Work Text
have u said anything to song+jin about knowing theyre together? Sokka texts while he's killing time at the airport, while Zuko is still alone in an empty teashop.
It's the middle of the night, so, no?
r u going to?
Zuko contemplates it for a second. He's happy for them, if that third wheel comment really was about them finally getting their shit together and not just an entirely platonic and probably pining-filled sleepover. But. He feels like he deserves to have a little bit of fun with it, after the week he's had.
If I play dumb about pretending to not notice, I want to know how long they'll try to hide it
…he does deserve to have some fun, doesn't he?
And I'm going to play dumb about us for as long as they keep doing it
Payback
Get some revenge for them pestering me for months
Sokka's message pings in a moment later. as much as i want to tell everyone in the world about u, sounds like FUN, but only because im not there so i dont have to avoid kissing you Zuko does get more sleep that night, before he heads downstairs to open the shop at the hour that he knows Sokka would always call frankly insane. He texts him while he remembers, too, Good morning <3 and tries not to smile stupidly at his phone over the difference between this morning message and all the ones from last week. Sokka had boarded after he'd finally pestered Zuko into going to bed, and there's a final message telling him exactly when he's meant to land and will be able to turn his phone back on. Not for a while yet.He's still quietly moving around the shop, straightening things up and checking everything was put away adequately in his absence yesterday, when there's the rattle of a key in the door and a pintsized tornado flies at his knees."Papa!"Her first ever sleepover without Zuko in the same house, completely without any sort of warning or preparation. It had been necessary, yesterday, but it was hardly ideal."Good morning, fireflake– Oof." Letting Izumi topple him to the floor is only half an act, but being able to pull on top of him to hug – to feel her warm and whole and safe – makes it worth it. "Thank you for being such a big girl last night when papa wasn't feeling very well, and being so good for your aunties!" He shoots Song and Jin a look. "Was she good?""Absolutely perfect! We haven't had breakfast yet, though, so we thought we'd do it here?"They came in together… But that doesn't mean much, because it would absolutely make sense to want to tag-team babysitting duties on Izumi's first sleepover. And he's pretty sure Jin isn't actually wearing the same shirt she had on yesterday, so there's no walk of shame. How disappointing. Although…Zuko sneaks onto his phone at the table, while Izumi is focused on making breakfast and not on telling him to put it away when they're eating, and flicks back through his photos. Aha, from a few weeks ago. He thought something seemed out of place this morning.Jin wearing one of Song's shirts, tied up at the waist to fit her better, is absolutely a tick in the that's not very platonic of you column. And Song is still sneaking little glances at her, like always, but it's nowhere near what she'd have been doing a few months ago."So Sokka slept over last night?" Jin asks later, during a quiet spell after the morning rush, leaning far too much into Zuki's personal space."Until he had to go for his flight," Zuko says blandly, even when he wants to get stupid and sappy at the memory of waking up in his arms, still exhausted but comfortably so, free of nightmares, getting to just watch him sleep for a moment before they had to get up…"Anything interesting happen?" Jin leans even closer, chewing on her straw."He met Azula when she called, so that was nice. Obviously we mostly talked about…you know, everything that's been happening for her, and the consequences. But he said hi.""Got her approval, huh?""Approval for what?" Zuko focuses very hard on measuring out tea-leaves and definitely not at all on looking at Jin or having any sort of expression."Y'know, meeting the family, pretty big deal! Like, Azula liked him?""Yeah, Azula dislikes most people, so that was a nice surprise. I got an email from her clinician this morning confirming that she's expecting visitors and that we'll be okay to go see her this week – I guess Mai and Ty Lee went to see her as soon as they could this morning, too." Objectively, the state of his sister's health after this last week is much more interesting than any sort of banal interactions he might have had with Sokka. Subjectively, specifically, he knows full well that he's driving Jin mad. "So, Izumi was good for you both last night? No waking up in the middle of the night?"See, she's not the only one who can skirt around a topic. And being snide and dramatic and gossipy about both of their love lives feels like such a relief after everything recently. Just a little palate cleanser to give him something else to think about."She woke up in the middle of the night and needed the bathroom," Jin says, shrugging. "But that was just her being half-asleep and not knowing where the bathroom was. She went back to sleep no problem after that.""And woke you both up at some awful time in the morning by jumping on your bed, like she always does to me?"Song's house, so Song's bed, and Izumi had the sofa, and Zuko knows full well that it is possible to platonically bed-share with someone you're crushing on – hadn't he done the same thing on the same night? – but also, no. "It's only the same time I get up for class, mostly," Jin says, cheerfully sidestepping the implication. "What time were you awake in the middle of the night for Sokka's flight? You both had a nap before then, right?"Oh, the battle is on.