A/N: Written for Season 3 of the 2016 Pro-Bending Circuit.
Challenge: Write a story of the AtlA/LoK characters' reactions to some sort of modern day technology. This should be a comedy/humor story.
Prompts: fascinating (easy), Sokka (medium), start and end with the same word (hard)
Word Count: 2017 words (excluding author's notes)
Disclaimer: ATLA/LOK are property of Bryke forevermore, all characters and settings mentioned herein belong to them.
It Goes Buzz
"Women," Sokka muttered to himself, shaking his head as he stepped out of his apartment.
"What was that?"
"Oh, nothing," he said, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly nonetheless. "I'm right on it! I won't get the cabbages confused again!"
"You'd better not! Who wants cabbages? Seriously!"
"Alright, alright," he groaned, "You made your point, just never let me do the groceries ever again!"
"Alright, so what are you going to do instead? Cook?"
"No..."
"Then make yourself useful and do the shopping!"
Sokka closed the door behind him and smacked a hand to his forehead.
Moving in with Suki had seemed like a great idea eight months ago. Back then, things were great! They were so in love with each other, his domestic mishaps were simply the stuff of comedic romantic overtures, and they got to sleep in the same bed every night!
But then somewhere down the line, laundry and dishes and vacuuming became more important, and instead of the happy-go-lucky, carefree life Sokka had envisioned with Suki, they argued about socks and vegetables, and their once fantastic, out-of-this-world sex life had dwindled into fights about who snored louder…
"And don't smack your forehead at me!"
"Bad," Sokka admitted later that evening. "Really, really bad."
He took a swig of his liquor and set the heavy porcelain cup back onto the table in front of him.
"That's rough, buddy," commented Zuko wryly, his cup still in his hand, held halfway to his lips.
Katara was absently swirling the bright blue liquid in her martini glass, but met her brother's eyes with her own following his dejected announcement.
"I'm so sorry to hear that," she said sympathetically, briefly placing her hand over his.
"I mean," Sokka continued, the alcohol loosening his tongue, "it's like we've totally lost our spark, you know? Now all we do is fight about stupid things, like who left the toilet seat up, or why didn't I rinse the dishes, or can't she throw away some of the clothes she never wears because she's taking up more than her half of the closet –"
"Now that's not okay, Sokka," Zuko pointed out, his face deadpan as he brought his drink to his lips. "Girls need their closet space."
Sokka snickered slightly.
"I'll drink to that."
Katara let out a scoff and rolled her eyes, before also taking a big gulp of her drink and slamming the empty glass back down.
"When was the last time you two had sex?" she inquired.
Both Sokka and Zuko choked on their drinks simultaneously. After he had finished coughing liquor out of his lungs, Sokka stared at her incredulously.
"What?" she said defensively, shrugging a little. "It's a valid question. Right, Zuko?"
Zuko didn't reply, choosing to nurse his drink slowly.
"I – well – you're my sister!" Sokka sputtered. "I can't talk to you about that! That's private!"
"Well, talk to Zuko about it, then! I'll just close my ears and hum really loudly!"
To illustrate her point, Katara jammed an index finger into each ear and began humming a tuneless warble aimlessly.
"So how long has it been?" Zuko spoke up suddenly.
Sokka sighed and looked around cautiously, as though expecting his irate girlfriend to drop in on him at any moment.
Then he leaned in closer.
"Two months and fifteen days," he confessed at last.
Zuko whistled and raised his eyebrows.
"That bad, huh?"
"We've never gone that long without sex before," Sokka continued miserably. "Not when we had our own places, not when we were living on opposite sides of the world, not even in the beginning when we were fighting in a goddamned war! I mean, come on, even you've probably gotten laid at least once in that amount of time, Zuko, and you're single! Am I right?"
Zuko shrugged nonchalantly, but his ears had inexplicably turned red.
"It's just, this living together thing, it just kills it. Every time, I suggest it, and every time, it's some lame excuse! She has a headache, it's that time of the month, her pet turtleduck died…she doesn't even have a pet turtleduck!"
"Ouch," Zuko muttered, wincing.
"And whenever we do have it, which is rarely, it's just so…mechanical, you know? It's just, oh you know, go through the motions and get it over with already, just to be done with it? I don't know, we don't do anything differently, so I don't even know what's changed…"
"Maybe," Zuko interrupted him slowly, as though weighing each word very carefully, "that's the problem."
"What is?"
"Not doing anything differently," Zuko explained, putting his cup down for the first time during the conversation. "Look, as much fun as it is doing it the same way over and over again, sometimes it gets boring. Maybe what you need is a bit of variety."
"Tell him about the store, Zuko!" Katara blurted out, her eyes oddly bright.
Sokka peered at his sister suspiciously.
"Store, what store?" he demanded. "And hey! I thought you said you weren't listening!"
"Well, it's not my fault you're such a loudmouth!" Katara protested. "And there's this new store that opened up, just down the block from you. It's amazing."
"It's like an…adult play shop," Zuko said carefully. "They have lots of stuff to spice things up in the bedroom, so to speak."
"Really?" Now Sokka was all ears. "What do you mean by that? What sort of stuff? How do you use it? Does it work?"
"Yes," replied Katara, while the faintest ghost of a smirk flitted across Zuko's lips as he shrugged again.
"Fascinating, fascinating," muttered Sokka. "And where is this store, exactly? What's it called? How do I know what sort of thing to look for?"
"If it goes buzz, you're good," Katara told him wisely, her cheeks inexplicably beginning to colour.
