Zuko stumbles backwards, far past worn out and having long since come off his adrenaline high. The door won't budge, no matter how many times he rams into it. His phone's flashlight shines onto the ceiling, dimly illuminating the only exit of the tiny basement room. Not even the doors into the rest of the basement will move. There's nowhere to go.
He is trapped.
Zuko shoots a death glare at the unassuming bag from Bath and Body Works sitting by the opposite wall. He can't hear any ticking, but he's certain it's on a timer. And judging by what he'd heard the thugs say through the ringing in his ears before they tossed him in here and how much time he's already wasted, he only has an hour left at most. And that is definitely, to say the least, an optimistic guess.
He drags himself over to drop himself next to the bag. What can he do? Can he do anything? Calling for help would be no good- there's no one in the abandoned district to hear him and the police certainly wouldn't be able to reach him in time if he tried to call. Not to mention he'd probably just be arrested for all the trouble.
Zuko throws his Blue Spirit mask on the ground in frustration and buries his face in his hands. There's nothing he can do. He's trapped in an abandoned building in an abandoned district with no one for miles and a ticking time bomb he can't defuse.
One slip up got him in all this mess. One little mistake, and he's dead. He's dead .
Zuko's head snaps up. No, no, he is not dying today. He can't die today, he has so much he wants to do, he hasn't even-
He hasn't even told Sokka he loves him.
Zuko tears the bag in half and reaches his hands towards the bomb to take it apart and stops. He can't defuse a bomb. Don't they explode if they sense someone opening them? He feels like he saw that on some crime show at some point. Even such musings end up pointless, anyway- the bomb is in an iron box, nailed shut. Impossible to open, no matter how hard he keeps prying until his fingers bleed.
Zuko stands up to pace. He's exhausted, but he'll be damned if he doesn't think of something, anything to get him out of here and back to his friends. His shoulder is aching from ramming every susceptible surface and his leggings are covered in grime from crawling on the floor to look for a vent, for anything but he can't give up, he can't-
Zuko freezes as a loud, short beep sounds from the bomb, the noise ringing in his ears much longer than it actually lasted. One, two, three seconds pass, and Zuko lets out a breath into the silence despite hardly feeling any relief. If that wasn't signaling an explosion, it certainly means he's running out of time. No, not even running out anymore, he's…
He's out of time.
Zuko falls back down to the floor again, feeling the full weight of his helplessness finally crashing down on him.
He's going to die here. Here, alone, far from Aang, and Suki, and Mai, everyone. Far from Uncle. Far from Sokka.
Zuko sits limply against the wall, head hanging. All his frantic energy has been drained completely, not a drop left to fuel him. He's going to die. This is the end. The actual end end. He didn't get to… do anything .
He'd promised to take Toph to try her first taste of the spicy noodles from his favorite restaurant tomorrow, after she'd insulted his refined tastes by describing them as simply "just stuff it with spices and now it's his new favorite food!" The Smash Bros. tournament at Suki's was only a week away- the rivalry between her and Mai had gotten so strong even fellow participants were making bets on who would win when they finally rematched. Aang had been talking about his plans to cheer Katara up with a surprise birthday party to remind her it's ok to be a kid sometimes for just about forever now, saying she deserves some time to not feel the need to take care of everyone else. Sokka had kissed him softly in the latest hours of the night and Zuko had almost let himself say those three words under the dim light.
And he won't live long enough to see any of it through.
Zuko curls in on himself. The sound of fabric scraping across the rough floor echoes much louder than it should in the silent, enclosed space. The emptiness of the hollow building presses in. Not even the sound of wind whistling through the broken windows of the ground floor reaches him through the blocked basement door. The loneliness is unbearable, weighing on his mind, body, and soul.
He doesn't want to die in silence.
Zuko reaches across the floor to his phone and weakly lifts it from the ground to absently wipe off the dirtied screen. Zuko had been hesitant to bring his phone on a dangerous mission, nervous of putting his friends at risk, but now he's thinking maybe he should have worried more about himself for once. Maybe if he'd been more careful he would be able to say goodbye properly.
He unlocks the phone and stares blankly at his homescreen. So many ridiculous apps he'd downloaded to see his friends laugh. His eyes wander to TikTok as he remembers the account Toph had dared him to make, his embarrassing recent creation with Sokka that everyone had begged him to post publicly starting to replay through his mind and he shakes his head. Focus. He can't waste time missing everything he's never going to get to experience again and all his friends he'll never get to see-
Focus.
