"You've never had a sleepover before?" Sokka asked, raising an eyebrow.
"No."
"Not even once?" He asked again.
"Not even once."
"Not even with TyLee and Mai?"
"Sokka." Azula rolled her eyes, no matter how you rephrase the question, I have not had a sleepover."
Sokka was delighted beyond compare. If Azula had never had a sleepover before, then he would have the honor of giving her, her first one. "Wonderful, you can spend the night here then!" He declared, already on his way to break out the sleepover snacks.
"Sokka I didn't bring any pillows…"
"You can use mine, and the blankets." Sokka shrugged.
"I'm not going to sleep in my day clothes, that's not comfortable." Azula countered.
"You can even wear my pajamas. I have everything you need to spend the night at my house."
Despite her reluctance Azula didn't have the heart to squander his enthusiasm, so she hesitantly agreed to spend the night. The prospect of a sleepover wasn't too awful, but nighttime was never her forte. Even so, things were going flawlessly, until Sokka insisted that they did a Spice Girls karaoke and played a mandatory game of truth or dare with Katara. Evidently, this game of truth or dare was what led to her part-taking in the Spice Girls sing-along. All was well she supposed, she got to see Sokka dash stark-naked into Jet's backyard, where he pressed his rear to the window until Jet threatened to call the cops. "Would you press charges for… assault." Sokka wriggled his eyebrows. This had left Katara to mutter, "I outta call the cops on him for that awful joke." Most of the dares involved eating things like pancakes with mustard or chocolate chip cookies dipped in mayo. Azula's competitive nature had her taking the burnt of the horrible dares. By the end of it she was ready to light Sokka on fire and knew way too much about Katara.
"Isn't there any other sleepover activity that we can do?" Azula asked.
"We can paint our nails and do makeovers." In a whisper he added, "I've always wanted to try Katara's eyeliner."
She never expected that she would spend her Saturday night, winging Sokka's eyeliner for him as he prattled on about how he looked better than the best boy bands and how BTS would hire him in no time. She rolled her eyes but continued his makeover regardless. By the time Katara was through with her, Azula herself had nails polished a shimmery blue and eyeshadow of the same color. Unfortunately for Katara, Sokka's messy hand did her makeover. She ended up with uneven eyeliner and lopsided lashes. Azula snapped a picture on her phone, that one would be a keeper.
Various scary movies later, Sokka would find out why she never had a sleepover before. They watched three of them; Katara's pick was Prom Night and Azula found herself drawn to The Shining, while Sokka had chosen Cabin In The Woods. Frankly Azula was thankful for the touch of comedy; not that she would say it, but she didn't do very well with horror movies. They always kindled her paranoia, but the plots had a certain morbid allure. Katara spent all three movies under her blanket or hiding behind a pillow. Sokka was a steady flow of comic relief, muttering something akin to, "why heeeellooo sexy" every time a particularly hideous creature emerged on screen. And each time, Azula nudged him and told him to knock it off so she could bask within her own terror.
She was hesitant to turn off the lights and even more so to let the conversations die down. Sleep never came quickly for her, even as a child she was a fussy sleeper. The couch wasn't doing her any justice either. For hours, Azula listened to the sound of the air conditioner and Sokka's creaking ceiling fan. Sokka was a heavy sleeper, already snoring away, and Katara had decided to make her way upstairs and sleep in her own bed. Azula couldn't blame her for that one. All in all, the girl felt somewhat alone, despite Sokka's company. She tried her very best to fight sleep, if she was awake then she'd be safe. If she could keep her mind from falling asleep, then she could keep her body from following. But she fell into a slumber, she always did. That wasn't the hard part.
No, the hard part was waking up.
And she always did so, but never in full.
