A/N/: For sake of the story and giant house pets, Momo will still be a flying lemur, but Appa will be a Bison Dog. Imagine a St. Bernard, but with horns.
"K-Katara, h-help!" Sokka shouted from where he was pinned on the floor of his sister's living room. "A-Aang! S-Some - ahh! - o-one?"
But nobody came. No one even answered. Sokka sucked in a breath of air, but it was lodged in his throat as he was attacked again. He couldn't breathe. His head was starting to spin. The noises that were coming from his mouth were practically inhuman. He felt like he was dying.
"I can't believe that the city is seriously going to put those kids back into the foster system!" Katara groused. Her hands were thrown up in the air, and her face was contorted with rage. "I mean, their older siblings are perfectly capable of taking care of them. They've shown that they want to take care of them, but- Sokka, can't you see we're trying to have an important conversation?"
Sokka looked at his sister, who had, in fact, been deep in a conversation with Aang. A conversation that could be put on hold so Sokka could be relieved of his position beneath Toph. The pro-wrestler had pinned him after following through on a threat to start a tickle war. Her fingers were attacking his tickle spots relentlessly. His chest hurt from laughing; tears streaked his face; and he had a serious feeling that he was going to piss himself if Toph kept going.
Remind him never to egg Toph on about tickle wars ever again. She always follows through, and she always wins. Not okay.
"P-Please, Toph!" Sokka pleaded as he struggled beneath the deadweight that was his youngest friend. "I'm g-gonna - haha! - p-pee!"
"C'mon Toph," Aang said, sympathetic to Sokka's situation. "I don't want to have to clean pee out of the carpet. I just had to pick up after Appa yesterday."
Toph's weight shifted off of him, and Sokka sighed heavily with relief.
"Fine, fine, Twinkle Toes, but if he opens his mouth again, all bets are off."
Aang shrugged. "Anyway, back to those kids," he said.
As Katara and Aang got back into their conversation, Sokka stood from the floor and dusted himself off. His wolf's tail had been obliterated, and his clothes were a rumpled mess.
"Thanks, Toph," Sokka said with a scowl as he scanned the floor for his hair tie. He found it under the coffee table and snatched it up.
"Anytime, Snoozles," she responded.
She looked perfectly fine after whatever the hell that was. Sokka plopped down on the end of the couch opposite to her, being sure to keep a safe distance away. He didn't need those wandering fingers of hers starting up a war that he was not at all prepared for.
"You ruined my hair," Sokka lamented as he tried to get the strands back into the tie. "It was so perfect this morning."
"Looks fine to me," Toph said with a shrug.
"Do you really think s-" Sokka paused. "Toph!"
The girl immediately erupted into peals of laughter. "Gods, you fall for that every time!"
"Because you always play on my weaknesses," he grumbled, looking away from her with a pout. Not that she would see it and feel bad anyway.
"It's not my fault being blind has such great perks, Snoozles," she said cheekily. "Gotta take advantage of them."
"I wouldn't call that 'taking advantage of them'," he said. "I'd call that exploitation."
"Potato, po-tah-toe," she replied.
"If you two are done," Katara interjected. "I need your opinion, Sokka."
"Is it about those kids, Katara? I already told you-"
"Sokka, you're an officer," she said.
"This case isn't one of mine," he replied. "It's Haru's."
"And he's doing a great job, but he's not here," she argued. "You are. So, I want your professional opinion."
"My professional opinion is that you shouldn't get too invested," he said. "Katara, you're a teacher. I get it. You care about your students, but you have to let the social workers like Aang do their jobs in making sure they're okay beyond your classroom. Otherwise, you'll drive yourself crazy."
"Yeah. I know," she said. "I always manage to bring work home with me, but I can't help it. They're in kindergarten. They can't advocate for themselves."
"Take care of them while they're in your class," he reiterated. "That's where you're needed. People like Aang are needed outside of school. Don't overstep boundaries."
"You sound like you're stressing her out, Sokka," Toph interjected.
"No, I'm helping her to avoid stress," Sokka said even as he eyed Toph. She was his definition of stress. "Because, let's be honest Katara, stress is the last thing you need."
"But-"
"Katara," Sokka said.
Katara pouted slightly as she looked away. "Fine."
