Archive of Our Own ^beta

The thing about being together with Suki and Sokka—having been together with Suki and Sokka, going to be together, together together—is that…

Well. Zuko knows about it now, for one.

Which means that Zuko now knows, too, that all of Sokka and Suki’s little gestures and touches and unthinking intimacies, the ones that he already knew meant affection and comfort and care—

“Ooh, Zu, look at this,” Sokka says, leaning into Zuko’s side to grab his attention as much as for balance as he bends to look at another tightly-packed shelf of books and scrolls and pamphlets.

“Mm, you have to try this, darling,” Suki practically moans around an indulgent, savoring bite of ash banana, Zuko coughing as he stares at her lips wrapped around the fruit.

“Oh,” Zuko breathes as he peels back the wrapping to show a delicate, unmistakable painting of Ember Island and the tide pools at Wolf Cove and Suki’s favorite stretch of lake on Kyoshi Island. “I love it,” he says softly.

—and that he now Zuko knows also mean love. That Suki and Sokka mean them that way. And the way it feels to walk through his days knowing that, feeling it…

And being able to say it in response, too, because the thing about being together with Suki and Sokka and all of them knowing they’re together—actually knowing it, confirmed, out loud, with words, repeatedly—is that now, Zuko know exactly what he’s saying in reply.

Sokka straightens with a pamphlet, triumphant, and Zuko takes a moment to admire the excited thrill on his face before tugging Sokka back against his side, his inner flame fluttering as Sokka’s startled look melts into a blush-stained smile.

Zuko narrows his eyes and grabs his own ash banana from the bowl. “Okay,” he says, waiting for Suki’s surprised glance before licking up the length, smirking at her crack of laughter.

“I love you,” Zuko says more firmly, pulling his attention off the soft colors to watch the hopeful eagerness on their faces burst into something so happy he almost can’t believe he’s the source of it. 

It means that now, all of them are finally on the same stage, speaking from the same script, hearing the same meaning.

“The weather seems like it’ll actually hold,” Sokka says, leaning over the arm of the couch to look at the sky. “What do you think about a hike?”

Suki makes an absent, half-aggravated noise from her pile of field reports, Zuko humming in answer as he scowls down at this budget that just isn’t— “Wait.” Zuko is on his feet almost before he realizes it. That was an activity. “Yes, okay, right, yes,” he says, casting around for somewhere to set his ink-wet papers that isn’t the couch.

“Huh?” Sokka drops back down. “What?

“Let me just—I’ve just got to change my boots—"

“—and I can grab Suki’s, too, and—”

“What?” Suki looks up half-frantic. “Now?”

“—we can still catch the dayli—wait.” Zuko pulls up, one slipper already kicked off. “Now?”

Sokka stares. “You want to go now?”

Zuko stares back, inner flame still thrumming in his throat.  “You…don’t?”

Most of the time, at least.

~*~

And just as importantly—maybe more importantly, even, at least to Zuko—being together with Suki and Sokka, being romantically with them, together together— “I cannot believe,” Azula says, pinching the bridge of her nose, “that you actually just said that out loud. That you thought about it, and then decided yes, I will say this, these are words that make me sound like an intelligent world leader.”—means that now, Zuko knows how Sokka and Suki will take it when he’s the one to initiate…

“Hey.” Zuko rolls onto his side, trying to ignore the pounding of his heart as he watches Suki rummaging for a clean-enough uniform. “You could—if you wanted, you could move some stuff in here?”

He isn’t going to read into Suki dropping her pants in surprise.

“Since you’re spending so much time here anyway? Or,” he adds when she just stares, eyes wide, “I could—if you don’t like it here?” The Fire Lord’s quarters can be a bit… much, he supposes, compared to her little cottage or Sokka’s room in the South. “I guess I can move some stuff to your—oof.”

“Zuko,” Suki says into his chest as she tackles him down onto the bed. “Yes, yes, a thousand times yes, I’d love to, I—” Her head flies up, eager. “Should we move Sokka’s, too? Do we wait for him? Should we write him?”

…well. All manner of things, really. All kinds of thing Zuko might have never realized he was saying before, all kinds of things he wanted to say but was sure they wouldn’t hear the same way, all the things he tried to make clear but was really sure they definitely weren’t understanding or else why would they be behaving like that—

Now Zuko can be sure that he’s understandable to them, too, that he isn’t saying things he doesn’t realize, suggesting things without being aware of it. Now Zuko can say exactly what he means, in gesture and in words, and he can know exactly what they’re hearing, how they’ll react.

Sokka stops dead in the doorway of Zuko’s—of their—room, eyes popping wide as he notices his collection of carvings and uselessly elaborate swords carefully waiting on the vanity. “Zu?”

“Uh.” Zuko tries to breathe through the flare of adrenaline at the wet quality of Sokka’s voice, and the pitch, and the thinness, shit, shit, shit. “If you don’t like it—"

Sokka bursts into tears. “Zu.”

“Fuck!” Zuko gasps as Sokka suddenly jerks him forward so suddenly he nearly cracks their heads together. “We should have—I can move it ba—"

“All of our stuff is here together.”

It takes Zuko a heart-pounding moment to hear the words, and then to realize that this is—this is a hug. Because Sokka is happy, so happy. Happy enough that it all burst out of him all at once, which matches, as it turns out, the sudden bright, swelling pressure in Zuko’s chest.

…Most of the time, at least.  

~*~

And sure, so many things are the same about being with Suki and Sokka now. Seven years of togetherness doesn’t mean nothing…even if not everyone involved knew what exactly that togetherness meant at the time.

There’s an undeniable familiarity to being with Suki and Sokka this way, an ease of slipping into the same rhythms they built together year by year and letter by letter. Because it’s the same balance between them, at its heart, the same give and take and weaving together of their lives until it’s hard to even see the separate threads at times, the way of it so known already that sometimes, Zuko can almost think that nothing at all has changed, not really.

Zuko huffs out a laugh as Sokka goes to swing his legs over the arm of the couch and nearly slides off the slick silk. “You guys know you can change things in here if you want, right?”

“Yeah?” Sokka says half-breathlessly, hands grasping for something to anchor on as Suki just makes a listening noise, her feet propped up on…a very antique side table

Zuko slides down in his own chair to reach out a toe and nudge Sokka back to safety. “Yeah. Like”—get furniture you don’t fall off of—“redecorate? If you want?” he suggests as casually as he can, as if there isn’t a tiny lurch in his chest every time he thinks of Suki’s cottage and Sokka’s rooms and all the evidence of their life together in those spaces.

Sokka bolts up, nubs of charcoal tumbling off his lap. “If we want.”

“Yeah.” Zuko bites back a grin, shrugging at Suki’s dry look. They both know this is more Sokka’s thing than hers. “We can just talk to Akuna, I don’t think…” He pauses as he takes in Sokka’s expression, hastily tugging his thoughts away from Suki’s armor strew across his bedroom floor and Sokka’s charcoal inexplicably turning up in the sheets and his own robes and hair pins slowly finding their way in their spaces, too, because Sokka is…nearly vibrating. “I’ll ask Akuna to find some helpers,” he finally says again, ignoring Suki’s cough of laughter. “And a budget.”

“Helpers!” Sokka parrot crows, thrilled.

“Budget,” Suki snorts, knowing. 

That sometimes Zuko can almost believe that this is the way it’s always been, apparently, in every wonderful piece and moment.

~*~

Except being together with Sokka and Suki has changed. Being romantically entangled—”Ugh,” Azula mutters, disgusted. “That’s worse.”—is different. To know exactly with Suki and Sokka were building with him, to see now what Zuko was weaving alongside them without even realizing it, to now all have all three of them creating together, on purpose, fully aware that it’s happening—it’s not the same, not at all, in ways that are wonderful and thrilling and sure, sometimes unexpectedly annoying—

“Hey,” Suki says, voice unexpectedly curious as she grinds down onto Sokka’s dick. “What do you call your cock?”

Zuko gasps a little as Sokka’s lazy hand over his length suddenly tightens with excitement. “I—what?”

“Oh.” Sokka shoves up onto an elbow, eager. “His hot rod!”

“…What.”

“His fire stick?”

“No,” Zuko says slowly, realizing, “no, nope—"

“Oh, the Dragon of the Sheets—”

“—not happening—"

“Ooh, how about just ‘the dragon’, and then when he gets hard, we can say he’s—”

“I,” Zuko announces, plucking Sokka’s hand off his cock and climbing off the bed, “am not doing this.”

—even though really, Zuko probably should have expected it, now that he thinks about it, Sokka nicknamed his favorite sword sheath, which—now that Zuko thinks about that…

Which is just proof, actually, that being together together with Suki and Sokka and knowing it is something different—

“Oh, wait, Akuna.” Zuko swallows his bite, waving for Sokka and Suki to hold on another moment. “I have discussed with Sokka and Suki—” Shit, should he have titled them? “—and they have an interest in redecorating aspects of my quarters. As well as any other rooms that may come to their attention in the private wing,” he adds, just for thoroughness, and maybe for the way Sokka perks up, interested.

“Of course, Your Majesty.” Akuna doesn’t even stop paging through his notes. “Min Jung has samples of the most recent styles and fashions on hand for such an occasion, should interest ever be expressed.”

“Oh. Very good,” Zuko says, somewhere between underwhelmed and…miffed. Normally a Fire Lord’s rooms before redone to a consort’s tastes would be news...

—no matter how often people’s reactions sometimes make it feel like maybe it’s only Zuko who thinks it’s changed. Only him who can see that parts of this are new, who is aware that even the things that seem the same aren’t, not anymore—

“Min Jung?” Sokka says with forced casualness, Suki snorting beside him. “Would she be a helper, or..?”

“Of course, My Lord. And my Lady,” Akuna add before focusing back on Sokka. “A permanent aide will be assigned to the duration of the project, as well as assistants as needed. I took the liberty of perusing your calendar,” Akuna adds as he slips a neat piece of paper to the top of his folio. “The initial meetings can be scheduled at your discretion, of course, but if I may recommend—”

“Please, do,” Zuko says happily, straightening with satisfaction and giving a pleased look in response to Sokka’s startled blink and Suki’s questioning glance.

—at least not from the inside of their new togetherness. 

Because being together with Sokka and Suki and knowing it means, at its heart, that the Sokka-and-Suki-and-Zuko of now isn’t the Sokka-and-Suki and Zuko of before. Which is good, so good, good in ways Zuko sometimes barely has words for.

“Oh, hey, darling,” Suki says as Zuko leans up against her back, nominally looking over her shoulder at the cook pot. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” Zuko says, letting out a deep, contented sigh and sinking into the solid strength of her, the curves over hard muscle, the scent of leather and polishing oil and spice in her hair. “Just…”

“Oh,” Suki says after a moment. “Oh,” she says again, a smile in her voice now, free hand coming up to tangle in his hair as she melts into him. “Yeah. Just.”

Absolutely, unequivocally good. Even if it means that there are parts of this new them that need…

Sokka snorts, sorting through a tray of earrings and piercing jewelry. “What, like you don’t know what gift to give her?”

Zuko inhales a careful breath, fixing his eyes on the earrings and trying not to look at the other side of the store with its other kind of rings, except wait, maybe he can look—except he doesn’t actually know if she would—if that would be—

…re-thinking, maybe. Attention. Work. Parts of this new Suki-and-Sokka-and-Zuko that deserve that, no matter what the three of them might think at first. That deserve thoughtfulness—conversation—

“Oh, wow, it’s…a cock ring?” Suki lets the circle swing from its neat little chain that Zuko thought was…a nice touch, though now he can’t help but wince watching it. “To…use on you?”

“I mean…” It’s not like she’s going to use it on herself. “It seemed…in the realm of your interests.”

She cuts him a sideways look, intrigued. “And…of yours?”

—after so many years of unthinking reaction and implicit meaning.

Because Zuko might intellectually know that it’s different between the three of them now, the same way Suki and Sokka now intellectually know the differences with him. He might be fully aware of what it means to be a trio instead of a pair-plus-one, fully able to point out every new part of his still-can’t-quite-believe-it’s-true life.

But seven years’ worth of holding back doesn’t just go away, not for any of them. And Zuko knows what it is to crash headlong into his own understanding of the world. To have to change or else break against the force of it. And he’s seen what breaking looks like, too, and just what it takes to put yourself back together in the aftermath.

Zuko knows that he’s with Sokka and Suki now, with them the way they want to be with him in turn. And he knows that being aware of something new doesn’t mean old habits just stop.

“I’m planning for the equinox festival,” Zuko says, enjoying the comfortable weight of Suki leaned into his side and her hand on his thigh, their toes paddling in the crisp water together.

“Yeah?” Sokka’s eyes never waver from the end of his fishing rod. “You always are, this time of year.”

