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It’s late when Sokka comes back to himself, as though waking from a fever dream of piles and piles of sketches and notes. His candles have all burned low, if they haven’t sputtered out entirely, and Yue sits proud and full in the sky. Even by Sokka’s standards, it’s well past any reasonable hour to be up and working.
With a groan, Sokka stretches, leaning in his straight-backed chair. His back pops — another sigh of relief, and he busies himself with packing away his drawing supplies for the night.
The guards outside the Firelord’s chambers shift at Sokka’s approach. Sokka shoots them a smile and they step aside from the doors to let him in.
Zuko’s rooms are quiet and dark. Shades of gentle reds and yellows by day, they appear almost blue in the moonlight. The faintest light seeps from the bedroom — a lantern left on.
Zuko should be asleep by now. Sokka has always been something of a night owl-cat, staying up and sleeping in late, but Zuko? Zuko’s an early riser. Unless Sokka keeps him up, wink, he’s rarely awake past midnight.
The only sounds as he crosses through the living area of Zuko’s rooms are the distant cries of the cicada-moths and the gentle pad of Sokka’s footsteps across rich rugs. Technically, there should be guards stationed in these rooms too — a fact Suki never ceases to remind them of every time she’s in the Fire Nation. But Zuko, prickly as he is, is far too stubborn about his privacy and too insistent that he can protect himself for the 30 extra seconds it would take his guards to get to him if there’s ever a threat. His guards learnt eventually not to keep pushing.
Zuko stirs when Sokka enters the bedroom.
The room smells like sweet candles and flowers drifting inwards from the windows, and the light, sheer fabrics that fall like a tent around the bed to keep the lightning-mosquitoes away flow in a lazy breeze. Zuko is hazy through the delicate material: like a vision in smoke as he rolls over, their thin summer blanket half-kicked off and draped over one leg. He lifts his head to look at Sokka.
Sokka winces. “Sorry, fire lily,” he whispers, stepping carefully through the fabrics. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”
Zuko’s sleep shorts are bunched and twisted around his thighs. He stretches, and the low waistline is pulled even further down until the sharp cliff edges of his hips are revealed, jutting out from pale skin like carved marble.
Sokka fights to swallow down a sudden knot in his throat. With his eyes, he follows the line of hair that trails from Zuko’s belly button, beginning to thicken and grow dark as it leads his gaze downwards.
“I wasn’t asleep,” Zuko grumbles. Sokka’s eyes feel like glue as he drags them to Zuko’s face, away from the enticingly low pull of his sleeping clothes.
“Sure you weren’t,” he teases instead, pushing his thoughts aside from the place his mind was leading them. He pulls out the knot in his waist sash, tosses it aside, and slips out of his shirt.
Zuko props himself up on his elbows. His eyes, half-lidded and lazy as he watches Sokka undress, seem to glow in the lamplight. The gold is mesmerising, almost as alluring as the soft, sleepy rasp of his voice when he speaks.
“I was waiting for you.”
Sokka’s heart gives an inexplicable little stammer at that. His smile warms his face as he bends down to pull off his shoes.
The silk sheets rustle as Zuko sits up. Sokka pretends not to be distracted by the movement of his lean, almost-bare body. The hot, humid air running over his skin sends a chill down his spine. Or maybe it’s the intensity of Zuko’s gaze, watching him coolly while he sets his shoes by the end of the bed.
“What?” Sokka asks, when he turns around and finds Zuko still watching.
Zuko grins. A flash of white teeth, glimmering under the low light; a smug curve to his lips.
Rolling his eyes, Sokka clambers into bed. He leans over on his way to press a gentle kiss to the bridge of Zuko’s nose. It’s a light kiss, lingering just a moment before he makes to pull back, only Zuko’s hand catches his jaw before he can retreat. Sokka pauses, opening his eyes. Zuko watches him through his lashes, lips parted ever so slightly. Sokka’s breath catches at the sight. And then Zuko is directing Sokka’s face forward, tilting his own head back, until their lips meet.
Hot lips and breath spill into Sokka’s mouth. It’s slow, clumsy with Zuko’s drowsiness. But it’s needy. Sokka exhales as he settles into the kiss, letting his eyes flutter closed. Zuko is a gentle summer storm, a perfect combination of soft lips and sharp teeth. His breath is heavy in Sokka’s mouth. The taste is sweeter than honey.
