This was written as part of a multi-fandom soulmate challenge set, for the prompt 'Alone'.

"Hey, what are we stopping fo-"

A quiet clang interrupted him, and as a gently-rough hand took hold of his shoulder Sokka let himself be shoved along into. . . Dull red light filled the room, clearing as the flame steadied in the lantern - a closet. A moment later footsteps marched by outside the closed door and Sokka let out a breath of relief - he hadn't heard the hurried steps himself until just as Zuko grabbed hold of him.

Zuko dropped down to sit on the floor beside the door, sharp eyes focused as though he could see through it. "Once it's quiet we can find our way up to steal some guard uniforms, blend in before we're seen." he suggested. "The shifts should switch for the night in a few hours, that's probably our best chance to go unnoticed."

Sokka nodded, though Zuko wasn't really looking at him. "Right." He looked around the closet, then started poking through the supplies on the shelves - Zuko flicked a glance at him but didn't say anything, and Sokka just kept his rummaging quiet. No clothes or armour appeared to be stored here, but he found lamp oil, lanterns, some small knives, and messenger hawk jesses and harnesses, among other odds and ends.

Sokka glanced sideways at Zuko. He was hiding in a supply closet in the Fire Nation's most secure - and terrifying - prison, being helped by the Fire Nation Prince who had made their lives terrifying and difficult for so long.

Mostly Sokka took the craziness his life brought him in stride, but sometimes it just demanded acknowledgement, however brief. He shook his head and went back to poking around for anything useful or entertaining.

"There are still patrols going by the end of this hallway." Zuko said, voice low, a little while later.

"Okay." Sokka said easily, taking a seat near the door but opposite Zuko and leaning back against the wall. "We'll wait until things are really quiet."

Zuko nodded, seemingly unbothered by the notion of waiting in this supply closet for as long as it took - Sokka didn't have to think too hard to remember some of the things Zuko had done while chasing them down, and was hardly surprised.

He did keep sliding looks sideways at Sokka, though, and Sokka was starting to feel nervy. Not that he didn't trust Zuko - although, thinking that interrupted his thought process for a few minutes as he realised it was actually completely true, now.

"You know," Sokka said eventually, "I can wait patiently."

Zuko startled visibly, head coming up and eyes catching on Sokka's face.

"I'm not about to snap and run out of the closet." Sokka continued, making a face at Zuko and then wondering if the other boy would actually interpret it as joking.

"But waiting patiently and being silent?" Zuko said, his lips pursing, and Sokka eyed him cautiously. "At any moment I'm expecting you to explode. Or reveal that you're not Sokka, but some imposter."

Sokka gaped for a moment, then realised Zuko was snickering, and grinned, even as he reached out and swatted lightly at Zuko's arm. He was actually a little bit proud that Zuko had even attempted a joke. "You look very focused. Just trying not to interrupt a zen moment." he teased. "Interrupting a firebender's zen sounds like a bad idea." he added only half playfully.

"Ha!" Zuko huffed, shaking his head. He sank back and crossed his arms. "I've never exactly been very . . . zen."

"That . . . might be an understatement." Sokka said thoughtfully, and Zuko gave him a sharp look. "You, uh, never seemed very . . . relaxed, back. . ." He waved one hand illustratively, referring to their somewhat rocky past interactions.

"No." Zuko said, voice going almost flat, and Sokka kept quiet. Zuko didn't say anything else, and Sokka didn't press him for a while. He looked a little angry but mostly just . . . upset, maybe confused. Sokka left him to his thoughts and let his own mind wander, eyes following the edges of the flickering shadows against the wall beyond his friend.

"Zuko?" Sokka spoke again after a while, and Zuko made a low sound of acknowledgement without moving.

"Um. How do you write your name?" Sokka asked, and Zuko turned to look at him, eyebrow arching. "Only, uh, I've only seen it on wanted posters and I couldn't think-" he broke off awkwardly, because that was probably a tactless reminder. And if it were actually how Zuko wrote his name. . .

"No." Zuko almost spat, and Sokka fidgeted. "No, that's not- That isn't the name my mother gave me." he said more softly.

