know how to ask for what he wants, because he’s not used to there being a point to it. It’s a learning process, because Sokka wants to give him everything he wants, if only Zuko can use his words and ask.
Positive reinforcement has been a very effective tactic.
“It’s nothing,” Zuko mumbles, leaning down and nosing softly into the soft skin below Sokka’s ear. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing,” Sokka tells him, delighted with his own good luck. “Come on, Fire Lord. Use your words.Tell your favorite ambassador what’s rolling around in your filthy brain.” Zuko’s way better at the doing then the talking about doing, but Sokka enjoys talking about sex almost as much as he likes the acts themselves.
Having to prod it out of his partner is just a fun bonus.
“This is harassment,” Zuko protests, whatever coming next dying in his throat when Sokka starts walking his fingers gently up his back.
“It’s not nothing if it’s something that you want,” Sokka recites like he has at least a thousand times before. “Just tell me. I’ve asked you for plenty of weird shit, and you almost never tell me no. Come on. I wanna know.”
Especially if it’ll make him happy.
Here’s another universal truth:
Sokka is embarrassingly and mortifyingly in love with the guy, and to know him is to know it. People think that Aang is a soft, sappy fuck over Katara— that’s nothing compared to Ambassdor Sokka’s ridiculous, stupid love for Fire Lord Zuko.
And here's one more, just to round out the set:
To see Zuko and not know him is to assume that he’s cold and prickly and beautiful— and emotionally constipated. If more people understood the depth to which the man feels and his capacity for care, they’d never think that about him again. He gives Sokka everything he needs on sheer instinct without even trying and solely on the basis of being himself, and that’s more precious than anything else in the world.
He cares hard— about his country, about his family, and about Sokka. He just doesn’t seem to always understand why that’s so damned special.
“I just—“ Zuko begins, cuts himself off, opens his mouth to try again.
Nothing comes out, and Sokka gives him a full-body squeeze to encourage him.
“Maybe next time, you could, uh…”
“Yes?”
Rushing him does nothing but make him shut down, Sokka’s learned the hard way. Patience isn’t something that comes naturally, but it’s something that he’s learning, just like Zuko’s slowly learning to communicate.
“Maybe next time, I want you to, uh, hold me down.”
Sokka blinks at him, thrown and slightly spellbound. Zuko misinterprets the look on his face for confusion and elaborates with a gesture only: lifts his wrists and holds them together.
Sokka’s mouth goes dry as the Si Wong desert and his entire body burns.
“I think, uh, I think we can make that happen.”
Sokka’s got three fingers inside Zuko when he brings it up again, casually, like he’s discussing the weather instead of a kink negotiation.
“Do you want me to hold your wrists or tie them up?” he asks, “I’m fine with either.”
Zuko heaves a hard, gasping breath and whimpers a little. His hands twist at the sheets, and Sokka runs his free hand down his bare side.
“Talk to me, sweetheart.”
Zuko looks like he’s on another planet right now, and Sokka hasn’t even properly fucked him yet, dazed and blissed out and not quite on the edge of incoherent but definitely a little bit sex-loopy. He’s at his most honest like this, and less likely to keep his opinions to himself for the sake of Sokka’s pride.
“Do you—fuck, Sokka—do you think you can hold them?”
“Yeah, I can hold them.”
Not if Zuko decides to really fight him or push, but neither of them are really into that sort of dynamic anyway. No means no and stop means stop, and if Zuko really decides to fight him about it, it’s not something that Sokka wants anyway.
Sometimes, though, Zuko just wants somebody else to boss him around a little, like being on a boat you're not expected to steer, and Sokka delights in it.
Zuko tilts his face up to be kissed, and Sokka obliges without a second thought. A face like that is made for kissing, and Zuko loves it. Sokka kisses him sweet and filthy, grins when Zuko’s hands frame his cheeks and reel him in closer, runs his thumbs up and down his jawline to map him out all over again.
No one else has ever touched Sokka like he’s precious, and it makes him weak as hell.
Sokka times the thrust of his fingers with Zuko’s shivery breaths.
“Fuck, Sokka, fuck—“
“That’s the plan, sweetheart,” Sokka tells him and pulls his fingers out, uses both hands to grab Zuko by the hips and pull him flush against him. “That is the plan.”
