This will be my playground to explore various AUs, just a bunch of unpolished oneshots, always including Taang.
Other ships may vary, I will put these, as well as the specifics of the AU, in a note at the beginning. (See below.)
Updates whenever I feel like it. Open to requests. (As long as they include Aang or Toph and preferably both of them, and don't interfere much with the current rating.)
Relationships in this Chapter (other than Taang): Maiko (mentioned), Sukka (implied, blink and you'll miss it)
AU Specifics: Modern, Soulmate (First Words your Soulmate says to you somewhere on your body), No Bending
In his dreams, it goes something like this:
He's a little bit taller.
A little bit more confident.
With broader shoulders and dry palms and ears he would grow into, thank you very much, Jet.
And he'd grin the crooked grin Gyatso says makes him look so dashing, ever so charming, and say something clever and profound, and not at all stutter, and she would smile back, heart-meltingly, and reply–
"I can't believe I'm sitting in space jail with you of all people."
The boy blinks.
Katara's face is scrunched up in what he can only assume is a mixture of amusement, exasperation and utter confusion.
He mostly feels the latter, if he's being quite honest, and decides, not for the first time, either, that this sort of daydreaming has to stop when he is around other people – his friends don't seem to have noticed his mind having drifted this time, but he's had to stammer and stumble his way through more awkward explanations than he can count already, and that's always something he'd much rather avoid in the future.
He fiddles with the hem of his too big hoodie and glances at Sokka, who, next to him, stares at Katara with his brows raised expectantly.
"Why ... is it space jail?", she asks, very slowly. "No, you know what, scratch that. Why jail at all?"
"Why not?", Sokka retorts. "It's not supposed to make sense, it just has to be unique."
He grabs a pillow from his untidy bed and flings it at his sister – who catches it without effort, of course, and sticks out her tongue.
"Can't risk anybody but me saying it, right?"
Aang tilts his head.
"But don't you want it to mean something? Don't you want to say something nice?"
"Yeah", Katara adds, pillow hugged to her chest. "Imagine walking around your whole life with something about space jail on your forehead, just because your soulmate's an idiot. I'd just turn right around and leave you without telling you my name."
"First of all, nobody's got their words on their forehead; that's just a myth. Second of all, what do you want me to say instead?"
A grin tugs at the corners of Sokka's mouth, mischievously, as he puffs himself up, hand on chest, a smolder only half in place, but ridiculously over the top just the same, and he says: "All my soul yearns for is your presence. Please, take it, and never let it go. I am yours – now and forever."
His laugh is loud, and Katara rolls her eyes, and Aang pulls a face.
"Well, why not say that?"
"'cause, dude, it's stupid. I can't go around greeting people like that – nobody would take me seriously if I did, just look at that weird little friend of yours–"
"Bumi's not weird."
"Yeah, he is. He's an absolute weirdo. And the fact that you immediatly thought of him when I said weird–"
"Because you always call him that!"
"–just further proves my point. He's weird."
"He really is, Aang", Katara agrees, her face almost apologetic, though Aang knows that there's little love lost between her and Bumi as well. "In a good way, ... I guess. He's ... pretty clever, as far as I can tell, just also ... well, ... very ... odd."
"You attract people like that, you always have", Sokka sighs.
He shakes his head and leans back against the bedframe.
When he raises his hand to push loose strands of hair behind his ear, the sleeve of his shirt slides down his arm to expose bold, white letters, impossible to miss, on the inside of his forearm.
Quick, catch that cat, it stole my wallet!, they say, Aang forgets sometimes, and he thinks that Sokka's soulmate surely would do nothing but smile, should he start talking about space jails, if these are the first words they've chosen to speak to him.
Unless a cat really would steal their wallet.
Which is rather unlikely, he reckons.
"I don't attract weird people", he says and, before Sokka can even open his mouth, adds: "And even if I did, what would that say about you guys? We've been friends forever, wouldn't that make you the weirdest of the weird?"
"Nah. We picked you up, not the other way around, remember? Well, Katara did, anyway. Maybe she attracts weird people, too."
"I'm not weird!"
"I do not!"
They exclaim, almost in one voice, and Sokka snickers at the twin looks of indignation on their faces.
Aang crosses his arms over his chest.
Sokka falls over when Katara hurls the pillow back at him with as much force as her body possesses – it hits him right in the face, and he lies on his back, muffled laughter and completely still, the words on his arm bright against his swarthy skin.
He rolls over after a moment or two, grunting like he really has to make an effort to do so, and lets his head rest on the pillow.
His light blue eyes sparkle with mischief.
"I just remembered your words", he tells his sister.
She drags the second pillow from his bed.
He rolls away before she can throw it.
Aang's mind begins drifting again.
"So?", Suki says, and though she can't see it – of course she can't see it –, Toph knows, just knows, how broad the grin on her friend's face must be. "Didja ask her?"
Zuko squirms in his seat.
She can hear his apron rustle.