Aang, the everloving genius that he was, recognized the palpable tension that was brewing between Sokka and his sister. He was honestly glad their bald-headed friend stepped in because he was sure Katara was going to pick the conversation right back up from where they'd left it in t-minus thirty seconds.
"So, uh, are we going out tonight?" he asked. His expression was hopeful, and the suggestion was a great way to steer the conversation away from heavier topics. Sokka hated to be the one to burst his bubble, but...
"I'm still hung over from the club with Jet and Hahn last night," Sokka groaned.
It was true. The night before had been a disaster. Jet and Hahn had convinced him to try out this new club in the lower ring. It was definitely a hippie bar with enough borderline illegal substances around for the narcotics department to have a field day. His two so-called friends ditched him halfway through the evening to get laid and left him there with a more intense version of cactus juice than The Secret Tunnel made.
Needless to say, he'd gotten so messed up that he was pretty sure he was hallucinating. After the fact, he realized that there had to be something illegal in that drink. Maybe actual cactus juice from the Si Wong Desert, but he couldn't be sure. The hallucinations weren't even the worst part of the night.
Somehow, he'd managed to get ahold of his sister, not that he remembered any of that. The only evidence that he'd even spoken to her came apparent the next morning. He'd woken up on her couch that morning because he apparently couldn't get himself home. Momo had been sleeping on the small of his back, and Appa had definitely cut off some of the blood circulation to his feet by laying on his legs. His aching body and raging hangover didn't protect him from his sister's motherly wrath. Hell, it only seemed to intensify it. Luckily, after she told him off for all of his male irresponsibility, she made him coffee and breakfast and provided him with a solid dose of painkillers.
The headache was ebbing now, but his body still felt like it took a beating. The thought of drinking again that night made him miserable.
"I think I'll pass, Aang," Sokka said.
"C'mon, Sokka! We can go to The Secret Tunnel and have a great time," Aang pleaded.
Sokka snorted. The Secret Tunnel had been where he wanted to go the night before, but Jet and Hahn had hijacked that plan with the excuse of being bored of their normal haunt. He didn't care about the place being stale or boring. He wanted to run into Zuko again. It had been two weeks since they'd met, and Sokka hadn't been able to stop thinking about him.
At the thought of Zuko, Sokka sat upright, a look of excitement filling his eyes.
"Shit! I forgot to tell you guys!" Sokka exclaimed. "Guess who I ran into a couple of weeks back?"
"Dad?" Katara asked. Although they had not seen their dad in a month or two, Sokka shook his head.
"Uh, if it's not your dad, maybe Suki?" Aang asked.
"We see her every week, Twinkle Toes," Toph said. "Besides, he's excited. Usually seeing Suki reminds him of his endless cycle of rejection. My guess is the Boulder!"
Sokka nodded thoughtfully at Toph's guess. It would be cool to have the Boulder appear in his daily life. He'd met the pro-wrestler once or twice because of Toph, and each moment in his presence left Sokka reeling in his glory. He would love that though.
"None of you are right," he said. "You remember my first domestic when I was on patrols? The guy whose face got burned?"
"You're kidding!" Katara exclaimed. "You saw him? How's he doing?"
"Honestly, I think he's doing good. The burn scarred pretty bad, but he doesn't really seem to let it bug him," Sokka said. "We talked for a while, and it was... nice."
Sokka trailed off toward the end of that sentence. His conversation with Zuko had been nice. He'd learned more about the guy then than he had when they'd first met after the accident, and to have more information on him beyond his injury made him feel nice and warm.
Of course, Toph seemed to pick up on that with those freaky, supernatural abilities of hers. "What are you hiding, Snoozles?" she sing-songed.
Sokka stilled and glanced her way. Why did she have to pick everything up? He didn't exactly want to tell Toph about what had happened at the bar. She didn't need to know that in a moment of drunken weakness, he'd admitted that he found Zuko hot. And that was just his face. Well, and voice. Sokka's cactus juice addled brain hadn't even contemplated his body. Or anything lower...
NOPE! He had to stop that thought right there. Sex was not an option.
He didn't do one night stands, and he definitely didn't do relationships, both of which Toph would suggest if she found out that Sokka had briefly thought of Zuko's attractive qualities.
"Nothing," he said finally.