That night was no different. Her mind woke early in the morning, when the sky was still an inky black. But her body was still sleeping, completely and utterly locked to her. A very familiar unease settled into her belly. She closed her eyes, trying her best to ignore the oppressive feeling of being watched. It always started out as a small presence in the corner of the room. A dark thing with a mouth that took up the entirety of its face and arms that were too long and too muscular for its body. Eventually it would crawl up to her and then atop her where it would sit—heavy and unmoving—forcing her to look into its gaping mouth. Within, past a wall of teeth and deep down its throat, she would see other things. Visons of her own death and clawed hands reaching out. If she couldn't keep her eyes closed or get them to close at all, the hands would reach out and steal her breath. But she couldn't move, not even a finger. She couldn't call out either, her lips were as frozen as the rest of her body. It was moving closer and closer still until she could feel the entire weight of it pressing upon her. She wouldn't open her eyes, she wouldn't look it. But lord did she wish Sokka would wake up and knock it off of her. She shouldn't have laid on her back, it was always worse when she did.
At the same time she was glad she couldn't cry out. The last thing she wanted to do was send Katara and Hakoda rushing down the stairs for absolutely nothing. If she knew it that it was nothing, then why did it still bother her, she wondered. It was purely instinctually and maybe deep down she feared that one day her body would never wake. Even deeper down, she there was some part of her that wondered if the thing sitting on her chest was actually there. One of these days, it might be real.
Even so she would wake with only a memory of being terrified beyond control and without control. As it always had been. She had always suffered from night terrors as a child, they had simply evolved into sleep paralysis episodes as she got older.
She willed herself to breathe, deep and easy. Slow and steady. She first put all of her energy into lifting one finger. On a good night she could do that and then work from there until her brain finally realized that she was no longer dreaming and no longer needed to be restrained. It took longer than she would have liked, but the overbearing sense that something was in the room with she and Sokka was finally retracting.
She was still breathing somewhat unsteadily, trembling some. She ought to be used by now, but each hallucination was still uniquely fear inducing.
She needed a glass of water.
"You okay?" Sokka asked.
"Fine." She replied, "I'm fine."
"You're shaking." He noted.
She tried to deny it with a simple, "I'm not."
"Is it because we watched all of those movies?"
"No."
"Well you're scared of something."
Azula tossed her pillow at him. "I'm not afraid."
"So what, are you shaking with joy because I'm awake?"
Azula wrinkled her nose. "Never." She fetched her pillow, not that she planned on going back to sleep. "I have sleep paralysis. Sometimes, if I'm really unlucky, I'll have night terrors right before the paralysis episodes."
Sokka cocked his head. "Since when?"
"Ever since I could remember. They happened more often before I made nice with you all." She lie herself back down and nuzzled against the pillow.
"During your stay at the institution?"
"And a little before, yes." She replied. "Something, something about childhood trauma according to my therapist. My father wasn't much help." He had always yelled at her for the episodes. As a child he'd answer her terrified screams with enraged ones. Raging at her for waking him up and telling her to grow up and stop being afraid of imaginary things.
"Here." Sokka offered her a glass of water. "You wanna watch a fun movie or something?"
"Well, I wasn't going to sleep tonight anyways, so we might as well." She shrugged.
"Is this why you didn't want to have a sleepover?" He asked.
She nodded, "I don't think that the rest of your family would apricate hearing me shriek in the middle of the night."
He had a few jokes on his mind but refrained, he felt like this wasn't a topic she'd like to make light of. So instead he wrapped his blanket around her. "I'm sure Katara would understand. And dad, he slept through Toph's idea of a good time at my last sleepover, I think he could sleep through you." He squeezed her shoulder. "Popcorn?"
"It's 3:39 in the morning, Sokka."
"Point?" He set the bowl in her lap. "It's a sleepover, we're supposed to be up at ridiculous hours, doing ridiculous things. Do you like DDR by chance?"
"I'll kick your ass at DDR, so there's no point in you trying." Azula replied.
"We'll see about that." He declared, as he hooked up the mats to his gaming station.
This was going to be completely idiotic. But it very completely beat being pinned down by her own mind and a creature that wasn't there. So she would play DDR with Sokka until the sun rose or she passed out again.