Ba Sing Se Boarding High

Scars

*Sokka POV*

Aang took off his shirt and I saw the scars. Scars in places where you can tell they're self-inflicted. I tried to focus on the blue stripe down his back, but I can't. I try to speak up, but Zuko ends up being the one who tries.
"Aang..." but he gets cut off.
"NO! I'm not talking about it!" Aang grabs some khakis and walks into the washroom and comes out. He's changed. He throws his pyjamas on his bed and storms out. 
"Well, that went... horribly," I say.
"Ya think?" Zuko's hand flutters up to his face, but it lands in his lap again.
"We should probably get the sharp objects out of the room,"
"That sounds like a good plan," 

After about an hour of gathering sharp objects and putting them in my bag, we head to the girls' dorm. Girls as in Toph and Katara. I knock on the door, while Zuko holds the bag.
"Captain Boomerang, Sparky, it's 9 in the morning. What could you possibly want?" Toph opens the door.
"Could you keep these in your room?" Zuko hands the bag to Toph. She feels a few things and hands the bag back to me.
"Sharp things? Why would you want us to keep these? Are you thinking about hurting yourself?"
"Not me, Aang," I try to be subtle, but fail miserably.
"Aang? But he's the last person on the planet I would think..." When Toph uses someone's real name, you know something is wrong. Katara marches over to the door.
"What do you boys want? It's the weekend for fuck sakes,"
"Shut up Sugar Queen. I'll explain later. We can keep these here. Let me know if you want them back," Katara looks really confused now, but Zuko and I need to find Aang.
"Let's go, we have to find him," I grab Zuko's arm, and he blushes. I don't need to think about that.

Think, Sokka, THINK! There are way too many places he could be in Ba Sing Se, so we should just look around the school first.
"Let's start with the school. If we can't find him here, we'll check the places he knows," I tell Zuko. He nods. 
"We should start with the higher places," He suggests. That's also a good plan, but he might have figured we'd think to go there and avoided them. It's a good starting point though. I climb onto the roof with Zuko not far behind.
"I can't see him up here. But he's wearing gray," We continue searching.
"So... do you have any scars?" Zuko's just trying to make small talk. I guess we can talk and search.
"I've got some on my knees from snowmobiling, and one from when I got my appendix removed, but other than that, not really," He nods.
"I've got a few other than this one," He points to his face. 
"Where?"
"There's a big one on my chest from when Azula shot me with lightning and some cigarette burn scars on my arms from my dad's guards. None of them liked me very much," He rolls up his sleeve. Ouch. I'm surprised this guy even firebends anymore.
"And you can still firebend after all that?"
"I was terrified of other people's fire for the longest time after everything. I still kinda am. But I know my fire will never hurt me. I can barely even trust my uncle's fire even now. But I guess I have to live with it. I can't be scared forever,"
"Have you thought about getting therapy?"
"I mean, I've talked to Uncle about it. I don't really think I need it. Aang might though," he rolls his sleeves back down.
"Yeah, he might," I catch movement out of the corner of my eye and see someone jumping down from a tower. Aang. "We have to go! We might still have a chance of catching him!" 
"Here, let me try this," Zuko picks me up bridal style and uses his firebending to propel him. I scream at first, but I get used to it. Somehow, he's not setting anything on fire.

We manage to catch up with Aang after what feels like an eternity. We've got him cornered. I grab him before he can run up the wall. 
"Aang, it's okay, we just want to talk," He looks around for a minute and nods his head.
"Oh thank Agni! I thought I was about to collapse," Zuko falls backwards. 
"You gonna live?" I ask him. He gives me a weary thumbs up. He sits up. Aang and I sit down. Aang's against the wall so he can't escape as easily.
"Remind me to never let you run off again. You're hard to catch," Zuko says while panting
"That's kinda the point," Aang isn't even out of breath.
"Yup, I knew that. Sokka, you can do the talking. I did the running,"
"That's fair. And you aren't wriggling out of this one," 
"Can I just start by saying that they're months old,"
"Okay, but we still removed all the sharp objects from the dorm,"
"Yay, more confiscations," Aang says under his breath.
"So, explain what was going on,"
"I felt like crap. I couldn't do anything without feeling horrible and in pain mentally. I'd found out that if I scraped my knee and it really hurt if I made a tiny scratch elsewhere, it hurt less. So I tried it from mental pain to physical pain. I could deal with physical pain. But then it became a habit every time I felt bad. Gyatso caught me one time. He took all the sharp things away from me and didn't let me help with cutting vegetables at dinner. But it's hard to break habits, so I started doing it with my fingernails, and he made me cut them in front of him every day," He looked down at his hands. "But I still managed to find ways, that I don't even remember, so I had to wear long sleeves. And the scars wouldn't go away, so I just kept wearing them," That sounds horrible. Why does he think that acting happy in public is a better coping strategy? 
"Have you thought about going to therapy?" I ask. And regret it immediately.
"I don't need therapy," he sounds terrifying. He glares at me. Remind me not to get him mad. "I'm going back to the dorm," Aang stands up and walks past Zuko and me. 

After Aang's out of earshot, we exchange a look. 
"Sokka, remind me to never make Aang mad," Zuko says shakily.
"Yup. I can do that," I realize my hands are shaking. I shake my head and they stop.
"Let's never wake up at seven on a Saturday again," He holds out his hand and we shake on it. It's now noon.