saucey | 百三十三

Can I come see you?

Sure.

[He doesn't bother responding to the text. He'll just show up.]

[He'll be there.]

[He hasn't slept. That much is obvious. But Zuko doesn't move to go near him, immediately -- more a lingering in the door way.]

[He hasn't either. Not since he was dug out of the grave. Sasuke's still just on the bed, sitting there and just staring blankly at his PCD.]

... Sasuke.

[He crosses the room and reaches out to take the PCD away, to put it on the bedside table.]

[Sasuke jumps at that, finally looking up at Zuko.]

Forcing yourself to talk to people and pretending that you're okay isn't going to do anything except make you feel worse.

[He leans against the wall with a soft 'thud'.]

I'm fine.

If you're fine, then I'm fine.

Hn.

Sasuke.

You can tell me.

[After a moment, Sasuke just shakes his head and curls up a little.]

... can I sit?

[A nod.]

[And he drops down next to Sasuke, gently, shoulder to shoulder.]

... can you sleep yet?

[Just shaking his head.]

... Uncle used to tell me, when I couldn't sleep, after I got exiled ... to try and think about things in my life that I treasured.

[He fell silent for a moment.]

Things that made me happy.

Can't.

[He ruined that for himself.]

Yeah, you can. I can help you.

[See icon.]

[Zuko is silent for a moment before he exhales, a little shakily.]

... when I was little, there was this pond, by my house. And we had... turtleducks in them, these little animals with shells and beaks and they were yellow.

Azula used to throw rocks at them a lot. I never did -- except once I decided to try and show my mom how Azula fed turtleducks and I hit one with a rock. The mother turtleduck got so angry that she chased me down and bit me, to teach me a lesson about hurting her kid.

My mom had to come save me from the stupid thing because I didn't want to hurt it.

[Just a weak tug of his lips.]

And I used to have this big paper lantern, in my room, that lit up different shapes once you lit the candle inside of it. Normally my mom did it, but I wanted to give it a shot, when I was really little... so I bent some fire from one of the regular lanterns into it and caught the thing on fire.

Almost burned down the palace.

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