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“Alright, next one—how many years will the Apollo astronauts’ footprints last on the moon?”
“One hundred?” Aang suggests.
“Ten.”
“Ten? Ten?” Sokka twists around the headrest to give Katara an incredulous look where she’s sitting behind him. “Are you even trying or are you just playing games on your phone? Do you know how many orders of magnitude—"
“Uranus,” Toph cuts in, decisive, and Sokka briefly closes his eyes before transferring his incredulous look to her on the principle that she can feel the vibes.
“It wasn’t even a question about space objects, you can’t keep saying ‘Uranus,’” Sokka says, exasperated and firmly ignoring the muffled snort of laughter from the driver’s seat beside him. Traitor. “And the answer one hundred million—which means no one gets a point, which means the point goes to the Question Master again—”
“Again,” Katara rolls her eyes, finally tucking her phone away to fix him with her own look. “When the Question Master is the one finding the questions—”
“Fine, the point can go to Zuko—”
“He isn’t even guessing!”
“—if he slows down, shit, are you pushing ninety?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Zuko says, inexplicably relaxed the way he always is once he manages to achieve a certain velocity.
As if Sokka has ever not worried about it. Even in the midst of admiring Zuko’s confidence behind the wheel or being lulled off by the white noise of the highway or, in his more embarrassing moments, lusting over the way Zuko’s firearms flexed around the handlebars of an electric scooter, Sokka’s always still worried about it.
“For all you know, an alligator is suddenly going to be on the road and at the rate you’re going there's going to be no time to change lanes and then what are you going to—mmphf.” The rest of his sentence is lost into the handful of Sour Patch watermelon that Zuko casually shoves into Sokka’s mouth without ever taking his eyes off the road, the car not even wobbling in its lane as he cruises one-handed.
Sokka licks his palm in retaliation, tasting sugar and salt and the faint bitterness of the steering wheel, and Zuko just hums, appreciative, before wiping his hand on Sokka’s face.
Rude.
“I don’t know that you have room to comment, Snoozles,” Toph is saying as she stretches a leg over Aang to somehow unerringly kick Sokka in the shoulder. “Zuko isn’t the one with multiple fender benders to his name.”
“Katara!” Sokka hastily swallows, twisting around again to glare and ignoring the voice that sounds very much like Zuko’s pointing out that sitting like this for most of the drive is why Sokka almost always ends a road trip with anyone other than Zuko with a sore neck. “You told her?
“I did not,” Katara says, dry, as Toph lets out a cackle and Zuko suddenly has the suspicious need to cough. “But you just did.”
…Traitors, the lot of them. Lovable traitors.
“And to think, this is the way you treat someone taking you out for your Average Birthday Celebration,” Sokka sniffs, making a show and sticking his nose in the air and prissily settling the choker around his neck as he turns down the air in the backseat—Toph has her usual car blanket pulled up to her neck.
“You aren’t, though,” Aang says, ever reasonable. “Zuko is.”
Which Sokka can’t exactly refute. He might be paying his own way and covering car snacks, gas, and in-car entertainment—those things are road trip necessities—but Zuko is definitely picking up the bulk of the costs between the hotel and park tickets. Disney isn’t exactly cheap, especially with two grad students and the brand new founder of his own nonprofit in the mix, but Sokka doesn’t question what Zuko decides to do with his trust fund money. Or his my-dad-was-an-abusive-garbage-pile lawsuit money.
Sokka isn’t questioning a lot of things about this trip, actually, which is a new experience for him. But he’d been buried under overlapping deadlines at work when the idea they’d always kicked around of a Disney road trip had suddenly firmed up, and Zuko had stubbornly refused to let Sokka get involved in even the smallest bits of the planning—
“Is the idea to just not sleep for the next month?” Zuko asked, half-muffled around his toothbrush as he peeked at Sokka’s laptop screen.
“It’s fine,” Sokka said, opening another tab. “We only have five days, so we need to maximize the experience. I’ve got plenty of—”
“If you say time,” Zuko called from the bathroom, “I’m going to put date night back on the calendar.”
Sokka snapped his mouth shut, guilty, eyes flying up to meet Zuko’s knowing stare as he walked back into the bedroom bare-chested and with his hipbones jutting over his loose pajama pants and sure, maybe Sokka’s eyes actually flew somewhere else first, but he got them up eventually.
“What if,” Zuko said, prowling up the bed toward Sokka, “You focused on your work—” Strands of hair escaping his bun were falling into his intent stare. “—and got your sleep—” The flex and shift of his shoulders was…fascinating. “—and let me—” Two fingers gently shoved Sokka’s laptop closed before its summarily tossed…somewhere else. “—take care of planning this.”