Suki hums agreement, half-asleep in her layers.

“Yeah.” Zuko thinks again of the rote approvals he gives every year. The thoughtless-but-doesn’t-have-to-be passages to be read and words to be spoken and people to say them. “Do you guys want to light the first lantern?”

Suki stirs a bit against him as Sokka spares him a quick, questioning look. “Don’t you always do that?”

“It’s not like…formally proscribed.” Zuko scratches the back of his neck instead of shrugging Suki off, breathing down his suddenly quick-edged flame. “It’s more…habitual, I guess. Traditional.” Who to include and who stays on the fringes, and the idea of Suki and Sokka up there with him…

“I mean. If it’s not going to upset anyone,” Sokka says slowly, a question still on his face as his eyes flick between them. “It sounds good to me. Right, Sukes? You love the equinox festival.”

 “I do,” she agrees after a beat, hesitating another moment before finally saying, firmly, “We’d love to.”

Not without working to change them.

~*~

And changing...it’s not that—or not just that—Zuko needs to learn new ways of thinking, new patterns of interacting. It’s not like all he needs to do is to soak in enough of Sokka and Suki’s abundant affection, this time without the guilt of taking it, like all it will take is enough time savoring the invigorating thrill of waking up next to them again and again.

Which isn’t to say it’s not those things. But there’s a difference, after all, between a Fire Lord’s best friends and partners and a Fire Lord’s partner partners—“You are,” Azula says, closing her eyes, “ridiculous.”—which of course isn’t to suggest—the three of them haven’t talked about—it’s early, really, or—well, it’s not early, Zuko supposes, depending on how they count it, but they still haven’t—it still feels too—

And besides, what they call it doesn’t even really matter. Not when the three of them know that they—because functionally speaking it’s actually been a long time, depending on who’s counting, so they all do know. But they still need time obviously. Before they—which is to say—

P.S, Zuko writes, which—shit, does that make it seem like too much of an afterthought? An addendum? When it’s actually—

P.S. There are a few Committees that the partners of the Fire Lord—

Fuck, is that too formal? Informal? But what else is he going to say, affiliates?

—associates of a Fire Lord can choose to be part of. The Committees can run without their participation, of course, they have been for years. But certain domains are generally considered the purview of a Fire Lord’s chosen—

“Fuck, that’s worse,” Zuko mutters, ignoring the laughing voice in the back of his mind that sounds too much like Azula and forging ahead anyway.

—and it can be a space for those individuals to establish their own independent footing, if desired, as they lead and oversee…

Which is all to say, that even if it sometimes seems like everyone except Zuko already knew that he was dating Sokka and Suki—

Of course, Zu, you know me and Sukes would help you with anything. Just tell me when and where, I’m sure Akuna can work out a schedule or…

Which, yes, Zuko does know. Sokka loves to help everyone with anything, in fact, which is why, And I just want to emphasize, he writes, that this isn’t help. Obviously it is helpful, I wouldn’t ask you otherwise, but it’s not something you need to…

What’s the time commitment, darling? Kyova is really finding her feet as squad leader, but I still need to be available to her, and with the latest training class on the Island. What happens if I’m not in-country when they’re meeting? I’d love to help, I just want to make sure—

And yes, Zuko does want her to be sure, and Sokka too, which is why I’m happy to provide any other details you might need, he writes, scowling a moment at his own formality. And it is helpful to me, but the Committees will happen regardless, so its really whether you want to rather than if I need you to…

Zu, Sokka writes at the bottom of Suki’s next letter, do you want us to do this Committee thing?

Zuko nearly laughs. Does he want Sokka and Suki sitting as Left and Right Hands of the Flame? Wearing the headpiece, if they so choose it? With anyone being able to look at them and know that they—which is to say, the three of them are— Yes, Zuko writes, characters thick with the force behind his brush, his flame fluttering in his veins. I do want you to. Both of you.

Then, Suki writes back, a single line on a tiny scroll sent by raven eagle rather than their usual hawk, the characters more carefully precise than Zuko has ever seen her calligraphy before, we want it, too.

—or else assumed he was dating them without ever thinking to confirm it—

“An excellent idea, Your Majesty,” Akuna says as they stride between meetings. “Master Sokka and Lady Suki should find themselves well-briefed, to begin.”

“Good point.” Zuko glances around for one of the always-ready scribes that seem to hover around. “If we can get a summarized—”

“—and annotated set of minutes of each quarter’s meetings? As well as historical summaries from prior to Your Majetsy’s reign?” Akuna passes off a neat stack of papers without glancing at the young scribe who darts forward. “They have already been sent, Your Majesty.”

“Oh.” Zuko’s stride hitches a moment. “You already..?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. For oh, at least five years now,” Akuna says briskly, adding, “If you will forgive the liberty, of course,” almost as an afterthought, which….well, considering Akuna’s near-magical ability to discover time in Zuko’s itineraries that just happens to overlap with Sokka and Suki’s, Zuko supposes is fine, actually.

—or else just went along with whatever happened in front of them without asking questions about the Fire Lord’s love life, because what business is it of theirs—

Zuko clears his throat as Hyun Ki starts gathering up their notes, lifting his chin as the Councilor’s attention snaps back to him in surprise. “One additional announcement.” Hyun Ki hastily lays all their papers back out again, and Zuko takes a careful breath, fire fluttering in his throat. “The places of the Left and Right Hands of the Flame should be readied for the next Committee meetings.”

Enmei’s brush pauses. “Both?”

“Both,” Zuko says, letting an edge of ice slide into his tone. The niceties of interior design or garden management is one thing, prior Hands have had no interest and it’s been inconsequential. But in this, if Suki and Sokka were not to be held in equal regar—

“Oh, excellent,” Hyun Ki says, nodding.

“Wonderful, I had thought they had no interest,” Enmei puts in, looking pleased.

Kagami leans forward, frowning. “We should ready annotated—”

“—minutes? It’s been seen to,” Namiko puts in smugly with a toss of his hair and quick glance toward Zuko.

“Excellent,” Hyun Mi says again, gathering up their notes once more with a distinct air of…approval. “They will be ready for the next set of meetings then.”

“Yes, excellent,” Zuko echoes, clearing his throat and keeping his expression professional and neutral and not like his inner flame is suddenly leaping in his chest over seeing this empty space suddenly made full of Suki and Sokka, over the reality of his Council knowing.

—even if it feels that way, sometimes, that doesn’t mean it isn’t new for Zuko to introduce Sokka and Suki as…what everyone else apparently already knew or assumed or didn’t question them being.

Because it isn’t how Zuko would have introduced them before, for one. And because the way it feels to say explicitly something that at one point, Zuko could have only hoped for, didn’t even dare let himself think of, and then could barely believe…

For all that Zuko sometimes feels that he’s racing to catch up with what Sokka and Suki already know, already feel, already do—

“And this is Lord Mingze, of East Sha Hu,” Kuei says, gesturing to the reed-thin man.

“And my partner,” Lord Mingze starts, also gesturing.

“Lord Yuxuan,” finishes the energetic man next to him.

“Toph,” Toph says, Zuko huffing out an amused breath at her usual brevity.

“Master Katara of the Southern Water Tribe,” Katara says, nodding politely, “and my partner—”

“Avatar Aang.” Aang grins wide and proud like he always does when Katara gets to introduce him. 

“I’m Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe, and sometimes Republic City,” Sokka says, the familiar words lilting up at the end in question as he glances to Suki, hesitating, “And my partner—”

“Suki, Commander of the Kyoshi Warriors.” She and Sokka exchange some kind of complicated look. “And..?”

“And,” Sokka picks up slowly, likely he isn’t entirely sure, “our partner…”

“Mu and sand, finally,” Toph says, and it takes Zuko a long moment to realize why Sokka is staring at him.

“Fire Lord Zuko,” he blurts, suddenly tripping as he tries to remember what else— “Who is partners. With them. Both of—Sokka and Suki, not—yeah.”

“A pleasure to make your acquaintances,” Lords Mingze and Yuxuan say, bowing and politely ignoring Katara’s, “Wait. What do you mean, finally,” which Zuko ignores for now, too, caught in the way Sokka is blushing as he grins at him, and Suki is bouncing on her toes like she’s ready to throw herself into his arms, and Zuko can only smile back, helpless and feeling near to bursting with the sudden brightness in his chest.

—in this at least, Zuko thinks it’s new and different for them, too.  

~*~

And anyway, familiar doesn’t mean not worth savoring—“Did I say that?” Azula arches her brow—after all, the way Suki and Sokka react to a gift for an anniversary or birthday or thinly-veiled-no-reason-at-all is familiar, too. And Zuko still basks in that feeling, in the sensation of Sokka and Suki holding his love in their hands and recognizing exactly what it is they’re holding.

And Sokka and Suki react to all of this— to all of the knowing, Zuko and Sokka and Suki and everyone around them now, too—

“Come on, keep up,” Zuko says, tugging Sokka impatiently down the sandy walkway toward the chatter of food stalls.

“Let me just—there’s sand everywh—”

“You look fine,” Suki says, tugging two chunks of hair out of his hands and grinning at the face he makes when they fall to frame his face again. “You’re going to be late to your own Annual Dumpling Extravaganza.”

“To our anniversary,” Zuko corrects, joining the line behind the first stop of the day.

“Which means we can’t be late,” Sokka mutters as he ties his hair up in a high tail, but without any real heat as he leans up against the back of Zuko’s shoulder. “Definitionally, the Dumpling Extravaganza—”

“Our anniversary.”

“—is a date, not an event—”

Suki lets out a deeply amused, deeply skeptical noise as she leans up against Zuko’s other side. “You’re saying the Dumpling Extravaganza—"

“Our anniversary,” Zuko says happily, scanning the menu.

“—isn’t an event?”

“Oh, are you celebrating?” the woman behind the counter asks, barely looking up from the three little trays she’s assembling. “Congratulations.”

“Yeah, every year we do this whole tour of—”

“Once we had these really great—”

“It’s our anniversary,” Zuko cuts in, delighting in being able to say it. “Our romantic one. Our romantic anniversary. Of our romance.”

The woman glances up, eyebrows raised. “Of course,” she says as Suki snorts out a noise and Sokka presses a giggle against Zuko’s shoulder like he’s trying to contain it. “Congratulations.” A bit more giggle slips free. Zuko beams. “How long has it been for you, then?”

Zuko hums, glancing at Suki as she lets out a high noise, Sokka grabbing at his arm. “It’s complicated,” he finally says, smiling and hearing himself sound utterly delighted by the fact.

—like it’s the most precious gift Zuko could ever offer them, one it never occurred to him he could be holding back.

And Zuko knows all about differences, these days. So he feels confident in the fact that there’s a difference, anyway, between something being familiar and something being already known. Just because Zuko-and-Sokka-and-Suki feels familiar doesn’t mean there aren’t moments where the they can’t be surprised by what it actually means to do Zuko-and-Sokka-and-Suki. Things that they can do now that they weren’t before, for whatever reason, things that Zuko never knew to even consider before.

“Do you know if the Southern Tribe does—tours, or anything? Internal ones? That a Chief might..?” Zuko holds his breath against Suki’s stomach, trying to focus on the steady scritch of her nails against his scalp and not the pause of her breathing.

“Do you mean,” she finally says, amused, “is there a non-mortifying way to meet Hakoda as Sokka’s boyfriend, and actually know that’s what’s happening this time?”

Zuko huffs, turning just enough to give her a sideways look. “Like you mean ‘will you come meet the people important to me’ when you asked us if we wanted to tag along to Warrior Candidate week?”

Her nails pause against the nape of his neck as she cuts him a sidelong look back. “Sure. Let’s call it like that.”

And things he never allowed himself to admit he considered, too. Things that felt inappropriate or imposing or unbearably greedy and selfish—

“Sukes! Zu!” Sokka spills out of the milling crowd of the soiree or whatever Republic City calls this kind of not-political-but-definitely-political party. “Look who I found!”

“Nephew, Warrior Suki.” Uncle nods, eyes crinkling in a smile. “It is wonderful to see you all here tonight, together, and so coordinated.”

“Right?” Sokka grins as he wiggles his way back between them, glancing down at their clothes. “The tailors really outdid themselves with th—”

“Coordinated,” Zuko blurts over top of him, understanding on a delay like he usually does with Uncle’s metaphors, “Yes, it’s good to be—we really—we wanted that,” he finishes lamely, but Uncle is smilingly like he hears what Zuko means, too.

“That is marvelous to hear,” Uncle says seriously, warmly, “And for people to be able to see so easily, too.”

“I mean, the trim is a nice touch, but—”

“Oh.” Suki smacks Sokka’s thigh, her eyes wide.

“Ow, what, why—”

“Yes,” she says, straightening and giving Uncle an only-a-little-bit-watery smile. “Yes, it’s really good to be—together. Coordinated. All…” she waves her hand vaguely between them.