Zuko grins at him and reaches out to close his fingers around Sokka’s dick, stroking firmly from root to tip. He’s excited, but he’s nervous.
Sokka kisses him again, for his nerves, then lines himself up at his entrance, pushing in bit by bit, slower than strictly necessary because watching Zuko’s face when he first takes his cock is one of the best things in the world. He bites his lip at the stretch, and he feels fucking perfect.
Sokka lets him keep his hands until he bottoms out. Zuko adjusts his legs around his hips and hooks his ankles around his back, squirms a little bit. Sokka pointedly doesn’t move an inch.
“We still good to go?” He asks with an obvious hand gesture, and struggles to keep his tone conversational, to not make this A Big Deal. Zuko goes very still and very quiet, and this is something that Sokka wants really badly, but not if he’s changed his mind.
“Yeah, we’re good,” he replies finally, and holds up his hands for Sokka to take. His voice is soft and a little shaky from a combination of nerves and having Sokka inside him for so long without moving. Sokka crosses Zuko’s hands at his wrists and holds, very gently, then puts them up over his head, pressing down with both of his own.
Zuko tests the pressure experimentally. Sokka gives a little.
“More or less?” He asks.
“More, I think,” Zuko mumbles, testing Sokka’s hold again. This time he doesn’t budge.
Zuko swallows hard.
“O-oh,” he whispers, “Oh.”
Sokka goes weak in the knees at the way his voice trembles and the way his gold eyes go huge, staring up at Sokka like he’s never seen him before. He tests Sokka’s grip on him again and this time, instead of merely resisting, Sokka presses his hands down firmly into the mattress.
“Talk to me, baby. Is this good? Is this what you wanted?” A verbal check in is crucial because sometimes Zuko will get overwhelmed and go quiet and won’t volunteer information himself. It could be easy, if he’s not careful, to mistake that quiet for consent.
Zuko nods his head so hard his bangs flop into his eyes. Sokka blows them back out of his face with a vigorous breath of air.
“Yes, yes, yes, that’s what I wanted, fuck, it feels really good,” the words tumble out of him quickly like Zuko can’t hold them back. Good communication deserves more kisses.
Zuko kisses him like he’s been dying without it, like Sokka’s mouth is his first drink of water in a month.
“Fuck, sweetheart, look at you. Snow and sea, Zuko,” Sokka whispers into his mouth, “Can I move? Are you good? Gonna make you feel so fucking good, baby.”
Zuko gives another enthusiastic, but wordless, nod and whines a little from deep in his throat. It’s different than usual, breathy and needy and gorgeous. Sokka gives him a single, firm thrust out and back into him, presses his hands down hard when Zuko strains against his hold.
“Tell me how it feels. You’re so pretty when you take it like this, so good, sweetheart, so good for me,” Sokka babbles into Zuko’s neck, kisses his throat, his pulse point.
The combination of praise and pressure and sensation have Zuko half out of his mind, but even like this, he doesn’t seem to have it in him to fight it. His eyes are still huge and glassy and his grip around Sokka’s hips is tight. He’s not normally very chatty in bed, not like Sokka, but Sokka needs to hear it now in words, not just his own experienced assessments.
” Full, so good in me, f-fire and ash, you feel so good—”
“You like it when I hold you down? You like that I’m strong enough to do this for you?”
Sokka sets a firm, steady rhythm that’s slow enough to be just this side of torturous.
Zuko whines at him again.
“Come on.”
“You’re gonna get it just the way you deserve, honey, gonna fuck you for hours so you feel it for a whole damn week.” Hours is definitely an exaggeration but Sokka’s got enough stamina to keep this up for a good long while, and Zuko knows it.
The noise that comes out of him is not entirely unlike a sob.
Zuko plays like he wants it fast and hard and rough but Sokka knows better— knows that what he loves more than anything else is to be treated gently, even when it pulls him apart into a thousand pieces, and Sokka has every intention of pulling him apart. With love.
Sokka shifts his grip on Zuko’s hands so that he can hold both of them in one of his own, and uses his free hand to run through his hair and tilt Zuko’s head to more easily nibble at the underside of his jaw. That free hand travels downward to stroke gently at Zuko’s ignored, weeping erection, and Sokka relishes in the way Fire Lord Zuko shivers.