—which Sokka can appreciate a bit more now that they’re underway, anticipation and excitement light in his veins for the five days ahead of them—a whole week, if he counts travel—to just relax and have fun together. And yeah, he might still be lost on what makes it an Average Birthday Celebration—beyond some sideways, Toph-sounding logic about the trip somehow falling on the average of all their birthdays, which made just enough almost-sense for Sokka to recognize he needed to disengage—but Sokka doesn’t have to understand to recognize a good excuse to make this trip finally happen when he hears one, or to enjoy the nice celebratory feel it gives everything.
Though just because Sokka bowed out and let Zuko plan it—Sokka did not roll his eyes, he’s just been on enough dates with Zuko to know that ‘planning’ is a loose term for him. Which is fine. It’s fun. As long as they have a place to sleep tonight…—doesn’t mean that Sokka isn’t fully prepared. He spent all of last night until Zuko dragged him to bed making sure the car was stocked: snacks for everyone—chips for Aang, hard caramels for Toph because she’s insane, gummy worms for Katara, and Sour Patch watermelon for himself and Zuko—because what’s a road trip without car snacks; a blanket for Toph because her bare feet are always getting cold in the AC; some quick—quick!—browsing message boards on local traffic patterns; some light research into the parks and places to eat and what the vegan options are in a place that sells whole fried turkey legs; and a list of all the good radio stations they’ll be driving through because nothing sets the ambiance better for a road trip than listening to what you can find on the radio.
And of course, the in-car entertainment—
“Katara, get your face out of your phone! What’s a school break for if not to take a break.”
—which Sokka takes very seriously.
“Alright,” he says, scrolling through the list he made on his phone, “Let’s skip to the Florida category, since—”
“I’m pretty sure all the answers will still be Uranus.”.
“—since we seem to want to move on.” He glares at the snickers in the back seat, playing up his outrage because he knows Katara is on the verge of a snort of laughter that will make Aang lose it. “Alright—when you’re in Florida, you’re never more than sixty miles from what?”
A beat of silence, then,
“Alligators.”
“The elderly.”
“You already know my answer.”
Sokka sighs. “Guys, only one of those is even specifically about Florida, and Toph, we switched categories.”
Zuko coughs in a suspiciously laugh-like manner. “I’m pretty sure that applies, actually. I know I’ll be significantly closer than—.”
“No flirting in confined spaces,” Katara says quickly, leaning forward to smack Zuko’s shoulder. “You know the rules.”
“Right,” Sokka says, clearing his throat and valiantly rallying. He’s just…going to get Zuko back for that later. When they’re alone, preferably. “And Zuko, your answer?”
Zuko’s gold eyes flick between mirrors as he changes lanes. “I don’t know, a hurricane?”
“I’m pretty sure storm season is more of a seasonal thing than a yearly thing,” Toph drawls.
“Pretty sure ‘pretty sure’ isn’t entirely sure,” Zuko shoots back. “You don’t know it’s wrong until the Question Master says it is.”
“The answer is ‘salt water,’” Sokka says before Toph can say whatever she’s opening her mouth to unleash, “So you’re all wrong again, and how about we just scrap this round and pretend it never happened?”
“So it’s not going to rain today then?” Zuko asks. “It’s clear skies?”
“Clear skies all the way ahead,” Sokka confirms, pulling up his weather app just in case it’s changed in the last half hour. Zuko usually only cares about weather inasmuch as it means he might have to actually wear something other than a black t-shirt and jeans, but Sokka supposes it’s Zuko’s first time planning a trip like this, and he’s happy to indulge him. “Though did you know that Florida has more rainy days and more sunny days than the US average?”
A beat of silence, then Aang asks, cautiously, “Is this part of the Question Game?”
“I guess no,” Katara says immediately, triumphant, because they can’t repeat answers.
“Fruit snacks,” Aang mutters under his breath. “Fine, I guess that it’s not part of the game.”
“…Yeah I don’t know how to make Uranus fit this one,” Toph admits. “I’ll go with a solid ‘you don’t know me.’”
“I say ‘maybe,’” Zuko tosses in.
“That’s too close to ‘you don’t know me!’”
“It’s different!”
“It’s the same thing, it's not a yes and it’s not a no!”
“The vibe,” Zuko insists, “Is different.”
“Alright, alright,” Sokka cuts in. “While it wasn’t part of the game—”
Aang whoops.
“—I don’t actually know what any of you knew or not beforehand—”
“Aww.”
“—so Toph, you get the point.”
“Let’s go!”
“So all the sun is why there are so many theme parks?” Katara asks, voice overly chipper as she resolutely ignores Aang and Toph as they begin to elbow each other. “And the Space Center and stuff?”
“Sure,” Sokka says, shrugging. He hasn’t researched that specifically, but, “Probably the price of land too, and the Kennedy Space Center being close to the equator, obviously. But the sun doesn’t hurt. Especially for that,” he adds, hearing himself go slightly wistful. “There’s a launch today, they’re having great weather for it. It’s definitely going to go off.” And he hates to miss it—he likes to throw them up on the TV at home, or at least stream it on his phone—but he isn’t going to suggest a viewing party huddled around his phone as a group activity when the lure of Disney is in the balance. The suggestion has only ever worked once, years ago, and the fact that Zuko said yes was how Sokka realized he might have a chance with the guy.