“Oh,” Sokka says, realizing. “Oh, that—yes. It’s—yes. It’s good.”

“Wonderful,” Uncle says, beaming. “Truly wonderful.”

—and now feel so entirely, perfectly right.

~*~

And now that Zuko knows that these are things the three of them can do, things he can offer? Now that he knows Sokka and Suki might want them offered?

“You know the Outer Island tour coming up—”

“The one that ends with Kyoshi Island and three sweet, work-free days with Suki?” Sokka calls back, struggling out of his new tunic. “Yeah, what about it?”

“Would you want to come with me?” Zuko asks, already dressed and lacing his boots for training.

Sokka wrestles himself free. “Did you not hear me say three sweet, work-free days with Suki? Because three sweet, sweet days with Suki and no work and—”

“And lots of fucking, yeah,” Zuko finishes, smirking when Sokka coughs like Zuko can still surprise him with things like that. “I know you were going to join toward the end, but if you wanted to be like…formally there? On the itinerary?”

“What, like with a room on the—oh.” Sokka blinks, something quick and complicated and pleased flashing over his face. “I—yeah, that—do Hands of the Flame usually..?”

“Only if they want to,” Zuko says quickly. “It’s not—there’s no formal—”

“—officially proscribed role,” Sokka says with him, already nodding. “Great, well, I’m in, then,” he says, that complicated thing back on his face a moment before he suddenly asks, “Hey, do you think Suki would like to join the next governing meeting for the Republic City Engineering Corp?”

Not…really. Suki and math don’t exactly…mix. But Suki and a formal invitation to be part of Sokka’s work…

Now that he knows the feeling of all those things he never thought would be possible happening right in front of him, over and over?

“Minister Kazane,” Zuko says, keeping his neutral, welcoming expression politely in place as he reaches back and tugs Sokka forward. “Thank you for agreeing to speak. You’ve met Sokka? My partner.”

 Now that he knows the incredulous, giddy, near-dizzy-sometimes dance of his fire at not just knowing he’s with Sokka and Suki this way, but being able to act on it, say it, believe it?

“—and my partner, Suki, is very interested in your latest oolong blends for—”

The taste of shouting it out and seeing other people know this wonderful, bright, precious piece of Zuko’s life, too?

“—an anniversary celebration with my partners, Suki and Sokka,” Zuko says to the hostess, conveniently leaving it to Sokka to fill in which anniversary, exactly, and of what, that it is they’re here to—

Now that he knows all that, Zuko finds it’s…nice. Being seen that way. Watching them be seen that way. Nice in a way that’s almost impossible to believe some days.

“—celebrate the latest location with you.” Zuko grins at Jin’s proud smile. “And this is, Suki and Sokka, of course—”

“Darling,” Suki says, half-laughing and exasperated.

Sokka rolls his eyes. “We’ve met, Zu.”

“We meet regularly,” Jin adds, bemused. “For tea. In my tea shop.”

Zuko shrugs, unbothered, and continues, “They’re my partners.”

Nice in a thrilling, near-electric way that makes Zuko acutely aware in every waking moment—and in a lot of hot, needy, no-longer-guilt-laden-when-he-wakes-up ones—that the way he and Suki and Sokka are together is different now, even if the acts of being together have felt so much like stepping into something that was already there and waiting for him, something so very, very easy.

Most of the time, at least.

“I didn’t want to forget that official ceremonies thing again,” Zuko says he holds open the throne room door, his hands itching with the urge to dry the still-wet ends of Sokka’s hair where they’re darkening the blue of his high, Fire Nation-style collar. But Zuko was already almost late when Sokka and Suki lingered in the bath after training, and Zuko utterly lost track of why, exactly, he needed to meet with Councilor Enmei as he watched them—

“The solstice thing?” Sokka asks, cutting Zuko a crooked smile and tugging on a strand of Zuko’s hair like he knows Zuko wants to get his hands on his.

Zuko blows a fire-hot breath after Sokka, grinning at the visible shiver that runs through him. “No, the petitions thing.”

“Wait, here?” Suki glances around in surprise, eyebrows ticking up. “Not—you barely ever use his space.”

Zuko follows her eyes from the low, ever-burning fire to the raised dais and the engraved dragons soaring across the wall behind it. “Sometimes I do.” Granted not often, the way the dragons seem to shift in the firelight can be a bit…much, for everyday work, but, “I figured you should have your own spots,” he says, tilting his head toward the dais. “And its easier to do it now, so if we do need it, it’s not a whole…”

“Anxious panic?”

“Frantic scramble?”

“Thing,” Zuko finishes, trying to glower at both of them but mostly just pleased by their playfulness, his fire curling around the edges as he forces his eyes off the way Suki’s bare stomach tenses with her silent laughter and onto the low dais and the rich, ornate, single cushion at its center. “Only the royal family can be on the dais, so I was thinking—but the stairs aren’t actually that great…”

“The steps are wide enough,” Sokka points out, leaning against his side.

“Definitely for a cushion,” Suki agrees, looking amused when Zuko wrinkles his nose. “Darling, you have a cushion.”

“Yeah, but.” It’s up there. In a specific spot. That’s supposed to have a cushion. “What if they slide off?”

“Whoop-sie,” Sokka sing-songs as Suki snorts, quickly putting on a serious face at Zuko’s exasperated look.

“That would be undignified,” she says seriously, eyes laughing and inviting Zuko to join in too, like she isn’t just as likely to be the one sliding off as Sokka.

“Maybe something like Kuei has?” Zuko says to himself, absently letting his inner fire reach toward the cheerfully burning ceremonial flames. “On the floor?” Still a tipping-back hazard, but maybe the bottoms could be weighted…

“Ohh, fancy,” Sokka murmurs, fingers following the embroidering of his robes down Zuko’s back. “Our own thrones?”

Suki hums. “Like we’re temple guardians,” she says, grinning when Sokka gives a playful growl.

Zuko reflexively ducks from Sokka’s clawed fingers reaching for his topknot. “Or maybe Toph could …”

Suki pauses next to him. “Ah.”

“Yeah, that.” Sokka clears his throat, shifting his weight. “I bet we can actually—”

“Yeah, no need to bother her,” Suki quickly says. “We can totally…” she gestures in front of them.

“Right,” Sokka says firmly, settling against Zuko again.

“Yeah, I think—yeah,” Zuko agrees. Definitely. They definitely don’t need to invite that…commentary.

“Right,” Suki nods, making a show of refocusing on the dais before suddenly tilting her head, giving Sokka and then Zuko a sideways look through her lashes. “Besides, we don’t need her. You already asked me to sit on your throne, right?”

“Oh, uh.” Zuko scratches the back of his neck as Sokka makes a little intrigued kind of noise beside him, eyeing the mischievous invitation on Suki’s face before looking back at the broad cushion. What they sit on isn’t proscribed, but, “Actually, only the royal family can…”

Sokka makes a gurgling noise, Suki coughing a little. “Darling.”

“It’s not that I don’t want that, of course,” Zuko hastily assures her, “but—”

“Zuko,” she says, amused.

“—a lot of things have been more tradition than rite, that we’ve been talking about, but this is one of those things—"

Sokka clears his throat, hand settling against Zuko’s waist, grabbing his attention. “Zu.”

“Darling.” Suki’s face is fond in a way Zuko could look at forever when he glances at her, her fingers playing with the fringe of her cropped top. “I meant sitting on the throne in a different way.”

Like…the way Suki ‘sits’ on a couch?

Suki cocks her head, a question coming over her face, her eyes flicking to Sokka. “This is where you wanted me to—what was it?”

“Ride him on the Dragon Throne while I eat you out kneeling at your feet,” Sokka promptly quotes, like the words have been waiting to burst out of him, which—

“Uh,” Zuko eloquently says, his thoughts suddenly tripping over the lust-hazed memory of saying it, and then over the picture of Suki over his lap, Sokka at their feet, every possible variation, the fantasy familiar, well-worn, and nothing he’s ever actually let himself indulge here. Not with the fires around the dais so visible as they lurch with the sudden throb of arousal in his gut.

Suki’s face is perfectly polite, the one she wears whenever she gently cuts off a Minister from imploding Zuko’s schedule. “You should tell us more about your ideas for that.”  

“Describe the vision,” Sokka encourages, breathy and low and his hand sliding down Zuko’s hip.

“Get us in the mood to consider seating options,” Suki adds with a coquettish tilt of her head—eyes dipping pointedly to his groin and tongue sliding over her bottom lip, just in case their meaning wasn’t obvious enough, just in case Zuko wasn’t already picturing her looking at him like that from between his wide-spread thighs, kneeling before the throne—or no, taking the traditional supplicants place and then crawling closer. Her eyes just as intent, poise giving way to hunger, her mouth parted to—

“Maybe you should make yourself comfortable to listen, then,” Zuko says roughly, finally palming Sokka’s hip in return and letting his gaze slide openly down Suki’s body.

“Oh, fuck yeah.” Sokka darts to close the heavy door and Suki just smirks back at Zuko, letting her own eyes wander, a smirk on her lips as she fiddles with the neckline of her wrapped top like she wants him staring at her tits, which she probably does.

 “How much more comfortable should we get?” she asks, head cocked in invitation.

Putting this in Zuko’s hands, he realizes as his thoughts immediately trip over the possibilities and the fantasies. He could lay her out before the Eternal Flame, bare but for the firelight. He could have Sokka shuddering and moving with him, could have Sokka and Suki both flushed and beaded with sweat, could watch Suki draw Sokka to her, the way his lashes flutter as her hand dips down and Zuko steps up to them to—

“Darling.” Suki looks like she’s laughing through the heat. “How comfortable?”

Zuko wants her comfortably boneless on his dick. “There’s traditional supplicants’ attire,” he hears himself saying inanely instead. Comfortably boneless and draped against his body, his hands on her breasts as he lets out those thin, breathy noises she makes as Zuko—

Suki’s lips curl at the edges. “Is that what I am?” Something hungry slides into her voice as she skates her hand down her own body. “A supplicant?”

Sokka snorts. “It’s what I am,” he says, striding back over—and already working on the toggles fastening his tunic from shoulder to opposite hip. “So should we take off any clothes that aren’t that supplicant’s stuff?”

Not…traditionally. But Zuko can see the flash of Sokka’s nipple piercing in the firelight, wants to see the dark lines of his tattoos, so, “Sure, why not.”

Suki’s grin is sharp at whatever she sees on Zuko’s face. “Sokka,” she says, hazel eyes locked with Zuko’s. “Help me?”

“Always,” Sokka says, trailing his hand over Zuko as he slips by to come up behind her. His ignores his own half-undone tunic as he presses a kiss to her shoulder, hands hovering at the ready and eyes focused on Zuko, dark with heat. “Which parts of this have to go?”

Zuko doesn’t even have to think. “The top, definitely.”

“Predictable,” Suki makes a show of scoffing as Sokka laughs and the fires jump in answer to the sound. But she tilts her head forward to give Sokka access to the clasps at the nape of her neck and center of her back, still watching Zuko between her lashes, moving and arching to give Sokka space, and probably to just make it as drawn out and dramatic as possible as the winding length of her top begins to slip and slide away, Sokka’s hands captivating on her as he plucks and tugs at the deep gold fabric to bare her—

Sokka laughs, running his hands down Suki’s strong stomach and bare ribs. “Spirits, you are such a tits guy,” he says, his hands moving up to cup Suki’s breasts.

Zuko just hums in unabashed agreement, watching as Sokka lifts and squeezes and feathers his fingers over her nipples the way Zuko knows she likes at the start of things. And Agni, the fact that he knows that, that he knows exactly what the little noises he can see but not hear her making must sound like, the gasps so soft he has to be pressed right up against her to catch them—Zuko could happily get himself off to this alone, Sokka slowly teasing at Suki’s breasts until she’s restless and impatient with it.

But Suki is still staring at him even as she arches into Sokka’s hands, her gaze half-lidded and direct. And Suki did tell him to set the mood.

“Supplicants used to be barefoot, too,” Zuko says, ignoring the fact that used to be means a few centuries ago because Suki is asking him to—she asked and Sokka said yes, which make Zuko—

“Totally reasonable and sensible,” Sokka says, nodding as he brings Suki’s hands to her breasts. “Wouldn’t want to leave them unsupported,” he says seriously, Suki rolling her eyes but readily taking over, arousal and amusement on her face as she draws her fingertips along the curve of her breasts, watching Zuko watch her.

And the sight—fuck, why is Zuko all the way over here? Why isn’t his face pressed right up alongside her hands? Except Sokka has dropped to his knees behind her and Zuko can’t tear his eyes away from that, either, from trying to see whatever it is that has Suki’s lips parting and lashes fluttering, and then from the way Sokka presses up behind her, shoulder practically wedged between her thighs from behind as he unlaces her soft boots.

