It started innocently enough. Sokka had been hanging out with Yeu and Suki. Sure, there'd been others there—girls he found unattractive and guys—and then they'd scattered. Drifted towards the girly store, tugging him, Aang, and Zuko along with them, and now all eyes were on him. Except, Yeu and Suki had abandoned them for a perfume stand instead, why hadn't he followed them like his gut told him to?
Two females against him and two useless males…and Sokka couldn't believe it.
"Come on you guys," he said.
All he'd said was a couple of 'sexist' remarks that he couldn't even remember and now Toph and Katara were ranting up his effeminate figure. They were even calling his aura girly.
"I bet you could go through days at work in drag, and no one would recognize you!" Katara hissed.
He was about to defend his masculinity, but then smirked, "Ha! Jokes on you, Kit-Kat, I was fired from my job this morning!"
Aang sweat dropped at his glee and Katara lifted him up by the collar of his t-shirt, livid as she yelled his ear off about how he needed the money. She certainly wasn't going to take care of him! And Sokka shrank back, gently pulling Katara's hands from his collars as his shoulders slumped. Leave it to Katara to make him feel like the shit that shit scraped off the bottom of its shoe.
"I need a new assistant." All eyes were then on Zuko, and it took them a moment to realize what he'd just implied. Toph and Katara exchanged looks of mirth before they grinned wickedly at each other. Sokka looked betrayed when Zuko smirked and continued. "It'd be perfect."
"You're so right!" Katara agreed eagerly, "This way, no one will question a girl coming to work, and we'd have you to report back to us." She snorted, "Knowing Sokka, he'd probably lie and say everyone saw right through it."
Sokka sniffed in offense. "No way," he said. "No way."
"How 'bout we make this interesting, eh?" Toph butted in, "Sokka, if you can go to work in drag for three days, then all of us are your slaves for a week, but—"
"And I will win."
"But—Zuko, don't you need a fiancé to show your parents?" She asked slyly and Zuko blinked.
Sokka looked blankly at them, not catching on to where this was head.
"Yeah," he replied sheepishly, remembering how he'd told Azula that he had a fiancé just to spite her after she'd been going on about how much easier it was for her to find a woman than it was for him. Then, she'd went and told their parents. "Yeah, I do."
It wasn't that Zuko couldn't get a woman or anything, in his own defense. It was just that…well, none of them every felt right.
"Excellent," Toph said, mimicking an evil mastermind."Sokka will masquerade as your fiancé when he loses."
"There's no way in hell!" Sokka protested, his face going green after it was spelled out for him.
"Why?—You chicken?" Katara mocked, "You know we're going to win, don't you?"
"Pfft," he scoffed, "bring it on."
Toph and Katara disappeared towards the clothing department of the store. Aang and Zuko muttered jokes with Sokka at the butt of it to one another.
To make matters worse, a store clerk came up to Sokka and asked, "Excuse me, ma'am."
Katara froze from where she stood, walking towards them with an armful of clothes, before she nearly fell over laughing.
"Maybe she's born with it. Maybe's it's Maybelline." Toph chuckled at her own joke as Katara finished off Sokka's face, while he sat there with both fear that he'd lose and determination to prove them all wrong.
Katara smiled slightly, and when she was done, Sokka asked, "Why are you putting makeup on me? I don't have to work for the angry jerk for two days."
"Which gives us barely enough time to school you in acting like a girl," Katara replied quickly, readjusting the orange t-shirt she wore that belonged to Aang.
He sighed once again as Toph painted his nails with aquamarine nail polish and that clear shiny kind on top. Even he had to admit that the sparkly looked pretty, especially on his toenails. The thought made him frown and smack himself on the face to reaffirm his manliness.
"Your skin's so soft and smooth, Somsri." Toph teased, already using his alias.
"Ha-ha, you're so funny." Then he paused, "How are you doing this?"
"Doing what?"
"This," He jerked his head at his nails, "You're blind! And how did you know about the make up?"
Toph shrugged, "I have super touch," He was pretty shocked when she winked at him suggestively, "And Katara told me she only buys Maybelline and L'Oreal."
Sokka scoffed and kept his hand in the position Toph told him because she, well—she scared him.
The next two days were pure torture for him. Toph beat the characteristics of the female voice into him, and there were times when Katara nearly sprained or broke apart of him in her fervor to teach him how to walk like a 'lady'. They took him to a spa, made him get a full body wax—which hurt like a bitch— forced him to put on skin lotions and exfoliate. Being a girl was hard. He mocked Katara in his mind, and dreamt of revenge on them that would never happen.
