I Am An Awkward Human And Stick To Being A Bit More Reserved In Professional Areas - Tumblr Posts
Zuko POV - Of Tea and Turtle Ducks (and the Turtle Duck Guy)
Should I be working? Yes! Did I instead write two Zuko POV scenes from Of Tea and Turtle Ducks (and the Turtle Duck Guy) in response to @spacecasehobbit wanting to give Zuko a hug but tragically not being a fictional character? Yes!
Guess what, you're a fictional character now!
Zuko isn’t even bothering to pretend anymore that the anxious laps he’s pacing around the barely-dawn courtyard are a cool down from his run, or a shortcut—kind of—back toward the apartment above the Jasmine Dragon, or anything other than him stressing. It’s been nearly a week since the ducklings have hatched and Zuko is pretty sure he through any pretense of chill out the window long before then.
He thinks about texting Sokka again, thinks about how he’s almost positive that Sokka would answer, and almost positive that he would come running. That his hair would still be messy, his normally animated face slow with sleep, that he’d come with a bag full of snacks and juggling tea and spilling out determination to fix something, anything, and Zuko doesn’t know if he could bear right now being the thing Sokka tries to fix, because Zuko’s been that before and just—
No. There’s no reason to text, not really. And Zuko’s already bothering him too much, anyway.
Still, he’s anxious and jittery watching Mochi sleep, seeing him even at rest so much smaller than Pocky and Cupcake. Anxious and jittery and full of a need that’s clawing and urgent and desperate, that seeps into all the little corners of him the way his anger and helpless fury used to.
Zuko isn’t an idiot. He’s gone to therapy. He knows he’s overly invested in the ducklings. He knows he’s projecting. He knows he’s taking an impersonal thing personally, he knows. It just—is matters.
It matters a lot to him, right now.
It’s early, so early dawn is just creeping over the turtle’s grassy back, so Zuko doesn’t expect anyone else to be in the courtyard, not when no one ever is.
So he isn’t exactly prepared for human interaction when someone walks out of the SLAW toward him, isn’t prepared to stop the instinctive bolt of wariness and suspicion that blooms in his chest from showing on his face, and he can feel it turning into a glare as they set a case onto the ground, opening it to reveal some kind of contraption, looking at the ducks like they’re going to use it on—
“Have you seen the ducks get fed yet?” They ask, words mild, casual, and Zuko forces himself to take a step back and give space and dial back whatever is happening on his face. “Usually the engineering department handles it, the post docs love it. But today’s helper caught a cold, and when in doubt apparently a doctorate in theoretical astrophysicist can be trusted with the task, too.”
Zuko blinks, and forces himself to process all the information he was just given. The machine that’s supposed to be here—Sokka did mention something in one of his rambles about drones, but Zuko had lost the thread by that point, wasn’t entirely sure if he was still talking about the ducks—and the person who is supposed to be here too.
“You’re a professor?” Zuko finally asks, trying to bite back the suspicion still lingering in his voice and reminding himself that learned reactions don’t have to dictate his behavior.
“I am,” they say, lifting the machine—the drone, Zuko supposes—out of its box and beginning to fiddle with a control panel. “Though usually not of anything quite like this,” they add, lips quirking, inviting Zuko into the joke.
Zuko is pretty sure he manages to muster a grimace back.
“Does it scare them?” he asks, nodding toward the drone as the professor flips a switch and it powers to life, quite and whirring.
“We took that into account,” they say, smiling. “Or rather, the engineering department did. A cohort of very dedicated students conducted extensive research on shapes, frequencies, approach angles—that’s why we come in like this instead of just dropping down, see?”
Zuko nods, watching the drone glide in a gentle, slow arc down, something in his chest easing at the reassurance. Because that’s what it was, a reassurance, and Zuko normally doesn’t like it when strangers try to offer him pity or when their voices go all gentle and sad the minute they see his scar. But this person hasn’t given him scar a second glance, and, well—Zuko knows he isn’t exactly being subtle over here about his anxiety.