Besides, Katara is well-aware—too aware, in her view—that Sokka can in fact replay them at any time, and she won’t be shy about pointing it out.
“Alright,” Sokka says, shaking himself out of his thoughts. “We are officially less than an hour out, let’s get excited.” The back seat obediently straightens. “New category: facts about Disney.”
Sokka dives into his list, ignoring the exaggerated pantomime of attentive focus and concentration happening behind him because he in fact is fully aware there is a whole separate game being played, though he thinks Zuko is the only one who suspects that Sokka knows about the separated points earned by rendering him speechless with their answers.
And the extra points are needed today, because—
“And the correct answer goes to Aang, again, his fifteenth straight point,” Sokka says, putting on his best announcer’s voice as Aang crows out another victory and Katara throws up her hands in irritation.
“Why do you know all this, this is ridiculous—”
“Collusion,” Toph mutters, baleful. “I bet it's collusion.”
“I don’t need to collude,” Aang says, smug. “Not when I’m full of knowledge.”
“Yeah, Twinkletoes, full of—”
Sokka smothers a laugh, twisting around to grab Katara a new bag of gummy worms from the glove compartment in consolation and watching, amused, as they zoom past a very large, very bright, very clear sign pointing the way to Disney.
“I think you might have missed our exit there, buddy,” Sokka comments, glancing over to see Zuko flicking his eyes over the highway signs ahead of them. One of them also has mouse ears on it.
“It’s fine,” Zuko says immediately.
“Are you sure? Because—”
Zuko plucks the bag of gummy worms from Sokka’s hands and tosses them into the back seat, a silent but pointed comment on where Sokka can put his questions, Sokka bites back a grin and ignores the giggles from behind them as he twists back around, making a show of reaching for one of Toph’s hard caramels. Zuko always insists that driving with a GPS is just a distraction, which means Sokka always has directions at the ready for whenever Zuko finally admits that he’s going the wrong way.
“I see you,” Zuko threatens, even though his eyes are fixed on the road—as they should be, at these speeds.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sokka says, prim, popping the candy into his mouth.
“Put that woman away,” Zuko orders.
Sokka rolls his eyes—as if he doesn’t know better than to take the directions off mute. He didn’t even do more than type in the address yet!—and sucks obnoxiously on the candy to puncture the gesture.
The sound effects are, primarily, why he likes them.
Which Zuko knows.
“Don’t sass me.”
“I didn’t say anything.” The sound he manages to make can only be described as a slurp.
“What were you raised by, wolves?”
“A single father.”
“You sound like you’re—”
“Don’t,” Katara warns.
Zuko redirects. “Look up the weather if you want to use your phone.”
Sokka gives another, juicy suck, throwing a lot of tongue action in there—as if Katara has any room to talk, Sokka dreams of forgetting the time she didn’t realize he was home and put Aang on speakerphone.—but obligingly pulling up his weather app again.
“Still no rain,” he says, flicking through the predicted time lapses of the day’s weather. “Why do you want to know so bad?” He absently pours some Sour Patch into Zuko’s outheld hand. “I thought we had a loose arrival.”
“Maybe we want to go to Animal Kingdom,” Aang says, eager. “Right away. First thing. Just drop our stuff and go.” He shrugs when Katara stares at him. “We just got quizzed on it for like ten whole questions!”
Seven, and Aang knew everyone one of them, but, “…Do you guys want to?” The animals are definitely Aang and Zuko’s thing, but Toph and Katara are usually significantly less interested for that to be the first day’s activity. Usually, things like that are better suited for the end of the trip, when energy is flagging and people don’t mind splintering off to do their own thing.
“Uh.” Aang blinks, looking suddenly caught out. “I don’t know. I guess?” He throws a quick glance at Katara, whose head is pointedly back in her phone. “I mean, it depends on what the group wants to do?”
“I vote no animals,” Toph says immediately. “Unless they’ve got a really wicked petting zoo. Then we can go.” She kicks the back of Zuko’s seat. “You guys can narrate Zuko’s expressions to me.”
Zuko shrugs, apparently unbothered. Or maybe trying to figure out where they should be going as he suddenly crosses every single lane to take an exit that is…definitely going in the wrong direction.
“Alright, new question, off script,” Sokka says, eyeing the mid-morning sun as he releases his death grip on the oh-shit handle. “If it’s ten in the morning and the sun is ahead of us, that means we’re driving…?”
“East!” Aang shouts, leaning forward with the force of his answer, and Toph snorts, waving her hand to concede the point. Zuko just reaches out to flick Sokka in the face without taking his eyes off the road, Sokka easily evading Zuko’s hand, sticking out his tongue and then nearly getting flicked in the eye when Katara absently, unexpectedly says, “West.”
“Katara.” Sokka bats Zuko’s hand away, twisting to see her head still in her phone. “Come on, that wasn’t even creative, you could have at least said Uranus.”