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Zuko's been texting both Song and Jin sporadically the whole time he's been back in Caldera with Azula, and they still haven't outright told him that they're together, and they still haven't outright asked him if he's with Sokka either."I want to tell them once I'm back, before you get back," he says quietly, leaning on the railing of the hotel balcony so he doesn't wake Izumi inside. It's been awkward, the timezones and both being away from home, but they're making it work. "Like, yeah, we both agreed it would be hilarious to just play ignorant right in front of them – but I'll be honest, I don't know if I can keep it up when I just want to kiss you.""We still planning to be covert about it in front of Izumi, for now?" Sokka's voice is a little crackly – there's a storm on its way, he'd said, although it should have cleared in time for him to fly out."Yeah. Yeah, I think so. You were already hanging out with us before anything happened, so keeping doing that is fine, but we'll just…be a bit more subtle about it." He drums his fingers on the railing. "What else do we need to think about?""I'm going to hand her off to someone else at work," Sokka says. "Probably Yue. I'll still interact with her and everything, but it just means that she's the one to go to with your problems instead of me, and she'll be the one checking in with her progress.""No kissing in front of the kid," Zuko sighs. "For now. Hugging, fine. And cuddling a bit. Maybe holding hands – I don't think she's really realised that that's a sign of anything more than liking someone a lot.""Aw, you like me a lot?" He can hear the smile in Sokka's voice."Mm, I think so. I could maybe still do with some more persuasion once we're both home."If nothing else, he's going to have to tell them both so that he can get them to babysit while he grabs a few precious moments of alone time when Sokka gets back.The girls had held down the fort during the solstice with the usual reduced opening hours, but it still meant that Zuko spends his first day back – in between serving regulars who keep telling him that they're happy to see him looking better and a break in the sun has done him good – taking inventory and fussily rearranging everything that has a home and they just don't know where it is. It's nice to see him back to normal, Song says approvingly when he's messing around with the shelves and facing all the jars and bottles properly."When do classes start again for you, anyway?" Zuko says idly, restacking containers. "And you've got some 8AMs, right?"Jin groans. "Don't remind me. Those things should be illegal, especially in winter.""So is it better to stay at Song's that night because it's closer, or at yours because then you're not waking anyone up?" Zuko hides his grin behind the fridge door as Jin chokes on her drink."What the fuck–" "Not in front of the kid," Song says cheerfully. "And I guess I'll be starting work a bit early on those days so we're up and about at the same time."Oh. Well. Zuko can stop needling at them both now. He emerges from the fridge just in time to see Jin throw her straw at who is apparently now definitely her girlfriend."You've ruined all the fun!""What's fun is actually being able to kiss you at work," Song says, and throws the straw at Zuko with alarming accuracy. He doesn't bother dodging, because he's just as culpable as Jin here. "I got a whole week of it when it was just us and then it was all oh, Zuko's back soon, won't it be funny if–" "It was quite funny," Zuko says, "to be fair. Once I figured out that you really did mean that Izumi was third-wheeling, I was just wondering how long it would last that you were still trying to hide it.""A while, actually." Jin shrugs. "We were just figuring out if we wanted to tell people when… Well. All the stuff before solstice. And you weren't really, uh…""Not in the headspace for it," Zuko agrees. "Anyway. Congratulations all the same, but I totally get why you avoided it that week.""Yeah." Song goes back to kneading the dough that had been briefly abandoned. "We just didn't make a big deal out of it. Felt like the wrong time."All that time, when they'd both got so much more comfortable teasing him about Sokka and his crush instead of just trying to encourage him to flirt – all that time when he'd been complaining to Sokka about how they hadn't realised the crush was mutual. Turns out they very much had. Which was probably why they'd suddenly got so much more nervous and blushy around one another.Zuko likes to think he'd have noticed if he hadn't been distracted."So is it awkward to have Izumi third-wheeling?" he asks as he goes back to checking the labelling on containers, just to have something to do with his hands. "I don't know when she'll be ready to do another overnight, but even just during the day for more than an hour at a time.""She's adorable," Jin says. "No problem. And I bet if she looked cute enough, we could get free stuff.""Why is that your priority?""No, I agree, sometimes I do get free stuff." Zuko remembers the conversation he'd had with Azula in Caldera, at the shop that always gave Izumi free mochi. "Oh, and Azula wants you to know that even though she didn't put any money down on it, her correct prediction of before the spring equinox means she has moral superiority.""Before the–" Jin bangs her cup down on the table. "You–" "Song's right, it's no fun if you can't kiss at work. Even if you do know that all your friends were making bets about your love life and it's very tempting to make them all think they still have a chance at winning."