05 - Trapped Together

Sokka liked plans. Or, at least the concept of them. One of these days, he would have to try one that actually worked.

But then, when Mai was involved, things not going to plan was pretty much guaranteed.

Take, for example, any one of Sokka's twenty (not that he was counting) attempts to tell her that she was interested in her. He wasn't particular in exactly what success would look like, whether it was merely getting her to agree to a nice dinner together or maybe her passionately grabbing him and shoving her lips up against his. Nor did he have any strong opinions on the exact method he would use to get to that success.

But for some reason it just never quite worked out.

Sokka couldn't explain. He'd never had much trouble with this before with talking with women. (Old teenage awkwardness notwithstanding, but everyone had to deal with that at that age.) All you had to do was power through using what limited words your brain saw fit to provide.

But when trying to tell Mai how he had come to feel-

-come to feel as they used their hard-won skills to fight together in a world trying its best to destroy them-

-come to feel as they always managed to fall into a comfortable conversational patter where they could trade quips for hours-

-come to feel in those moments of silence where they could sense the understanding in the air between them without even making eye contact-

-when he tried to tell her how he had come to feel, his brain just wouldn't provide any words at all. It wasn't that she was intimidating. (She was, but that was part of the fun of her.) It wasn't that she was gorgeous. It wasn't that she knew how to utterly devastate someone's psychology with only a few words. It wasn't even that she literally covered with deadly weapons and knew how to cut someone so that they would bleed to death over the course of an hour.

No, it was that she was precise.

She was decisive, and strategic, and liked to think before taking exactly the right action for any situation. If Sokka made it clear how he felt about her, he knew she wouldn't just agree to go to dinner. She definitely wouldn't just grab him and kiss him passionately. She'd look at him, and think about exactly what he was asking her, and decide whether or not it was something she wanted. And then she would say yes or no, and she would mean it.

He had faced rejection before, and had even experienced it, but it had never seemed so final.

Which was why, he had decided, he needed to be locked in a room until he got over himself and talked to Mai. Or they both exploded into passion from the enforced proximity. One of the two. After all, he wasn't particular about his plans or positive outcomes.

So, Step 1: Find a pretext under which to get alone with Mai in an enclosed space.

("Ahem. Mai! How surprising to see you here. In this particular spot, I mean. Of course you're on Air Temple Island visiting Ty Lee. But this spot? Who saw that coming? Um, anyway, Aang needs me to go down to the basement and bring up a something for him. The old things. He needs me to bring up the old wooden panel things. Could you help so I only have to make one trip?")

Then, Step 2: Lock that space up tight so that not even a Momo can get into it.

("Oh no! The door won't open! It's almost as if it's being blocked by a massive pillar of earth! Almost. I guess we're stuck here until an Earthbender comes along and lets us out. Which I'm going to guess - and this is purely a guess - will be roughly six hours from five seconds ago.")

And, at least, Step 3: Wait for the magic to happen.

Sokka had come armed with conversation topics that would inevitably lead to intense stares. He'd worn a tunic with no sleeves, and he'd tried to do some pull-ups right before ambushing Mai and had actually managed to complete one. He'd even hidden a picnic basket with some spiced lily wine and some fresh strawberry cake in it that he could pretend had been left by Katara the last time she'd come down here six months ago.

Except Mai hadn't reacted quite the way he'd hoped.

She'd given the door one hard kick, and then sighed. "I guess we wait then. Fun." She sat down on one of Aang's old panel-things (whatever they were) and slipped a pack of playing cards out of her sleeve. "So, what should we play? Destiny Draw? Elevens? Or we can use the cards to play darts. Well, I can. I doubt you can throw that hard.."

Sokka had swallowed. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather- um, talk? Or I think there's a picnic basket over behind that crate? And, um, is it getting hot in here?"

"Sokka, stop fiddling with your buttons and come play cards so that I don't get bored. I promise I won't cheat. I won't cheat more than you do, anyway."

So Sokka had sighed and sat down to play cards. "Why do you carry cards around, anyway?"

She started shuffling and kept her eyes locked on her hands. "I don't carry all my knives around when I'm not going into battle. Not anymore. Air Temple Island is about as safe as it gets. So I have room for amusements, and a pack of cards can provide hours of entertainment."

"Your choice of game." Sokka sat down and motioned for her to deal. "That's nice, though. That you feel safe enough to go without being fully armed."

She flicked out five cards so that they cut through the air and landed perfectly in a stack in front of him. "Plus, I can use anything that flies as a weapon. Okay, we'll start with Destiny Draw."

Sokka could only grin at that. It was part of why he was so in love with her.

But every time, in the next six hours, that he tried to tell her that, he never managed to get the words out. She was so focused on her card games, rarely ever even looking at him, that he never felt comfortable bringing it up. In fact, they barely talked at all.

They played Destiny Draw.

Eight times.

They played Elevens.

Eleven times. (Of course.)

They played Death Draw.

Twice.

(Death Draw was a terrible game.)

Four hours had gone by, with two left until Toph was scheduled to come rescue them, and Sokka had barely managed to have a conversation with Mai. Their exchanges were almost entirely about the games, and he wasn't sure she had ever even looked at him the whole time. In fact, as time went on, Mai seemed to be getting more and more terse, more and more distracted.