Less was more when attempting to lie to Toph. At least that's what he tried to tell himself. It was never worth trying because she always knew. Eventually he'd accept the cruel reality of that, but in the meantime, he'd still put forth a valiant effort.
"Man, Twinkle Toes. Did you guys put something in that bathroom soap?" Toph asked, giving her hands a light shake.
Aang furrowed his brows in thought. "No, I don't think so. Katara?"
"No, sweetie," she said with a shake of her head. "It's not even new. We had that when you were here last week, Toph."
"Man, my fingers are just itching."
Sokka shot her an apprehensive look that she wouldn't see, and then said, "Toph, don't you dare."
"Then spill," she said resolutely.
Sokka groaned. "Toph!"
"Oh no! My fingers! They feel a strange- magnetic- pull-!" she said as she leaned towards Sokka. Her fingers were stretched and wriggling as she sought out his ribs.
He batted her hands away. "Aright! Alright! Sheesh," he murmured. "He paid my tab as a thank you for being there for him after the whole incident."
"And?" Toph asked.
Sokka really wanted to narrow his eyes at her, but he didn't bother because of the sheer futility of the action. Instead, he groaned again. "I enjoyed talking to him. The conversation was good."
"Snoozles, I can feel the itch in my fingers again," Toph chided. "Don't make me tickle the truth out of you. You know I will."
He shot Aang a pleading look, but he just shrugged back in response. "So helpful Aang, thanks," he said. He then looked back at Toph. "Fine, fine. I thought he was cute."
"You've known about this jerk for four years, and this is the first time you're telling us that he's hot?" Toph asked incredulously.
"I just realized that myself!" he responded. "Besides, I don't even know how true that attraction even was! I was drunk."
"You thought he was hot, Snoozles," Toph said. "No way around it. Did you get his number?"
"No!" Sokka shouted.
"Damn? You weren't smooth enough, huh?" she asked.
"No. It's just unprofessional to ask for the number of someone I responded to a call for," he replied logically.
Because it was unprofessional. He wasn't supposed to insert himself into the lives of civilians on a selfish whim. Not that he listened to himself in that respect in other cases. It was actually how he'd met Yue. She was what made it all different. She was the reason he couldn't and wouldn't do that to Zuko.
"Uh-huh," she replied. "Sure. That's how it is."
"It is!" he insisted.
"You need to get back out there," she said, and that made Sokka still. He hated this conversation. He really hated this conversation. It always led in the same bad direction each time someone had brought it up. "How long has it been now?"
Sokka looked away from Toph, from Aang and Katara. He even looked away from the sleeping form of Momo, who had been perched on the armchair beside the couch he was sitting on. He wouldn't have been able to answer the question had he been looking at any one of them.
"A little over a year," he said quietly.
"See! That's more than enough time, Sokka," Toph said. "You need to get back out there. Go on some dates, get laid. Go the whole nine yards or some shit."
Sokka could feel his skin starting to burn. He hated this feeling. This overwhelming sense of anxiety that always seemed to come out of nowhere. He didn't want people to tell him how to handle his emotions, to tell him how to grieve. He didn't want people putting his recovery on some stringent timeline that he had to follow. It made him feel rushed and anxious and a whole lot of emotions that he didn't want to feel.
"I don't know, Toph," he said.
There was a queasy feeling starting in his stomach. Quite honestly, he felt as if he was going to vomit. His heart was starting to beat way too fast in his chest. His head was starting to throb. Toph could tell when people were lying, and he was sure she knew when they were feeling any number of emotions. But her one big flaw lay in her inability to know when to stop when she was making someone uncomfortable. And right now, Sokka was a little more than uncomfortable.
"C'mon, man, take advantage of hot guys paying your tab," she said, elbowing him in the ribs.
Sokka barely shifted at her jab. He was too numb, too shell shocked by the conversation to really feel it. But he did feel his skin flame up even more than it had before. Crimson bloomed across his cheeks, but luckily, he didn't need to hide it from her.
"I didn't say he was hot, Toph. I just said he was cute."
She rolled her unseeing eyes. "Again, potato, po-tah-toe."
"Toph, I think that's enough," Katara finally said. And then, "Are you coming with me to get my tattoo tomorrow, Sokka?"