Zuko opens up a group chat and starts typing, the bright white screen lighting up his face. His fingers shake. He corrects a typo nearly every sentence from a missed key as the ridiculous touch-screen response blips echo emptily throughout the concrete room. He can feel his grip on the phone weaker than it should be and his body hunching miserably, far more than he's let it in years. Despite the gravity of the message, he can't bring himself to reread it. He only hopes it's enough. With a deep breath, he types the final sentence and presses send. He considers he's lucky there's somehow signal reaching him out here in the middle of nowhere, however weak it might be. A bit late for luck to finally kick in in his life, but he'll take it. He stares at the screen for what feels like years until the confirmation of delivery displays under his message. Zuko swallows as he feels a stinging in his eyes and turns to look at the bomb. Surely he doesn't have much time left.
Zuko opens his contacts and taps his boyfriend's icon, breathing shakily as he tries to hold his hovering finger still over the call button. He takes a deep breath, then another. He can feel his throat tightening again but forces himself to breathe through it. He can't sound miserable for this, it'll- it'll just make it worse.
The bomb lets out another loud beep and Zuko jumps so hard he nearly falls over. He lets out a shaky breath. No time to waste. The call button lights as he taps and waits, the rings feeling like they last an hour each until they cut off.
"Hey, this is Sokka, pronounced with an -okka! I can't answer the phone right now, but if you leave a message I'll be sure to get back to you-"
Zuko feels a small, fond smile take over his lips as he takes another deep breath to prepare himself. The beginning of the voicemail has already started and he can't waste any time, but he still feels a lump in his throat. What is one meant to say when they're about to die?
Zuko swallows, lets out a shaky sigh, and records his message. He feels his throat tighten more and more the longer he goes, and his weak hold on the phone being overcompensated by gripping it white-knuckled. It's torture, but he can't- doesn't want to imagine what kind of hell it'll be to listen to.
He feels all his strength leave him as he hangs up. His phone clatters to the floor as he curls in on himself and buries his face in his knees. Tears trickle down his cheeks. He'd failed to keep it together. He hopes so, so desperately it was enough, that it didn't just hurt Sokka more. He doesn't want to hurt anyone with all this, all his damn mistakes. He doesn't want to think about how they'll all take it when they wake up in the morning and see his text. How he'll take it when he listens to the voicemail.
He turns up the volume on his phone and turns off the flashlight and screen, placing it gently directly on top of the bomb. He doesn't want any connections to his friends to survive even a bit in case his captors come back to check the wreckage. The least he can do after all this is make sure they don't get targeted too.
Zuko stares aimlessly into the pitch darkness. He can't see anything anymore. He feels out the location of both the bomb and wall once more to be certain, before slumping down onto the floor. The bomb beeps.
Zuko curls up quietly on the dirty concrete with silent grief and waits to die.
~M-M~
"Wake up, it's a new day! Better make way for-"
Sokka slaps his hand down on his phone to dismiss his alarm. It's obnoxious as fuck and he still can't, to this day, understand why he hasn't changed it yet. Or, for that matter, why he'd even taken Aang's cheerful recommendation in the first place. He should've felt the red flags going off from the moment Toph had started enthusiastically encouraging it.
Although, he remembers, no time to reminisce. He set his alarm for a reason: to start the day early so Katara wouldn't nag him for sleeping in until noon every Saturday. On the weekend. The weekend! Couldn't he catch a break? The weekends were made for sleeping in.
Regardless, just to prove a point, he'd set his alarm to always be an hour earlier than Katara. She couldn't call him a slob if he was even more productive than her! Besides, he's practically the man of the household. (Aang does not, in any way, count, especially since Sokka won't let him spend the night with his sister while he's still in the apartment. Bleh, oogie!) He knows he's grasping at straws at that one since Katara is incredibly capable and he knows it, but hey. He'll pull any card if it means one-upping his little sister.
Sokka stretches and gets up to brush his hair and make breakfast. He's not about to get dressed on a weekend (he's long gotten past the phase of getting into a full business suit in the morning just to show Katara how not slobbish he is) and shaving is a hassle, an especially pointless one when he's been thinking about growing facial hair anyway. He doesn't want to get too dedicated to the idea before asking Zuko, though.
