zukka modern au, and they were roommates
it takes Zuko a year of living alone to realize his sheer uselessness.
like. He doesn’t own a plunger until the day his toilet overflows and then he has to run to target to see if they sell them. His bathroom floor is basically ruined by the time he gets back.
He calls his landlord to ask them to change a burnt out lightbulb.
He forgot about some spinach in the refrigerator drawer for so long that its weird cold leaf juice has permanently fused with the plastic.
he pulls the miniblinds down too hard one day and just...rips them from their hooks. it looks like there’s a problem with the plaster? oh well
so when his lease is up, his landlord very politely suggests that he find other accommodations
faced with the need to find a new place to live, he turns to craigslist for roommates, and that’s how he finds Sokka
Sokka’s ad is basically: young professional seeking roommate, lgbt friendly, 420 friendly, the room is pretty big and the common areas are furnished. I just gotta fill the vacancy left by my best friend/last roommate after he moved in with my sister who he is dating
And Zuko is like. Hi. Zuko here. I am lgbt and 420 friendly because I partake in all forms of deviance. I have very few life skills and need to live with another human.
Sokka’s like.......okay bud. But he really needs someone to cover the other half of the rent, so Zuko moves in at the end of the month
their roommate relationship is...interesting
and Zuko wasn’t lying about not having a lot of life skills
Sokka wakes up to the fire alarm absolutely blaring, after he’s only had an hour and a half of sleep, and he bolts out of his bedroom only to find--
Zuko, waving a kitchen towel at the smoke alarm, with a smoldering pan on the stove, lid on. he was trying to make pancakes (from box mix), but he was just using butter to grease the pan and didn’t know that butter will burn and then smoke, which might set off an alarm
or the time when Zuko texted Sokka in the middle of the afternoon to let him know that there was a centipede in the kitchen and that he would be leaving the apartment for a minimum of 24 hours (where did he go? Sokka wondered. he never gets an answer really.)
or even when Zuko loses his keys every single day and asks Sokka where they are, even though they are almost always on top of the microwave
but Sokka really likes hanging out with Zuko. he’s pretty awkward, but also...awkwardly pretty? at least for Sokka? hopefully this doesn’t awaken anything within him
and Zuko gets along really well with Sokka’s friends. he and Toph get along like a house on fire, and his ex-gf and bff Suki thinks that Zuko is pretty cool, once he gets talking about stuff he actually likes. and Aang can’t help but loving everyone around him, and Katara can’t really stop herself from liking everyone that Aang likes, because she thinks he’s a good judge of character (even though he willingly lived with Sokka)
so Zuko gets adopted into Sokka’s friend group. but they spend a lot of time together too, watching Jiro Dreams of Sushi at two in the morning, or pilgrimaging to the coffee spot on the corner on Saturdays together
and one day Sokka looks at Zuko while he’s frowning at his under-spiced chai latte and thinks, oh no. it awakened something within me