Sokka let out a sigh of relief. His sister was always good about paying attention to his emotions. She knew when he was getting to his limits. As a recent development in their brother-sister relationship, she'd learned how to articulate his needs for him when he was having a difficult time doing so himself. As an added bonus, she managed to tactfully change the conversation more times than he could count. This was one of those times, and Sokka jumped at it gratefully.
"Uh, yeah," he said. "What time were you going? As long as it doesn't interfere with my beauty sleep, I'm down to go."
Katara rolled her eyes. "It's at noon, Sokka."
"Mmm," he hummed. This conversation was good. He could already feel his racing heart calming down. "That's cutting it pretty close. I do like to sleep in until eleven on my Sundays off."
"Just be there," she said.
"Don't you want to get a tattoo, Sokka?" Aang asked.
He nodded. "Yeah. Just don't know what I want yet."
Which was true. He wasn't going to jump on a tattoo that didn't have any meaning to him. Katara was getting a memorial piece for their mother. Aang had traditional Air Nomad tattoos all across his skin. Toph didn't have anything, but that honestly made a lot of sense. Sokka... Well, he was just waiting for the right idea to come along.
"There's an artist in the shop that I'm going to that I think you'll like," Katara said as she dug her phone out from her back pocket. "Let me pull up his page."
As soon as she pulled up the profile on Instagram, Katara handed him her phone.
"He goes by TheBlueSpirit."
Sokka looked down at the account. Just as she had said, the artist did go by TheBlueSpirit. But that was as descriptive as his account got. He didn't have any pictures of himself. It was all photographs of his finished tattoos and sketches for others that hadn't yet been introduced to skin.
He couldn't help but feel drawn to the way TheBlueSpirit both drew and tattooed. His line work seemed crisp and steady. His shading was gentle. There weren't harsh lines in the blends of colors. It looked like that effortless gradient that nature seemed only to get right. His realistic pieces were detailed and carefully done. Based on his form alone, his work was phenomenal, but that wasn't the only aspect that drew Sokka in.
It was the content of his pieces, too. Everything the guy had done seemed to have some sort of tie to the spiritual and cultural backgrounds of the Four Nations. Sokka saw renditions of the classic Nomadic symbols. Nothing quite as intense as the arrows Aang wanted, but they still had that light and flowy air. There were the sharp angled symbols from the Earth Kingdom. He saw family crests and ties to the earth that were distinct to that culture. The Fire Nation had beautiful mixtures of swirling lines and color. Reimagined versions of their classic spirits. It reminded Sokka of the flames that rested in the heart of every Fire Nation citizen.
But what pulled him in the most was TheBlueSpirits take on the Water Tribe. In each of his pieces, he saw a tie to the water in the way his lines curved to form figures. It was languid and beautiful, just like the ocean that surrounded Sokka's home in the South Pole. This called out to him, and he wanted to see more. He wanted TheBlueSpirit to design something for him.
"What do you think?" Katara asked as he handed her back her phone.
He looked at his sister with his trademark grin on his lips. "I think I've found my artist."
The next day, Sokka, Katara, and Aang went to the small tattoo parlor named Spirits of Ink. Toph had decided to stay behind on this excursion. They had tried to convince her otherwise, but she'd refused.
"What use am I in a tattoo parlor anyhow?" she asked before waving a hand in front of her unseeing eyes. "Besides, the buzz of the guns will fuck with my hearing. You guys go have fun. I'll hit the gym and give The Boulder a run for his money."
They'd left early enough to grab a bite to eat before Katara's noon appointment. He had only gotten coffee, though. Considering Katara had come to get him at 11:15, and he'd only just rolled out of bed at 11:00 on the dot, it had been too early for him to eat. Sokka had felt fine about it all until they'd walked up to the door of the tattoo parlor. All of a sudden, he was nervous. What if TheBlueSpirit was some pompous ass who didn't want to tattoo him? What if he gave him a shitty tattoo and Sokka needed laser surgery to get rid of it? The list of horror stories could go on. Maybe he should have grabbed something more than coffee.
That didn't stop Katara from dragging him through the door. A small bell tinkled above them to signal their arrival.
The shop was quaint. Sokka could smell incense burning from somewhere, and there was heavy metal playing in the background quietly. The walls were lined with images of tattoos. Some of them were the familiar work of TheBlueSpirit. Sokka had spent the entire evening pouring over his Instagram as if it were some new obsession of his. Which it totally was not. The other pieces on the wall Sokka didn't recognize, but he assumed they belonged to another artist in the shop.