Ah, Zuko. His beautiful, handsome, stunning boyfriend. He can wield a sword like no one he's ever seen (if you know what I mean, hehe) and is incredibly kind and sensitive despite his prickly exterior. His muscles used to make Sokka so insecure he couldn't take his shirt off in the same room as him and he had spent years dreaming of running his hands through that stupidly beautiful, luscious hair. (Although he'd called it simple aesthetic appreciation at first. He wasn't gay .
No, Sokka, you were bi. Still very bi. )
Sokka flips his egg like a pancake with no regrets and leaves it to sizzle. Everyone deserves a little Twitter scrolling in the morning. Not slobbish.
He turns the screen on, and- "Oh!" Sokka mumbles to himself. There's a group text from Zuko. At… 4 A.M.? Seriously, dude? Sokka chuckles to himself. Zuko constantly criticizes Sokka staying up late for no reason other than watching YouTube for hours then pulls something like this? He starts unlocking his phone. There's a missed call and voicemail, too, which is… unnerving. Zuko isn't really the type for phone calls unless it's something important, or time-sensitive…
Sokka shakes himself. No, no, surely it's fine. Maybe it was way too many hours ago but surely he's fine. Zuko can take care of himself, he has made that abundantly clear way too many times in the past as demonstrated every time he saw literally any injustice he felt needed physical interference. Which was more than Sokka thought was safe but it was... admirable, nonetheless.
(And very, very hot and cathartic. Don't tell Zuko, though.)
But regardless, the call is from about the same time as the text, according to his phone. Surely he can get the quick summary from the text and see everything is now fine, and good, and also completely fine. He opens the text, and-
His heart stops.
Let me start this with saying I'm sorry you all have to find out this way. I didn't plan for this to happen. I wouldn't do this to you guys if I had a choice.
By the time you read this message, I'll already be dead. This isn't a suicide note. I should've told you a long time ago but I was always too scared or something i don't know. Ive been doing vigilante work behind your guys' backs for a long time now and I finally messed up. I'm locked in an empty basement with a bomb. I've already tried breaking down the door and vents and everything but I can't get out.
I know I should've been more careful and taken better care of myself and everything but that's not the point. I just need to tell you all how grateful I am that I had you in my life. You all supported me in a way I never knew was possible and helped me through my darkest days no matter how bad I got. You all mean so much to me and I don't know where I'd be without you.
Thank you, Suki, for always being dependable and making me take care of myself even when I insisted I didn't need it. Thank you, Toph, for being an island in a storm and for keeping me grounded when I started to think too much. Thank you, Katara, for understanding me like no one else and helping me come to terms with myself and caring for me when I couldn't do it myself. Thank you, Aang, for making my life so much brighter every day and reminding me that everything has a bright side and life isn't all bad. Thank you, Mai, for being there for me whenever I needed you most and for always looking out for me throughout everything. Thank you, Ty Lee, for never letting my anger fool you and teaching me it's okay to cry and feel. Thank you, Azula, for always trying your best to get better and be a better person no matter how hard it is and how much it hurts. I'm so proud of you. Thank you, Iroh, for being my uncle and the best father I could have asked for. I don't want to know where my life would have gone without you. Thank you, Sokka, for being my boyfriend and loving me like no one else ever has. You always remind me I'm not alone and make me feel so safe and make me so, so happy.
I'm sorry that this is all I could do to send to you. I could write a novel out of all the things you've all done for me and all the things I already miss about you. I don't know what comes after death, but I'll hold all of you in my heart forever until we meet again.
I hope you all keep living a good life without me. I love you all so, so much. Goodbye.
Sokka blinks. That… can't be right. He reads it again. It's the same. Sokka blinks some more and rereads again.
By the time you read this message, I'll already be dead.
Sokka stares at the line. 'Dead,' it reads. 'I'll already be dead.'
Impossible, Sokka thinks. He must be exaggerating. He tends to be a drama queen at the best of times. Sokka blinks. He kinda feels like he's floating.
Sokka rereads the entire thing again just for good measure. 'Thank you, Sokka, for being my boyfriend and loving me like no one else ever has. You always remind me I'm not alone and make me feel so safe and make me so, so happy.'