"How did she write it?" Sokka asked gently, and Zuko looked at him, sharp and wary. Sokka didn't take any offense at the reaction, and wouldn't have even if he hadn't also been able to see the aching pain in Zuko's eyes.

"Why do you care?" Zuko asked, guarded.

"Well, we're trying to get to know each other, right? We're . . . friends, now." Sokka said, on a little shakier ground there, but willing to try. He was certainly feeling a lot more confident in Zuko since he had gone on his trip with Aang - and since he had ambushed Sokka and refused to let him go on this trip alone. "We don't use the same letters- ah, characters, back home, and I'm still figuring out the ones your people use. You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to." he added, even though he was really curious.

Zuko's lips twitched and he nodded, shifting. He reached up and plucked a thin strip of wood from a box Sokka had rummaged through earlier, charring the end in the lantern. He moved to kneel by Sokka and dragged the charred end of the stick over the floor, forming two complex, spiky characters.

Sokka leaned forward and looked at them more closely. 蘇科. He swallowed hard. He did know that name, had known it by sight if not by sound since long before he'd been able to read any of the Fire Nation characters.

Sokka hadn't learned the first one - it must be more obscure, because he hadn't been able to track it down when he looked, back in Ba Sing Se, and he hadn't wanted to ask for help - but the second . . . family. Zuko's mother had named him for his family, Sokka thought, and tried not to wince.

"How do you write your name?" Zuko asked, startling Sokka. He had to drag his eyes away from the surprisingly neat strokes Zuko had written. Not quite so elegantly formed as Sokka was used to seeing them, but. . .

"Ah, we don't use the same characters you do." Sokka said, swallowing nervously. "Or- Or in the Earth Kingdom. . ."

"I know that." Zuko said, surprisingly patiently. "I can't read it, I've barely even seen any, but I do know your script is different. And they read it a little differently than we do in the Earth Kingdom." he added, which Sokka hadn't actually known.

"Oh." Sokka fidgeted.

"You don't have to show me." Zuko said, turning away, putting the burnt stick aside.

Sokka winced, but leaned forwards. "Hand me. . ?" he asked, and Zuko looked back, surprise lightening his expression. He retrieved the stick, settled back on his knees beside Sokka, and passed it over.

Sokka's fingers twitched nervously on the wood, but he leaned forward, choosing a spot just beside Zuko's name, and set the charred end to the floor. It was a rough surface, and his fingers were still trembling a little, but Sokka didn't have to think to draw the right lines. He sketched out his name, then leaned back looking at it side-by-side with Zuko's name. They looked like they came from two different worlds.

蘇科 . . . ᓵᒃᑲ.

Sokka had to look at Zuko, had to see his reaction, but it was . . . hard.

He tilted his head, glancing warily sideways. He could mostly only see Zuko's shaggy hair and the scar spreading over his face from here, he couldn't tell what-

"So this is how you write in the Water Tribe?" Zuko said, his voice perfectly calm. Sokka felt a tight, cold knot in his stomach.

"Yeah." Sokka said, rolling the stick in his fingers, hoping to distract himself. He looked at Zuko, fingers tightening on the slim piece of wood. "I guess you haven't really-"

"Don't play stupid." Zuko said sharply, and Sokka jumped. "Is your name common among your people?" he asked, something strange and unreadable in his eyes as he turned to meet Sokka's gaze squarely.

"I. . . Um. No." Sokka said softly. "Is yours?"

Zuko snorted, not quite a laugh. "No." he said shortly.

There was a pause as Sokka's eyes strayed back to the charcoal marks on the floor.

"You know I've seen your script before. Not much, but that at least." Zuko said firmly, and his confidence left Sokka feeling slightly ashamed of his own nervous uncertainty, until he saw the slight tremble in Zuko's jaw as he lifted it a tiny bit further. "Your name, at least. Don't you." It wasn't quite a question.

Sokka swallowed. "Yes." he said softly. "I . . . didn't, before." he added after a moment. "I didn't know. . ."