“Do you want to try?” they ask, offering over the remote control. “It’s just like a video game, very intuitive.”
Zuko shakes his head, resisting the urge to hide his hands behind his back, compromising by curling them into fists in the fabric of his gym shorts instead. He can feel his adrenaline all over the place, he knows from years of competitive martial arts that his hands wouldn’t be still like he would need them to be right now.
The professor accepts that without question—something unwinds in him even more, which just leaves the trench of anxiety and frustration and pent up something that he’s been trying to sort out ever since he got that letter months ago—and quietly goes about feeding the ducks.
They stand with Zuko after it’s done, watching the ducklings eat in silence. Their presence is a quiet one, at-ease, and Zuko wants to soak that in the way he soaks in Uncle’s calm when he’s feeling off balance, but fuck, Mochi keeps getting bumped away and pushed out and—
“Want a hug?”
Zuko startles so hard he nearly drops his phone.
“It seems like you might be having a tough time about something,” they continue, eyes still on the ducks, which might be all that keeps Zuko from giving in to the urge to sidle away. “You don’t have to tell me about it,” they add, and something about the way they say it makes Zuko think it’s actually true. “But I’ve learned over years of office hours that a lot of things can be helped by feeling like you’ve got someone there for you.” Zuko’s thoughts flick to cups of tea and neat packets of duck facts and a voice worn hoarse from talking. “Usually I talk things out with my students, help them see things a different way. But I am never opposed to offering hugs to those who need them.”
Zuko hesitates, eyeing them. He doesn’t get weird vibes, but he doesn’t think he’s in a place right now where he can accept calm, either. He isn’t ready to be soothed off the intensity of his emotions. So he shakes his head, and eventually leaves to shower before his morning shift. And later, he asks Sokka if he knows the astro professor who sometimes helps with the drone, and watches the way Sokka perks up and gushes about their glass, and their office hours specifically.
And later, when Mochi is gone but safe, and Zuko is trying to breathe through the dual grief of loss and relief that Michi is in a better place, a safer place—a familiar thing to breathe through, too familiar, fuck. Is it even projecting, when it all lines up so well?—while watching dawn creep across the turtle’s grassy back—he remembers how it felt under his feet, how the grass felt prickling at his skin. He remembers the weight of barely-there bodies pattering over him as his already-overwhelmed brain finally processed that Sokka and the flirty guy were exes, and what something like ‘activity’ could mean—the professor comes back with the drone again.
And this time, Zuko does accept that hug.
--
Zuko nearly bowls the astro professor over as he swings down an aisle of stacks, skidding and tripping to keep both of them upright and the tea in his hands unspilled, aware that he can’t blame a single bit of his clumsiness on the cold still lingering on his cheeks.
“Sorry!” Zuko exclaims, even as he starts edging toward the reason for his clumsiness. “Sorry, I didn’t see—I was just—no one’s usually back here—”
The professor follows Zuko’s attention to the little corner table where Sokka hasn’t moved since Zuko set him up there except to somehow transfer snacks from their bag into his mouth without pausing in his typing. He’s been wholly focused on his essay since he managed to start writing it again, and the tea at his elbow is nearly empty, and Zuko had to go to three campus cages before he found the one with the brand Sokka usually drinks, and—
“Ah,” the professor says, lips quirking. “Finals approaching.” They eye Zuko a moment, eyes amused, before adding, “This is usually when my students most frequently find themselves needing a hug.”
“Oh,” Zuko blinks, pausing, words tumbling out automatic. “Oh, I—thanks, but I’m good.” And he thinks of Sokka following where Zuko led even though Sokka didn’t know where they were going, of Sokka giving Zuko so much and letting Zuko give him something back. Of a haiku written on a cup on his bedside table. Of being bold, and stepping into the wide unknown, and not being alone doing it. “I’m good,” Zuko repeats, realizing that he means it.
The professor smiles, eyes crinkling. “Good.”