“Balls,” Toph mutters, looking annoyed with herself.
“What is happening on your phone?” he complains. “You’ve had face head in it all morning, worse than when Aang did his semester abroad in high school.”
Which makes her blush and Aang perk up like they haven’t been dating for years and is totally worth the bag of gummy worms that smacks him in the face.
“For real though,” Sokka says, turning to Zuko. “You know you’re driving east, right.”
“Yup.”
“And you know that Orlando is more…central.”
Zuko makes a noncommittal noise, silver rings tapping gently against the wheel.
“Because there’s a sign right there for a u-turn.” Nothing. “And we could find ourselves going west real easy, I bet that turn would link us back to—”
“Do not go for that phone,” Zuko says, fisting a hand in Sokka’s t-shirt in mock threat. Sokka laughs, surprised, raising his hands in surrender and ignoring the teasing from behind them as he untangles Zuko’s fingers to press a quick kiss to against his knuckles—to a chorus of yet more commentary from the back seat in the form of “oogies” and kissy noises and “better do what he sa-ays,” because sometimes his friends are a pack of children.
Sokka conveniently also ignores the handful of hard caramels tucked into his pocket, just in case.
“This is right,” Zuko says, adamant, clearing his throat, and Sokka is content to subside back, a smile on his mouth as he takes in the stubborn set of Zuko’s jaw and the dusting of pink over his cheek, the careful flex of his hand once he takes it back like he’s savoring the feel of Sokka’s lips. They have plenty of time, no set schedule or plan today for all that Zuko is driving—everywhere, always—like they’re already late. There’s no need to rush anywhere in particular, even if Zuko does accidentally take them all the way to the beach.
Which could be fun, actually, he wonders how far they are from—
“Hey,” Aang suddenly says, leaning forward to grab Sokka’s attention. “What’s the most central place in the state?”
Sokka blinks, startled and then bemused as Toph fumbles her bag of caramels and Katara slowly turns to stare at Aang with all the dire deliberation of the time their PE teacher suggested she couldn’t play dodgeball with the boys.
“Um.” Aang’s eyes flick between Toph and Katara, his voice going high with uncertainty. “In the country?”
“I mean,” Sokka finally says, digging out his phone as Katara just drops her face into her hands—he isn’t going to ask questions, the back seat is a whole separate nation, “Halfway between the coasts is probably actually Orlando, but I think that’s kind of northern—”
“What about by population,” Katara says quickly. “Centralness by population density. The average of all the people.”
“Who cares about Florida,” Toph says before Sokka can decide whether to do more than give Katara a sidelong look to let her know how weird she is. “Where’s the center of the people for the whole country?”
“Or the whole world?” Aang says, eager.
Sokka eyes them all.
“What if we did it Fermi question style,” Katara adds. “No phones.”
“Give Zuko some peace of mind,” Toph tacks on, dry, and Sokka snorts out a laugh before tucking his phone away again, cracking his caramel between his teeth—the best part—and mentally shifting gears into the new game.
“Alright,” he begins, twisting around so he can see them, “Let’s do the US first. What do we think the most populated states are? Obviously we’re talking…”
They’re deep into discussing the population distribution across Russia when Sokka feels the car switching lanes and then slowing to take an exit, the four of them automatically reaching out to anchor themselves as Zuko takes the curve.
“Finally deciding to turn around?” Sokka asks when they straighten out again, releasing his grip on the headrest.
Zuko makes a noncommittal noise.
“Going to secretly look up directions again while pretending to get gas?”
Zuko gives him a quick, baleful stare to the sound of muffled laughter in the back.
“Or,” Sokka teases as he catches a quick glance at a passing highway sign, “Are we actually just going to the beach now instead?”
Zuko just gives him a quick, unreadable look and tosses the bag of Sour Patch into his lap. “Is that what you want to do?”
Sokka hesitates as he pours out a handful of gummies, thrown by the question, by how serious Zuko suddenly sounded asking it. But then Katara is asking him for his opinion on the distribution of people in Australia and Sokka can’t let Toph’s “all to the left, probably” just stand without discussion, and the conversation flows easily the way it always does, sideways and meandering and interrupted with teasing, jumping from topic to topic until Sokka finds himself leaning into the backseat, trying to show them the latest pictures from the James Web telescope which somehow definitely is kind of related to the population of Canada, when finally feels the car slowing.
“What,” Sokka says as he glances out Katara’s window to see nothing but flat, low greenery, automatically twisting forward to grab his oh-shit bar as Zuko takes the turn. “Are you turning around in a field so no one can…see…you…”
He trails off as he catches sight of the logo on the building that suddenly comes into view. The car is suddenly silent except for the sound of the air conditioner and the road and the low background of the radio as Sokka tries to make sense of what he just saw—did he…take hallucinogens without realizing it again?—until finally Toph shifts beneath her blanket and says, “Can someone please tell me what just shut Sokka up? I need to remember this for next time he won’t stop nervous-talking in front of Azula,” and Sokka can’t even be indignant about the comment because…was that…
“The Kennedy Space Center,” Aang says quietly. “Or a sign for it, at least. On a building we just drove past.”
