Chapter Text
~~
It is a nice enough evening. Cold, but dry, and he is well equipped for both of those things.
Still, the chill doesn’t seem to quiet the other travellers of the portside town at all, with enough loud revelry in the distance to be mildly confusing, but Sokka will take the bustle of unintelligible noise over the quiet of his own mind any day.
And supplies don’t get themselves.
They had lucked out somewhat, happening upon a decent water source in the early morning to make camp nearby, and had spent a good couple hours fishing an abundance of fish to take into town to sell. Enough to get them a lot more than they had had in weeks.
Enough to weigh him down a bit, as he takes a meandering stroll through the streets with a full pack of dried meat and various fruits, and some medicinal stuff that Katara had asked for that had cost more than anything else. But the chances of them needing it were high, versus the chance of ever being in a position to buy some again.
The noise continues to grow, pulling his attention to the spill of a few bodies out of a bar a couple streets down, with raucous laughter and shouts suddenly hitting the open air.
It takes him half a second to recognize the armour, even in the growing darkness of night it is unmistakable, red and gold metal clanging against itself as hands are slapped onto shoulders.
He stills, eyeing the space between and cautiously taking a slow step back, watching them intently as he sidles off into the thicker shadows beneath an overhang. He doubts he is noticed, not with how obviously drunk the soldiers appear to be, picking up an entirely tone deaf melody of some sort of shanty before swaying their way back inside.
Sokka waits, weighing the pros and cons of chancing stepping out into the lantern lit street once more, and ultimately deciding against it. He turns instead to head back down the alley, twisting his way around the narrowly cleared path filled with empty sacks and crates, and nearly falls flat on his face when his foot catches on something he tries to step over at the same time it tries to jolt away.
Still, he is shocked enough to go wheeling forward, and his bag of carefully procured supplies goes tumbling free to scatter all over the ground as he catches himself. “What the-?”
But the moment his eyes catch it, he is frozen to the spot.
The leg he had fallen over, being pulled beneath a body.
And there is a moment of icy dread, fear instant and instinctual before he can stop it but the sight of shredded clothing, of bruising, of the unfocused gold of a pair of eyes attempting to make sense of him, has a different concern immediately taking over. “Zuko?”
The prince squints, mouth working as he attempts to speak, and even from here Sokka can see the neat split down the middle, and the sluggish track of blood slowly painting its way down his chin. “Go away.” It is barely coherent, the words losing some of their separation as Zuko slurs.
Something is wrong.
Something is more wrong than what it appears, and Sokka can feel it instantly.
Not just in the obvious injury but in the lack of fight, and the way Zuko nearly recoils back from him when he kneels in front of him. “Do you know who I am?” A sickening feeling begins to burrow deep in his belly, and he forces himself not to fit the pieces together in the worst possible scenario but-
He can still hear the triumphant song and dance from down the street.
Zuko doesn’t answer, but he does look, brows pinching as he tries to focus on Sokka’s face and after a moment he jolts, attempting to stand but skidding backwards further into the wall.
“Woah! Woah, it’s okay!” Sokka tries to keep himself hushed, hands out at his sides to avoid looking threatening. “I’m not going to hurt you.” Truth be told he feels moderately safer in the knowledge that his eyebrows haven’t been singed off yet, but at the same time even that feels wrong. The lack of fight.
More and more he catalogues the pieces. Tear tracks, torn clothing, hair pulled free from its usual style and a mess.
The bruising.
Even in the faint light of distant street lanterns there is no mistaking the blooming scarlet smudge across one side of his mouth, already purpling beneath pale skin.
An old warning whispers in the back of his skull, his father’s voice harsh and commanding the night before he left. Sokka’s own tears as his young arm is clasped tight, listening with wide eyes to every detail of the dangers of war torn men.
Do not ever allow yourself or your sister to be taken, do you hear me? There are fates worse than death, and that is one of them.
He knows. It has to be that, or something close to it, and he knows, but he doesn’t understand what he can do.
Sokka backs off, just a bit, going through the motions of gathering his spilled bag. Slowly, very slowly, telegraphing every movement as he picks up the odd piece of fruit and dried meat. “Can you stand?”
The directness seems to snap something into Zuko, who suddenly realizes he is on the ground. He attempts to grab the stack of wood crates beside him, mostly unsuccessfully as his legs refuse to cooperate.
