Chapter Text
Zuko hurts a little bit everywhere and he stinks of sweat and the almost acidic scent of electricity. His head is pounding and his eyes feel vaguely scorched from the lightning. But even though every part of him feels heavy and painful, he jumps up the second Sokka rounds the corner, limping heavily with one arm slung around his father’s neck the other resting on Toph’s shoulder despite her being too short to offer much in the way of actual support.
Zuko shoots up from the ground where Katara had been tearfully lecturing him with glowing palms pressed gingerly against the charred skin where Azula’s lightning had struck. Water splashes to the ground and Zuko feels the wound twinge at the sudden movement, but he’s far too relieved to focus on the pain, he lets out a half-choked laugh of relief. He sees Aang rounding the corner, the airbender almost trips, not quite watching his step as he seems to be explaining something to Suki. They’re all here.
It’s almost more than Zuko could’ve hoped for. All of them are there, limping and scratched up and bruised to hell and overall looking a little worse for wear, but they’re all on their feet, sharing looks of such raw relief that Zuko wants to cry.
He takes all of this in in a rush of comprehension and then he rushes forward to Sokka everything else fading in comparison to the frantic need to feel him, to know that he’s really there and really okay and just real.
Their embrace is clumsy, between Sokka’s single functioning leg and the remnants of lightning still sparking through Zuko’s nerves causing him to jolt and stumble, they quickly find themselves flat on the ground, letting out identical grunts of pain and then identical apologies.
Zuko can barely hear anything that anyone is saying over the relief.
He’s okay.
He’s alive.
All of them are.
Katara eventually pulls him up and Zuko lets her tenderly pull his arms away from her brother as Hakoda helps Sokka to a sitting position as well.
“You need to be careful, Zuko! Don’t go throwing away all my hard work as a healer!”
Zuko merely sniffs and nods in response, eyes taking in the group once again, they’re all there.
Katara’s interjection eventually breaks through the bubble of relief, bringing them all back to reality. Sokka finally seems to register the mass of cracked raw skin on Zuko’s chest and demands to know what happened and from there the explanations flow.
Zuko tells him about the Agni Kai with Azula and Sokka and Toph and Suki recount their horrifying experiences on the war balloons. Aang explains the insane light show they had all seen in the sky, tells them that he took away Ozai’s bending which Zuko is frankly having trouble wrapping his head around.
When explanations and exclamations have been made, once all of the diplomatic uncertainties have been postponed until tomorrow, once a select few palace guards have been deemed trustworthy to guard Ozai and Azula and a few more to guard Zuko’s room with Hakoda, they finally collapse.
All of them have become accustomed to sleeping on stone floors by now and Katara flops backward across Zuko’s bed, exhaustion from the healing she had performed throughout the day draining her. She sighs in contentment at the soft bed, and without so much as a goodnight, her breath evens out. Aang sinks to the floor and leans back against the bed next to where Katara’s legs flop over the edge. His eyes slowly sink shut as Momo curls himself in his lap. Toph curls on the bed as well, grumpily tugging the covers from under Katara and punching a pillow into shape before she too begins snoring.
Suki shares a look with Zuko and Sokka. Despite all of them only being a few years apart in age, they’re the oldest and there are times like this when there’s something of an understanding among them, a protective instinct that surges up whenever the younger half of their group lets their guard down so readily.
“We should get some sleep too,” Sokka finally whispers.
Suki nods tiredly and moves to the small section of the bed that remains empty. She curls her legs in to avoid Katara’s sideways form. She gives Sokka and Zuko a final smile before fully laying down and letting out a muffled squeak as Toph immediately clings onto her like a baby koala-otter. By now all of them should really be used to the consequences of sleeping within five feet of Toph. They chuckle anyway as Suki resigns herself to being cuddled all night.
Zuko tugs a spare blanket from a chest at the foot of the bed to spread over him and Sokka as they lie on the rug. Something in Zuko’s chest feels warm at the way the others had immediately taken over his bed without so much as offering it to him. He knows they aren’t trying to be inconsiderate, and besides, the rug is still softer than anything he or Sokka have slept on for quite a while. The idea that they’re all just so comfortable here, with him, makes him feel all sorts of soft and mushy inside.
Hopefully, that’s all it is, otherwise, Katara’s going to have a fit the next time she goes to heal him.
Sokka’s hand grazes against Zuko’s jaw and Zuko tilts his head up to look into his eyes.
Bright blue eyes. He’s beautiful. Zuko thinks of his eyes the first time he saw them, contrasted startlingly with the white and grey of war paint. He thinks of them flashing angrily in the Fire Temple as they’d found themselves bound to opposite pillars. He remembers the surprise of seeing the same eyes against a different pattern of war paint on Kyoshi. He remembers seeing them through the helmet of a guard at Boiling Rock, the split-second questioning of his own sanity. Now he watches as the blue eyes begin to blink slower and slower until eventually the hand rubbing circles against his jaw stills and the eyes flutter closed. Zuko thinks of watching them open blearily in the morning and lets himself sink into blissful sleep as well.