“Oh,” Toph says, nodding like it’s no big deal. “Maybe we should poke around since we’re all the way here, then.” Her foot nudges Sokka and he just rocks, numb, with the motion. “It’s supposed to be a destination around here, right?”
“One point five million people visit a year,” Sokka says automatically, hearing his own words coming from a distance. “You need tickets for all the good stuff.”
“Maybe we can just walk in,” Aang says cheerfully.
“There’s a launch today,” Sokka says, a corner of his brain sputtering back online. “A crewed launch. There have only been, like, three hundred and sixty-five human launches in the world, ever, do you know how—we can’t just walk in, it’s going to be packed, this is—this is an event.”
“You’re right,” Zuko says serenely, turning into the driveway anyway—as if Sokka can call this a driveway, like it's just some house and not the guarded, grand road to one of four active launch sites in the entire country.
Sokka gapes, incredulous, then twists to take in the suspiciously quiet back seat. All three of them are looking back at him—well, two of them—with repressed smiles and Sokka…he doesn’t understand. They’re almost looking at him with—with anticipation, and his heart wrenches at the idea that they’re just here to turn around and launches into his throat as he slowly turns back toward the dash in time to watch Zuko take them through the gates.
This doesn’t—he doesn’t—
“You hate waiting in lines,” Sokka manages to get out, faint.
Zuko hums.
“Toph hates waiting in lines.”
“Boring,” she agrees.
“It’s the busiest day of the year,” he says, body tingling with disbelief as Zuko slows to pay for parking, feeling like it’s watching it all happen through a movie screen. “If we come back tomorrow we could—”
“Check the side door pocket,” Zuko interrupts, leaning out the window to insert his card into the machine.
“What do you need?” Sokka asks, snapping into autopilot and twisting toward the organizer he carefully designed and measured and cut to fit perfectly into the car door. “Tissues? A new water? I have—”
Sokka cuts off as his hand finds something soft, something that isn’t tissues or water bottles or charging cables or aspirin or emergency fidgets or eye masks or—
Part of him recognizes the soft, familiar roll of fabric before he even unfolds it, his heart pounding hard enough to shake his breath as slowly pulls out his favorite t-shirt, well-worn and thin in places with wear, the one that was too big when Yue got it for him in high school and that nearly verges on too small through the shoulders and chest now, meticulously cleaned every time he’s stained it and carefully washed and hung dry so the NASA logo across the front is still as bright and clear as the day he got it.
“…What?” Sokka forces out, the single syllable wobbling, seeing more than feeling his hands trembling a little.
There’s rustling in the back instead of answers, and Sokka twists around to see Katara unbuttoning her flannel and Aang pulling off his sweatshirt and Toph shoving down her blanket to show all of them…all of in space t-shirts, too, wide grins breaking over astronauts and rovers and I need space in curling script.
Sokka stares, stunned and speechless and trying to process what’s going on—they decided…to have a themed day? Except Sokka loves themed days, why wouldn’t they just…—before turning to Zuko, who only ever wears black t-shirts or black henleys or maybe, if he’s feeling spicy, dark red—and yanking down his collar to show another shirt underneath.
“I knew your tits weren’t as nippley as usual,” Sokka blurts out—
“Sokka!”
—and Zuko chokes on a laugh as he whips them into a parking spot with his usual adrenaline-pumping precision, ineffectively batting Sokka away as he tries to lift the hem of Zuko’s shirt to see the one underneath and more takes the whole bunch of it up Zuko’s ribs instead, baring the edges of the tattoo spiraling down Zuko’s side before Zuko manages to turn off the car and set Sokka’s hands firmly back into his own lap.
Sokka clutches his t-shirt to his chest, the silence expanding until it feels like a physical pressure against him as Sokka stares at Zuko, then out the window at the cars around them, then at Katara and Aang and Toph behind him. “You guys,” he finally says, opening and closing his mouth a few times with no idea what he wants to say. “What—why—how—aren’t we—”
He distantly registers the sudden influx of outside noises—seagulls and the distant highway and indistinct voices—as Zuko slides out of the car and then leans back in to reach across Sokka to open his door, too. The click and release of tension as Katara leans over to undo his seatbelt, the back doors opening, too, and Sokka is still trying to find his words around the buzzing thing in his chest when Aang leans forward to gently shove him out of the car.