Zuko reaches for him, a sly hand moving across silken sheets to Sokka’s thighs — slipping between. Sokka shivers, but Zuko doesn’t falter. His hand wanders, fingers light as a ghost across the sensitive skin of Sokka’s inner thighs, sliding underneath his sampot.
Sokka breaks the kiss with a wet noise, breath coming out hard. Zuko’s eyes flicker up to meet his, lips shining wet and their faces still barely an inch apart.
“Are you…” Sokka pants. “…Really? I mean, not that I’m complaining, but you aren’t too tired?”
Zuko smirks. “I won’t be tired if you wake me up,” he murmurs, his voice breathy and low in Sokka’s ears.
A deep ache resonates inside Sokka — the stab of excitement and dawning arousal. He licks his lips, grins. “Oh, believe me, I can do that.”
He’s moving before he even finishes speaking. Hands reaching to Zuko’s chest, Sokka meets his mouth in a blaze. There’s no trace of that slow, lingering kiss from before, replaced by a kiss of frenzy and want.
Zuko lets out a soft moan as he sinks into it, his jaw slackening just enough for Sokka to work it open, to reach inside with his tongue. Hands wrapping around Zuko’s biceps, Sokka pushes forward, sinking his weight onto Zuko’s chest and forcing him down. He’s met with resistance — enough to have him tightening his grip on Zuko’s arms, nails digging into muscle.
Then Sokka triumphs, and Zuko is back flat against the bed, Sokka’s knees either side of his thighs. The lantern light gives an aroused surge — hot — and Zuko’s just beyond shoulder-blade-length hair spills sleekly out around his face, an ink spill bleeding into the silk of their pillows. He looks up at Sokka, lips kiss-bitten. He bucks his hips under Sokka, taunting, like a boisterous polar-dog unhappy to be ridden and forces his way up onto his elbows.
Oh, so that’s how he wants to play it tonight?
Zuko is defiant more often than not, likes to tease, likes to make Sokka work for it. Sokka grabs onto either side of Zuko’s hips, pushing him back down into the mattress. He could easily flip Sokka if he truly wanted, the bedding hardly providing a stable ground for Sokka to kneel on.
He leans down and kisses deep into Zuko’s chest. His scent — smoke and the sweet fire lily perfume he likes — fills Sokka’s nose as he inhales. He runs his tongue over the hard points of Zuko’s nipples, the textures of the scars that cross his chest: the star-shaped one on his sternum, twin lines arching beneath his pecs. Sokka knows Zuko doesn’t have much feeling left across his chest, after a combination of lightning wounds and surgical procedures in the North, but that doesn’t mean they can’t both enjoy it anyway, even if it’s only for the action. Zuko’s skin is warm, his taste something savoury on Sokka’s tongue.
His hands slide up Sokka’s back, twisting handfuls into his hair. He slips out the ribbon that keeps it tied back. Hair falls into Sokka’s face, into his mouth as he moves across Zuko’s chest.
He pushes off. “Hey!” Sokka flicks hair out of his face and spits it out of his mouth. “Do you mind?”
“What?” Zuko says, mimicking Sokka from before. He looks up at him, his expression amused and completely unapologetic, and licks his lips hungrily. Sokka rolls his eyes, but he can’t help grinning.
Zuko’s hands are still hovering about Sokka’s hair — he tucks a braid behind Sokka’s ear and tugs on it at the back, testing. And Sokka sees his chance. He reaches back to take both of Zuko’s wrists and brings them to the pillows, pinned either side of his head.
Irritation flickers in Zuko’s eyes, in the sparks that escape on his breath. He bucks again.
Sokka moves, bringing his hips down and grinding them against Zuko’s. An involuntary groan escapes him. He’s already hard, leaking cock making itself known through the silhouette of his shorts, and the friction of grinding down on Zuko’s hips through fabric gives him hardly any relief. Frustration is only a fleeting grievance, though, when he has his lover pinned beneath him, watching him with wide eyes, a lightly flushed face.
Sokka leans down to nip and suck up and down Zuko’s neck, his collarbones. He throws himself into sucking a mark below his jaw with a fervour that has Zuko arching under him in pleasure-pain; somewhere high enough on his throat that Zuko will have to wear his hair down for a week, unless he wants his advisors snickering each time they so much as steal a kiss between appointments. As he works, he switches to hold both of Zuko’s wrists above his head in one hand, so that the other can traipse down Zuko’s body, under Sokka’s own legs to slip into Zuko’s shorts.
