Warning: as you may have guessed from the prior chapter . . . this one has a character death and loss of parent. If you'd rather skip it, the final chapter is safe and unrelated.
I wish I could make it stop.
Sokka stumbled out of the soaring, icy wonder of a building - the kind they had never had when he was growing up here - with no eyes to see its beauty or the familiar-strange village - truly a city, now - around it or. . .
Or anything.
Sokka's feet took him over the ice and towards another building without his mind having anything to do with it, even as the cold wind froze his tears on his cheeks and in his lashes. He barely felt it, though he knew it should hurt.
"Sokka. . . Are you sure you're. . ."
Sokka waved a hand at Bato, or tried to - he wasn't sure how much he actually moved for the gesture. He couldn't actually give any reassuring words, he didn't have them in him. Sokka wasn't sure he had any words in him right now.
Right now it felt like there would never be words again. Never be anything again. He felt like . . . ice, like the freezing tears were sliding over him and cutting into his chest even as the wind lashed through him, and-
Sokka bumped into the doorframe as he made his way through into the low light of a much smaller building. Low, but bright and white and sparkling, the furs scattered over the icy floor and hanging on the icy, snowy walls not dampening the way the light refracted everywhere, cool and inescapable. He suddenly missed the warmth of the Fire Nation palace, red and gold and copper everywhere and soft, warm flickers and glowing light.
"Sokka. . ." Zuko rose immediately, crossing to him, arms coming around him. "Is it. . ."
Sokka opened his mouth and all that came out was a wretched, cracked, aching sound as a fresh wave of tears burst out of him. "Oh. Oh darling." Zuko held him tight, drawing him out of the doorway and closer to the fire pit in the centre of the building, rather than the bed in the next room.
Sokka was grateful. He didn't want to go to bed. He didn't want-
"Dad-" he choked out, but nothing more came. Nothing more in words; his mind was full of the sight of his father struggling for breath, thin and pale and weak, barely able to talk, and the slow stilling of his chest, the dullness of his eyes, the way it had felt- "Zu-" his voice cracked.
Zuko dragged them both down to the floor and curled up around him, rocking gently, stroking his back and squeezing him so tight it felt like it was compressing his ribs. The pressure eased some of the bloody ache that had felt like it was breaking him, cutting into his chest. Sokka keened into his husband's shoulder, shaking, and Zuko only held him, letting him shake apart and promising with the steadiness of his embrace to put Sokka back together again.
Sokka's tears had melted again, out of the wind and so close to the fire, to Zuko, and he felt like they were burning his face. The unspoken words clawed at his throat, and his heart felt like it was bleeding inside.
"Dad," Sokka forced out again, his voice raw and aching and sounding all wrong, "Dad's dead." he managed, feeling at once both wholly numb and like he'd been shredded and glued back together poorly.
Zuko crooned, rocking Sokka in his arms and squeezing him just that little, impossible bit tighter. Sokka laid his head against his husband's shoulder and gave up, falling to pieces and sobbing breathlessly into Zuko's solid, steady support.
"I wish I could make it stop." Zuko said against the top of his head. "For you, I wish I could fix it, that this wasn't happening." He squeezed Sokka again, kissing his hair and rubbing his back, wrapping a thick, heavy fur around them, blocking out the light and the ice and the small fire and everything that wasn't the pain clawing inside Sokka and the warmth and strength of Zuko holding him together.
Sokka curled up tighter, a crumpled and breaking mess, and hid away in the close, warm darkness, wishing that it could just take away everything else. Wishing he wasn't hurting like this. Wishing that his father was still all right - even that he was just still barely hanging on, anything just so that he wouldn't be-
Gone.
Sokka keened, his abused throat aching with the sharp cry, and Zuko hummed softly, not shushing him and not offering words, just . . . a gentle murmur of his voice as Sokka's grief shook him.
"I wish this wasn't happening." Zuko said as though voicing the words Sokka felt for him, and he shuddered with wracking sobs that were hardly muffled for being pressed against Zuko's neck. Sokka nodded roughly, fingers digging into Zuko's clothes, into his sides, until Sokka felt like they would break from the pressure.
He was probably hurting Zuko, he thought, very distantly, with a very tiny corner of his mind. Zuko didn't voice a complaint, didn't flinch, and Sokka needed him, needed the steadiness of holding on to him, and couldn't let go as he cried into Zuko's support.
Eventually Sokka sobbed himself out. Not out of tears, or out of grief, and he wasn't asleep, either, but he was just . . . empty. He could feel the yawning, icy blackness of the ache still inside him, but it was too far away to touch him, for now. He had nothing remaining in him to sob with, and was left just in a daze, unable to muster the energy even to move.
Zuko stayed there with him on the floor, curled in the fur, and rocked him, murmuring from time to time, not so much consolation or reassurance as support. Sokka only half-heard most of the words, but he was comforted, in a distant, faint way, by what he did take in.
Every so often more hot tears would slip from Sokka's eyes, coursing over his cheeks. It hurt, now, ached - his face and his eyes, though both fell into insignificance beside the sharp, raw ache in his throat and then the boundless, broken pain lodged in his chest.
Sokka wasn't sure when dazed exhaustion fell into actual sleep, only that Zuko stayed wrapped around him, shielding him and holding him together, for as long as it took - and when he woke, was still there, just as strong and sure.
I haven't really written a parental death since I lost my mother, six and a half years ago - writing it this way was a little rough but also a little cathartic. It definitely draws strongly from how I felt then.