the poem of you: a Zukka fic
tags: established relationship, hurt Sokka, hurt/comfort, Sokka has OCD, loving and protective Zuko, modern au
He finds Sokka curled on the floor next to the bed and his heart falls.
He always looks like he’s trying to make a shell with his body, a shell against the world he doesn’t have.
Zuko gets down on his knees, touches his back.
“Sweetheart,” he says, and Sokka starts to cry. Zuko covers him with his body, protection. The soft weight of Sokka crying underneath, the raggedness of his breath.
“I’m here,” Zuko says, kissing the back of his neck, that vulnerable place, the short hairs delicate under his touch. “Baby, I’m right here.”
“It’s bad,” he weeps, inarticulate.
“I know,” Zuko says. “I know. I love you.”
He curls around Sokka and tries, so hard, to protect him.
—
Sometimes the thoughts are bad; they don’t relent. It’s like being kicked in the head, Sokka tells him, by the same thought over and over.
Fuckup.
Fuckup.
Fuckup.
He helps Sokka from the floor and tries to be gentle with him. Zuko spoons him in bed, pressing kisses to his hands. His whole body is stiff, delayed, fighting an infection from within. And the infection is Sokka, and the infection is killing Sokka. Or trying its best.
“I love you so much,” Zuko says, arms slipping around his waist, snug. “You’re my baby, you know that? You’re my turtleduck.”
Sokka is cried out, hunched in on himself, hurting. The shakiness of his breath is painful. Zuko wants to take the pain away. It’s always seemed so unfair that he can’t.
He would do anything for Sokka, but there’s nothing he can do.
“You want me to tell you about my day?” he asks, and Sokka nods.
Sokka is the talker—Zuko isn’t the talker—but Zuko can do this, can talk for him, fill the silences that Sokka’s mind would try to fill with unkind things.
“Hmm, let’s see.” Zuko noses at his ear, nuzzling kisses. “It was a slow day. Did some client research. Ate a shitty croissant.”
He hums, thinking.
“I wrote poems for a bit.” He can feel Sokka smile a little. “Yeah, I thought you’d like that,” Zuko says.
He falls into silence again for a while, feeling the soft rise and fall of Sokka’s chest. He’s no good at this, the steady patter, the lull of it. He tries to think of other topics but all he can do is wonder how long Sokka was on the floor.
“What kind of poems?”
Sokka’s voice is hoarse.
“Nothing special.” Zuko kisses the back of his neck. “I wrote them on sticky notes and then I hid them in my desk.” He can feel the little motion that means Sokka is laughing, suppressed. “Yeah, yeah. Go on and say it.”
“Nothing,” Sokka says.
“It’s never nothing.”
“I just love you,” Sokka says, his voice cracking slightly, and Zuko feels warm all over. He could cry.
“I love you so much it’s crazy,” he says. He cards his fingers through Sokka’s hair. He wants to take care of Sokka so badly. It’s this ache in him all the time.
“Were the poems about me?”
Zuko snorts.
“I wanna know,” Sokka whines.
“You’re ridiculous,” he says.
“That’s why you love me.”
He rolls over onto his back, smiling up at Zuko. And the smile is hesitant, his eyes still bright from crying, but he looks so handsome Zuko doesn’t know what to do with himself. His hair spills on the pillow, rich brown flecked with gold. He cradles Sokka’s cheek, thumb stroking the line of his jaw.
He wants to write about the way Sokka’s hair looks, the way his face looks, the particular tilt of it, the thoughtful way his lips purse. He wants to write about wanting to take care of Sokka. Inadequate: his care, his words for it.
“I would write such shitty love poems about you,” he says.
“I’d love that,” Sokka says.
“I’m sure you would.” He kisses Sokka’s head. “Only the shittiest.”
Sokka gestures, a little beckoning movement, and Zuko lies back in his arms, warm, Sokka’s hand protective on his hip. He can feel the tremor in Sokka’s hand, the exhaustion. He’s exhausted himself with the thoughts in his head, been pummeled by them. He’s pummeled still.
“You’ll read them to me sometime,” Sokka murmurs.
“I will not.”
“Someday you’re gonna be a famous poet,” Sokka says. “And then I’ll have to see your poems. There’s no avoiding it.”
He’s tracing circles in Zuko’s hipbone, delicate enough to make Zuko shiver with love. He wants to make Sokka dinner; he wants to wash his hair. He wants to do everything, because he can’t do the one thing, the thing that matters. He wants to fall asleep holding Sokka safe from the world.
“Can we go on a walk later?” Sokka asks, hesitant. “Just to, um.”
It helps when he’s tired, too tired to think circles around himself. Zuko nuzzles him. “Of course, baby. I’d love to walk with you.”
He feels Sokka slump a little in relief.
“God, you’re fucking lovely, you know that?” he says.
And Zuko doesn’t know that, because there’s an infection inside him too, the thing that makes him doubt himself. The thing that makes him write poems on sticky notes and hide them away.
He takes Sokka’s hand, presses it to his cheek. He’ll write a poem someday about that—the feeling of Sokka’s hand on his cheek.
But he doesn’t have the words for that now. His words are so much less beautiful than that, such ordinary things.
“You can always ask me to walk with you,” he says.
And Sokka smiles like it’s a poem anyway.
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