What a sap, Sokka thinks absently. He isn't completely sure if he's smelling something burning. Maybe it's just his imagination. A lot is feeling kinda imagine-y right now. His chest feels kinda seized up but the rest doesn't really even feel connected. He blinks slowly at his phone.
'Goodbye.'
Sokka stares at the word. Zuko… gone? Just like that?
He doesn't know what he's feeling. He doesn't know if he's even feeling anything at all.
Zuko can't just be gone. He wouldn't just…
"Sokka?" Sokka looks up to see an annoyed-looking Katara grumbling from the doorway. "If you can't cook, just let me do it. The smell woke me up and you nearly threw me into a panic, I thought you were going to burn the place down!"
Sokka blinks at her. How can she just stand there? How is she just looking at him like she doesn't know what just happened? The world can't just keep moving like that.
"Sokka? Is something wrong?" Katara's eyes are narrowed in mild concern as she approaches him, turning off the stove on the way. Sokka silently holds out his phone to her, and Katara takes it. "I saw Zuko texted, I thought it could wait until after…" she stops.
Sokka watches numbly as Katara's face shifts from curiosity, to concern, to shock. Her eyes dart frantically across lines as she reads until she finishes, staring off into the distance. She hands the phone back to Sokka without looking at him and sits down, staring at nothing.
Sokka isn't sure how much time passes, whether it be minutes or hours. Katara stands up to go at some point, leaving Sokka alone in the kitchen with his phone. He's still staring at nothing for an indiscernible amount of time when another notification pings on Sokka's phone. Sokka looks down to see a reply from Toph.
Not funny, Zuko.
Sokka stares down. Funny? A joke. It could be a joke. Right? Zuko's… a funny guy. Jokes all the time. Real prankster.
Ha, there's no amount of cognitive dissonance that can sustain that one.
He can hear Katara saying something in a different room. He doesn't bother trying to figure out what she's up to. He blinks as he remembers the voicemail notification still sitting at the top of the screen.
Thank the spirits, he thinks desperately. This has to be the explanation. Zuko has to be fine. He sent this after the text, surely he's fine. He refuses to think about the fact that the timestamp reads only minutes later.
He quickly opens the voicemail and taps for it to play. There's only silence- wait, is that breathing?
Sokka hears Zuko's distinct voice let out a shaky sigh and his stomach drops.
"Hey… Sokka," Zuko's voice trembles. More deep breathing. "Hey," he repeats, sturdier. Sokka swallows hard.
"I just wanted to call… I wanted you to hear me, say it." Zuko stumbles. "I… I love you. I, love you so much."
Sokka blinks hard.
"I love you so much, I want to see you again and hear your voice," Zuko continues, "I, I, uh…" He hears Zuko pause again to swallow hard. "I… wanted, to tell you, later. When I had a nice place, like, like the lake at sunset in, in Love Amongst the Dragons ." Zuko laughs weakly. "I don't really… have much more time, now, though. I just wanted you to know…"
Sokka grips the phone with white knuckles.
"I love you. So much. And… I'm sorry. I'm so sorry-" Zuko lets out a choked sob, "I never wanted it to end like this. I wanted to spend, so many more years with you, and- and finally beat you at Mario Kart," Zuko's voice shakes out of control. "I just…" he trails off.
Sokka breathes hard with Zuko.
Zuko continues in a raspy whisper, "You… you've already lost so much. So many. I, wanted to fix that, make it better, not…" Zuko breathes shakily, "..not contribute, to that."
Sokka's hands shake, hardly able to hold the phone despite his death grip on it.
"M'sorry…" Zuko mutters, "I don't mean to ramble. I just… needed you to hear it. I know, it might, be, uh, selfish…" he trails off again. Sokka listens hard until he suddenly starts again. "A-and, I, didn't want to, cry, in this. I'm sorry."
Sokka breathes shakily. It's nothing to apologize for.
Zuko takes in a loud sniffle and takes a deep breath, pausing to compose himself. "I just… I love you, Sokka. I love you so much," he speaks much more clearly than before, "I want you, to… keep living on, be happy. Even without me there." He pauses again to breathe. "And, you don't have to, uh, worry, that you never got to, say it to me…" Sokka sharply inhales. "I already know. And I love you, too."
Sokka feels his face getting wet.
"...Goodbye, Sokka. I love you." The voicemail ends.
And, finally, Sokka breaks into sobs.