[Rewriting) Keeping the fire close [Zuko × Sokka]

Hello there

Once the two boys got dressed and packed the food that they didn't touch so they could carry it back to the Jasmine Dragon easily; they smiled at each other bashfully. Sokka didn't have a noticable pain in his lower back, but his legs did feel like noodles, as if one wrong step would make him fall and die.

They walked back to the tea shop, linking their arms together; they were tired and very content with their first date. Correction, their first official date.

Sokka leaned his head on Zuko's shoulder and closed his eyes, smiling softly to himself. "I'm still upset you brought up dumplings" Zuko teased, removing his arm from his boyfriend's and placed that hand on the more muscular boy's hip. "You'd be thinking of something else if you had fingers up your ass too!" The ex-warrior grumbled, looking away from Zuko, his lips puffed out in a childish pout.

The banished prince chuckled a little and gently pressed his nose again his boyfriend's cheek, nuzzling him softly, "you should try and think of me, not food you dunce" this earned the roll of two blue eyes, which the made the fireman snicker a little. "Fine fine, I guess I won't bring it up, that moment is completely erased from my memory."

Sokka glanced over to Zuko with his eyes, not wanting to turn his head "that's not how this works, it happened, you can't just pretend it didn't!" The two young men came to a stop before entering the market square once again, looking at each other, holding hands. Sure people were walking by, but there were standing off to the side of the road so they weren't in the way. "Maybe don't think about food, I swear. Normally you hear women complaining about men having a one track mind about sex, but you only care about food" Zuko chuckled and used his pointer and middle finger to gently push on the ex-warrior's forehead, causing the smaller teen to grumble in effort to hide a smile.

Meanwhile at the tea shop, Iroh was managing to keep up with the slow and small crowds of customers that were piling in every hour or so. He struggled a little bit, but he handled his own.

There were some slip ups, almost exposing his bending in front of a customer who peaked their head through the kitchen window to see how their meal was coming a long, but the ex general was still quick witted and pretended that he was checking on the fire to see how it was going, then pulled his hand away, shaking it quickly while grumbling "stupid stove.."

It was now almost closing time and the boys still hadn't come home, which was a little frightening to the old man, he thought that his nephews had gotten into trouble or something, maybe they got distracted, maybe they had made some new friends and were out having fun with them. Either way his heart was filled with worry while serving the last cup of tea.

Little did Iroh know that there were two visitors coming his way that he never thought he would see.