056. Broken
There are many friendships that are whole and stay whole through the entire test of time, but sometimes Sokka thinks that the relationships existing in his little group of friends are not whole, not at all whole, but instead verging on the brink of shattering completely.
There's Aang, who's desperately in love with Katara; Katara, who struggles between Aang, the sweet, soft, and tender, and Zuko, the wild, the passionate, the dangerous. Sokka doesn't try to pretend he doesn't notice it: He sees Katara pull back when Aang kisses her just a little quicker than the Avatar would have liked and turn behind her to look for the familiar scar that announces Zuko's presence. Pity for the youngster brews in the pit of his stomach, burning with shame for his only sister, but he will stick by her and stay strong for her, because he knows she needs him when she's so conflicted.
And then there's Mai, who clings onto Zuko with an iron grip and rarely lets him go. Mai, who breaks Katara's heart with cold stares and colder words. She intimidates Sokka but he also harbors a dislike for her because of the hurt that she's put his baby sister through, and even though it's arguable that the hurt is Katara's own fault, Sokka's brotherly instincts kick in again and he becomes a protective wolf.
Then there's him and Suki, who seem perfect on the surface but who, underneath, shift every once in a while when he looks up at the moon, because in the moon there's Yue and in Yue there's all the sadness in the world, and there's no possible way to stay consistent anymore.
And of course there's Toph, wonderful steady Toph, directly in the very middle of all of it, trying with all her might to hold everyone together and make sense of this un-steerable crash-course. She pulls from each end of the cable and struggles with fixing them, because they are all she has and he knows that she has no idea what she'd do if she lost them.
It's the moments when he's looking up at Yue and feeling inexplicably wrecked inside that the siblings find each other by intuition and hold each other tight.
Their bond, perhaps, is the only unbreakable one, the only one that has not yet splintered into a thousand jagged pieces. When everything else is broken it is Katara who wraps her arms around him and holds him fiercely to her, tears brimming in her eyes as he snakes his own arms around her waist and buries his face in her fury jacket.
They sit under the low moon intertwined in a comforting embrace, their blood-bond unbroken and steady; they know how lucky they are to have each other, because alone they would be completely ruined on the inside.
Author's Note: This is NOT incestual. It's just Sokka's opinion on their group of friends, particularly on the relationship Katara has with Aang and Zuko and how Mai plays into that. I always imagine it being very obvious how conflicted she is between the two boys. ALSO, I just love family bonds. They're adorable, to be frank. You know. The love you have for a sibling. It's incomparable.
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