Team: Water Tribe
Round: 7
Category: Themed
Prompt: (1) First Line, "The sun set behind the mountain casting a beautiful glow across the valley."; (5) Pairing, Sokka/Zuko
Word Count: 1235
PS: This started out as a "brotherly love" type fic, as typically I don't ship Sokka and Zuko together. But as I was writing, it took on a more personal tone. It was a cathartic pleasure to write this one! Please enjoy!
The sun set behind the mountain casting a beautiful glow across the valley. Winter was right around the corner, the trees had yellow and orange leaves, adding to the warm colors of the moment. A light breeze whipped up from the valley below, giving the area a slight but pleasant chill to the air. Zuko preferred that. It would make this moment better, tolerable even. Sokka would have loved this weather.
It took some time, the wind made it hard to light candles, but everything was set up. He took the picture out of his bag and propped it up against his memorial shrine.
"I can't believe you've been gone a year, Sokka."
The words hung in the air, Zuko shivered a bit as the breeze took the opportunity to renew its force. When it died down, Zuko sat with a sigh, overlooking the valley. Uncomfortable silence, between him and his shrine. It was too quiet. He never could stand the quiet, he had to talk, even if it was just to himself.
"Aang is doing well, he's got his Avatar duties, but you know him, he can't slow down. I don't think he will until he joins you." Zuko cringed but kept going. "Uh, Katara is coping fairly well. She doesn't let her mind linger on you too long," He cringed again, why was this so hard? "Not that she doesn't think of you, or miss you, she just doesn't let the grief overwhelm her. She's doing some traditional Water Tribe memorial for you today. I'm not sure what that involves but she said it helps the healing process, you know for the heart, or whatever."
He sighed again, this was awkward and frustrating. If only Sokka was sitting right beside him, like old times. He never had trouble talking to him while he was alive. Why should him dying prove any different? The sun sank lower in the sky and the longer Zuko stared at Sokka's picture, the lonelier and sadder he became.
How many years had they spent together? Battling side by side on Team Avatar. Even after he became Fire Lord and Sokka became Southern Water Tribe Chief. All those many hours of planning and developing Republic City, the blood, sweat and tears they poured into improving relations between their two nations. All of that time together and not once could Zuko remember telling Sokka how he felt about him.
It was one of his greatest regrets in life.
Of course, it had taken a long time to figure out how he felt, what he felt. The closest he had come to this feeling was what he had felt towards his mother. After her, he had closed himself off. Of course, his uncle, but that was it. And it was a different feeling, the one he had for Sokka. A feeling he had been told his whole life was wrong, illegal, immoral.
He was in love with his best friend.
At first, it was confusing. Why was he so attached to Sokka? Why was it so easy to hang out? Sokka had been the first boy his age he had ever connected with, he thought that might have something to do with it. But as time went on, he started noticing the little things. Thinking about Sokka at random times, the physical objects that would remind him of him. Wanting to talk to him every day and having long detailed conversations about everything under the sun, their interests, fears, hopes, and dreams. He noticed how overprotective he became of Sokka, wanting to shield him in battle, making life risking and stupid decisions just to protect him. Once he started realizing how much he wanted to hold onto Sokka, his hand or give him a hug or just sit with him, that's when he knew something was wrong.
Wrong because same-sex love was forbidden in his Kingdom. When his grandfather had taken over, he decreed it illegal. People were rounded up, tortured and killed, over sexual preference! Zuko had never thought it was fair but he had always been told, even by his mother that loving someone of the same gender was wrong, a crime. And it had to be punished. Things didn't change a bit when his father became Fire Lord, it was more of the same. Zuko was told, specifically, that he was to marry some noble Fire Nation girl. He was raised to like girls. He was raised to fall in love with girls.
So how did he fall in love with Sokka?
After a while though, the why and the how seemed not to matter. He enjoyed his time with Sokka, he loved being with him. Over time, he grew to accept his feelings, accept who he was inside and that he loved another man. Sokka had never married, never had any kids. Zuko was pressured into a relationship, only because he couldn't leave the throne without an heir. He did, on some levels, love the woman but it was never as deep and as passionate as what he felt for Sokka.
Years later, just last year, if he was being exact, he had decided to tell Sokka everything. Come out with his true feelings. They were both older men, both had lived a long productive life and were about to hand over the reins of their respective Nations. They were both about to start a new chapter and Zuko felt it was now or never.
Fate had other plans, as it always inevitably does.
Zuko remembered the day like it was yesterday. Being told the love of your life and best friend was dead had those sort of lasting impacts. An accident was all anyone could tell him, involving one of those new automobile's, one had collided with another in Republic City. It was the first time that had ever happen. Sokka had been thrown from the one that was hit and crushed between them in the fallout. It seemed cruel, that a man that had helped with the innovation of the city should be killed by it. Irony at its worst.
The next few months were spent in a daze, the funeral, the changing over of power, moving on with his now empty life. Most days, he had felt like a shell, a hollow, beat up, ragged shell. Some days, he couldn't get out of bed and others, he would be so manic that he would run himself into severe exhaustion. That had gone on for about six months before Aang and Katara had finally put two and two together. He was grateful, even though they were grieving, they pulled him out of the darkness that seemed to be bound to him for life in one way or another. They gave him light and laughter again. It was Aang that had encouraged him to set this memorial up. To come up on the mountain to be alone with Sokka.
He had to admit, it was helping.
As the light began to fade from the valley, he wiped away his streaming tears and looked to the picture once more. He would finally say it, finally get it out of his heart and into the world. He took a deep breath.
"Sokka, I love you."
And could have sworn, without a shadow of a doubt that he felt a slap on his back and heard, "I love you too, man."