concept: after the war ends, iroh is fire lord. azula is being treated, but zuko decides maybe he could use help too and starts therapy. it takes a few years, but he’s finally able to work through some stuff, and learns to let himself be more open and vulnerable. he confesses his feelings for sokka just to get the words out of his stomach, knowing full well it’s unrequited but being pretty calm and accepting of it, not even breaking a sweat or letting his smile falter when sokka, fully taken aback, says sorry, i don’t feel that way about you. their friendship doesn’t suffer. zuko feels much better after getting his feelings off his chest and is looking forward to a point where maybe he finds someone else to fall for, but the confession always kind of sticks in the back of sokka’s mind. cut to several years later, iroh is looking for an ambassador to send to the south pole to represent the fire nation, and asks zuko if he’d be interested. it doesn’t take much convincing. he and sokka spend practically every day working and spending time together, and zuko realizes just how little his feelings have changed over the years; still, he already told sokka how he felt once, he doesn’t feel the need to do so again. meanwhile sokka’s feelings are veryquicklychanging, but zuko hasn’t said anything and sokka is worried that he’s too late and missed his chance. it takes months and months, time sokka spends accidentally falling more in love, before he decides that the least he can do after zuko was so brave in confessing years ago is to be brave and confess back.
zuko doesn’t recognize that sokka’s catching feelings because he’s too busy trying real hard to be a Good Ambassador because he wants to make uncle proud and also hakoda too now because he gives big dad shoulder pats when zuko does something well and it shakes him to his core. also because sokka is real nice to everyone, so how is he supposed to know the difference. anyway when sokka does finally confess, zuko is really really confused, but like, in a good way.
i made myself laugh at my own stupid joke in the tags earlier so i turned it into a comic lmfao
im so sorry zuko, i know you aren’t this much of a dumbass.
