i hope you dont mind i turned this into a sequel to this prompt
It’s Katara that meets the ambulance at the hospital, because of course it is.
The doors open, and she takes one look at them - Sokka with his cartoon head bump and Zuko with his scar and leaves in his hair - and demands, immediately, “What did you do?”
“Nothing!” Sokka says, as he’s carted out of the ambulance on the stupid gurney.
Katara glares at him.
“I swear,” he promises, “I didn’t do anything. There was a bird -”
“He ran me into some bushes on his bike,” Zuko says.
Katara looks at him. “And you are?”
“Zuko. Total stranger.”
Sokka watches her watching him - how he doesn’t offer her a hand to shake, how he keeps a tight grip on the side of the gurney, how he shrinks a little under her stare - and feels the desperate kind of embarrassment he usually associates with Meeting The Parents. Which is strange, because he’s older than Katara, and it’s not like he’s got any reason to want her approval, or whatever it is he’s checking her face for. Not that it would matter if she didn’t give it, since there’s nothing to approve of right now, but - it’d be nice if she didn’t immediately hate the perfectly nice hot stranger he crashed his bike into, especially since he’d kind of like for there to maybe be something to approve of at some point.
Beside him, Zuko groans inwardly, but when Sokka looks at him, there’s a slow grin cracking across his face.
“I’m doing it again, aren’t I?” Sokka asks.
“Yeah, buddy, you are.”
“Oh, good. Always nice to give my sister a reason to make fun of me.”
“Sister?”
“Unfortunately,” Katara says. She offers him a hand off the gurney and helps to steady him on their way into an exam room. “Let’s get you checked out, huh?”
“The, um - the paramedic said he might have a concussion,” Zuko says. He’s hovering at the edge of the cubicle, all arms crossed over broad chest and concerned eyes and frankly obscene bone structure and - blushing. Cheeks flushed pink and fond smile and god, shut your mouth already, Sokka.
“You know what,” Katara says, looking away from Sokka to eye Zuko up and down. “Let me get a look at you first, and then you can get out of here and my idiot brother can stop harassing you.”
He huffs and puffs about it, but he sits on the edge of the exam bed, as far away from Sokka as he can, and lets her take the ten minutes she needs to check him over.
Sokka doesn’t mean to stare, and he really tries not to, but - he’s right there, and he’s handsome. And this exam room is not so much a room as it is a bed surrounded by a curtain, so there’s not a lot else that’s interesting enough to hold his attention. And Katara’s busy, so she can’t even make fun of him for it.
Katara snorts. “I absolutely can. I am choosing not to for the sake of our company.”
“You could just tell me I’m talking out loud, you know,” Sokka says.
“Where’s the fun in that?” Katara smirks at him, and then rears back away from prodding at Zuko’s bruises. “That big one on your ribs will take a couple of weeks to go down, and you’ll need to be careful not to fall into any more rose bushes, but other than that, nothing’s wrong with you.”
I’ll say, Sokka thinks. Except that Katara rolls her eyes at him, and Zuko turns a very alarming shade of red, so he knows that thought did not stay where he left it.
Katara strips off her gloves and fishes a fresh pair from a dispenser attached to the wall. “I cannot wait to tell Dad about this.”
“Katara -”
“Shut up. Follow the light for me.”
She flashes a torch in his eyes, and he blinks against it.
“Stop being a baby,” she says. Then, not taking her eyes off him, she says, “You can leave now, Zuko Total Stranger. I can'timagine you want to stick around for the stitches.”
And it’s - here’s the thing. Sokka has known Zuko for about an hour. That’s just not long enough to get to know someone, and it’s definitely not long enough for Sokka to have gotten his fill of looking at someone as pretty as him - which is not the whole point, but is certainly a point - and anyway, how’s he supposed to figure out the details of this dinner arrangement if Zuko’s just going to leave -
“I’d like to stay,” Zuko says. “If - if that’s okay. Is that okay?”
Katara’s eyes flick between them. “Are you asking me or him?”
“Um,” Zuko says. Sokka looks at him, and catches the barest flicker of fondness in his eyes as he meets his gaze. “Is it okay? If I stay?”
“Yeah,” Sokka says, and for once he’s conscious of speaking. “Stay.”
The fondness in Zuko’s eyes is warm and glowing and spreading down into his smile. He takes Sokka’s hand, and Sokka doesn’t care that Katara is rolling her eyes and muttering obscenities under her breath.
Anyone who says you can’t give flowers to boys clearly hasn’t tried it. Seriously, give a boy some roses, they get adorably flustered and go all red. It’s the most precious thing.
Psst, hey, kids, do you like crying while reading a fanfiction? Then I can recommend you this absolutely amazing story Blue by @hollypunkers if you haven’t read it yet
❤
I absolutely love it with all my heart and my today’s little comic is a scene from this wonderful work
concept: after the war ends, iroh is fire lord. azula is being treated, but zuko decides maybe he could use help too and starts therapy. it takes a few years, but he’s finally able to work through some stuff, and learns to let himself be more open and vulnerable. he confesses his feelings for sokka just to get the words out of his stomach, knowing full well it’s unrequited but being pretty calm and accepting of it, not even breaking a sweat or letting his smile falter when sokka, fully taken aback, says sorry, i don’t feel that way about you. their friendship doesn’t suffer. zuko feels much better after getting his feelings off his chest and is looking forward to a point where maybe he finds someone else to fall for, but the confession always kind of sticks in the back of sokka’s mind. cut to several years later, iroh is looking for an ambassador to send to the south pole to represent the fire nation, and asks zuko if he’d be interested. it doesn’t take much convincing. he and sokka spend practically every day working and spending time together, and zuko realizes just how little his feelings have changed over the years; still, he already told sokka how he felt once, he doesn’t feel the need to do so again. meanwhile sokka’s feelings are veryquickly changing, but zuko hasn’t said anything and sokka is worried that he’s too late and missed his chance. it takes months and months, time sokka spends accidentally falling more in love, before he decides that the least he can do after zuko was so brave in confessing years ago is to be brave and confess back.
zuko doesn’t recognize that sokka’s catching feelings because he’s too busy trying real hard to be a Good Ambassador because he wants to make uncle proud and also hakoda too now because he gives big dad shoulder pats when zuko does something well and it shakes him to his core. also because sokka is real nice to everyone, so how is he supposed to know the difference. anyway when sokka does finally confess, zuko is really really confused, but like, in a good way.
i made myself laugh at my own stupid joke in the tags earlier so i turned it into a comic lmfao
im so sorry zuko, i know you aren’t this much of a dumbass.
![syblatortue:
“Black Whip is for pulling your hot boyfriend in harder
[full version on twitter]
”](https://64.media.tumblr.com/710faf847a52d675f6120ea05346bd44/ddf7ef772a45f17f-23/s500x750/4c3a4bbb3b6d2a0e7d0e59966faefa426bf80c6d.png)