“Fuck,” Zuko whispers, his own body clenching at the sight. Sokka on his knees just because Zuko implied he wanted it, as if Sokka really is—and the taunt in the show of obedience, the tease he’s making of his body. Zuko can just imagine the almost-enough pressure of it, his fire shivering in his throat as he watches the flex of Sokka’s arm as he works. Fuck, he can just imagine the frustrating ache as Sokka pulls away, the not-nearly-enough relief as he switches sides and somehow wedges his other shoulder deeper. Agni, it would make Zuko want more. Make him want to grab Sokka’s hair, to keep him in place, to grinds back against him, to chasse the sweat friction and pressure as Sokka knelt at his feet and…

“Let me guess.” Suki’s voice is dry even as she edges her legs wider like she’s thinking the same thing as Zuko, too. Or something close enough. “Supplicants don’t wear pants, either?”

Sokka makes a hungry noise and kneels up, pressing his face against her ribs, fingers running along her waistband and eyes on Zuko. “Come on Sukes, read your history,” he chides, plucking lightly at the fabric but not doing anything else, like he’s waiting, like he’s asking. “You know Earth Kingdom fashions didn’t reach the Inner Islands until the Third Unification Period.”

“Silly me,” Suki breathes, and Zuko can see her shivering as Sokka starts undoing the line of buttons at her hip. Or maybe that shiver is from being bare to the air, but Zuko doesn’t really think so, not with the heat of the fire at her side, not with the way her fingers tighten against her own peaked nipples when Sokka’s thumb dips along the crease of her groin.

“This all feels like it’s following strict Fire Nation tradition, after all,” Suki adds as Sokka skims her soft, flowing, definitely-the-latest-fashion-in-Omashu pants down her thighs. “Nothing but propriety here.”

“Nothing but,” Zuko says thickly, resisting the urge to give his cock an openly bracing squeeze as he admires her in the firelight. She’s all confident, squared shoulders and solid muscle, the swell of breasts and hips and curve of her thighs, and it’s not like Zuko’s never seen her this way before, not by a long shot. But fuck, something about seeing her like this here, in this firelight. Her direct, challenging stare and his inner flame pulsing to familiar fire…

“You know, this propriety thing might be growing on me,” Sokka muses, still kneeling and clearly enjoying the view from behind as he palms himself. “This tradition might be a favorite.” His attention shifts to Zuko, anticipatory. “I bet supplicants didn’t get to stand like this before the Fire Lord either.”

Fucking shit, fucking— “Not usually, no,” Zuko manages to say as arousal twists through him, not questioning the impulse that has him backing a few steps to the dais and definitely not questioning the way standing in front of the throne makes his cock jump. “Generally they’d kneel.”

“Fuck yeah,” Sokka breathes, straightening a bit on his knees. “Come on, Sukes, let’s see it.”

Suki glances at herself—Zuko can’t help but follow her gaze—making a show of wide-eyed confusion when the looks back up. “What, like this?” she asks, all mock-innocence as she slowly drops to her knees and releasing her breasts to stretch her arms forward across the dark, polished stone, eyes fixed on Zuko and back arched, ass curved high.

“Fucking shit,” Sokka mutters behind her, Zuko only vaguely registering the words and only vaguely aware of Sokka sitting on his heels much less gracefully, vague all he feels capable of through the sudden rush of arousal in his veins. Agni, it's so close to an actual supplicant's pose she must have researched it, or maybe saw it in those early years when people were still trying to figure out just what type of Fire Lord Zuko was going to be. And he didn’t think he had a thing for it, it certainly never occurred to him before. But fuck, seeing Suki nearly in full obeisance—seeing it here, lit by the flames of the throne, her entire body an offering and challenge and Zuko feeling like he’s in some third-rate spring show and apparently entirely on board with it—

Suki smirks like she knows exactly what this is doing to him. “Or maybe it’s like this?” she murmurs, kneeling up in one smooth, strong motion to sit back on her heels, knees spreading wide, Agni, Zuko doesn’t know where to put his eyes. “’Cause I’m supposed to be riding you, right?” she cocks her head like it’s actually a question and bounces a bit. “Like this?”

“Tui and fucking La,” Sokka says, tight and hungry.

“Or on your lap?” She lifts partway up as if she’s making space beneath her, eyes locked on Zuko as she arches back slow and luxurious like she’s just been filled, exactly like it, fuck. “Taking whatever you give me?” She bites her lip and rolls her hips, one hand reaching for the floor behind her like she does when she’s bracing herself for a better angle, her stomach flexed and thighs tight and all of her limned in firelight, the wetness at her center shining and Zuko wants to taste it, feel it against his face, wants to lay himself out before her and drag her to him and—

“Fuck, Sukes, that’s hot,” Sokka breathes as Zuko thumps down onto the dais steps, his breaths heavy and the fire around them pulsing to the slow grind of Suki’s hips, to his arousal.

“I need to approach the throne for that, though, right?” Suki’s voice aches like she’s chasing orgasm already and fuck, Zuko knows she’s just playing with them, knows she’s just doing it to hear the hungry noise Sokka makes, but fuck if his body doesn’t respond, arousal clenching through him.

“Yeah,” Zuko manages, shuddering at the want in his own voice and grabbing the edge of the dais as he adds, “Crawl,” adrenaline-edged anticipation spiking through him.

Suki holds his gaze a moment, Zuko’s fire fluttering in his throat, his veins thick with desire and Sokka muttering something that sounds like, “Oh shit, oh yeah, fuck, that’s so—fuck.” Then her lips curl into a smirk and she shoves forward, a slow, sinuous movement to drop forward onto hands and knees.

 Zuko’s breath catches as she reaches forward, gusting out of him when her knee follows, Zuko pressing his fingers against the hard stone dais, suddenly achingly aware of his cock throbbing along to his heartbeat as she actually—as she crawls toward him, swaying breasts and heated, intent stare and—

“Oh, nice,” Zuko is distantly aware of Sokka murmuring. “Sway your ass, Sukes.” She does, immediately, body moving sinuously as her hands hit the lowest step of the dais. She pauses there a moment, lead arm outstretched, hips sinking back as if she’s reaching for him, beseeching, pleading—

Zuko sucks in a harsh breath and palms himself through his pants. He feels nearly dizzy with their positions, heady with the whatever-this-is tension thrumming between them and the lurching, hot knowledge that they all know exactly what it is as she begins prowling toward him again. A wild, fluttering part of Zuko has no idea how they could know this when he didn’t even know it himself, not—not like this.

Except, he thinks as he shoves himself back up the dais steps ahead of her, this is his fantasy, isn’t it. And it’s definitely his cock jerking as he feels the familiar cushion of the throne under him, definitely his dick throbbing as Suki purrs, “What do you think, Fire Lord?” and his fire whipping high the ever-burning flames.

“Oh, fuck, is he—? Toss your hair, your hair—”

Suki does, and Agni, the way she arches her neck as if to show off the long, bare length of it. The way she keeps her gaze fixed on Zuko as he runs hungry eyes over her body, over the shift of her breasts and flex of her back and curve of her ass, shadow and light flickering over her torso and the hollow of her thighs and his body feeling tight in anticipation of something he almost can’t put words to.

“Is this what supplicants are supposed to do?” Suki asks, breathy and needy.

“Oh, nice one. Do that thing with your back.”

“Lay themselves at their Fire Lord’s feet?” she continues, knees spreading wide as she dips her spine, ass high—

“Oh, fuck yeah, thank you,” Sokka says reverently.

—and fingers just brushing Zuko’s boots where they’re planted on the dais steps, and he could push himself back further onto the throne, get his legs off his stairs and his hips off the edge of the platform.

But he doesn’t want to, because, “Do supplicants prostrate themselves before his mercy?” Suki is murmuring, leaning forward over her hands to brush her lips against his knee, the barely-there touch sending the breath shuddering out of him. “Do they try to win his attention?” Zuko drops his thighs wide almost without conscious thought and Suki mouths over his inner thigh, against his bulge, hazel eyes fixed on his face as his hips jerk toward the fleeting contact. “Do I get to know the might of the Dragon Throne?” she says, practically purring, and fuck, Zuko feels feverishly hot with the reality of just how into this he is.

Part of him is tight with pending embarrassment for all the formal ceremonies he’s going to need to sit through right in this spot and act like he isn’t remembering this, like the idea of—like it doesn’t do something to him.

The rest of him is burning with it, though. With Suki between his thighs, naked and on her hands and knees. With the way she hovers over the dais steps like she’s still ready to crawl, with her breath hot against his groin through his pants like she’s hungry for it and with her eyes intent and ready on his face like she’s just waiting for what he will say next, or whatever her Fire Lord will—

Suki gasps and jerks forward, lips pressing open-mouthed to his balls and her face against his trapped cock, and it takes Zuko a long moment to pry his eyes back open—and then to tear his eyes off the sight of her there—to find Sokka smirking up at him across her back and making a show of licking his lips.

“What do you think, Fire Lord?” Zuko makes an embarrassingly revealing, hungry sound that has Sokka’s eyes flaring. “Is this supplicant deserving?” Which isn’t exactly the right language, not at all, really, but Sokka is palming Suki’s ass, squeezing, spreading, so it’s fine, it’s good, it works. “Maybe I should check to be sure.”

Suki huffs. “What—”

“Yes, you should do that, yes, great, yes,” Zuko says, toes curling in his boots against the need to just grind up to relieve the ache in his balls and his entire body tight with anticipation as Sokka sprawls out behind her, admiring a moment—

“Sokka, yes, do it—”

—before giving her another lick.

Suki exhales in a startled rush that has Zuko’s cock twitching, bowing her head around a gasp at whatever Sokka is doing—that thing with his tongue, probably, Zuko fucking loves watching that, loves when Sokka whispers instructions in his ear, loves—

“Tell me,” Zuko demands, straightening to try to see more, the steps shallow but enough that he can’t easily see past Suki’s still-raised ass. “You’re checking—tell me.”  

Sokka hums, taking his time to lift his face to meet Zuko’s eyes. “Yes, Fire Lord.” Zuko’s thighs clench against Suki’s shoulders before he can catch himself, Suki gasping out a breathless laugh. “Oh, fuck yeah,” Sokka breathes, sounding something between awed and excited. “Okay, right, we can do this, we can definitely—” he drops his head again, Suki moaning, then, “She’s wet for you, Z—Your Highness.”

“Majesty,” Suki gasps out, pressing back, staring at the jerk of Zuko’s hips. “It’s ‘majesty’.”

“Majesty, right.” Sokka nips at the curve of her ass. “She’s wet and getting wetter, Your Majesty.”

Ember and ash, fuck, this is— “Keep her that way,” Zuko finds it in himself to say, the words rasping and thick but somehow coming out as an order, not a plea.

“Mm,” Sokka agrees, already ducking back down, and Zuko grips the edge of the dais at the full-body ripple through Sokka’s body. The way his boots look for purchase, the bend of his knees for leverage against the stairs and flex of his thighs, Sokka’s hips shifting and back arching, his shoulders working as he braces himself against the steps and puts his whole body into eating Suki out.

Suki shudders, still graced between his thighs, still poised over the dais steps. Her face is tight with pleasure, her breaths hot against him, the air filling between them with Zuko’s harsh breaths and her moans and the slick, wet sound of Sokka working her.

“She’s so responsive, Fire Lord,” Sokka pants as he comes up for air, face glistening in the firelight. Zuko barely stops himself from grinding his still-trapped cock against Suki’s face, Agni, it's right there. “Just for you, all for you, right, Sukes?”

Suki grunts, half-loose hair covering her face and ass pressing insistently back and the way her eyes are fixed on Zuko’s dick…

“Good,” Zuko breathes, mostly for the way it makes Suki’s eyes fly up to his face. “Very good.”

“Oh yeah, I’ll get her so ready for you,” Sokka promises with a grin and a wink as he settles back down, Suki letting out a high, surprised noise that has Zuko’s body clenching. “She’s aching for it—” another thin sound. “—she needs it—” Suki jerks, gasping when Sokka wraps an arm around her thighs. “—she needs that drago—that cock, she needs her Fire Lord inside her.”

“Fin and fucking—” Suki gasps, shoving back against Sokka’s hands. She stretches her forearms further up the wide stair like she’s trying to find leverage, or maybe balance as she suddenly presses her face against the aching line of Zuko’s trapped erection. Her breaths are hot and damp, her eyes desire-dark when he looks down at her, so maybe it’s not balance she wanted at all. Fuck, he could cup her jaw so easily like this and press her to him. He could rub against her and cradle her through Sokka’s increasingly insistent attentions, could sink into the want on her face and shudder of her breath and the shivers running through her body.