Sokka feels like he’s in a dream as he stumbles to his feet, some corner of him noting the humidity, the heat of the blacktop beneath his sneakers, the fact that everyone else has already piled out of the car and gathered around the trunk. Sokka makes his way over on legs that feel like they’re attached to someone else’s body to see them busily unloading…so much stuff. Baseball caps and visors stitched with happy moons and rocket ships, Hawaiian shirts covered in planets, little flags and NASA-covered water bottles, fanny packs and socks printed with asteroids and constellations and astronauts. Temporary tattoos, packs of cheap space-themed earrings and bracelets and this explains why the trunk was so hard to pack compared to usual and it’s just—it’s just so much—it's—
“You guys,” Sokka says again, voice shaking. “What—we—”
“We can plan things too, you know,” Aang grins, bouncing on his toes a little.
“Lots of planning,” Katara agrees. With a smile, though, despite the rueful words as she continues to hand things off to Aang to sort out onto the blanket Toph has laid down on the asphalt. Things like portable cushions for comfy seating, sunblock, parasols? And bug spray, more blankets, Sokka didn’t even know they owned half this stuff, it’s like they set out to have a space-themed day of sitting in the sun, what—
Sokka’s heart pounds once, hard, in his chest.
“…Why do we need all that,” Sokka asks, hearing his voice rising a few octaves over the question and not even caring about it. The only answer he gets is a ballcap set onto his head, Sokka flipping it backward on autopilot. “Guys, this—that—you’d need things like that for watching a launch.”
“Yup!” Aang says brightly.
“Guys, it’s a crewed launch today,” Sokka repeats, wondering how many times he has to say it before they understand, something wild building in his throat that he isn’t sure would come out as a laugh or a scream because he wants to embrace lightness in his chest, but, “We might be able to just show up at any other time and see it but today you can’t…just…”
His words fade off as Zuko’s arms come around him from behind, the solid weight of him leaning against Sokka’s back as he fans out a little stack of papers in front of Sokka’s face. Tickets.
A stack of tickets.
Zuko’s smile is audible as he whispers, cheek pressed to Sokka’s temple, “I told you we had it covered.”
Part of Sokka is still convinced that he’s going to wake up from this at any moment to find that he’s nodded off in the car, the feeling only growing as they put on paint and temporary tattoos and decide what gear they want, as they go through security, as they check in, as they settle onto the shuttle to—
“The Gantry is the closest place to watch a launch,” Sokka says blankly, Zuko giving him a gentle shove from behind to get him going up the bus stairs again.
—to the Observation Gantry.
“It’s less than two and a half miles from the launch pad,” he says as they find their seats.
“It’s not usually open to the public,” he offers as the shuttle gets underway, the words spilling out of him in fits and bursts, Zuko murmuring acknowledgment and squeezing his hand each time, even as they start coming faster and faster—
“—and that’s the Vehicle Assembly Building—”
“—NASA used space shuttles for thirty years—”
“—only three hundred and fifty-five astronauts ever flew on a space shuttle—”
“—the ISS experiences sixteen sunrises and sunsets every day—"
—eyes crinkled with amusement above his face paint whenever Sokka manages to drag his gaze over to look at him.
And then they’re disembarking, Aang and Katara running hand-in-hand ahead of the crowd to secure the best spot, Toph loudly proclaiming that she wants a great view, and somehow Sokka is standing with Zuko at his side, staring at a view he’s only ever seen through livestreams before. And still it doesn’t feel real, not until the very last minute, when the countdown begins and the crowd hushes in anticipation and the flame explodes to life and Sokka is suddenly, very abruptly, undeniable here.
He feels the pressure like an arm banding around his chest and snatching at his breath, The ground rumbles beneath his feet until it feels like his very bones are resonating to the impossible music of the rockets, his eyes watering as he stares at the brightness like a second sun birthed upon the earth. He watches it roar into the sky, his whole body trembling with amazement, eyes prickling as he tries to not even blink, tries to not miss a single millisecond, wonder filling him to bursting and spilling over.
“With fire and dreaming,” Sokka whispers, gripping Zuko’s hand hard enough to make his own fingers ache, “We send these fragile bodies into endless night.”
“What?” Zuko murmurs, squeezing back.
“They carry our hope,” Sokka says, the poetry tripping out of him, “To see beyond the edge of our own gravity.”
Zuko lets out a sound like a sigh, gently pulling Sokka back into his chest, rumbling some noise of encouragement.
“We shape deadly flame with wonder and care to reach for our far-flung dreams,” Sokka breathes, the words tumbling out until the bright point of light finally fades into the noon brightness of the sky behind clouds and feathered billows of smoke and all that is left is the achingly blue sky.
Sokka stares a long moment still, searching for any little bit that might be left. Then he lets out a disbelieving little laugh, then another, then a third as awe and reverence transform into giddiness and a stunned, joyful kind of amazement sweeping up through him. He turns Zuko, staring up into gold eyes, his chest too full to do anything except look at the others, opening his mouth and nothing coming out, nothing feeling like it could possibly describe what he’s feeling right now.
“Is he doing okay over there?” Toph asks, and Sokka finally manages to get out, “Guys,” and then again, with feeling, eyes prickling all over again, “Guys.”
“He’s good,” Katara says, wrapping her arm around him in a quick hug. “Do you want to stay here and take in the moment?”
