fuck it. preview of aidays chapter 8 bc i feel like it
It’s dark in a way that feels close, like the black sky is a living, tangible thing, bleeding down onto the ground. It’s the kind of dark that raises the hair on the back of your neck and makes every small sound explosive. The kind of dark that makes your palms sweat and your heart race and your thoughts so unbearably loud you almost can’t tell if they’re staying in your head or being said out loud.
Or maybe, Sokka thinks, as Zuko flashes him a careful smile over his shoulder, that’s just the company.
Zuko gestures across the parking lot and says, “It’s, um - I’m that one.”
“I know,” Sokka says, because he does, “I remember.”
The lights flash as the car unlocks, and then Sokka’s climbing into the passenger seat and clicking his seatbelt into place, and the whole day hits him like a brick wall. The back of his skull knocks against the headrest, exhaustion boring bone-deep like radiation. He’ll be lucky if he makes it home without passing out.
And then Zuko gets in and turns the key in the ignition, a slow pop song spilling from the radio, and Sokka feels like a livewire.
The car is more Azula’s than it is Zuko’s. It’s got her sleek lines and silent engine and name on the insurance, but Zuko sits in the driver’s seat like it’s a second home, and when Sokka closes his eyes to take a deep breath and steady himself, the air is all mixed tea leaves and floral fabric softener and Zuko, Zuko, Zuko.
It’s a sensory paradox: the familiarity of it, the unshakable feeling of safe that always comes with Zuko, sets Sokka at ease, and at the same time, this kind of proximity makes his heart beat like a screen door in a hurricane.
“Are you okay?” Zuko asks. Not in a way that sounds specific to this moment, more general. More like how are you holding up than what’s wrong with you right now.
Sokka opens his eyes to meet Zuko’s, all soft concern and golden syrup brown, and almost wishes he hadn't.
“I’m just tired,” he says, and stifles a yawn. “It’s been a long night.”
read chapters 1-7 of and i'll do anything you say (if you say it with your hands) here
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