But, “I think,” Zuko says, heart pounding and fire shuddering as he makes a show of leaning back onto his palms instead, “that you should take my pants off.”

Suki chokes in a way that lets him know Sokka is into the idea, too, desire twisting in Zuko’s gut as Sokka presses forward hard enough that he can see Suki’s back and shoulders flexing to take the weight, to stay in place, and Zuko feels practically drunk on the buzz of his arousal and the thrill of daring as he adds, “That’s an order. From the Fire Lord.” And fuck, the way Suki groans in answer, her body arching under his words, or maybe under whatever Sokka is doing her, Zuko doesn’t really care with the feel of it vibrating against him.

“Fuck yeah,” Sokka pants, pulling back to wipe his face against his shoulder—Agni, he’s still mostly dressed. “Let’s do this,” Sokka says, face eager as he scrambles up the steps half-over and half-alongside Suki’s body to reach for Zuko’s waistband, practically crawling too and not anywhere near as posed as Suki but the sight of him stretched over the dais at Zuko’s feet—

Zuko squeezes his eyes shut, trying to ground himself in the surrounding flames—throbbing, hot, pulsing, bad idea, bad idea—as Sokka’s fingers shove aside robes and drag over his stomach before finding the ties of his pants. Zuko tries to focus on the way his robes are bunched up underneath him as Sokka fumbles at the laces, trying not to come right then and there as Sokka more tears open Zuko’s pants than unties them.

Which Zuko will care about later, when he’s not lifting his hips for Sokka to drag the fabric down his thighs. It presses his now-bare groin right against Sukis’ face—

“Fuck, so hot, the two of you,” Sokka pants.

—and Suki is breathing hard against him still. But she must have a bit of wherewithal back because she’s staring up at him again when Zuko pries his eyes open to look, cheeks flushed and apparently waiting for his gaze as she immediately makes a show of licking her lips and turning to nuzzle at his length, pressing it between his thigh and her cheek and breathing hot over his balls, open-mouth and tongue just peeking out, her eyes locked with his, desire-dark and challenging and sending his fire leaping in his chest.

“Your Fire Lord didn’t give you permission to touch,” Zuko rasps out. He sinks his hand into her hair anyway, finally giving in to the urge to grind against her, jolting with the sudden friction and pressure and again as adjusts for Sokka to yank off his boots and peel his pants entirely free, leaving Zuko sitting bare-assed on his throne, with his robes still on and his cock out. It should feel ridiculous, absurd or at least obscene, but Agni, it’s impossible to feel anything but the desire in his veins, the hungry pulse of his fire as Suki pants against him, anticipation and arousal and challenge in her eyes. 

“Oh fuck, oh yeah,” Sokka says, climbing back down between her feet. Zuko can feel Suki tense, her shoulders pressed between his thighs. But he can tell Sokka’s mouth isn’t on her yet, a quick glance showing Sokka’s hands massaging her ass, her thighs, his gaze eager and excited on him. “You want a show, then? She can show you how much she wants it? Make her earn—”

“I want her tits in my face,” Zuko blurts before Sokka makes him come right there. Which is predictable—that’s what Zuko always wants, unless it's Sokka’s chest he’s thinking about, and they all know it—but he makes himself release Suki’s hair and lean back anyway, because Zuko might happily smother himself in Suki’s breasts at any given moment but this, here, like this—this is different.

“Crawl,” he adds, settling back onto his elbows, the cushion of his throne beneath him making hunger throb in his gut.

And Agni, the pulses of his fire when Suki does it, her hair mussed from his hand and desire heavy on her face as she slowly crawls up the remaining steps, between his thighs and onto the dais and just managing to not rub against Zuko’s erection as she does it.

His balls ache in protest even as his body clenches as she does exactly what he—no, what her Fire Lord, Agni, he had no idea—they should talk about this, later, except Zuko doesn’t know how he’s going to manage it without getting hard—told her to do like she’s daring him to challenge her on it. And Zuko would know exactly what to do if it were Sokka begging without words for a smack on the ass like this. But it’s not, so instead he says, “There’s perfect,” when her knees are on either side of his hips, something in him thrilling at the way she freezes, her eyes on his face from inches away, watching him make a show of lazily admiring her arms, her breasts, finally meeting her gaze. “Put them in my face.”

Suki pants a moment before realizing what he means, a question on her face as she flicks a quick glance down to where’s he’s still propped up on his elbows, to where her own hands are bracing her up.

“You can do it,” Zuko murmurs, because apparently he feels like challenging today, too, and he can practically see her considering and discarding options, her eyes narrowing slightly before she finally spreads her knees wide and arches her back—

“Oh, Spirits, wow, wow,” Sokka breathes behind her.

—to lift and shove out her breasts, her head tipped back like she’s gazing up at the dragons behind the throne.

“That’s it,” Zuko whispers, because wow he does feel like challenging today, as it turns out. He makes himself pause and actually drink in the sight, not just her full breasts but the flex of her body, the roll of her shoulders and curve of her spine and strength of her arms.

Her breaths come shallow and fast like this, her gaze straining to stay on his face with her head tipped back, and Zuko makes sure to hold her eyes as he finally reaches out, savoring the jump and catch of her breath as he drags his hands slowly up her sides to cup her.

“That the longest you’ve ever held out?” Sokka asks from behind her, sounding amused.

“Not even close,” Zuko rasps, watching her face as he savors the weight of her breasts in his hands, the familiar shape of them, the peaks of her nipples against his palm and the way tweaking at them makes her shiver. Then he leans in to lick at the curve of one, then the other, nipping because he can’t help himself and finally sliding down onto his back and more fully under her so he can get both his hands involved, so he can rub his face against her like he wanted to from the very beginning, feeling the way she gasps as Sokka puts his mouth on her again.

Zuko wiggles a bit to get more comfortable in the tangle of his robes, keeping his feet planted against the steps and knees spread to make room for Sokka. He drinks her in, drinks them in, his awareness filling with the ripple and clench of her body, with the fullness of her breasts and tight peaks of her nipples and the sounds she makes as Zuko flicks his tongue over the tips, as Sokka licks across her core and then up her ass, too, from the sound of it, Sokka’s shoulder pressing against his thigh as he shifts on the stairs, following the roll of Suki’s body.

“Only your mouth,” Zuko warns as Suki starts getting squirmy above him, the words half pressed against the swell of her breast.

“Fuck,” Sokka pants—

“Fuck,” Suki gasps, breathless.

—breathing heavy a moment. Then, “Yeah, okay, okay,” Sokka says, weight shifting against Zuko’s thigh again as the words go muffled, the only warning he gets before Suki jerks, heavy against his hands before she gets her arms under her again. Zuko can see the tremor in them though as Sokka focuses on whatever he’s doing, and he can feel the force in the way Sokka is leaning in, can see the pressure and intensity he’s putting behind his mouth as Suki flexes and gasps and braces over him, ragged-edged noises beginning to slip past her lips.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she chants, voice going tighter and tighter as Zuko splays his hands over her ribs to help take her weight but also to keep her from rocking forward so much, keeping her close to Sokka’s mouth.

Zuko glances over to see her fingers pressed white against the cushion of the throne. He can feel her stomach tightening against his palms, her thigh flexing when he tilts his head to glance down her body as she starts to squirm. And oh, fuck, the sight of Sokka there between her legs—not all of him, of course, but seeing the flash of his tongue, his wide-open, hungry mouth. Finally seeing him closing his mouth over her entrance as well as feeling it in the jump of Suki’s breath, knowing he’s sucking against her and then thrusting with his tongue, knowing it because he can hear the pitch of Suki’s cries and knowing it because Sokka has told him exactly what to do, too—

Zuko gasps, thigh tensing against Sokka’s shoulder as he closes his mouth over Suki’s breast. He swirls his tongue fast and hard around her nipple in imitation of what he knows Sokka is doing, pressing his palm against, pressure and barely-there circles. His body throbs as he tracks the pitch of her cries—getting close—and the shift of Sokka’s weight—heavier against Zuko’s spread thigh, and Suki suddenly choking, which means he must be freeing an arm to anchor Suki’s thighs in place—Zuko so caught in the rising tide of her release that he startles at the sudden touch of Sokka’s hand against his hips, Zuko’s hips jerking as the first wave of orgasm hits Suki, her thighs trembling and back bowing as Sokka holds her to his mouth and Zuko presses her back into him.

She gasps and moans and curses through it, chest heaving against his hands, and Zuko barely waits for her breathing to steady out before saying, “Don’t stop,” nudging Sokka with his leg so Sokka realizes he’s talking to him. “Don’t stop,” he says again, trying to breathe through the ache of his own arousal as Sokka’s hand tightens over his hip, as Suki’s eyes fly open to stare at him. “Next one’s going to be on my cock,” he murmurs to her, or maybe to Sokka, his fire thrilling at the moan of approval Sokka makes, half-muffled against her, at the jerk of her body and the slow smirk curling her lips.

“If the Fire Lord commands,” she purrs, husky with desire—

“Spirits, Sukes, fuck yeah, give it to him, give it to him—”

—and her laughter at the involuntary jerk of Zuko’s hips—fuck, he wants friction, pressure, something—breaking off into a moan as he finds the curve of her breast with his teeth, pressing with the flat of his tongue before reaching down to finally, finally touch her.

“That’s for you, Zu, all for you,” Sokka breathes, hunger lurching in Zuko’s gut to find her as wet and slick as he knew she would be. “Just like I told you, right?”

“Yeah,” Zuko rasps, craning to watch her face as he slowly drags his thumb over her clit, satisfaction rippling through him at the pleasure over her face, at her gasp as he does it again.

Then Sokka is there again and Zuko is letting out a gasp of his own as Sokka licks against his fingers and then sucks before shifting to lap at Suki, fuck, Zuko’s mostly-neglected dick is very interested in that fresh reminder of what else Sokka could be doing down there. His whole body suddenly feels achingly aware that Sokka’s hand is down there, too, and that Zuko could just slide his hips off the edge of the dais, or use his leg to pull Sokka’s torso in tight enough to grind against, and Agni, Suki’s core is right there, too, he could just—

Zuko sinks his fingers into the hot, wet heat of her, concentrating on the choppy sound of her breaths and the shudders running through her body because rubbing himself off against Sokka’s chest is not what he’s after right now. He focuses on Sokka, too, quickly finding a rhythm with Sokka’s mouth as Sokka tongues around his fingers, lips pressing wide-open and hungry against his hand like he wants to swallow down them both.

Sokka shifts between Zuko’s thighs, pressing against one and then the other as he adjusts around Zuko’s hand, licking fully across her and between his fingers, over him and up past Zuko’s reach. Zuko drinks in the flutter of her around his fingers, the way she clenches down when he presses the heel of his hand to her clit and Sokka sets himself to thrusting his tongue in alongside Zuko’s fingers and chasing her wetness across his knuckles like he wants to swallow down every bit of her, like he wants Zuko to know exactly how enthusiastically he’d do it too, wants Zuko thinking about what else he’d swallow so readily, too.

Zuko doesn’t have a plan except taking Suki right to the edge that way—

“Yes, yes, ye—fuck—”

—and then doing it again—

“Fucking shit, Zu,” Sokka says as he pulls back, gasping and eager. “So hot, so hot, Sukes.”

“Fuck you, fuck you both—”

—nothing except pushing her and not letting her fall into release until Suki is cursing with it, cursing them, her voice tight and cracking with hunger and her face desire-flushed when he looks at her, her hair sweat-damp, and suddenly Zuko is gripped by the urge to hear her say it.

“Need something?” he asks, teasing lightly at her nipple with one hand, the other stroking not-at-all-where-she-wants-it against the crease of her thigh, anticipation thick in his veins to see if she’ll say—

Suki bows her head around a laugh, ragged, then holds his gaze. “Give me your dick, Fire Lord.”

Zuko gasps, hips rocking up before he can catch himself, like someone finally actually touched his dick, Sokka letting out a gut-punched, hungry noise.

“You two are going to kill me,” Sokka mutters, clothes rustling and brushing against Zuko’s inner thighs as he scrambles up, tugging Suki with him. Zuko would help, except he’s barely recovered himself enough to shove up onto his elbows again, all three of them clumsy with hunger and urgency to get her seated—

“No, no, back to front,” Sokka says, Zuko choking the teasing brush of Suki’s core, “you said back to front, turn around, turn around.”

—to get her turned around and seated because Zuko did, indeed, have a vision here at some point.

Zuko wraps an arm around her waist, his other elbow still braced behind him and his chest heaving under Suki’s hand as she levers herself up, Sokka helping lift her hips up and his other hand suddenly gripping Zuko’s dick. He gives Zuko a quick stroke that nearly has Zuko unbalancing them both, which Sokka clearly knows from the little laugh he lets out before—fuck, before licking up Zuko’s shaft, which really almost does them in.  