But the panicked scramble he makes is enough to knock some bins over with a loud clang, and Sokka immediately darts a glance to the street before losing his patience entirely. “C’mon.” He ignores the noise of protest as he closes the gap, hooking an arm around Zuko’s waist to haul him up.
It is a separate wrongness about this.
The obvious dizziness, the weight of the prince so heavy against his side that it seems he can barely stand.
Zuko groans, eyes pinched shut as he shakes his head at the sudden shift. “Why?”
He could be asking anything, really.
But any answer Sokka could give to him would always be the same.
“I don’t know.”
~~
It is painfully slow.
Sokka does his best not to show his impatience, glancing back from time to time to the village not all that far behind them, too keyed up not to be wary.
The best Zuko can manage is a slow shuffle, stumbling against him and trodding on his feet more often than not, and Sokka wants to summon annoyance in response every time, but-
It only takes a half second look at the side of his face to see the slight shine of tear tracks slipping down his cheek, and fury is the only thing his heart allows him to feel in response.
At the very least their glacial pace had allowed Sokka to strategise a next step.
Taking him back to the others seems immediately unwise, even if Katara could definitely help more than him. But there would be questions, and fighting, and he could already see how it would all fall apart in an instant as soon as Zuko burned through whatever was coursing through his body to have him in such a state.
It all seems incredibly unfair.
So the only alternative is to try and deal with him on his own, and hope that he isn’t torched to ash the second Zuko comes around.
Sokka doesn’t say much as he maneuvers them closer to the creek he had seen on his way in, though the darkness makes it much harder to find a clear path to it even after he starts to hear it. The moonlight above starts to shroud over with clouds which doesn’t help him much, but eventually he manages to break along the shoreline with Zuko in tow.
Zuko, who rouses slightly at the sudden stop, and tries to lift his head from where it had more or less lolled onto Sokka’s shoulder, only to lurch sideways away from him to heave his guts out into the grass.
Sokka does his best to keep him somewhat upright, following him down to kneel and keeping a hand on Zuko’s shoulder as he continues to empty whatever remains in his stomach. He reaches back to his waist for a waterskin, reaching past to offer it as Zuko drags in a ragged breath and sits up for a moment. He hesitates briefly, before his hand comes up to snag it with more effort than it could ever warrant, taking a quick swig and spitting it back out to flush his mouth.
“Thanks.” It is incredibly quiet, even here where the only noise between them is the soft travelling water of the creek a few feet away, and still a bit fuzzy and slurred but at least it appears to be getting a bit better.
Sokka nods, eyeing the space around them and spotting a decently large log laying nearby. Without a word he carefully scoops Zuko’s elbow and leads him the short distance over, before helping him down to lean against it.
The prince goes without a fight, leaning back against the fallen tree with a sharp breath as he closes his eyes. But he is quick to draw his knees up, hand reaching to pinch the bridge of his nose with a wince. “You should go.”
Sokka shrugs. “Should. Not likely to.” He pulls his bag around, rifling through the various items he had been tasked with retrieving and finally finding the small medicine kit Katara had requested. It is fairly bare bones, some bandages, a small vial of alcohol, a few rations of dried fruit, but there is a tiny container of poultice at the bottom.
Not the best, but better than nothing at all.
He kneels to Zuko’s side, facing him as he sits against his own heels. “Can I see?” He gestures vaguely to the still swelling bruise along his cheek and jaw, and the tear in his lip still oozing sluggishly down his chin.
Zuko stills, golden eye cracking open from behind his hand warily. “Why.”
“To give you a makeover, obviously.” Sokka rolls his eyes, waving the little tin towards him. “This should help a bit. At least with the pain.” He had experienced it enough on his own to know it wasn’t all that effective, but even the coolness of it would feel nice.
Zuko hesitates still, but does drop his hand enough for Sokka to see.
He is careful, not leaning close but just enough to reach, dipping his fingers into the minty smelling paste before painting a light layer along the fresh injury. It is scorching to the touch, melting the poultice almost on contact but Zuko does blow out a quiet sigh of relief as he continues.
“It is not what you think.”
Sokka pauses, flicking a quick glance to the pair of sharp gold eyes and then back to his task at hand. “I don’t have to think anything.”
