The War Boogie
Disclaimer: I don't Avatar: the Last Airbender or any of its characters.
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The Boogie Man was a concept that every child was afraid of. Even those that said they weren't and those that didn't believe were terrified.
The Boogie Man was everywhere and everyone. It could personified your worst fears in every way.
So, when on one not so cold night within the air temple, when Zuko stumbled into Sokka's room with a desperate look on his face it wasn't at all surprising. The ex-prince stood in the door way for several minutes looking uncomfortable. It wasn't until Sokka pat the space next to him did he move again.
Shuffling in with his night clothes Zuko sat on the edge of the bed. With a pink face he mumble something about being cold but Sokka knew it was a lie. He let it slide anyway.
Sokka sighed and moved over until his back hit the wall. He drifted off to sleep almost instantly not noticing when Zuko slipped under the covers to join him.
A little while later when Suki snuck in with a fright in her eyes she found the two boys arms length apart. Zuko almost falling off the bed and Sokka cuddling the wall with his back, there two hands clasped in the middle.
The female worrier almost left them like that until she felt eyes boring into her.
It was Zuko.
He was gazing up at her with sleepy understanding blurring his eyes. He untangled his fingers from the other boys and patted the space between them not unlike what Sokka did hours before.
Zuko watched the young women crawl over him and into the center. There she snuggled under the blankets, facing her water tribe boy.
Zuko sighed as he too drifted back to his dreams unconsciously moving closer until he had wrapped himself around the female. There they stayed, wrapped in the comfort of each other, just them three.
As the not so real, real, Boogie Man watched on from the shadows of their nightmares, he smirked a little smirk. The scene before him was wrong in a not so wrong kind of way for the horrors of war made every boogie man so very very real.