He pulls off from Zuko’s neck as his fingers make contact, and Zuko goes very still. His legs twist outward ever so minutely, instinctively, to make room as Sokka’s hand grazes him. He’s warm, obscenely wet. Sokka moves his fingers through Zuko’s cunt and watches the muscles work in his face, his neck. His eyes fluttering closed, a breathy, half-bitten off cry tears out of his throat as Sokka drags over his clit.
Sokka lingers in the feeling of thick wetness, the feverish heat. He moves his fingers tantalisingly slow. Zuko's brow twitches at the sensation, the muscles in his forearms tensing as he strains against Sokka’s hold.
“Feel good?”
Zuko nods.
And then Sokka pulls his hand away. Zuko’s golden eyes snap open, his eyebrows furrowing. Sokka’s fingers are coated in Zuko’s wet.
“Hey, don’t stop,” Zuko complains, futile.
“Patience, sunlight…”
Of course, Zuko thrashes.
Sokka rolls his eyes and pays him no mind. He hikes his hips again so he can hoist Zuko’s up off the bed and begin to pull down those thin sleep shorts.
But Zuko squirms again — this time violently. In the momentum, Sokka loses his grip around Zuko’s wrists. Before he can suck in a surprised breath, Zuko has swept his legs out, twisting his body round and flipping Sokka onto his back in a move that is definitely supposed to be used with fire.
Sokka opens his eyes to Zuko leaning over him, a victorious smirk on his lips. “What was that?”
Zuko grins. “That’s my turn.”
Oh. Sokka’s cock throbs.
Zuko swings his legs to the outside of Sokka’s thighs, pinning them between him, and grinds. His ass is firm as he settles on Sokka’s lap, and this is infinitely hotter than when Sokka had grinded down on him. Each little bit of friction, every motion Zuko makes, has sparks of pleasure shooting through Sokka’s veins.
“See?” Zuko says, low and seductive. “Don’t you like it better this way?”
With a small, high-pitched noise that can only be described as a whine, Sokka nods desperately, his eyes wide. He wriggles, fighting to open his thighs just a little, feeling the shift of Zuko’s hips as Sokka spreads him apart wider.
Zuko’s hands begin again to roam Sokka’s body, touching every part of him, firebender-hot, like a flame dances and devours through a grassland. They trail down Sokka’s ribs, brushing his thumb over sensitive nipples, then down to grasp his waist tight as Zuko leans down for another wet, open-mouthed kiss.
It’s so intoxicating that he almost doesn’t notice as Zuko’s hand snakes down his belly, dips below the waist of Sokka’s pants. He tugs the front down, reaching in to pull out Sokka’s cock. Heat explodes beneath his touch. Sokka can’t help the way his hips shudder and roll with the motion as Zuko’s thumb toys with his tip, smearing beads of precum around the head.
“Zuk— Oh,” Sokka gasps, cut off when Zuko’s teeth suddenly, with all the enthusiasm of a tigerdillo tearing into a fresh catch, sink into the flesh around Sokka’s collarbone. All the while, his hand gently working — no, not even; playing with — the tip of Sokka’s dick. Barely enough to give Sokka any relief, but enough that his stomach clenches and flutters with every touch.
Zuko moves, biting down on a place lower on Sokka’s chest. Sokka tilts his head back, a low noise escaping his throat. He can’t bear it anymore, this taunting. He needs real action. Zuko’s body is warm and hard as he runs his hands up his thighs, over fabric, to the waist of his loose shorts. Tentative, he hooks a thumb under, tugging it as far down Zuko’s hips and ass as is possible with him still sitting across Sokka.
Zuko huffs a laugh as he peels back off Sokka’s chest. A few more sparks flurry out, glowing gold and fading to night, close enough to Sokka’s face to have his heart beat a second faster. The places where Zuko had sunk his teeth into sting as air fills them.
“Please, Zuko,” Sokka begs. Distantly, he’s aware that his voice is high and strained with need. “Please.”
Zuko considers. His hand withdraws from Sokka and he slides back until he’s straddling Sokka’s legs. The empty space on Sokka’s lap, the lack of weight and warmth and movement and friction, hits like a shock. Zuko swings his legs one by one over Sokka’s, and he tucks into a kneel between Sokka’s thighs.
“Lift your hips for me.”
Sokka obeys instantly, mouth dry and hunger vicious, heat pooling into his belly. Zuko slides his pants all the way down his legs and throws them to the floor somewhere.
The shock of cool air sliding in around Sokka sends a shiver rolling down his spine.