He wants to press his warmth and his touch into Zuko’s skin so he feels it all the time.
“Still doing good?”
“Other than you being fucking rude?” Zuko snaps back but it’s belied by how his breathing stutters with every very slow, purposeful movement inside him and the way his eyes are looking a little bit wet already.
“Stop acting like you don’t love every second of this,” Sokka replies and gives him a particularly hard thrust that has them both seeing stars, just to be nice, “I love you, and I’m going to fuck you that way.”
Slowly, and sweetly, until they both shatter.
It doesn’t matter how many times he says it; telling Zuko that he loves him never fails to throw him. Even now there’s still that split second where the look on his face goes shocked and lost with an expression like really?, and nothing but time is really going to fix that.
“...I love you, too.”
And somehow, hearing him say it back is just like the first time. Sokka’s heart goes warm and soft and twisty, like it’s suddenly too big for his body.
“Oh, sweetheart, I know you do. I always know it.” And he does, even when he doesn’t always hear it in those specific words. He hears I love you in have you eaten? and he hears it every time Zuko goes absolutely frosty when one of his advisors tries to sweep Sokka’s input under the rug, and he hears it in the middle of the night when it’s quiet and Zuko puts himself to sleep with the sound of Sokka’s breathing. He doesn’t have to hear the words to know that they’re true.
But hearing them one more time never hurts.
“Do you want your hands back?” Sokka asks gently. Zuko’s not so much breathing as he’s taking shallow gulps of air through his mouth, and Sokka’s a little concerned that he’s going to pass out if it gets to be too much.
Zuko shakes his head the tiniest bit, and Sokka frowns and shakes his head right back.
“Words, please. Use your words.”
“N-no,” he mumbles, “It’s good, it’s really good, it’s just—“ Zuko’s words break in the face of sharp, hitching breath, and he grinds his hips desperately into Sokka’s next push, “It's a lot, and it’s not enough. I think I’m dying.”
Sokka snorts a laugh.
“You’re not dying.”
“You’re being really mean to me right now.” Dramatically bratty is a pretty cute look on him in bed, and Sokka stills entirely, leans down, and lips at the shell of Zuko’s ear.
“You make it so easy, though,” he replies with a grin, even though Zuko can’t see it. “Why wouldn’t I want to take my time when it’s something I enjoy, and it’s something that you love, and when you look so fucking pretty on your back with my cock inside you. If you could see yourself right now you’d never want to stop either.”
Zuko goes a brilliant, mortified red from his cheeks all the way down his neck and he closes his eyes, strains once against Sokka’s firm hold on his hands, and swallows again. He might actually be steaming, Sokka realizes in stunned amazement.
“This is really doing it for you, huh?”
“Shut up.”
“Don’t think I will.” Despite his put upon show of irritation, Zuko kisses him back with enthusiasm the second Sokka’s mouth is back in kissing range, with tongue and teeth and whispery moans. “Your arms have been up a while, shoulders still doing okay?”
“I’m not that old, asshole, my shoulders are fine. Unless—“
“It’s definitely not gonna make me hurry up, if that’s what you’re implying,” Sokka replies cheerfully. “I’ve got plenty of time and nowhere to be.”
“So that’s your m-master plan?”
“No.” Sokka leans down again and kisses Zuko on the nose. “The master plan is to fuck you ‘til you don’t remember your own name, give you the orgasm of your life, and then make you stay in bed with me past sunup. Also, I want breakfast in bed. Can you do that for me, Your Majesty?”
Zuko looks just as stunned this time as he did the first time Sokka called him that during sex, and it’s just as satisfying now as it was then. Zuko’s so, so easy to please, but Sokka delights in being surprising. Looking dazed, he nods absently, fingers curling around Sokka’s hands.
Sokka shifts his grip so that he can slot his fingers into the spaces between Zuko’s, squeezing firmly.
“Thank you,” he says politely, and fucks into him so deep and sharp that Zuko lets out a startled wail before he can even think to pull it back, “I’ve got you, baby. You’re fine, I’ve got you.” Sokka’s not going to last much longer, now, but he doesn’t really need to. Zuko’s whole body is loose and pliant except for his ass, which still has Sokka in a mind-blowing vice grip, and his head tips a little every time Sokka pushes back into him.