"Girls like buzz," Zuko agreed, his cheeks also turning the same colour as his ears. "You should surprise Suki. Get her something fun."
"What does that even mean?" Sokka pressed. His eyes narrowed. "And hold on! How do both of you know so much about this store, anyway?"
Sokka assessed the building in front of him critically. It was unassuming enough, sensibly blending in with the other brick-and-stone buildings on the street. The sign read Come Hither Dear in large red letters, and the display featured an assortment of luridly coloured contraptions, the likes of which he'd never seen before.
"Fascinating," he muttered to himself again, before taking a deep breath and pushing the door open.
A doorbell tinkled gently. Moments later, a saleswoman appeared as though out of nowhere.
"Welcome!" she greeted him warmly. "May I help you?"
"Uhh…"
Sokka felt quite lost. Before him were shelves and shelves full of provocative, racy, strange-looking gadgets ranging in size and shape. There were brightly coloured candles and scented oils and jars of what looked like chocolate, and then –
"I'm looking for something," he said thickly, feeling stupider by the minute. "To – to surprise my girlfriend?"
The saleswoman's face spread into a delighted smile.
"Of course! Have you ever been here before?"
"No…?"
"No? That's fine then. Let me start you off by showing some of our bestsellers, and we can work our way from there."
She led him to a glass countertop in the corner of the store. Lying on velvet pads was a variety of cylindrical objects. Some were small and silver and bullet shaped. Others were flesh-toned and rubbery. Still others were bright and fluorescent, with buttons and prongs and absurdly strange shapes.
She pulled out one of the small bullet-shaped ones and handed it over to him.
"This one is simple but functional and quite effective," she told him, her voice perfectly even and professional. "At least, that's the response we get from our clientele."
She winked at him conspiratorially.
In his hands, the metal of the small toy felt cool to the touch, and perfectly smooth. He twisted and turned it around in his fingers, trying to figure out what it was.
"Is it a pendant or something?" he asked the saleswoman curiously.
Because these are pretty ugly pendants, he continued in his mind.
The saleswoman let out a sharp peal of laughter.
"Not this one, no! But I do have others that can be worn on a chain, if that's more your speed."
"I," Sokka admitted, "have no idea what you're talking about."
"Now this one," the woman continued, as though Sokka hadn't spoken, "is very popular with the ladies! If your girlfriend's never had a vibrator before, I think this would be a treat."
She produced one of the flesh-toned toys. Rather than handing it to him, as she had done with the previous bullet, she instead held it delicately between two fingers.
"Six settings," she told him, "all varying in speed, intensity, and rhythm. The battery power is sensational – and quite efficient, too! It's also rechargeable, so you don't have to buy extra batteries for it, either! So, on that end, it's pretty economical for a higher-end toy –"
"Higher-end?" Sokka echoed, staring at the strange, fleshy thing she held before his nose. "That? What makes it so much more higher-end than this one?"
He waves the silver bullet in his hand. In his opinion, it looked much better. Not that it was a very attractive piece to begin with, but the other one – there was no way around it, the other one definitely looked like a man's –
The saleslady sighed and shook her head with a smile.
"Feel the texture," she said, gently running the tip of the fleshy thing along the back of his hand.
Sokka let out a yelp despite himself.
"It feels like skin!"
A dick. It feels like a dick. It looks like a dick, too. What the hell is this?
"Exactly." The saleslady grinned wolfishly at him. "Texturally, it's a lot more pleasing than the metal or silicone products. And the vibrations are a lot more intense too, because of the better battery. Here, let me…"
She pressed the one button on the fleshy thing and then –
"Ah!" Sokka shrieked. "It's buzzing!"
"Well, yes," the saleslady remarked. "That is very literally what it's supposed to do."
"O – okay," Sokka stammered, trying to get around the fact that there was a strange woman with a strange fleshy skin dick thing that was buzzing along his hand, and the worst part of the whole thing was that the buzzing actually felt kind of nice.
"It feels good, doesn't it?"
Despite himself, Sokka nodded.
"And that's just how it feels on the back of your hand! Consider how it would feel on the most sensitive parts of a woman's body and now do you understand why all our clients love it?"
"Yeah, I guess – wait, where does this go, again?"
"Sokka, what is it? Why can't you just tell me?"
"Because," Sokka explained patiently, fighting to keep a straight face, "it's a surprise. Don't you know what a surprise is, woman?"
Suki scowled at him.
"I do, yes, and don't you woman me!"
Sokka had marched Suki into their apartment and led her back into the bedroom.
"Here," he said, reaching for the small, gift-wrapped box he'd kept in his sock drawer. "This is for you."
Suki arched an eyebrow.
"If this is just another pair of your smelly socks –"
"It's not. Just open it!"
Suki glanced at him, saw that he was in earnest, and shrugged, before slowly untying the curled ribbons and peeling away the wrapping paper to reveal –
"Oh," was all she could say, as she read the label on the box of the vibrator. "Oh."
Her mouth opened and closed wordlessly as she delicately opened the box and plucked the vibrator out. She inspected it carefully, a most curious expression on her face.
"This – you – what?"
"It's a special toy," Sokka explained. "It goes buzz."
Suki burst out laughing.
Smooth.
"I mean," he recovered, "it's supposed to feel amazing. Want to try?"
Suki positively beamed at him.
"Yes."
As they tore at each other's clothing, a gratified smile crossed Sokka's face.
Ah...women.
A/N: I suck at humour, but I tried. Thanks for reading.