There’s a hand on Sokka’s belly and another on the flesh of his thigh, pushing it apart, and Zuko leans down to kiss the soft skin by the base of Sokka, nose buried in trimmed brown hair. And then he licks up his length and parts his lips around the head and there’s nothing Sokka can do to suppress the noise that tears from his throat.
Zuko sinks down halfway, tongue flicking under his cockhead and pressing into his slit when he rises again. His mouth is so warm, so perfect, his already kiss-bitten lips red and swollen. He settles into a slow rhythm, sucking gently, never taking more than half the length into his mouth, and it’s unbearable.
Desperate, Sokka whines and rocks forward, matching his pace. That works, sort of; as each stutter upwards of his hips meets Zuko’s downwards motion, Zuko accepts another centimetre, breath coming hard through his nose and tiny moans vibrating around Sokka’s cock.
“Fuck, Zu, please—” Sokka bites out, fists balling into the sheets and hips shuddering upwards. “I’m so— I need you. I’m going to—”
Zuko looks up at him, cheeks hollow and golden eyes glinting smug in the lamplight. He slows to a near stop — dickhead, literally — and then he dives back in with a near-feverish passion. Finally taking him all the way in, Zuko releases a muffled whimper as the tip pushes deep into the back of his throat. His pace grows faster and faster, hands tightening around Sokka’s hips, mouth working expertly.
Sokka’s orgasm hits him like an explosion barely a few seconds later. He arches off the bed as Zuko swallows down his cum, his soft, ink-black hair spilling onto Sokka’s thighs.
When Sokka is all wrung out, Zuko pulls completely off of his softening cock with a pop of suction, and stalks up Sokka’s body on his hands and knees. Sokka, stunned, pants beneath him as his senses slowly return to him.
“You really know how to use that mouth of yours,” he says, breathless.
Zuko shrugs, though the smug glint hasn’t left his eyes. “It’s a gift.”
“And I’m eternally grateful. So when do I get to return the favour?”
And Zuko shuts him up with another kiss, but Sokka can feel his lips curled into a smirk.
Breaking the kiss, Zuko draws back to the edge of the mattress and rises to his knees to slide off his shorts. Sokka follows, catching him from behind and wrapping an arm around Zuko’s waist, letting the other snake between his legs. He pulls him back, and Zuko hums and lets him arrange their bodies so that Zuko’s back is flush to Sokka’s chest, Sokka’s folded knees parted around his hips and Zuko’s legs spread.
“So pretty, baby,” Sokka breathes as he slides a finger as deep as it can go into Zuko and draws a ragged groan from his lover. “You’re so gorgeous for me.” Another finger slides in without resistance, so after a few thrusts of his wrist, he adds a third.
Zuko is already so worked up, cunt soft and wet and seeping onto his thighs. With each thrust, Sokka’s palm pushes into Zuko’s clit, earning sharp gasps and jolts of pleasure. Sokka speeds up his pace — Zuko likes faster, and the sore wrist he’ll undoubtedly be feeling tomorrow is so worth it as Zuko tightens around his fingers, rocking his hips forward into every push, fingers clawing into Sokka’s thighs so hard it stings and leaves little red lines in their wake. Moon and Ocean, it won’t be long until Sokka is hard again, not with how fast the blood is rushing back towards his cock at every whimper Zuko makes.
“How does it feel?” Sokka asks, because Zuko forgets to speak when Sokka is pleasuring him unless he’s prompted, always too caught up in chasing sensation.
“Good,” Zuko rasps. He tips his head back, letting it fall against Sokka’s collarbone, brows screwed together. “Great, I’m—”
He’s cut off by a cry when Sokka moves his thumb to press and swirl around his clit.
“Close?”
Zuko nods.
Sokka bows his head to kiss Zuko’s neck and begins to suck another hickey below his ear, gently kissing the edges of his scar where the texture begins to change beneath his lips.
He knows when Zuko comes by how desperately he writhes in the lead-up, how still he goes as it breaks, his only movement the fluttering of his stomach, the clench of muscle around Sokka’s fingers. Sokka works him through it, chasing every jolt of pleasure he can draw until Zuko falls limp against him.
“I want you in me,” Zuko says as Sokka peels off his neck and pulls his fingers free. “Your cock.”
Oh. If Sokka had worked himself back to half-hard, his dick now jumped to full attention, pressing into Zuko’s back. “Give yourself a minute,” he chides. “You just finished.”