Then, the dreaded day came. Katara forced him into a blue ruffled skirt suit while Toph stood by with a butcher knife in one hand, an aura of menace around her. She shoved his feet into a pair of black high heeled ankle boots, touched up his face with makeup and muttered something about him not really needing it. At which he'd flipped his little sister the bird. At least they let him keep the pony tail.
Now, he stepped out of the back seat of Aang's car. Sokka didn't know the name of it, but it was shiny, and he was too busy glaring at Aang for laughing at him, and nearly killing them on the road because of it. Katara's head poked out of the passenger side window and Toph's out of the back one.
"Do you want me to come in with you?"
He put up false bravado and readjusted his red messenger bag around his new A cups. "Please, like I need my little sister to come with me to work! Though," he yelled as he turned towards the building, "you might want to stay here for when Zuko loses the bet."
Katara snorted and when he was halfway towards the building, he heard the engine revving and looked back to see Aang's car retreat off into the distance.
"Bastards," he murmured under his breath and pushed his way into the building.
Sokka wasn't even sure about the name of the business, just that it was an important branch of the rest of Zuko's filthy rich family's business, and that they sold computers or some crap like that. Zuko was Ceo and the employees pissed Sokka off. All through his strut of swinging hips, a bunch of the men—and some women—had whistled at him and jeered.
He knew what they were doing.
They knew he was a guy, but were making fun of him! In the elevator, he glanced down at his outfit and flushed at the memory of his reaction to their prices. The slick boots alone cost more than all of the stuff in his closet—boy closet—combined. He was in a half pout when he stepped out into the room, strangely uncluttered with cubicles and instead full of offices with glass walls that revealed to him the fact that employees shared.
Just as he stepped into the room, a tall guy chewing on a toothpick left his office and a lady with a pair of brown braids at a large round counter thing, rapidly typing at her computer and then sighing contently. She looked up when Sokka leaned onto her desk, half waiting for her to ask him why he was in drag, but sighed at her silence. He wanted to tell her to stop the cruel charade, but he remembered how Toph had promised to use her butcher knife to make him a real lady if he even thought of 'cheating'.
"Um, I'm Sok—Somsri, Mr. Chen's assistant?"
She smiled at him but her eyes held suspicion, "Of course, he said you'd be coming, just go down the hall and you'll see your desk. I'm Jin."
When a hand dropped on the counter in front of Sokka, he jumped slightly and looked to the side to see Toothpick showing Jin an envelope of papers.
"I can take her there," he said, and Jin blinked, dark eyes lighting up with a hope Sokka didn't get and didn't have time to figure out when the stranger grabbed him by his elbow and dragged him down the hallway.
Jin looked after the pair of them, and crossed her fingers for luck. Maybe if this girl—Somsri—grew interested in Jet, she wouldn't touch Zuko, and she still thought along those lines even if a part of her suggested she was wrong, that maybe Somsri might not be after Zuko. She ignored that part, of course. Who wouldn't be after him? He was handsome—no, devilishly sexy, cool but sweet, strong but kind, and don't forget filthy, stinking rich.
Then she remembered Somsri. Jin decided that the girl was too –something and it screamed danger and competition to her. Well, at least she could take comfort in the fact that her rival was so flat chested while she was at least a D cup. Though, still she would keep her eyes on her—wait a minute? Did she just call the new girl her rival?
Hm, yes, Somsri was her rival.
Sokka sneezed and glanced around before wiping his hands off on the hem of his skirt. He realized that Jet was staring at him through the corner of his eyes, but shrugged it off as him finding the drag queen a sight. He jumped when he felt a hand rest on his ass.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he shrieked, jumping forward and scowled at Jet's wide, fake innocent eyes.
"What?"
Sokka flipped him the bird and stalked forward, then took a step back at the glass door that revealed an empty desk. He figured it was his and opened the door, closing it behind him and waving Jet away through the glass. When he turned his head, the wall was solid but the door creaked open and Zuko stared at him, bewildered.
"Um, Miss, what are you doing here?"
Sokka's eyes widened and his face flushed pink. "Shut up, Zuko, you're not funny!"
"What…?" He murmured and then his eyes widened with realization. "Sokka?"
"You knew it was me, and don't act dumb." Sokka crossed his arms and sauntered over to his desk, glare growing more heated as Zuko blatantly checked him out.
"Whatever floats your boat." And then he smirked, "No one knows, right?"
Sokka dropped onto the chair at his desk and pouted, "It's not fair! They're just dragging it out for their own sick amusement. How do I even know you didn't tell them and they're doing this for the boss?"
Zuko snorted and just as he was about to close the door to his office behind him, "Oh, and Sokka?"
"Yeah, what?"
"You look pretty in your dress." And then he slammed the door shut before Sokka could attack.