Zuko’s stare is sharp along the side of his face, as more and more of his lucidity returns. “I got away.”
The barely is obvious.
But Sokka nods, ignoring the implication in favour of trying to maintain whatever small ceasefire they have managed between them tonight.
He finishes applying the poultice, with one last light stroke along the bone of Zuko’s jaw. “Anywhere else?” There is break, for a moment, Zuko blinking and looking away, jaw working in an obvious attempt to keep himself quiet. “Zuko?”
“Not a word.” Zuko shifts, grunting in obvious pain as he sits up and attempts to clumsily try and tug his shirt up from his waist. “You aren’t going to say a single word about this, got it?”
Sokka is entirely confused for half a second, before suddenly the prince’s front is bared to him, shirt coming off in a few haphazard tugs.
At once, two things instantly become apparent.
That there is a layer of white bandages tightly bound across Zuko’s chest and up over each shoulder.
And that there are bloodied streaks of marks on every exposed bit of skin across his collar bone and down his ribs.
Like someone had tried to claw the wrappings right off him.
Sokka’s eyes widen, head tilting slightly as he takes in the damage and tries to ignore the still burning anger sitting deep in his belly. “Is it worth my time to ask who did this?”
He reaches forward again, slower than he had previously, and streaks more of the salve across a shallow slice between Zuko’s ribs.
The prince hisses, fingers tightening in his own pant leg in an obvious attempt to stop himself from slapping Sokka’s hand away. “It doesn’t matter.” But there is a strain to his voice, anxiety rising through the pain, and Sokka realizes maybe he is less concerned with his own injuries and more concerned with something else.
He doesn’t stop his actions, still going through each ragged line beneath the bindings before moving up to the brutal slashes and bruising beneath Zuko’s collarbone. “It is not something we even think about, in the Water Tribe. It is just as normal as any other way to be.”
Zuko’s jaw tightens, looking away towards the creek. “I do not have that luxury.”
“Clearly.” It is impossible not to shoot him a glare in response. “Leave it to the Fire Nation to make it illegal to exist as yourself.” Sokka finishes the application, screwing the lid back onto the now half-depleted tin and putting it back into his bag.
Zuko doesn’t respond for a long moment, taking care to gingerly pull his shirt back on. “Why did you help me.” He frowns, “You are smart enough to know that I will not stop my mission because of one kind act.”
Sokka sighs, levering down to sit next to him and lean back against the log. “I’m also smart enough to know that helping you says more about my conscience than what you choose to do with it. You were hurt and in danger. I could get you out of there. Not much more to it.”
He shrugs, settling back more against the wood and wrapping his coat around him more firmly with a yawn. “And now I’m going to sleep, because fuck you if you think I am going to lead you right to him.”
There is a huff beside him, and Sokka can practically hear the eyeroll that accompanies it, but it is such a stark difference to what he had first encountered a couple hours earlier he can’t help but feel the warmth of pride sitting pleased deep in his chest.
Even moreso when Zuko doesn’t just up and leave, and instead shifts a little bit closer to him to settle back as well, arms crossing over his chest as he tips his head back.
And exhaustion must be pulling hard on him, or simply a result of crashing down from whatever substance he had been given, because it is barely a few moments before his body goes slack beside him and his breaths even out.
Sokka huffs a laugh, allowing himself one last glance at the shine of ointment along the curve of his jaw, before following suit.
~~
He is awoken by a splash of water slapping him in the forehead.
Sputtering, he shoots up and coughs, looking around for his attacker and comes face to face with his sister.
Katara immediately drops her hands from form in favour of placing them on her hips, glare so sharp it is a wonder it doesn’t slice right through him. “Glad to see we were all worried for nothing.”
Aang and Appa appear in his periphery, along with Momo who immediately runs over to him to pat at the side of his leg.
“Sorry, I just… sat down for a break and must have passed out I guess.” Sokka sighs, reaching down to pick Momo up before scrubbing the back of his head and glancing around, but there is no sign of Zuko anywhere.
Except.
A small fire, already burned right down the coals, tucked neat and close to where their feet had been. One that definitely hadn’t been there before he fell asleep.
He tucks a small smile into Momo’s shoulder as he bears the brunt of Katara’s anger and Aang’s worried expression, and does not at all acknowledge the different warmth settling down in his bones.
~~