Speaking of other artists, a monotone voice called out to them from behind the counter. Sokka's eyes found her. She was a tall woman who looked like she hated her life. Her hair was dark. Her makeup was dark. Her clothes were dark. Everything about her screamed dark. And the expression on her face even said that she totally did not want to be the one greeting them.
"Welcome to Spirits of Ink. If you're drunk, turn right the fuck around and walk out the damn door. We're not responsible for your poor life decis-" She paused mid-spiel, her eyes landing on Katara beside him. "Oh. It's just you. You're early. We're not set to start for another ten or so minutes. And you brought extras."
"I hope that's okay," Katara said brightly.
Sokka blinked. How had Katara found this chick? He hadn't seen any of her work yet, but she had to be pretty damn good for Katara to pick someone this moody.
"Yeah, whatever. I charge by the hour, so," the woman said. She then gestured in the vague direction of Sokka and Aang. "Did you guys need anything?"
"Uh, yeah," Sokka said. "I wanted to talk to TheBlueSpirit about getting a tattoo done. I, uh, don't know his name. Only his Instagram handle."
The woman shrugged. "Whatever. I'll get him," she said. "Come on back, Katara."
"She was nice," Aang said with a nervous chuckle.
"Yeah, for sure. So sweet," Sokka responded. "Hopefully TheBlueSpirit has some more personality than that."
Aang gave him a knowing look. "You're telling me. She's intense," he said. "I'm supposed to go back there with Katara, but I'm afraid that she'll yell at me."
"You're probably right," Sokka replied
He and Aang waited only a minute or so before he heard footsteps coming his way. This was it. He was meeting TheBlueSpirit.
"Hey," he said using a voice that Sokka could only describe with his new favorite adjective: smokey. "Mai said that you wanted a consult- What the fuck are you doing here?"
"I think you just answered that question yourself. Consultation. But anywho, nice to see you, too, buddy," Sokka said, eyeing the apparent tattoo artist up and down. He had a smirk plastered onto his lips.
Zuko.
Sokka really wasn't expected to find him here of all places. Now, Sokka wasn't one to believe in all of that fate and destiny bullshit. He didn't believe in some hidden master pulling the strings and deciding what he did for his life. He was his own man, and he made his own decisions. Destiny and fate were more Aang's department. But the sheer coincidence that Sokka had walked into the very parlor that Zuko worked out of after his last two chance encounters with the man... Well, he found it a little difficult to ignore. Of course, he hadn't intended on seeing the man again at all, especially after Toph's oh-so-unprofessional comment the day before. He didn't care to get involved in that sort of thing. Sure, he found Zuko attractive. But he didn't know anything else about him, and that was a problem. He wasn't going to let his eyes lead his heart places it didn't need to go.
A coincidence. That's all that this was. It was all that it could be.
But Sokka had to admit that Zuko was attractive. The dim bar lighting from the night before hadn't done him justice. His features seemed so much softer in the natural lighting that the large windows in the front of the shop provided. His eyes looked like pools of liquid gold. His skin was a smooth porcelain. And the scar that covered his eye didn't seem as severe without the harsh neon lights from the bar to highlight it.
Fuck, it made Sokka's heart beat even faster in his chest. Hadn't he just sworn off any attractions to him that he had? Well, that had lasted long. All of thirty seconds to be precise. He was fucked. Fate just wanted to screw him, that's what this was.
Zuko seemed to recover faster than Sokka. He blinked once, twice, three times. Realization seemed to dawn on his features.
"Fuck. Sorry," Zuko said. "That was rude."
Sokka agreed that it was, but he didn't say anything about that. Instead, he flashed Zuko another smile. "Don't worry about it. I wasn't exactly expecting you to be here."
"Oh. Yeah. Ah, I work here," Zuko said awkwardly. A fresh blush had spread onto his cheeks from his embarrassment. Sokka thought it was adorable how flustered he'd gotten.
"Obviously," Sokka said. "You told me about backpacking across the Earth Kingdom, but I feel like this would have been a good place to start, too."
That only seemed to make Zuko's embarrassment worse. He scratched the back of his head sheepishly and looked to the ground. Yup. Adorable. Like a little, awkward turtleduck not sure what to do with itself around humans.