Zuko shakes his head. “No, now.” He twists, tilting his head languidly up to look at Sokka. “I can feel you against me. You need it, don’t you? Please let me have you.”
He asks for it so nicely, if impatiently, his eyes pleading. There’s no world in which Sokka could ever not give in when he says it like that.
“Fuck,” Sokka exhales, head spinning as all the blood left in his brain floods downwards. “Yes. Please, Zuko…”
Zuko rocks forward and up onto his knees in one fluid movement, all the subconscious grace of being raised royalty that always leaves Sokka so awed, now appropriated into something as earthly and humble as sex. He turns to face Sokka and pushes him back. Sokka goes, letting his back hit the mattress with a soft thud. Zuko straddles his waist.
“Take it slow, baby,” Sokka tells him, as Zuko pulls his eager cock into position under him. “We can just kiss for a bit if you’re too sensitive.”
Zuko slaps a hand over Sokka’s mouth and slides down, biting down on his lip to stifle a jagged cry. The sensation is overwhelming. It’s all Sokka can do to keep his eyes half-open, fixed on Zuko’s subtly shifting expression of pleasure as Sokka enters him, stretching him out around the shape of him.
There’s a moment of still, where the only sounds that fill their space are those of their harsh, excited breathing and the pounding of Sokka’s heart in his chest. Then, almost experimentally, Sokka arches his back. Zuko makes another little surprised sound at the movement, but he shifts with it. It’s another second before he shifts again — beyond it, testing. Zuko builds into a rhythm, starting small, but growing bolder and bolder with every repetition. Up and down, his brows furrowed in concentration, rolling his hips with it.
The sensation is electric — lightning raging in Sokka’s veins, the deadly power of a blizzard at sea. Heat ripples over Sokka’s body in waves, radiating out from Zuko.
“Fuck, Zuko,” he pants, tightening his fingers’ grip on Zuko’s ass. “So tight. I can’t… You feel so—” Sokka is overcome by a moan when Zuko clenches even harder around him with a hiss— “So good, sunlight, please, just like that…”
Tui and La, Zuko is so pretty, open and unguarded and steadily unravelling like this, and only for Sokka’s eyes.
It doesn’t take long, in the end, for either of them.
Zuko breaks first, still over-stimulated from his last orgasm. His movement slows to an almost hypnotic pace as he crumples forward. His strong thighs tighten around Sokka’s waist, nearly cutting off his breath, and the palm pressed to Sokka’s chest is suddenly lightning-hot. Eyes fluttering closed and body falling nearly on top of Sokka’s, Zuko bites down on Sokka’s shoulder as it takes him, and spirits, that is hot.
The sudden change in angle and pressure as Zuko tightens around him tips Sokka past the edge and into euphoria after him. His hips thrust forward in jerky sputters, a ragged groan tearing through him.
When Sokka opens his eyes again, he finds Zuko already watching him, face flushed but satisfied.
“Woah,” Sokka breathes.
He tenses, shifting his body downwards into the mattress. Zuko is swollen and unspeakably tight as he pulls off, cum smeared down his thighs. His entire body jolts when Sokka’s softening cock brushes over his over-sensitive clit.
He slumps to the side and falls next to Sokka on the bed, panting, their legs still twisted together. Sokka can’t move to get up just yet — the world is still swimming. He rolls onto his side, brushes some stray hair that had fallen over Zuko’s face behind Zuko’s ear, and smiles.
“Glad I stayed up for you,” Zuko says, and Sokka laughs.
“Yeah. That was pretty good.”
Finally, Sokka musters the energy to rise. He untangles his legs from Zuko’s, crawls to the end of the bed to fish around for their clothes.
When he turns back, Zuko’s eyes are closed, his breathing settling into something deeper and slower. Contentment is written across his open features, their usual hardnesses melted away. Sokka could sit here and watch him forever. Here, protected by low lantern-light and flowing fabrics, wrapped up in the night, where time and responsibilities could be a distant memory. Sokka could sit here and stare at his sleepy, sex-addled boyfriend, and never leave this moment.
The moment has to end, but Sokka makes a promise to himself to remember it. “Come on,” he whispers. He nudges Zuko’s shoulder. “Let’s get cleaned up.”
Zuko grumbles and turns his face into the pillow. “‘M too tired,” he mumbles.
Sokka grins. “I thought you said I could wake you up,” he teases. “Or was that only during sex, not after it?”
“... Shut up.”