And Other Freedoms
Summary: "They all talked about missing out on lives," she said, "on futures that now seem lost." Variant vignettes following the ATLA girls and guys. Some AU; all pairings (including requests); rated M
"Four walls and Peace"
The war ends, and we become a moving mad house – we are always moving.
There are brevities where we discuss settling down. But Aang flips his lower lip out and shakes his head slow, as if "no" is less threatening this way. His reaction at least makes sense. We can't leash in the air or nail it to a front yard; the nomad fault is genetic, invariable. We remember he is the last of this breed, that his people were ethnically cleansed, and it makes it so that we have no right to question any of the ridiculous minutiae of his ancient culture. He gets away with so much just by being him.
Sokka's disproving grunts at the matter, though, are unwelcomed, almost shocking. Before Ozai fell, all he wanted was "a place somewhere." Even Toph rolls her inoperable eyes, sticks a wad of tobacco between her lip and gums and spits over Appa's saddle like she's spitting on the proposal itself.
Suki is the only one who agrees, but only sometimes and only in a small voice. I suspect she is afraid my brother will reject the idea and think differently of her. When the tendrils of commitment approach she ebbs back and wonders off on her own. During the war she felt she needed to be brave and loud, but now she dissolved into our transient background. I feel she is almost thankful for it.
Suki and I have the same problem; we want to be fun-loving and wild. But the war tamed us, left bruises the shape of fingerprints on our ribs so we can't laugh too hard, and softened the wild quality of our hair with nights of cold, loud rain, making us wish for four walls and peace.
There were ideas. Every city in the world opened its doors to welcome us. Aang refused to stay in one spot for more than seven days. The night before we traveled again, he became antsy, spent the night beneath the dark blue heaven on his back, his hands reaching above his head yanking out patches of dewy grass and yellowed weeds.
We were experimenting touching one another and it was strange to feel him leave my side right after his head had explored my thighs for hours. His abandonment, however brief, brought unexpected jealousy with it. I didn't follow him because my pride was heavier than the urge to know what he was doing or why he left. I pretended to be exhausted and asleep. But a few nights I watched from far away. When the moon was bright enough, his limbs stood out as silhouettes and he resembled a tall, drawn ghost.
Today we are in the same predicament. Ba Sing Sei, Day Six. We can chronicle our lives in these single digit numbers. Suki is tired and threw up all over the motel's indoor tub. Toph's suspicion is that she's pregnant; she shared this piece of information with me this morning in the bathhouse. "Give it another few weeks," she promised, "she'll start to inflate like a gourd and there will be no question then."
"Maybe but I don't want to believe you."
She warned me, "It can happen to you too if you aren't careful." There was no cynical edge in her tone, no sarcastic, biting one-liner.
"You hear us?"
"Unfortunately I can't turn off my feet. I don't mind. Just be careful." She was wrapping herself in a towel and the steam from her bath coiled off her pale skin in thick white ribbons. The draft that came in through the paneled door speckled her arms with goose bumps. We were alone because we woke up too late, and though the water was still hot, the floors were slick with puddles and the other stalls were empty. We were leaving the city in a few hours.
"I'm sorry you hear us." She sat on the bench and waited for me to finish combing through my hair. There is something about a weak apology that makes you wish you meant it. But we are new at sex, at touching, and it almost made me proud to know I had an audience. It was a strange attitude to have; it made me feel stupid and cool at the same time.
She said, "What's it like?"
I wanted to say, with the level of aloofness that marks it insignificant, "It's whatever. It's okay," and leave it at that but I answered, with a small honest tremble in my throat, "It scares me." I bended the droplets of water off of my shoulders and off of hers so we wouldn't freeze. "We don't know what we're doing," I admitted, because she must know.
"It still must be nice."
"Sometimes it's nice. Sometimes it hurts and I don't like it. But I guess when it's good, it's very good."
"You react the same way either way. When it's good or bad, same noises from you, same noises from him. If I'm not too tired I go to Appa's saddle," she said. "I don't sit and listen. That's sick."
"Good to know. Sometimes I fake it. You have to when you start, I think."
This answer satisfied her and she ended the conversation by jabbing my arm. "Hurry the fuck up, will you?"
When we cut through the clouds an hour later, Aang is at the reigns, directing Appa south. I watch the slope of his back curve with his steering. A year ago his shoulders were thin and emaciated. Today he has the broad back of a man with direction. I join him on Appa's head and kiss the skin between his ear and neck.
"Are you my copilot today?" His smile is easy, genuine. "I have to warn you that I can't pay you what you're used to."
"It's okay, it's my first day on the job."
"Unpaid internship. You have to get me coffee whenever I ask for it." I slap his thigh and kiss him again. In my ear he says, "And I get to assault you whenever I want," and winks.
"Sounds like too much trouble." He kisses my mouth. His lips are cold from this bad air, and he still smells like sleep.
"I was thinking about what you said. About settling down. I don't think it's a good idea."
"You've made that clear already." The clouds are beneath us now. Yellow and exuberant, they resemble a sea of butter and orange rinds.
"It's not a good idea for me," he clarifies. "But if you want…"
I know what he'll say, so I half-listen, and somehow though I anticipated it before, the notion makes me sick to my stomach. What would I do in the South Pole without him or Sokka? Suddenly it becomes clear that I can't have a life without them, and the dependency feels new though it's been here since we first met. I get an urge to fling myself into the clouds just to see what he'll do, to show him I'm important to him, too.
With some authority I say, "Don't say that. You aren't leaving. If it has to be, I'll learn to make the clouds home." Then behind me in the saddle, Suki clutches her stomach and vomits over the side. Toph shakes her head 'tsk-tsk,' and Sokka worriedly holds his girlfriend's chocolate curls hair away from her face. Aang turns around, too, and his expression is defiantly blank, shocked. Whatever settlement he is running from is close on his heels and it terrifies him. I feel loved but I also feel he wants to dispose of us and doesn't know how. Love, with its enormous mouth and tight occlusion, has imprisoned us here, and between layers of atmosphere we remain trapped, running, and waiting.
A/N: A photographer named Elena Dorfman visited Jordan and Lebanon to chronicle Syrian refugee lives; she chose to focus on teenagers, and included a spread in The New Yorker, from which I borrowed the quote included in the summary.
These are short and sweet, and you can read them in any order you chose. I needed a place to publish all the loose-end, backstreet stories that wouldn't have been revisited otherwise. This first one is kind of strange... of course, let me know your thoughts, if you'd like to see more of these, and what you'd like to see!