Happy Solstice? (I love the winter solstice, but then, I don't draw power from the sun. Thinking on holidays in a writing frame of mind this week led me to consider firebenders might be less happy tonight.)

Sokka squirmed and edged closer to-

He frowned, eyes still closed, and uncurled enough to stretch out one arm and feel across the vast ocean of silky bedding. Even as he stretched out as far as he could, however, he found no trace of the deliciously warm stretch of muscle that was his ridiculously cuddly boyfriend there.

Sokka pulled his arm back, tucking himself into a close curl again. He tried to go back to sleep - it wasn't like being alone in bed was likely to mean bad things, not now - for several minutes, then sighed and gave it up. He rolled over a little and lifted his head.

"Zuko? Baby?" Sokka called in a sleep-thick voice.

When there was no response telling him not to call Zuko that Sokka figured his boyfriend's insomnia had driven him from his - their - rooms, not only from bed, and sighed. He sat up, frowning, and punched his pillow into a more comfortable shape - as though that was why he was still awake when normally Sokka slept easily - then paused and twisted around.

There was a dull red-orange gleam just at the edges of the screen shielding Sokka's view of the next room. Zuko hadn't gone far, then.

Sokka hesitated for half a breath, then slipped out of bed, pulling on a robe as he padded across the floor. The people who lived here would say there was a winter chill in the air, enough to seep inside even beyond the thick walls of the palace, but even after travelling the world and being away from the pole for so long, Sokka could barely call it that.

He paused just past the screen, looking at his boyfriend's slumped shoulders.

Zuko was sitting on a low divan, in shirt and pants, not a robe, and hunched forwards like he was hurting. There was a small flame kindled in his hands, which he held above his thighs, fingers slightly curled as though to cradle it. Sokka's mouth twisted and he moved quietly closer.

"Baby?" Sokka said gently, reaching out towards Zuko.

He paused, fingers curling inwards towards his palm, as Zuko shuddered visibly, the movement running through his whole body.

"Zuko, baby, why are you up? What is it?" Sokka asked, stepping closer.

Zuko took a breath, and the silence of the night stretched out again like a tangible thing.

"It's the longest night." Zuko finally said in a low, almost hoarse voice, and Sokka's eyebrows rose.

"What?" Sokka asked, keeping his voice quiet in deference to . . . whatever strange mood had taken over his boyfriend.

"The longest night." Zuko repeated, finally looking up from his tiny flame, which reflected brilliant and only mildly creepy reddish highlights in his already-brilliant golden eyes. "When the sun is furthest from us, and then hidden away for so long; the weakest time for firebenders."

Sokka's mouth opened in a silent oh.

"Endless dark." Zuko murmured, words barely there as he turned his attention back to the flame he held.

Sokka bit his lip, mouth twisting with distress as he watched his boyfriend. Zuko looked small and vulnerable, if not precisely frightened, in a way that was just . . . wrong. Sokka wanted to . . . fix it somehow, but he wasn't sure there was anything that could be done.

The longest night. It would end, and surely when the dawn came, at least, Zuko would kindle back into his usual self, Sokka thought hopefully, looking him up and down.

"It's all right." Zuko said in that same hoarse voice that made Sokka feel squirmy inside in a rather uncomfortable way. "You can go back to bed."

Sokka rested a hand on Zuko's back, between his shoulder blades. "Are you going to stay up all night?" he asked.

Zuko dipped his head slightly, fingers curling closer around the soft flame in his hands.

"Is it some kind of . . . vigil . . . thing?" Sokka asked as gently as he could. "A tradition?"

Zuko's lips twitched, though it was barely even a ghost of a smile, and it looked more pained than anything. "Not properly." he said, and lifted one thumb, almost brushing the base of his little flame with the pad.

"I'll stay up with you." Sokka said, and Zuko looked up at him, eyes wide and glinting in the steady light of the fire.

Zuko opened his mouth, but it took another moment for words to come. "You needn't-" he stopped.

"I know I don't have to." Sokka said, because really, Zuko could be so foolish sometimes. "That's not why."

Sokka moved to sit behind Zuko, curling around him as though to protect him from the dark as he would a true threat. Not that Zuko needed it, exactly, not normally for certain, but. . . Sokka tucked his chin over his boyfriend's shoulder and hugged him around his trim waist. Right now he seemed rather like he did. A shield from the dark of the long night, the absence of the sun.

Zuko was tense in his arms, but it was a quiet, waiting sort of tension. The small flame held steady, never flickering, soft ripples that drifted up through the feathery tongues of fire from time to time the only change it showed.

Zuko's breathing was shallow but not quick - not his usual when he meditated to a flame, not that Sokka saw it very often as he was very bad about disturbing his boyfriend from meditation, purposely or not. Zuko seemed . . . calm, though, if troubled. Distressed.

Sokka held him protectively and watched the fire over his shoulder. It was quiet, the night still, and it felt wrong to speak more than necessary, so Sokka held his tongue. The fire held his gaze, the fire and Zuko's elegant hands cradling it, and Sokka's mind slipped into what felt like a waking dream as he waited with his boyfriend - waited for the flame to flicker, for voices to return to the world, for the night to end and the sun to rise, bringing with it the renewal of the year and the strength, Sokka supposed, of firebenders.

Zuko's breathing slowed to match Sokka's, steady and deepening, and Sokka tightened his arms just a little around his boyfriend's waist. Another ripple slid up through Zuko's fire, and another sliver of time, a moment of the longest night slowly passed.

This actually was born of trying to write a happy holiday story with Zuko, on my friend M's suggestion. It turned out so well. . Zuko . . . has trouble with happy sometimes, my poor darling fiery ball of angst and awkwardness.