But then Suki is sinking down onto him, and Zuko is suddenly thinking about nothing but the sight of himself filling her, of the expanse of her back and curve of her ass and feel of her stomach tensing under his hand as she takes him. And Agni, her wet heat over his tip, down his length, Zuko groaning and her head dropping back, her spine bowing, Sokka murmuring praise the whole while for how well she takes him, for how well Zuko gives it to her.

“Amazing, you’re fucking amazing,” Sokka pants as Suki finally settles against him, Zuko grunting and flexing up a little, like he can press a bit more of himself into her. “Like this, like this,” he urges, clothes rustling, and Zuko can’t see what he’s doing, but Suki is gasping and nodding, tensing—

“Shit, fuck,” Zuko grits out, squeezing his eyes shut against the urge to just fuck right into her.

—to lift her legs and drape them over his thighs, or maybe Sokka is lifting them, because Suki is holding onto Zuko’s hip and chest like she needs it to stay upright, and Sokka is suddenly grabbing Zuko’s hand off her waist to—to move it to her breast, oh, great idea, and Suki’s strong legs are pressing down over his, spread wide by his own thighs, and that’s a great idea, too.

“Amazing,” Sokka murmurs again, reverent and awed. Then he shifts to look around Suki’s body. “Next one on your dick, right?”

“Fuck, it better be,” Suki moans, nails biting into his chest, hips rocking, seeking.

“Yeah,” Zuko says, scraping his thoughts back together and pressing his heels against the steps for leverage to thrust up into her, once, savoring the catch of her breath under his hand. “I want to feel it,” he adds, not sure if it’s an order or a plea or just wanting, not sure if he’s talking to Sokka or Suki.

But Sokka is nodding, his face lit with eagerness and desire as he shifts back between Zuko’s thighs, and Zuko is leaning over his elbow before can think about what it will do to Suki’s balance to follow the hungry expression on Sokka’s face, to drink in the sight of him staring at where he and Suki are joined, feeling himself tense along with Suki, anticipation twisting through him as Sokka braces himself against the steps and gets comfortable on his knees and finally leans in.

“Fuck,” Zuko chokes, Suki’s own curse sounding right after as Sokka licks across Zuko’s balls and over the base of his dick, teasing around where they’re joined and then up over Suki’s clit from the sound of it, from the feel of her clenching around him.

“Shit,” Suki moans, hand slipping against his chest. Zuko quickly pushes up from his elbow to brace straight-armed against the cushion, encouraging her back against him.

“Let me feel it,” he urges her—and maybe urges Sokka, from the hum and swirling lick it gets them—enjoying the weight of her against him, the flex of her strong back against his chest and the way she arches against him, trying to get more. Her toes barely graze the steps like this with her legs spread over his, Zuko fighting against the tension of her thighs as she tries to rise up his dick, her hips twisting, searching. “This is what you asked for, right?”

“You—fuck, yo—” Suki chokes, arching as Sokka starts sucking on her clit by the feel of it.

“You wanted your Fire Lord’s dick, right?” Zuko pants—

Sokka lets out a shuddering breath against the base of his dick. “Fuck, Zu.”

—letting his hips roll just enough to stave off the ache in his balls but not enough to dislodge Sokka, or to give Suki more than a taunting bit of friction to go along with the fullness. Though maybe it’s just Zuko tight with the need for longer, deeper strokes, except no, Suki is making tight, frustrated, needing noises, so this is perfect. “That’s what you get, then.” He grunts, straining against the strength of her legs. “Unless you want to ask for more.”

Suki clenches around him, hand digging into his hip. “You’re going to be asking for—”

“Only your mouth,” Zuko gasps out, wrapping his arm around Suki’s waist again. “Only your mouth on her.”

“—I’m going to fucking—”

“Yes, okay, yes,” Sokka says, nodding through Suki’s aggravated, hungry noise and shifting down again, his quick breaths over Zuko’s balls making him twitch a bare moment before Suki’s body jerks at the press of his mouth.

Except Sokka’s hand finds Zuko’s thigh, too, wide-spread and pressing too light to help keep Zuko’s legs spread wide as Suki clenches and tries to arch against him, tries to clamp them closed to increase the pressure, or maybe to keep Sokka right where she wants him. Because Sokka only has to use his mouth on Suki, Zuko realizes, the light scrape of Sokka’s nails along the tense tendon of his hamstring suddenly unbearably, stupidly erotic considering the way Suki is grinding down on his cock.

“Good?” Zuko says into her ear, trying to refocus on her—oh, no, that’s not helping either—just managing to make the word a question instead of a gasp, a praise, an encouragement. “Exactly what you wanted?”

“Fuck you,” Suki groans, her fingers digging into his forearm where it's banded across her stomach, and it would be so easy for her to just reach down, to give herself the relief she’s chasing, and the fact that she isn’t—

“You could,” Zuko says, gripping her tighter to him, hearing the own sharp hunger and urgency in his voice, feeling himself trembling with the strain of fighting her, or maybe just of holding back. “You could, you could.”

“So hot, fuck, guys, so—” Sokka does something that has Suki gasping, core tightening around him and Zuko groans, squeezing his eyes shut and focusing on staying still, on not being the one to break first when everything in him just wants to—

“Fuck, fuck, just—give it to me, just fuck me.” 

Zuko thrusts up into her almost before he registers the words—

“Yes, fuck.”

—leaning further back against his braced hand and setting his heels against the steps so he can give himself more room to work. He can’t move as fully as he wants to like this, not without pausing to readjust…something. But the friction is wonderful, the pleasure twisting up his spine, and he quickly finds the steady kind of rhythm he knows she likes. It’s not quite sharp enough or deep enough to be what would normally get her there. But with Sokka’s mouth on her, an orgasm behind her and her body already so sensitive, so worked up, it isn’t long at all, really, before her hands are scrabbling, blunt nails biting into his forearm and his side as she arches into another release, the drag of them enough to have Zuko losing his rhythm as he fucks into her until Sokka wraps an arm over both their hips so he can focus on shoving her over the edge.

“Fin and fucking tail,” Suki groans, body still shuddering and head heavy as it falls back against Zuko’s shoulder, and her voice aching in a way that says more, that goes right to Zuko’s balls.

“Yeah?” Zuko says, looking around her shoulder to catch Sokka’s eyes. “I bet we can do another one, right?”

“Oh, fucking—fuck you—”

“Uh-huh, oh yeah, fuck yeah.”

“—fuck you both,” Suki says, her voice breaking as Sokka sets his mouth on her again—and her hips already chasing the contact even though Zuko can tell Sokka is still teasing her down from the edge, giving her space to settle first.

“That is the idea,” Zuko rasp, taking the moment to settle himself, too. He tries to ignore the slick heat of her, the wetness of her release, running his hands over her ribs instead, her sides, the spread of her thighs, skating his fingers up to tease between her legs alongside Sokka’s tongue.

His inner fire is throbbing, the flames around the dais pulsing in time, and Zuko tries to focus on her body and not the feel of her around his cock—which gets harder when Sokka apparently decides to give Suki a break and slips down to lick and suck over Zuko’s balls.

“Fucking—”

“Ha!” Suki says, hoarse.

He nips and sucks over Zuko’s inner thighs, too, kissing where Suki’s legs are draped over top as his fingers wander behind Zuko’s balls, over his hole, wet with Suki’s release in a way that would have Zuko restless and hungry even if he wasn’t feeling Suki starting to clench around him again, shifting on top of him, desire building.

“Need more?” Sokka pants, and Zuko isn’t sure who he’s asking, but—

“Yes.”

“Give me—"

“Here, here, here,” Sokka says, still heaving heavily. His hands suddenly stroke up the outside of Zuko’s legs, over his hips, nudging and encouraging Zuko to slide further back onto the cushion—no, to move Suki further up the stairs, he realizes. Enough for her feet to find purchase even dangling over Zuko’s thighs, specifically, the realization coming as her thighs tense and her hand grips onto his waist for balance as she immediately thrusts against him with a gut-deep, hungry moan.

“Fuck yeah,” Sokka praises, scrambling back into the spread of Zuko’s thighs, “that’s it, show us how much you want it, show him how you need it.”

Ember and ash, the strength of her body, the heat and pressure and friction—Zuko dips his fingers down a moment to feel where they’re joined together, nearly dizzy with the way she stretches around him. Then he sets his hand against her ribs to brace her up, to keep her centered, his outstretched arm burning from their combined weight as he leans sideways over it because he can’t resist watching the line of her body, the arch of her back and bounce of her breasts as she moves, and then as he moves, stretching out his legs so she doesn’t lose her footing and digging his heels against the polished stone to thrust up into her.

His hamstrings are already burning from so long fighting the clench of her thighs, his quads fighting her weight over his hips, but he shoves the ache away and keeps his legs spread for Sokka because fuck, Sokka is working them both now. Messy and eager and uncoordinated with the way they’re moving, but fuck, so good. Chasing the movement of Suki’s hips and then licking her wetness from Zuko’s cock, from his balls, Zuko dizzyingly, wildly grateful for the time they spent stretching during training today as he presses his thighs out even wider, spreading them both obscenely wide.

“Fuck,” Suki gasps at the shift in angle, back bowing.

“Fuck, fuck,” Sokka agrees, pressing the words to their skin, interspersing them with teeth and tongue. “Fuck, you both look—I want to draw this, I could paint this,” he pants, head heavy against Zuko’s thigh, lips brushing balls. “You have no idea how you look, the two of you. Spirits, on this throne."

Zuko bites off a desperate noise and grabs for Sokka, fumbling and finding his hair and yanking him forward to press Sokka’s mouth where he wants it because fuck, Sokka can’t say things like that. Sokka makes an eager, open-mouthed noise against him, enough to have Zuko groaning before Suki knocks his hand away—

“If you think you’re—”

—to move Sokka where she wants him, and then to keep him there. Zuko’s balls ache from the loss but he doesn’t fight her on it, not with the happy, excited noises Sokka is making and the rising urgency of her body Zuko can feel against his thighs and around his cock, can hear it in the pitch of her cries and the saw of her breath.

And Sokka’s fingers are still on him, too, grabbing his attention again as they grip onto his thighs for balance and then slide up deliberate and intent to press against his hole. It’s more teasing than trying to fuck him even though Agni, just the idea of moving between Suki’s core and Sokka’s hand like that, doing it here, on the throne, with Suki and Sokka both sprawled and spread as if in offering…

Sokka pinches Zuko’s inner thigh to hold off his release when Suki comes—

“Fuck,” Zuko bites out, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Fuuuck,” Suki slurs in a very different tone.

—which Zuko is shocked even worked, all things considered, but it snatches him from his own orgasm enough to be able to catch Suki when she suddenly falls back against his chest, limp and open and he would say spent, except…

“Another one?” Zuko gasps out as he feels Sokka exhale over them, barely believing it as he glances over her shoulder. But Sokka is giving him a look, wicked and hungry and intent. And his face is wet, tongue extended like a taunt as he holds Zuko’s gaze, just barely tasting but enough to make them both twitch. And Suki is moaning, and not in protest, not sounding like that, not with her hand still twisted in Sokka’s hair, tugging him to her. And her body is heavy against him, something almost lazy and indulgent in the way she moves, something greedy, and fuck, Zuko can never resist Suki finally giving herself over to the pleasure this way.

“Okay, okay,” Zuko nods, gulping in air and wrapping his arm around her torso again to keep her anchored against him. Sokka is more moving her hips than Suki is doing it herself, grinding and tilting and rocking her on Zuko’s cock which feels—Agni, fuck feels—and then stroking over Zuko’s hips, gripping, encouraging Zuko to finally move, too.

“You’re taking it so well, Sukes, so well, perfect, perfect,” Sokka praises, voice thick with arousal as Zuko gathers himself enough to fuck up into her, then again, his whole body tight at the slick glide of it, the way she tightens around him. “Look at how he gives it to you.” 

It’s slower this time because Zuko doesn’t know if he has anything more than that in him. Steady, firm thrusts that he has to gather himself in between, shoulder burning from the strain and Sokka taking full advantage of the rhythm to give her the attention she needs. Against her core and her clit, crawling up the dais to kiss along her neck, too, to lick over her chest and suck hickeys against her ribs, Zuko gasping with her, jerking at the flutter of her reaction.

He pushes his hand down between Suki and Sokka’s bodies to feel how wet she is, how open, pressing the heel of his hand just above her clit to give her something more to grind against until Sokka notices and shoves his hand away to take back over—and suddenly focusing on Zuko, his lips trailing over what he can of Zuko’s shaft, sucking on his balls.