"You suspected?" Zuko asked, eyes flicking up. He held out his arm and Sokka realised the ever-present leather band was gone, baring-

Sokka shivered. He had known, now, after Zuko wrote his name, after he said- But. In smooth, neat lines, there was Sokka's name on Zuko's skin, shaded a deep grey, and it felt like all the air had been punched out of Sokka's lungs. He'd known it would be there, but somehow it was different to see it.

"I wasn't sure what to think." Sokka said distractedly. He fumbled belatedly for his wrist, fingers suddenly clumsy as he pulled at the fabric wrappings. "I mean obviously I had no idea for a . . . long time, but when we were in the Earth Kingdom I tried to find out what it read without, you know, showing anyone. . . And then, I don't know." he faltered, looking up to meet Zuko's eyes again. He swallowed. "With you joining us. . ."

Zuko reached out, steadying Sokka's hand, and he turned over the end of the wrapping around his forearm. Zuko looked startled, and he hesitated before he unwound the long strips of fabric. Sokka's glove had to come off, too, before the deep grey characters came into sight.

Smooth and perfect, unlike the ones Zuko had scratched onto the floor, though they were still oddly spiky. Zuko trailed his fingers over Sokka's wrist, murmuring his own name.

"So I," Sokka began, then faltered, "I didn't realise. . . I'm not-"

Zuko curled a hand behind his neck and yanked him forwards, into a kiss that wasn't nearly as rough as the gesture had made him expect. Sokka squeaked as he was dragged up against Zuko's hip and thigh, closed his eyes with a soft flutter of lashes, and caught Zuko's hand in his as he returned the kiss.

Zuko drew back only a few moments later, and Sokka blinked, thrown. Zuko swallowed visibly, looking down, and his fingers twitched in Sokka's grip.

He looked down as well, and saw the grey lines on both their wrists suffusing with pure black. Sokka stared. He'd known it would happen, he told himself, and it had been obvious - their names were both too unusual, Sokka's barely even used among his people and Zuko's, with the way the Fire Nation wrote names, maybe even utterly unique - but seeing. . .

It only took a few breaths before both names were solid black, stark and sure.

Zuko muttered something Sokka didn't catch, and he squeezed Zuko's hand without thinking about it, making a sound.

"It's real." Zuko said quietly, looking up to meet Sokka's eyes again.

Sokka nodded jerkily, not quite sure how he felt and even more lost by trying to figure out what Zuko was thinking. Zuko cocked his head. "It's been quiet for a while. We can get moving." he said. Sokka blinked, tightening his grip on Zuko as he rose and moved away, thrown.

Zuko stopped rather than yank at Sokka's hold on him, looking back over his shoulder. His eyes were wide and there was something perilously close to fear in them, as there hadn't been even when they drifted in riding a falling war balloon, nearly sinking into the boiling lake, to be stranded here in the prison they were breaking into. Sokka didn't know what to think of this but he realised that, if anything, maybe Zuko didn't either.

He swallowed, thumb rubbing gently over the side of Zuko's hand, then let him go and rose to follow him. "Okay. Let's go, then."

Zuko smiled, the fierce, determined one Sokka was still getting used to, and scuffed out the charcoal marks of their names written across the floor before he opened the door to the dark, deserted hallway beyond. Sokka put out the lantern in the storage room and trusted Zuko's sharper vision to guide them.

A note on the names I used! Zuko's is canon (as is the fact that it was written differently/incorrectly on his wanted poster) Sokka's is . . . not.

蘇科 - the characters used for Zuko's name on the title card in Tales of Ba Sing Se; translates to awaken family. (It was written 祖寇, translating to ancestral bandit, on his wanted poster.)

ᓵᒃᑲ - Sokka spelled out in the Inuktitut syllabary. (Which I do not know; I did my research and my best.)

It makes sense to me for the four peoples to use different scripts, even if we handwave that they (mostly) all speak the same language. We see Chinese characters used in the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom, but it would make sense to me if the Earth Kingdom read some characters differently (as Korea and Japan do with Chinese characters in our world), and the Earth Kingdom may also use something like hangeul (the Korean writing system). Air Nomads I considered and would have chosen the Tibetan alphabet as most fitting, if it had been relevant in this story. For the Water Tribe I thought Inuktitut, the Inuit syllabary/writing system, was most fitting.