He’s stunning.
Sokka’s only regret in life is that he’s nowhere near flexible enough to get Zuko’s dick in his mouth and fuck him at the same time. He drops down to press his whole body flush against Zuko’s, litters his neck and collarbone with kisses. Zuko’s hard, hard cock nudges at his belly.
“Can you— I need you to touch—“
“My hands are busy, sweetheart,” Sokka says, “Holding you down like you asked so nicely for. I think you can come without them.”
The noise that comes out of his partner is definitely a sob.
“I can’t, Sokka, I can't—“
“I think you can,” Sokka tells him. “Come on, baby, you can, you’re always so good for me, you can.” He accentuates his words with his hips, drawing a gorgeous hybrid of a gasp and a cry out of Zuko. “Whenever you’re ready, I’m ready. I’ve got you. You want me to come inside you?”
Zuko nods hard, opens his mouth to say something but no words come out. His hands keep a white-knuckled grip on Sokka’s.
“Good answer, honey. It’s gonna feel so good, right? You like it?” Another silent, dazed nod. “Not gonna come ‘til you do, and when I do I’m gonna fill you up, and then fuck it back into you ‘til I can’t anymore. Can I do that for you, sweetheart? Is that what you want?”
Zuko doesn’t have an answer and Sokka’s not sure if it’s his ability to hold a one-sided conversation or overstimulation that finally tips him over the edge, but seconds later Zuko’s slamming his eyes shut. A cry slips out between gritted teeth, his back bends up in a graceful arc, and then he’s painting both of their stomachs with white.
Sokka grins wide and bright and with teeth and proceeds to do exactly as he promised: releases Zuko’s hands and grabs him by the hips to bury himself to the hilt to hit the sweet spot that makes Zuko sound like he’s dying, and almost immediately comes so hard that his vision tunnels. Zuko gasps brokenly as Sokka fucks him through his orgasm, keeps going until he’s too tired and too soft to do it anymore, and finally pulls out properly, drawing a wince from both of them.
Wrecked is the only word to describe Fire Lord Zuko right now, Sokka decides. Splayed out and shivering and covered in his own spend and Sokka’s too, and somehow he still manages to be the most beautiful thing that Sokka’s ever seen in his life.
Throughout the whole thing, despite being free to do as they pleased, Zuko’s hands haven’t moved. They’ve stayed, clenched and trembling, over his head where Sokka put them.
First order of business is to hunt down a towel, which Sokka does quickly. He settles down on the bed and makes quick work of cleaning them both up as best he can without an actual bath. An actual bath is necessary— extremely necessary, but not until tomorrow.
“Hey, are you okay?”
Zuko hasn’t moved or spoken throughout the whole process but at Sokka’s question, he cracks his eyes open and gives a soft, inquisitive groan. Sokka lays down next to him, propping himself up on his elbow, and gently taps Zuko’s hands, which still haven’t moved. He’s forgotten about them, Sokka realizes with shocked delight, because the moment they’re touched Zuko jerks like he’s been burned and yanks them down to a more normal position.
“I think you broke me,” Zuko mumbles and scoots closer to fit himself comfortably into the curve of Sokka’s body.
“What’s the punishment for breaking the Fire Lord these days? Hanging? Public mockery? Stripping of titles?” Sokka asks, arranging Zuko in his arms like it hasn’t taken literal years to get to this point, smoothes his dark hair down to something like order. The other man hums consideringly under his breath and allows it.
“Something cruel and unusual. Cuddles,” Zuko decides. “A good nap.”
“For a minimum of ten hours.”
“For a minimum of however long I end up sleeping.”
“For a minimum of ten solid hours because your sleep habits are terrible. Also, breakfast in bed,” Sokka tells him firmly. “No other punishment could possibly compare.”
Zuko’s already mostly gone, blinking very slowly and rubbing his nose against Sokka’s collarbone. It’s so unbelievably endearing that Sokka’s breath catches somewhere between his heart and his lungs.