Zuko makes a choked, desperate noise, hips jerking up and another noise dragging out of him when Sokka immediately presses his hips back down to keep him in place. “Another one,” Sokka repeats—demands—still pressed against him, the words vibrating through his balls and their meaning—

Oh fuck, yeah, do—that, yeah,” Suki urges, ragged, and suddenly Sokka’s tongue is teasing over his hole, then his fingers. Stroking and swirling and then pressing that spot behind his balls and finally coming back wet against Zuko’s entrance. Just the one, but one is more than enough with the pleasure already coiling around the base of his spine, with Sokka still kneeling on the steps in facsimile of entreaty, with Suki making those breathy noises on his cock, all of it more than enough to shove Zuko flying over the edge, his release white-hot, blazing through him and in the fires around him as he presses down onto Sokka’s finger and pulls Suki down onto his cock, his forehead bowed against her shoulder as it takes him.

~*~

Zuko is vaguely aware in the aftermath, in the corner of his brain still capable of things other than sensation, that Suki didn’t quite get there along with him. Which isn’t a shock, all things considered. That was—a lot. But he can maybe finger her, replace his softening cock. Or Sokka can fuck her, he must be—just like this, Zuko still holding her spread and feeling Sokka thrusting against his own thighs, t—

“Oh fuck, oh fuck—” Suki suddenly jerks on top of him, hands scrambling and body tightening and so much against his sensitive cock that Zuko nearly bucks her off, clutching at her—

“Oh, fin and—Sokka—”

—and finally managing to put together the writhe of her body with Sokka’s hand against his inner thigh, pinning her down and Zuko along with her. He has half a breath to think oh, Sokka is eating her out again before Sokka’s mouth is on him, too, and Zuko is twitching away from it, fighting the press of Sokka’s hands and gasping at the hard twist of pleasure that’s nearly too much too much but making himself take it because fuck, Sokka isn’t just eating her out, he’s licking Zuko’s come from her—

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck fuck—”

—insistent and relentless with it. His mouth is hungry, eyes focused when Zuko manages to finally find them as Suki squirms between them, Zuko shuddering from the overstimulation but clinging to her to help keep her in place, keeping both their legs spread wide for Sokka as he finally shoves Suki over again with two fingers still pressed inside Zuko as if Zuko needs the threat, or the reminder, both of them already a mess of sensation.

~*~

“Wait,” Zuko pants sometime later, when Suki has finally stopped shuddering and shivering with aftershocks on top of him, when his softening cock has finally slipped free. “Sokka?”

“Hm, still here,” Sokka says like there isn’t anywhere in the world he’d rather be than…still kneeling in front of their sprawled bodies, Zuko realizes, Zuko’s arm finally giving out beneath him and Suki collapsing down with her, her legs still wide over his, which…is probably why Sokka is so content.

Except, “You?” Zuko manages, Suki stirring a bit as she realizes what he means. “You’re—?”

Sokka huffs. “You guys are a bit done,” he says dryly, sounding pleased with himself. “Besides, I got off in the bath earlier.”

“Uh, same, somehow,” Suki snorts, tilting her head just enough to find Sokka down the line of her body. “Come here,” she says, limply waving.

“Um,” Sokka laughs, sitting back on his heels and giving them a wry look. “Again, you’re both a bit…”

“Come here, you too, come on,” Zuko demands, adding his reaching hands to Suki’s gesturing, making impatient noises until Sokka finally rolls his eye and gives him an exasperated look and shifts to crawl up over their bodies.

“Yeah, come on,” Suki says as Sokka follows their beckoning hands to finally straddle Suki’s waist, which means straddling Zuko’s, too, and fuck, Sokka is still dressed, his tunic half undone and pants open like he was stroking himself, his erection tenting the front of his pant and practically dragging over Suki’s breasts. “Give your Fire Lord what he wants, Sokka.”

Zuko twitches, surprised heat throbbing in his gut and his—very—spent dick giving a valiant twitch at the way Sokka sucks in a sharp breath, eyes flying to Zuko’s face.

“That’s it,” Suki says, sounding lazy and satisfied and like she’s smirking. “Show us how much you want it,” she adds, such a pitch-perfect imitation of Sokka that he lets out a startled laugh. “Show him how you need it.”

“Sure, okay,” Sokka says, shaking his head as if Zuko can’t see the hitch of his breath or the jut of his cock—and then reaching back to stroke through the mess he and Suki have made of themselves, fuck, Sokka holding Zuko’s eyes, eyebrows raised, as he straightens and shoves his pants down, just enough to free his cock and begins stroking himself with their wetness.

Zuko makes a low, hoarse noise. “Agni…”

“There it is,” Suki murmurs, stroking down Sokka’s flank. “Good, right?”

“Uh-huh, yeah,” Sokka says tightly, hand already moving tight and fast like he was a lot closer than he was letting on. 

Suki makes an interested, amused noise. “You should be good for your Fire Lord, too,” Suki whispers, voice wicked and recovering way too fast as she tilts her head to give Zuko a smirk as he—as she presses her tits together, fuck. Plumping them up in offer, her meaning unmistakable as Zuko chokes and Sokka laughs, delighted, and knee-walks forward.

“It’s definitely all only for him,” Sokka agrees seriously, eyes crinkling into a smile when he smirks at Zuko. And Zuko should maybe be…something. Trying to…reestablish his authority or whatever. Taking back control of this game.

Except Sokka’s dick is against Suki’s tits and then disappearing between them, and Suki is making a breathy, moaning noise that has to be all for show but still has the fires around them lurching, and Sokka is laughing, breathless, and Zuko can’t tear his eyes away from it all. His own body clenches as he imagines—remembers—what it feels like to be where Sokka is, as he drinks in the heady sight of Sokka nearly fully clothed over them and slowly coming apart.

Suki arches her back under Sokka’s shallow thrusts, pressing her ass against him and letting out a low, husky laugh. “So predictable,” she teases.

“Mhm,” Zuko agrees easily, happily, fresh desire humming through him as he watches the head of Sokka’s dick appearing and disappearing again. He’s not anywhere near ready yet again—probably not anytime soon, after all that—but he still lifts his hands to press over top of hers, holding her tits in place and shivering as he feels Sokka fucking between them against his hands now as well as in the rock of Suki’s body on top of his.

“Fuck, you guys,” Sokka pants, pausing a moment to spit on his cock, hips moving freely now. “I love you both so much.”

“He’s close,” Suki says, nudging Zuko’s shin with her heel. “Get him there?”

“Yeah,” Zuko agrees, releasing Suki’s breasts to reach around Sokka’s hip, Sokka gasping and locking eyes with him as Zuko shoves down his waistband just enough to get a hand inside. And it’s not a good angle, not close enough for Zuko to really do anything more than tease along Sokka’s crack, over his hole. But he knows that for Sokka, the teasing will be enough, especially after all of this, especially with Zuko watching the pleasure build over his face and Suki murmuring, “Love you, we love you so much, come on, darling, give it to us,” in time to his thrusts.

“Spirits, fuck,” Sokka gasps, biting his lip. “Where, where, where—"

“Tits, on her tits—”

“On me, right there, do it, do it—”

Sokka lets out a high noise, nodding furiously as he jerks his hips back, pressing himself against Zuko’s fingers and gripping himself again, two quick, tight pulls all it takes for his thighs to tense, his stomach to jump, his mouth opening in a silent moan as he comes over Suki’s chest, striping across the swell of her breasts and her nipple, her sternum, Zuko groaning at the sight and at the feel of Suki’s thighs clenching over his as she arches up into it like she’s putting on a show, or making herself an offering, or savoring the sight of Sokka’s pleasure just as much as Zuko is.

~*~

Through some miracle they avoid suffocating each other after, sliding limp and sticky to the side instead of just collapsing down in a pile. They end up flopped half on top of each other, half on the cushion and half on the stairs, which Zuko is vaguely aware is too many halves but not enough to care about, not when Sokka is facedown against his hip, an arm slung over his thigh, and Suki’s legs are heavy over his chest.  

Zuko absently brushes his thumb over the bit of Suki’s back he can reach with her on top of his arm, his other hand tangled with Sokka’s. He is not, he contemplates, entirely sure how they’re going to make it back to their room without being seen. Especially not when Zuko can feel his robes caught beneath him, probably wrinkled to the point of absurdity, and Sokka still mostly clothed and probably stained past saving. Suki might end up the most presentable one between them once she gets dressed again, except the rising line of hickeys over her ribs that are definitely going to be visible with that top…

Though Akuna’s expression that time the three of them had tumbled out of that empty office together, or the time before that with the sitting room, and the time before…Or when Zuko spilled out of that carriage with Sokka, or the time with Suki and that guest room, and…maybe they can just—ask, actually. Through the door.

Zuko’s fire gives a little squirm at the idea, hot embarrassment at it being so obvious what they were doing, and when, and where. But he can’t deny the pleased little flip to it at the knowledge that clothes would be—have been—brought to them without question, too. And there’s a contented curl of his flame at the fact that closed doors remain un-knocked, the shared spaces in their agendas carefully guarded, all the little ways that Zuko’s days—that the people in Zuko’s days—have shifted to fold Sokka and Suki into Zuko’s full life just as much as Zuko has. And not just into a corner of it or into a piece of it, but into the very fabric of Zuko’s life, and with a quiet focus and determination that Zuko can’t be anything but warmed by.

“So,” Sokka finally murmurs from down by Zuko’s hip, stopping his thoughts just before he slides into something embarrassingly sentimental over itinerary design, “that question of seating.”

Suki snorts in surprise, Zuko letting out a ragged laugh and jostling his leg a little, glancing down to find Sokka grinning up at them, exhausted and pleased.

“Maybe we just need to lean into the cushion thing,” Sokka says, making himself more comfortable against Zuko’s leg even as he slaps the platform. “Get a nice big one for this sucker.”

Zuko rolls his eyes, fire warm, warm, warm. “I’m not sure we want to make this a habit.”

Suki cranes her head up just enough to raise her eyebrow at him.

“I’m not sure we want to share that this is a habit,” he corrects, blushing.

She raises her other eyebrow.

“Any more than it already is,” Zuko allows with a sigh.

Sokka laughs, the sound vibrating against Zuko’s hipbone and making something flip in his chest. Suki grins wide, dropping back down, andd Zuko’s arm is tingling under her like it’s about to lose sensation soon, his calf already numb where Sokka’s weight is pressing it into the edge of the dais, and all of this is going to be disgusting soon—already is digusting, really.

But Zuko can’t find it in himself to move just yet, not when he’s so comfortably boneless beneath Suki’s legs and Sokka is playing with the fingers of his other hand again, and the heat of their bodies and the flame is all around him.

“Besides, we can’t do a big cushion anyway,” Suki suddenly says, Zuko taking a long moment to remember what she’s responding to as she cranes her head back up to mock-frown across Zuko’s hips at Sokka. “Weren’t you listening?”

“Oh, you bet I was listening, listening to you—"

Suki thumps her heel in the direction of Sokka’s shoulder. “Mature,” she scoffs, like Zuko can’t hear her fighting a smile. “And clear cover for—”

“I’ll show you cover.”

Zuko frowns and tugs on Sokka’s fingers. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“—for the fact that you weren’t listening—”

“Not over the sound of your—”

“—because Zu said”—Suki’s heel finds Sokka’s shoulder this time—“that only the royal family gets to sit up here.” Another thump, Sokka grunting out a laugh. “So a big cushion doesn’t make sense,” she continues with another kick, voce prim and shaking with repressed giggles against Zuko’s side, “which you would know”—thump—" if you were listening—”

Sokka catches her ankle, Suki letting out a surprise noise as he suddenly yanks it down—

“Gross, that’s your armpit—”

“Oh, like you aren’t leaking all over—”

“Not after you—"

“And I’ve seen you shove Kyova’s face into—don’t tickle me—"

—to pin against his side. Zuko raises his eyebrow as they…attempt to squabble without actually moving, from the look of it, tugging his arm out from under Suki’s body to raise in silent protest of innocence, staying out of it, his inner flame dancing along with the jostle of their bodies on top of him.

“Maybe you were the one not listening,” Sokka finally says, half-breathless and triumphant when he finally traps Suki’s foot…somewhere. “’Cause where are you sitting now, Sukes?” She lets out a quickly-aborted shriek that definitely means tickling. “Where have you been sitting?” Sokka huffs out a breath, half-straddling Zuko’s leg now as he wrestles with her, Suki letting out another yelp and twitch—

“Careful,” Zuko grunts, pulling his thigh up just in time to catch her flailing hand.

—that Sokka makes a show of ignoring as he gives Zuko an exaggeratedly serious look. “What do you think, Fire Lord—”

“No fair,” she grunts, kicking Zuko’s thigh as much as Sokka’s chest.

“—did we just get inducted?”