"Ah, shit, sorry," he apologized again.
"I'm kidding," Sokka said with a light chuckle. He figured if he didn't relieve the poor guy of his misery, he'd burn to a crisp on the spot from how red and inflamed his cheeks were.
"Right. Yeah," Zuko said. "Uh, I'll go get my stuff together, clean up a bit, and we can talk in back." A pause. "About the tattoo, that is."
"Sounds good to me," Sokka said.
Zuko seemed to retreat out of the space as fast as one of those canyon crawlers he and Aang had seen on one of their more daring camping trips. As soon as Zuko was gone, Aang rounded on him, his expression a mixture of confusion and suspicion.
"What was that all about?" he asked. "I thought you said you didn't know TheBlueSpirit."
Oh. Shit. Right. He'd told his sister and friends about Zuko, but he hadn't exactly explained what he looked like. Although, the big scar over his eye should have been telling enough. Or not. This was Aang. The guy was deep and wise, but some of the simplest stuff could get past him.
"That's Zuko," he said as if that would explain everything.
Aang just stared at him blankly. Right. He hadn't given the gaang a name for him, either, in an effort to protect his confidentiality. Fuck it. Sokka threw everything to the wind.
"That's the guy. The one from four years ago," he said. "The one I ran into at the bar two weeks ago."
"Ooooo," Aang said excitedly. "Did you know he worked here?"
Sokka shook his head. "I'm just as surprised as anyone. He's been MIA for four years, and it turns out that he works out of a tattoo parlor three blocks from my apartment. What are the odds?"
"I don't know, Sokka," Aang said conspiratorially. "But here's your chance to get his number." An eyebrow wiggle followed the statement, and Sokka was sure he'd just dug himself an early grave.
"Aang! You traitor!" Sokka moaned. "Not you, too!"
Before he could strangle, maim, or critically injure the nomad, Zuko was returning. Sokka took one look at him, and at the same time, he put one foot in his grave. Zuko had put on a pair of thick framed glasses, and he had a pencil tucked behind his right ear. The glasses made him complete. He was exactly Sokka's type. It was so unfair.
"I'm going to go see how Katara's doing," Aang said, slipping away.
And then he was left alone with Zuko. Zuko who was way too intimidating for his own good. Zuko who Sokka was having a hard time around because he was totally attractive, but totally off limits because Sokka was an emotional trainwreck.
"Come on back, Sokka," Zuko said.
Sokka took in a deep, steadying breath as he followed Zuko through the little shop. It looked like it was just Zuko and the Dark Girl, Mai, who worked here. There were only two booths set up. The rest of the space was set up to be a comfortable seating space and an office.
Zuko led him into one of the two booths and gestured for Sokka to sit on the bench. He hopped up on it while the other sat in his desk chair.
"Alright," he said. "What can I do for you?"
He heard Zuko ask the question, but he didn't register it right away. There were more of Zuko's sketches pinned up on the walls that surrounded them. A lot of it he had seen on his instagram, but there were other pieces that he hadn't seen. Pieces that seemed emotionally driven. One piece in particular was hands reaching toward the blackened sky out of a sea of flames. It probably wasn't intended to be a tattoo. Rather, it looked more like a piece of Zuko's soul articulated onto paper.
Sokka thought he'd been sold simply by his design work, but now... Now, he was determined to have Zuko tattoo him. He admired the man because he was so willing to put his emotions on display for the world to see through his art. Sokka admired it, and he wanted to be a part of. He wanted to be one of those people that carried such a beautiful piece of art with them always.
"Uh, earth to Sokka?" Zuko asked, tapping the end of his pencil on his sketchbook.
Sokka looked back at him, his eyes wide with surprise. He recovered quickly, however, and fixed another easy smile on his face. "Your art is amazing," he said. "I want you to design something for me."
Zuko nodded. "Okay. Do you want something specific? I can freehand something?
"I have some of the elements in mind," Sokka said wistfully.
He and Zuko spent the next half an hour bouncing around ideas based around the elements Sokka had specified. In the end, they came out with a rough sketch that Sokka was satisfied with for the time being.
"I'm pretty booked up through the end of this month, but I can get you scheduled for..." Zuko said, looking down at the planner in his lap. His glasses slid down his nose, and Sokka watched him wrinkle it to try and get them back into place in the most endearing way. "Mid June?"