Yes, fuck, Sokka can’t even imagine trying to do anything right now other than—
“Or we could check out the astronaut hall of fame or the rocket museum or some—”
“Yes.”
They end up back on the bus, and Sokka can hear himself rattling off facts about NASA and space and astronauts and everything they’re seeing—
“—did you know in the 70s there was a strike in space? It was on the Skylab space station, and—”
“—Jack Black’s mom was one of the engineers who worked on the Apollo missions—”
“—it takes nearly an hour to put on a spacesuit, and it weighs—”
“—pencils are actually a hazard in space, which is why NASA spent so much to develop a zero gravity pen—”
“—that’s John Young, he ate a bit of the moon—"
—as his excitement rattles through him as almost nervous energy. But the others just smile and nod and ask follow-up questions and they might be humoring him but Sokka doesn’t care, not a bit, because that’s a real actual Apollo rocket and he’s watching the thrill of the space race unfold on the screen in the blue-lit dimness of the replica firing room and he’s touching a real fucking actual moon rock.
And sure, Sokka has his own moon rock in his room, and he’s watched more documentaries than Zuko probably cares to count about NASA’s various missions. But he once made Katara watch a compilation of his favorite rocket launches and he can name, in order, all 365 manned space flights ever to leave Earth. He used to stargaze on his roof alone or with Jet and then Yue and sometimes his dad and now Zuko. He has the Curiosity rover tattooed on the back of his shoulder and the solar system wrapped around his bicep and he’s wanted to be an astronaut since he was old enough to realize what that was, has wanted to visit the Kennedy Space Center and see a launch since he learned it existed, and he still almost can’t believe it but Sokka is here, he’s fucking here.
Here because Katara and Aang and Toph and Zuko brought him. Here because they took a day that was already going to be amazing and turned it into this, and some corner of Sokka’s brain is still operational enough beneath the buzzing energy to know that it was more than just the refusal to let him get involved in the planning, the commitment to the theme, the hustle to get out the door this morning and Zuko’s constant questions about the weather. Because its also the best seats in the entire place, and Sokka knows how quickly those go for a launch like this, which means it’s also, somehow, the shifting deadline at work, the inexplicable stretch of time open for an impromptu vacation, the easy agreement of his boss and Zuko and Toph and Katara and Aang’s schedules all miraculously lining up with his…
So Sokka doesn’t try to rein in his enthusiasm. He lets it run free as he tugs them from exhibit to exhibit, lets every bit of his joy shine through his voice until he’s nearly as hoarse as Zuko from talking by the time they finally break for late lunch—
“They definitely have vegan options, all the plates and utensils here are biodegradable!”
—his face aching from grinning as they make their way to Zuko’s chosen café. He’s walking mostly backward, relying on Zuko to guide him as needed as he tries to describe the look of the moon’s surface in appropriately grand but approachable terms for Toph, Aang and Katara tossing in their own suggestions and impressions, so he’s not really thinking about the direction they’re going in, about orienting his backward-facing route against the map he has tucked into his pocket.
But he does notice when they take a turn away from a sign for food.
“Wait,” Sokka says, reaching back to halt Zuko’s progress. “I think we—”
“Sokka,” Zuko interrupts, laughing. “It’s covered. I’ve got it, okay?”
And then he’s pulling Sokka forward, and Sokka is looking back over his shoulder in confusion as Katara and Toph and Aang make no move to follow, Katara just smiling and Toph wiggling her fingers in a prissy little goodbye, and before Sokka can ask Zuko is pushing him through a set of doors and Sokka finds himself face to face with—
“Karen Nyberg,” Sokka blurts out.
“I am,” she smiles, white teeth and blond hair and professional friendliness and Sokka can feel himself staring. “And you are?”
Sokka can’t even speak.
“I’m Zuko,” Zuko says from behind, reaching around Sokka to offer his hand. “This is Sokka.” A little tug on his wolf tail. “He’s a big fan.”
“Zuko,” Sokka finally manages to whisper as she walks away to talk to some official-looking coordinator person, reaching back to grab his hand, squeezing tight as he takes in the tables and the food and the regular-looking people taking seats and the place settings and the fact that Karen fucking Nyberg is here. “Zuko. Zuko, Zuko, Zuko.”
“Yeah?” he laughs, gently tugging Sokka out of the doorway.
“That’s Karen Nyberg.”
“It is,” Zuko agrees, indulgent, fond, smiling.
“That’s—that’s Dr. Karen Nyberg.”
“Mhm.”
“Her graduate research as in human thermoregulation in space suits and she has a PhD in mechanical engineering and she holds a patent for the Robot Friendly Probe and Socket Assembly system, which is used in space, and she was the Chief of the Robotics branch of NASA, and—” Sokka sucks in a breath for air. “—and she was in space for one hundred and eighty days, she went there twice, she—”
Sokka can hear himself rattling off more facts, Zuko looking at him with that soft little half-smile he always has on his face when Sokka is getting way too deep into something that Zuko has no context for but is content to listen to him ramble about anyway. Like they’re in their apartment back home and not about to have lunch with Karen Nyberg and suddenly it’s all so much, it’s all so perfect, that Sokka can’t stop from bursting into tears.
