Chapter Seven

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Getting Kicked Out of the Nest

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"Daaad."

Hakoda cringed.

"Daaaad, I'm huuungry!"

"Then why don't you get some food!" Hakoda hollered back.

"My leg huuuurts!" Hakoda snapped the ink brush in his hand.

"The nerve of that kid!" he started, but Mazane waved it off as she stood from the table.

"It's fine," she said. "I'll make him some breakfast."

"Breakfast! It's half past noon! And he should be making it himself! His leg's fine!" Hakoda ranted.

"Oh, don't mind him. He needs his rest, and besides, I like doing things for him. I think he's starting to like me." She used Firebending to heat up the bottom of a cooking pan.

"Mazane, he's taking advantage of you! And he's taking advantage of me! Before his accident he said some terrible things to the both of us, but then he got hurt, and since then we've been babying him! And he needed it for a little while, but he has been completely unreasonable ever since he sent you out looking for arctic cherries to make Breakfast Cherry Muff-muffs for him!"

"But, sweetie, I thought you liked my muffins?" Mazane quipped saucily as she tossed a fish and a splash of oil into the pan.

Hakoda ignored her comment for the time being (though it wasn't bad, and he locked it away for later use) and continued, "Sokka is my eldest child. He's my son! And he's behaving like a little boy! I've made up my mind, Mazane. He leaves the house today."

Mazane quelled her Firebending and put the pan down. "But his leg's still healing," she protested. "Katara has her job to focus on, she can't take care of him. If he can't turn to you, who can he turn to?"

"He can turn to himself. He's a man now. He has been for a long time. He'll be okay," Hakoda said in good faith.

"I will miss having him around the house. I watch him, and I feel like I'm seeing you and what you were like when you were his age," Mazane mused.

"You make it sound so long ago," Hakoda sulked.

"To me it was," Mazane said simply. "I mean, I'm only five-and-a-half years older than Sokka. If you had started having kids as a teenager, then—"

"I like your muffins!" Hakoda exclaimed.

The suddenness of his outburst startled her, but she appreciated the humor of it and began laughing. "Oh, now I've lost my train of thought!"

"Oh, no," Hakoda feigned sympathy, and as she turned back to Sokka's Final Casa de Hakoda Fish Frenzy Breakfast (onions, no daisypepper), Hakoda enjoyed a triumphant smirk.

"One good thing about being my age," he thought, "is wisdom with the ladies!"

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Sokka found out over his breakfast-in-bed tray that his father wanted him out of the house by the end of the day.

"And no going over to Gran Gran's instead," his father prohibited.

"But, Daaaaaaaaad!" Sokka's jaw dropped in dismay.

"No buts, Sokka. You can get around on that leg just fine if you would use it. There's a ship leaving for the Earth Kingdom later this evening—I've made arrangements for you to go with them."

Sokka's arguments and protestations proved futile, not only with his father, but with himself as well. He knew it was well past time for him to go.

But still.

He had been so very comfortable here!

"But, Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!" he bawled, clutching his father's leg as he tried to exit the room.

"Let go, Son! Let go!" Sokka's grip fierce, Hakoda dragged him from one end of the house to the other before he could free himself. As soon as he did, he ran for his bedroom door, and before slamming it shut, shouted, "Get packing!"

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"Oh, man," Sokka grumbled, shoving his belongings into his bag. "No more sleeping in. No more home-cooked meals. Really tasty not-camping-food meals." He salivated even now at the thought of his breakfast an hour ago.

"This sucks," he grumbled on to himself. Once in a pocket of comfort, he fell into a rut; and once in that rut, it took life-or-death situations (or Fatal Fury of the Father) to spur him to action. "But given some time, I would have—" he began, but a sudden gust of air through his open doorway shocked him into silence.

"Sokka! Sokka, I need your help!" Aang cried, following his Airbending and rushing into the room.

"Aang? What are you doing here?" Sokka could barely believe the situation. Aang abruptly showing up in the Southern Water Tribe in his bedroom? What in the Avatar was going on?

"I'm going crazy here. I've been trying to move on from Katara because what am I supposed to do? Waste away? I'm 117-years-old! I'm in the prime of my life, aren't I? If she's so bent on dating people, then maybe I should date people, too, right? So I've been trying! And you'd think the Avatar would be able to find a date pretty quick, right? Wrong! It's hard! Every date I go on a date the girl stares at me like I'm a god, and I'm not, so that makes it weird, and then she follows me home and does something really weird, like singing outside my bedroom window till dawn or getting the landlady to let her in, so she can sneak into my apartment and make me breakfast! One girl even did my laundry! Insane! They're all crazy! Girls are crazy, Sokka! Absolutely crazy!!" Gesturing wildly throughout his spiel, Aang worked himself to a sustained level of shouting by the end of it, at which point he wheeled around, facing Sokka with an expression contorted by the horror of his recent realization.

"You done?" Sokka asked.

"Oh, Sokka, I wish I were," Aang lamented, dropping into a chair he simultaneously pulled over with his Airbending. "Katara's the one for me, but she's so determined to doubt I'm the one for her. I just want to be happy, Sokka. Happy and with the woman I love."

"Don't we all, Aang, don't we all," Sokka sighed, clapping his friend on the shoulder.

The life suddenly came back to Aang, and he grabbed Sokka's hand. "Come back with me to the Fire Nation! Help me find a girlfriend! Maybe if Katara sees me with somebody else, she'll get mad with jealousy and come running back to me!"

"Yeah, I don't know if that's how Katara rolls…" Sokka pointed out, not returning Aang's grasp.

"It'll work! I know it will!" Aang said fiercely. Then softly, "It has to."

Sokka inwardly commiserated with Aang's pain. He had known such heartbreak when things hadn't worked out between him and Suki, and he hated to admit it and he tried not to think about it, but he still felt the scars of that break-up. "Hell, I haven't had a real girlfriend since," he realized. "And it's probably time I moved on."

"If I go with you…" he began slowly, "I ask two conditions." He held up two fingers.

"What are they? Yes! Yes, whatever they are!" Aang promised.

Finger one. "House me." Finger two. "Feed me." Finger three. "Let me sleep in as late as I want." Afterthought. "Oh, and can I have Momo?"

"Okay, okay, okay, and no! C'mon, let's go! I read about a single's bar on an island off the Fire Nation's mainland. If we leave now, we can make it there thirty minutes before it closes!"

Packing was done and farewells were made very quickly, and before Sokka knew it, he was in the air with Aang and Appa. The wind whistled through his bed-head of the last month, and he stretched out his arms and felt exhilarated, as if an electric charge of life surged through his very veins. "And I'm still in the rut!" he crowed. "Too bad your kicking me out didn't work, Dad! Bwahahahaha!"

Victory was undeniably sweet for the time being, but Sokka (as per his usual) had no idea what he was getting into by tempting fate.

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To be continued…

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A/N:

I heart Sokka. 'Nuff said. And Aang is too cute for words.

Romantic highjinks to come, so please leave a review until then! :D

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P.S.

If I owned Avatar, it would be mine by now.