Had he-

Had he been overestimating their friendship?

After their last game of Big Two, Mai sighed, got up, and went over to pace in front of the door.

Sokka gathered the cards. "Um, another game?"

Mai didn't say anything. She just kept pacing.

"You know," Sokka said, "we still have this picnic basket. And it's been a while since we really talked."

Mai said nothing. She just paced. She had decided that she wanted out, and her decisions were final.

Sokka could try just blurting out how he felt about her, but the tenseness in her body told him that this wasn't the best time. Also, the way she stopped and kicked the door again seemed like a bad omen.

So, instead, he said, "Or we could try a new game. One you've never played before."

She stopped. For the first time in four hours, she met Sokka's gaze.

"Sure," he found himself saying, because he wanted those eyes - steel gray in this lighting - to remain fixed on him forever. "It's a, uh, complicated game, but I can show you how to play?"

Her eyebrow arched. "What's it called?"

"Um." And now Sokka had invent a new card game that would keep Mai's interest. "It's- called- Fantastic- Battle?"

She sat down across from him. "Sounds interesting. Go on." She dragged the picnic basket over and cut off the top of the bottle with a knife that went in and out of her sleeve.

"Okay." Sokka picked up one of the cards. It was a very nice deck, with good card stock and beautiful hand-painted pictures. Nicer than Sokka himself could afford, which meant that Mai couldn't afford it anymore, either. It must be something she'd had for a long time. The card he was looking at had a picture of some armored spirit warrior on it, the Iron card, with a value of 7. "Well, uh, it's a battle game. This guy has a cost of seven to deploy."

"Cost of what?"

"Um, chi? Yeah. Chi points. Which I generate by-" He picked up more cards, and found one of a Sun Warrior Chief. "Gathering my Leaders. Yeah. The more Leaders I have, the more chi I generate each turn. So, um-"

And it continued like that. Sokka made up rules and characters and settings and wildly unbalanced game mechanics that he revised on the fly with new rules and characters and setting and mechanics and-

They ate the cake as they played, Mai engrossed in the game and Sokka too busy making things up to even taste the strawberries. They finished the wine at some point.

"So," Mai said eventually, laying down a card with a picture of what was either a dog or a lion, "I deploy this one and do four attack damage, but since I also have these Spirits gathered in the Thunderclouds, that gets doubled for eight, and your Mirror Lake can't deflect it because my Moon card has entered the Hidden part of its cycle."

"Sure," Sokka allowed, because he'd forgotten most of those rules twenty minutes ago, when they'd had to add Mai's third deck of cards to the mix. He looked through his hand, settled on a dragon that looked very nice, and reached over to tap a King Badgermole card on his side. "I pay five chi to deploy my dragon and attack."

Mai hissed, "Ash!"

"What?" Sokka blinked. "Something wrong?"

"Only that with your dragon now in play, you have the Three Divine Figures on your side, so all of your attacks now bypass my Damage Reduction, and since this is an odd turn, your Cloud Kingdom allows you to chain attacks so that I can't move my guys into my Defenses. I thought you were lacking a strategy, but you were just building up to this."

"Wow," Sokka said. "I'm impressed. Er, impressed that you saw that, just being a beginner."

"Well, that's the game, then." Mai sighed. "One attack from you will finish off the rest of my Karma."

Sokka scanned the playing field, desperately looking for a way to continue things. "Oh, but you've managed to assemble a- um, complete Kingdom, with the right variety of environments for your defenses. So if you deploy a fifth royal, you can- um, restore your Damage Reduction! And you can block me from attacking this turn by- um, oh, playing a Preemptive Attack with your Random Crack In The Ground While Hunting trap-card."

"Oh. This game is really complicated." She looked up from her cards, right into his eyes, and smiled that smile. "I love it."

There!

There it was!

The opportunity!

The moment when Sokka could say how he felt. The moment when Mai could decide if she wanted what he was offering or would leave him in the dust.

"I," he said, "lo-"

And with a crash, the door burst open and Toph stepped into the storeroom. "Okay, people. Rescue time. Sorry I'm late, but I honestly completely forgot about this whole stupid plan." Then she turned and walked out.

Mai gathered all the cards with an almost magical sweep of her hands and stood up. "Good timing. That wine has gone right through me."

Sokka stood up, as well. He had to take a breath, recover the timing, and finally make the moment happen. "I l-"

Mai leaned over and kissed him. "I love you, too. This was fun. Kind of obvious that it was completely a setup, and you sure took your time getting to the point, but I appreciate that you went through all the trouble of finding a dark place where we could just have fun together for a while."

Sokka's jaw had dropped. "I-"

"I'm going to go pee. I'll meet you for dinner. You can go tell your sister and Aang and whoever that we're an item now. I bet they'll be really happy and want to hug things." She walked off.

Sokka was still trying to get his jaw to close. "I-"

Mai stopped in the doorway, and turned to throw a dangerously sharp smile at him. "I can't wait to play this game again. I think I've got it figured out now, so you better watch out." Then with a sweep of her robes, she was gone.

Well.

The plan had worked.

More or less.

Okay.

So Sokka was officially together with the love of his. Now he just had to remember any of the rules of the game he'd made up.

END