“Sokka,” Zuko says, jerking up in horror. “Fuck, what’s wrong? Is it your leg? Are you okay? Do we need to—”
“No, no, no,” Sokka says, waving his hands and fumbling in his Perseverance fanny pack for tissues. “This is amazing, it’s—you’re amazing, this is—fuck, Zuko,” he laughs a bit, wiping at his eyes and sniffling, “This is just—the best thing anyone has ever done for me, ever.”
“…You’re happy,” Zuko says slowly, eyes flicking over Sokka’s face, shoulders still tight.
“So happy,” Sokka says wetly, smiling even as he feels more tears leaking out. “Fuck, I don’t know if I’ve ever been this happy, I don’t even know why I’m crying, I—” He freezes as someone new walks through the doors. “…That’s Christopher Cassidy. He was a Navy SEAL. He commanded the ISS Expedition 63 and took a space selfie and—”
Zuko lets out a relieved breath, body relaxing and smile coming back as he tugs Sokka in for a kiss that very thoroughly stops the flow of words tripping out of his mouth, grounding Sokka back in the center of his spiraling thoughts.
Eventually Zuko pulls back to rest his forehead against Sokka’s, searching his eyes. “You want to do this?” he asks, thumb brushing against the lingering wetness over Sokka’s cheek. “You’re good?”
“If you try to take me out of this room,” Sokka says with all the seriousness in his heart, “I will never sleep with you ever again.”
Zuko lets out a startled laugh. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” he assures him, leaning in for another kiss. “Ready?”
Sokka takes a deep breath, repeating to himself over and over that he’s going to have lunch with actual astronauts who have been to actual space and he’s going to be fucking normal about it if it’s the last thing he does. “Ready.”
And miraculously, he actually is. He manages to keep his dumbstruck enthusiasm under wraps and engage his brain and have an intelligent conversation and not drop any food into his own lap—which might be the greatest achievement of the day, really. It feels like it simultaneously lasts forever and is over all too soon, plates being cleared away and hands being shaken and doors opening and between one blink and the next he’s standing in the Florida sun again, Zuko pressing space dots ice cream into his hand, feeling just…stunned and overwhelmed and so happy he almost doesn’t what to do with it. So full he could burst, so full he’s almost afraid to ask—
“So,” Sokka says, clearing his throat and holding out his cup for Zuko to steal a bite from. “What’s after lunch?”
Zuko hesitates, searching his face. “…The Center closes at five.”
“Right, right,” Sokka says, nodding. He knew that, he’s practically memorized the website, and this one day has been so amazing, so much more than he could have dreamed of, the kind of day that isn’t even over and he already knows he’s going to cherish every memory of it for the rest of—
“So Katara, Aang, and Toph are going to take the shuttle that runs to Disney tomorrow.”
Sokka stills, vaguely aware of ice cream dots plopping off his spoon.
“And we’re doing the Astronaut Training Experience and Mars Base thing tomorrow and the day after.”
More ice cream falls onto his shoe.
“It’s an all-day thing,” Zuko says, shifting nervously when Sokka just stands, frozen. “I hope that’s okay. I know we said Disney was the plan, so if you’d rather do that then we can—mmphf,” he finishes as Sokka hauls him into a kiss, holding the ice cream out from their bodies and trying to put every single feeling and thing he doesn’t know how to say into the press of their lips.
Zuko looks flushed after, pink and pleased around the edges, and Sokka is silently hoping that Zuko booked them a separate room from the others—he is feeling very appreciative—when Zuko adds, like he’s suddenly remembering, “And we should still have time for the gift shop today, too, after we finish our ice cream.”
“Fuck,” Sokka blurts, already grabbing Zuko’s hand to haul him there. “What’s next, a proposal?”
Sokka is still bursting with happiness when they walk out of the gift shop, Aang and Katara and Toph chattering away ahead of them, but he’s finally feeling a bit calmer as the entirety of the day sinks in, as the extent of what the others—of what Zuko—did for him settles into something that he can wrap his mind around.
“Hey,” he says, slowing his steps a bit and clutching his space shuttle plushie to his chest when Zuko turns to give him a curious look. “Thank you,” he starts, trying to find the words for more and suddenly choking up, his heart feeling so full. “This—I—”
“Sokka,” Zuko says, lips quirked into a smile as he tugs Sokka into his arms, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek. “You care so much for us, love,” he murmurs, rocking gently. “It’s never a hardship to get to care for you for a change.”
Then he adds, teasing and affection light in his voice, his grin curved against Sokka’s temple, “Now come on, astronaut, you need to rest up before your training tomorrow,” and Sokka doesn’t know if he’s ever heard sweeter words.