“Don’t pull me into this,” Zuko says, pulling a face at having to think again—after Azula finally letting it rest—about the convoluted viper rat’s nest of…

“Darling?” Suki tries to twist to look at him when he freezes.  

…of precedent and ceremony and tradition surrounding definitions like royal family and member and joining and ritual role and throne.

“Zu?” Sokka grunts a little when he still doesn’t answer, wriggling to push up enough to see Zuko’s face and—

”Zu.” Sokka suddenly bursts out laughing, expression full of incredulous delight when Zuko jerks his gaze to him. “Wait, Zu, really?”

“Um,” Zuko manages, post-release languor suddenly—well it’s not gone, exactly. But it’s giving away to post-release energy a bit sooner than usual as he drags his focus back together enough to consider…

“What,” Suki says with a giggle, expression playful, teasing, which… “did we just get married or something? Did we just set a date?”

“My dream proposal,” Sokka says with an exaggerated, dreamy sigh, batting his lashes—and making a sudden move to tickle Suki’s foot.

Suki jams her foot protectively down between Zuko’s thighs, Zuko jerking back to attention as he flinches away from the potential impact against his balls.

“You come all over yourself when we say we love you during sex,” Suki is scoffing, up on her elbow now to give Sokka the full force of her eyeroll. “Don’t even pretend this isn’t exactly how you want to be asked.”

She throws Zuko a laughing, inviting look, asking him to play along. And Zuko would normally join in the teasing. Except part if him…panicking. Just a little. He thinks. His heart suddenly hard in his throat, his fire thrumming, because this is—they are on—and it’s—well it’s too fast, for one. And too much, definitely too much, they just—well, they haven’t just, it was just their seventh anniversary—but for all intents and purposes it’s really only been…

“I mean, it’s not—it’s nothing official,” Zuko finally manages, fire loud in his ears as he tries to hold himself casual-easy-fine still, as he tries to keep his breathing even as he watches them. “No one know except us, really, so I mean.” Agni, is there any way the jump of his pulse isn’t visible. “It’s not—it wasn’t like it was witnessed, except for…”

Sokka and Suki wear identical looks of skepticism as they follow his gaze up to the twin dragons coiled over the wall behind the throne, their polished stone eyes gleaming in the firelight.

“…Except for the Fires of Agni?” Suki finishes for him.

“And the dragon that represent the ever-present and ever-watchful nature of the Eternal Flame?” Sokka adds.

Which…okay, when they put it that way, which is the technical official way, it sounds bad, sure, but, “Except for that!” Who’s even really…honoring the rhythm and nature of the sun and her fires in the mortal world, and the role of Fire Lord as guide and follower along the Path of Fire, anyway.

Suki and Sokka are staring at him now—and wearing near-identical looks of confusion. Maybe, a small, somewhat hysterical voice in the corner of Zuko’s head points out, Zuko will be able to make that too after enough time together with them. Maybe he already makes it.

“I mean,” Suki finally says, her words slow and careful in a way that has something tightening in Zuko’s chest. “No one does know. If you don’t want them too.” Sokka’s face is doing something complicated, Suki’s still in a way that makes Zuko wish he never taught her Fire Nation propriety. “But Sokka was already working on his carvings, apparently, so—”

“Whatwowwildwho told you that!” Sokka blurts, shooting Zuko a wide-eyed look of alarm.

Zuko feels like he’s still caught back on what Suki just said, and why she said it, and what she said it in response to, and why she would think it is a response, and—

“Why would you ever think that, that’s wild!” Sokka continues overly loud, letting out a too-high laugh when Suki just gives him a flat, exasperated look. “That’s so weird that you—oh, come on,” he breaks off, huffing. “I told you to forget you heard that!”

Zuko blinks, giving Sokka a sidelong look. Does he actually think she could just…

“Stop!” Sokka groans, catching his expression. “Ugh, the both of you—it’s supposed to be—stop thinking about it, Spirits! Just—” he lets out an aggravated noise. “You shouldn’t be thinking about anything after all—” an annoyed wave of his hand, and another huff when Suki slithers her foot free.

“It…doesn’t work like that,” Zuko finally points out. “You can’t just…” His mind is still trapped in plurals, and the fact that Suki talked about Sokka’s carvings—carvings—like they—they!—were a response, or an additional fact worth considering, and Sokka isn’t—he wants both of them to stop thinking, which…

“Look, I guess—I mean, know it—” Zuko’s attention snaps to Suki at her uncharacteristic stumble, that something lurching in his chest over the fact that she’s…flustered. Flustered and trying to be careful, he realizes, which means being careful of him, of his emotions, and what could there be to—they’re together now, the three of them, he knows it, which means…

Suki blows out a breath and tries again. “I know that we don’t—that Kyoshi doesn’t really…” she pulls a face, shoving her hand through her sweat-matted hair. “Look, it’s obviously nothing to rush,” she says more briskly. “There’s no need. There’s no time limit, we don’t have a deadline, and it’s not—we know what we need to know of each other, we don’t need some kind of—ceremony to—”

“But it would solve the seating issue,” Zuko interrupts, barely able to hear himself over the rush of adrenaline through him, somehow feeling achingly tentative and dizzyingly bold at the same time. “It would—we wouldn’t have to think about that anymore. That—that definitely wouldn’t be an issue. Anymore. If.”

He watches Suki, intent, watches her freeze, mouth half-open, watches her as Sokka’s fingers tighten almost convulsively around his own, Sokka’s free hand gripping onto his thigh tighter as they both finally wait for her to say…

“I mean.” Suki licks her lips, mouth working silently for a moment as she glances between them. “Then there’d be no need to get Toph involved. In any seating arrangements.”

“Definitely no need for that,” Sokka says—reflexively, from the half-numb sound of it. But his fingers are twisting to lace between Zuko’s own now, not just holding on. And he’s pushing up off Zuko’s thigh enough to see them both, Suki pushing up onto her elbows too so she can see them both, too, Zuko craning his neck up because Suki’s legs are still pinning him down but he suddenly needs to be able to fully see their faces, to see every bit of their expressions as they stare across their haphazard, barely-clothed tangle of limbs at each other.

“So, uh,” Sokka finally says, cheeks starting to darken under a blush, “did…Did you just—propose? By accident? As a…solution to an interior decorating problem?”

It takes Zuko a moment to find his voice. “Suki suggested it first. Technically speaking.”

Sokka slowly transfers his eyes to her. “And accepted to avoid an awkward conversation.”

An awkward conversation they all wanted to avoid, but—

“I…” Suki trails off, looking gobsmacked, and Zuko runs back through it all again too, his heart beating so hard in his throat he feels like he might need to pass out, or throw up, or go find a rooftop to shout this from because…she did. 

“Well.” Sokka is somehow the picture of calm as he glances between them, except from his bone-aching grip on Zuko’s hand, the pressure of his hold on Zuko’s thigh. “We all definitely heard Zu say that—that thing about the royal family.” Like he can’t even bring himself to voice it, lest… “Which would, you know, mean that logically speaking…” his voice fades off a moment before his eyes suddenly fly wide, head whipping toward Zuko. “Which you were fantasizing about! You told us back when—"

“So obviously there’s more of a ceremony to it all,” Zuko says over top of him, words tumbling out in a rush and inner fire hot through his chest. “And a bunch of steps and—you know, pronouncements and stu—”

Suki smacks his shoulder. “Fire Lord Zuko!” Her expression is delighted. Zuko feels like he could be drowning with how breathless it makes him, looking at it. “Were you daydreaming about marrying me?”

“What about me?” Sokka makes a show of pouting, his hand twisting to hold onto Zuko’s wrist now, their pulse points pressed together. “Were you going to fuck me on the throne, too?”

“I…” Zuko gives him a baffled look. “Yes?” Obviously?

Suki makes a curious noise as Sokka lets out an ohh and wiggles up Zuko’s body, shouldering Suki’s legs out of the way—

“Rude,” she huffs, entirely unbothered as she lets herself be shoved over onto her stomach.

—to prop himself up by Zuko’s shoulder, face so bright with interest Zuko can barely look at it.

“Tell us,” Sokka demands, practically vibrating with excitement. “What’s the plan? How would it go?”

“You have a vision?” Suki says, sliding up alongside Sokka. “You’re filling him up on the Dragon Throne?” Sokka hums, face eager. “Am I there too?”

“I…” Wasn’t expecting to actually articulate this one, but, “bend him over the edge—”

“Like I’m laying down them?” Sokka interrupts, twisting to give the stairs in question a speculative look. “With my knees up on the dais?”

“Yeah,” Zuko nods. “And then I fuck you until you come—”

“How many times?” Suki puts in.

“Twice. No hands.”

“Oh, nice,” she murmurs appreciatively.

“Yeah,” Zuko agrees. “And you’re standing on the stairs, so he can eat you out.”

Suki hums, giving him a thoughtful look. “You like when he goes down on me, don’t you.”

“I mean.” Doesn’t she? Doesn’t Sokka? “Yeah.”

“Now that’s my dream proposal,” Sokka says dreamily, like Zuko can’t feel the interested squirm of his hips, and Zuko huffs out a laugh despite himself.

Some part of him almost expects it to be a joke as he glances between them, their teasing and playfulness making the overwhelming press of his inner flame melt into something warm and liquid, something like sunshine. Because there’s no part of him that could think the expressions on their were anything except delight, except joy. And that they’re feeling that over being asked—no, over accepting, in a roundabout way, because Sokka and Suki…because they want this. Because they want it too.

And the slow-dawning recognition of that fact really shouldn’t be a surprise, not by this point, not after everything else, and…

And it isn’t, Zuko realizes. Not about this. No, it’s not surprise he’s feeling but rightness, sureness. The bone-deep familiarity of something he didn’t have words for but already knew, finally given voice.

“I—mine, too, apparently,” he finally says, a rueful twist in his chest that he really has been fantasizing about it, apparently.

And since he’s…leaning into tradition and precedent, in a way—Agni, Azula can never know about this—he grabs Sokka and Suki by the waist and heaves them to the side, too, shoving Sokka over and pulling Suki to put them both more onto the cushion of the throne than sprawled over his body, a gesture that…he will never tell anyone about, ever. But one that is well-worth the fact that he’s going to have to burn the stains out of this cushion, or else endure future ceremonies looking at them, for the surprised pleasure over their faces as they glance down and realize…

“So,” Suki finally says, clearing her throat like she isn’t blushing and barely able to meet his eyes. “Do we accept by spit roasting you or something, or…”

Zuko lets out a startled laugh, delighted. “Yeah, sure, why not. If you’ve got the energy—”

Suki gives him a baleful look. “Not any time soon.”

“Give me an hour, or like, thirty minutes,” Sokka agrees, half-absent as he frowns into the distance. “I cannot believe,” he adds, refocusing on Zuko with a wrinkle of his nose, “that you only knew we were dating for a year—”

“A year and five months,” Zuko corrects primly.

“—and you still managed to propose first.”

Suki snorts, giving him a dry look. “And whose fault is that?”

Sokka sniffs, somehow managing to stick his nose in the air while plastered to Zuko’s side. “If you’re suggesting I’m at fault—”

Zuko rolls his eyes, jabbing them both in that spot at the bottom of their ribs that makes them jerk and waiting for their shouts to stop echoing around the throne room before saying, words careful around the about-to-burst flip of his fire as he looks at them and realizes… “If you guys really meant it, then—"

“Of course!”

“Zu, always!”

“We’d marry you in a heartbeat.”

“You know you’re it for us, you always have been.”

“—then there’s a ceremony—a clothed one,” he adds at the leer Suki gives him, giving Sokka an exasperated look at his dramatically disappointed sigh and ignoring the fact that he’s clutching Sokka and Suki to him tight enough to be half-hauling them on top of him again, happiness thrilling through him all the way down to his toes until he doesn’t know what else to do about it. “I could tell you about it? If you want?”

“Oh, yes,” Suki immediately says, wiggling to prop her chin on her folded hands against his chest.

“Please,” Sokka says, making himself comfortable and finding Suki’s hands, their fingers linked over his sternum like they’re…expecting to hear about it right now. Still sticky and undressed, in the middle of the day with who knows how many meetings waiting for each of them. Their bodies tangled together and the fires dancing around them and Zuko suddenly finds that yes, actually. With their thrilled grins and the eyes of the twin dragons looking down at him, the throne comfortable beneath them and just right size, as it turns out, for what he wants it to be—now is the perfect time.

“Well,” he begins, his fire thrilling in his chest and in the flames around them at the knowledge that he knows every bit of this, and now they will too, “It starts with—”

“The dawn?” Suki suggests.

Well, that too, especially in the Fire Nation, but, “A meal."

Sokka lets out a soft noise, lips quirking. “Good things always do.”

Zuko smiles back, fire stretching to the bounds of his skin with happiness. “Exactly.”