“I think that can happen.” Zuko might have been about to say something else, except that he’s interrupted by a huge, jaw cracking yawn. Sokka grins down at him and reaches down to grab at the blankets that were pushed down to the foot of the bed when this first started, and pulls them up to cover them both.
Zuko snuffs the lamp with a quick little jerk of his hand, and the room plunges into darkness.
“I love you,” Zuko whispers quietly. “I know I don’t tell you enough.”
Sokka’s heart squeezes and so do his arms around this ridiculous man.
“What’s enough?” He asks. “Is there such a thing?” Sokka doesn’t think that there is. Zuko whuffs out a sleepy, considering breath. “You don’t have to say it all the time. I love to hear it but just because you don’t say it as much as I do doesn’t mean it’s not there.”
Zuko needs things spelled out for him sometimes, needs the words because he doesn’t always see the actions. Sokka doesn’t.
“I don’t know how it’s so easy for you. How do you just know?”
It’s easy because Sokka has never doubted that he was loved, never once doubted Dad or Katara or Gran-Gran when they told him so and then backed it up with actions that matched. Zuko’s experiences have made him simultaneously suspicious and a little oblivious, but above all insecure, and he desperately needs those words. But all Sokka has to do is look at Zuko to know that he’s loved, intensely, generously, wholly. Zuko is just now learning how to do the same.
Of course, Sokka can’t tell him this. It’ll embarrass him in the not-good-fun-sexy way and Sokka is not here for that.
He wants to marry this man someday, and that’s such a sudden, unexpected revelation that Sokka doesn’t even know where to put it. He tables it for another time, when he’s not still basking in post-coital afterglow. Zuko’s caught him out, though, or at least caught that he’s thinking about something big because when he looks at him, some of the tiredness has faded out of his eyes.
“What are you thinking about?”
“How damn cute you are.”
Zuko snorts.
“Bullshit.”
Sokka grins.
“It’s not a bad thing,” he concedes, finally. “It’s not bad, I promise. Just...let me keep it to myself for a little while.” If Zuko pries then Sokka will definitely spill his guts, like he always does, because he doesn’t know how to deny him hardly anything.
There’s the flash of instinctual flash of anxious suspicion that stems from a lifetime of self-preservation, and Sokka resigns himself to a potentially horrible conversation when all he really wants to do is go to sleep and maybe wake up to some fresh quiche. And then Zuko sighs, yawns...and lets it go.
“Fine,” he mumbles when all Sokka can do is stare in shock. “I trust you.”
And somehow that hits harder even than a declaration of love. Sokka chokes on his own air and tries desperately to keep his heart in his chest.
Zuko doesn’t call him out again, just settles into Sokka’s hold and lets his eyes drop shut. His breathing evens out almost instantly and within minutes he’s asleep.
Sokka’s awake a little longer but he must pass out at some point, because the sun’s up when he wakes. Zuko’s already awake, because firebenders and their waking-up-at-daybreak thing, but hasn’t left bed yet. Instead he’s sitting up and Sokka realizes that his pillow is actually one of Zuko’s thighs. One hand is shuffling absently through a stack of paperwork, the other runs through Sokka’s hair.
“Good morning, weirdo,” Sokka tells him.
Zuko keeps reading but snorts a little under his breath. Sokka doesn’t know how he manages to make a snort sound affectionate, but Zuko pulls it off.
“I could write an essay on how you’re way weirder than I am.”
“That’s not nice.”
“I’m not nice.”
“Yes, you are.”
Sokka can only hold his serious expression for so long when Zuko gives him his patented tolerantly-exasperated face. That face is hilarious and he loves it, and he needs to carry a picture of it around with him to whip out every time someone implies that Zuko’s frigid or bitchy.
“Did you still want breakfast?” Zuko asks without looking at him, and Sokka hears the words and hears I love you burned into them like a brand. “You probably want quiche.”
Sokka always wants quiche, and it’s such a little thing but suddenly, his unexpected epiphany from last night is way less scary than it was. He rolls over to look up at Zuko properly, beaming.
“You’re my favorite.”
”You’re okay, I guess.”
Sokka sputters dramatically just to watch Zuko’s smirk, takes his hand and presses a kiss to his palm.
Things happen how they happen, he thinks, and he’s not in a rush, but maybe that important talk’s going to be happening sooner rather than later.