Sokka nodded as he looked through the calendar on his phone. If he didn't have any random mandatory overtime days, he'd be able to make the appointment. It was mid May now, so that was precisely a month. "Yeah, that sounds good. Uh, how about the 15th?"
"That works for me," Zuko said. "What time works? I'm here from nine to five on the 15th."
"Let's do eleven. Gives me enough time to sleep," Sokka said.
Sure, it gave him enough time to sleep, but he doubted he would need it. If Zuko told him that he could get that tattoo at three in the morning, he would have jumped on it. He was that excited. There was something powerful behind each piece that Zuko designed, and he craved to be a part of it.
"Alright. Perfect. I'll send you the sketch once I finish it," Zuko said. He took out his own phone. "What's your number?"
Sokka wanted to come up with some witty comment. Something along the lines of him usually asking for the phone numbers, but he figured that that would be wholly inappropriate. He was just a guy, and this was just his tattoo artist. Nothing more. He rambled off the digits to Zuko, and he received a simple text in return. Zuko's name.
"Got it," Sokka said.
"Alright. Cool."
"Yep."
Awkward silence followed. Honestly, it was probably only awkward for Sokka, though. Zuko had gotten right into the process of cleaning. Sokka's awkward body language and posture didn't even seem to phase him. Lucky fucking him.
Sokka pushed himself off of the bench and made his way toward the exit of the booth. He wanted to say something more to Zuko. He didn't know what, but he wanted to build on the connection between them. He wanted to know more about him. He just didn't know how to articulate that. The words in his head were mush. No intelligible sentence could be formed from them. But apparently, his mouth and his head weren't on the same page.
"Uh, hey. Zuko?" he asked, catching the other man's attention before he could stop himself.
"What's up?"
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Now Sokka had to say something. He had to. He couldn't just leave the words hanging in the air. It would make him look like an even bigger idiot than he already knew he was.
"Uh. If you're not busy, did you want to grab lunch or something?"
Zuko stilled as he put his drawing materials away, looked directly as Sokka, and blushed. He blushed. Sokka was seriously on a roll today. That was twice now that he'd gotten the man to blush. Sokka was in his glory.
"Lunch?"
"Yeah, you know, eating at midday? Have you heard of it before?"
That made Zuko blush even more. "I know what fucking lunch is," he grumbled. "I'm more confused by you asking me to go with you."
Sokka rolled his eyes. "I mean, if you don't want to, you don't have to."
"No, no. I don't mind," he said quickly. Sokka had to hold back a smirk. "Let me check my schedule."
He watched as Zuko flipped through his planner until he'd found that day's date.
"It looks like my one o'clock cancelled. I don't have anything until four," he said. "So, if you wanted to..."
Sokka beamed. "Awesome! I know the perfect place," he said. "Let me go check on Katara, and then we can go."
Zuko nodded, and Sokka slipped out of the booth. He popped his head into Mai's booth where Katara was getting familiar handwriting tattooed onto her collar bone alone with the symbol of waves from the Southern Water Tribe.
"How's it going, sis?" he asked.
Katara glanced at him. Her hand was tightly wound around Aang's. He almost snorted. His sister was strong enough to take a punch from Toph, but she couldn't handle needles. It always baffled him.
"It's fine," she said.
Sokka nodded and walked over to Katara. He looked down at the almost finished tattoo on her skin. The words were simple yet they meant so much.
With love, Mom.
The words were in their mother's handwriting.
"It looks good," he said, pointing at the tattoo. "You're doing a good job."
Mai gave a noncommittal noise in response.
"I'm going to go out and grab lunch with Zuko," he said. "I'll meet you back at your house later, alright?"
She looked at him with furrowed brows. "Who's Zuko?"
"My tattoo artist," he said. Before she could ask anymore questions, he added, "I'll explain later, Katara. Promise."
She shot him a look. "You better."
He rolled his eyes before waving at her and walking away from the booth. Zuko was waiting out in the main part of the shop. He shouted to Mai that he was leaving, and the pair slipped out the door.
"I think you're really going to like this place," Sokka said with a light hum and a pep in his step. "It's one of my favorites. It's called the Jasmine Dragon."
"Oh?" Zuko asked. "I'll take your word for it."