His fingers clink against his tea cup's handle.
"Well ...", he says, avoiding eye contact, no doubt, and then inhales and exhales very deliberately. "I mean, ... I guess. Yeah. Yeah, I think I did ... She's gonna come over Saturday to watch a movie, so ..."
Toph whoops loudly and – when Uncle reminds her from over at the counter that they aren't alone in the tea shop, though he sounds more amused than annoyed – a little quieter the second time, while Suki laughs.
"How are you not sure if you asked her out if you've got a date this weekend?", she wants to know.
Zuko sighs.
"I was nervous, alright? I ... Well, I'm not entirely sure what I said. My heart was beating really fast, and I ... I was a little light-headed ... But she kissed my cheek and said she'd come over on Saturday and to pick a good movie, so I guess I must've done something right, ... right?"
Suki, still laughing, pats his shoulder.
Toph leans against him.
"You're such an idiot."
He sighs again.
"Yeah, I know."
"Mai's one unlucky lady."
"Don't be mean", Suki admonishes good-naturedly, and the clinking of fingernails against porcelain stops, letting Toph know that Zuko has taken to tracing the letters in his right palm again, as he's wont to do when he is thinking about his soulmate, or nervous, or both – most of the time, it's both.
They spell: I'm Mai., and they've been spoken to him so many years ago that he'd hardly remember, had they not caused such a ruckus amongst the adults who'd heard them said.
He'd only been five or six years old, then, and when he tells the story about how he met his soulmate, he's always a little embarassed to admit that he'd only properly realized what had happened that day while washing his face the next morning, when he'd seen the dark red letters in his palm again, just to come running from the bathroom, water dripping from his eyebrows, and demand of his mother to know if she was sure he'd met the girl (his soulmate), or if maybe, just maybe, it had all been a dream.
Suki thinks it's cute.
Toph does, too, but she'd never admit that to him.
They've been waiting for him to ask her out – or the other way around – for forever, and him actually doing it (doing the inevitable) is a big deal; Zuko's so painfully awkward around other people and especially Mai, since he's realized what "soulmate" almost always means, and Mai likes to play her cards close to her chest – as far as they can tell, anyway, it's not like they regularly hang out –, they'd never had any hope for her to make the first move.
They ought to celebrate, really.
... Teasing Zuko is more fun, though.
"So, what movie are you two gonna watch?"
"I don't know, yet."
He's fidgeting again.
"I don't wanna mess this up, guys. I can't mess this up. I mean, ... we're destined to be together, and I still don't know what to do, how is that even possible? Shouldn't there be signs all over the place? Shouldn't this be easier?"
Zuko is possibly the only man in the world to think he could ruin destiny, simply take and break it, even if he must've had this talk a thousand times over with his uncle and mother, and them, too, and so Suki says, the same way she's done so many times before: "You want this to work, right?"
"Of course I do", he answers quietly.
"Well, then it will."
"It's not like you're a terrible person", Toph adds, and thinks for a moment of his father, and how destiny is such a stupid thing, anyway. "Just ... well ... a bit of an idiot. But in a good way, y'know?"
He snorts.
"You've such a way with words, Toph."
"I try."
He moves, and jostles her, still leaning against his shoulder, a bit, and then his nails clink against the cup again.
"I actually do always feel like a really big idiot when I'm talking about this stuff, because ... I guess ... well, I've met her, haven't I? I've practically always known her, and I probably should feel really happy about that. I mean, I am. Happy. I was pretty lucky."
Just this once.
"And you guys haven't met ... your guys, yet."
It's Toph's turn to snort.
"I'm not sure I wanna meet a guy who says 'monkeyfeathers', anyway. What's that even supposed to mean? Nah, I think I'm fine without him."
She makes a dismissive gesture and cold, cold fingers wrap around her hand – Suki, then, because Zuko runs so hot, it's hard to believe he doesn't have a fever sometimes.
"You're such a liar", her friend says. "Of course you wanna meet him. I mean, I'm doing fine without Cat Guy, but I still want to know who he is. But keep telling yourself you don't care. Just gonna be all the more funny when you actually do meet him."
"That's not gonna happen for another ten or twenty or thirty-seven years."
"Thirty-seven?", Zuko murmurs, like he can't fathom waiting for so terribly many years to meet his soulmate – he probably can't, as he's never waited a day for her.
Suki talks over him.
"Betcha he's right around the corner."
"Betcha he isn't."
But he is.
He stumbles into her the very next day, when she's about to step inside the tea shop they spend too much time in, cracking voice and the smell of apples, and he spills something cold and sticky over them both, but mostly her front, and mumbles: "Monkeyfeathers."
She blinks.
He rambles.
"Oh, I'm so, ... so sorry. Really, I am. I ... didn't see you ... and ... oh, you can't see me, really, I'm sorry. Aw man, I'm ... such a klutz. Sokka always tells me to stop daydreaming ..."
He trails off, perhaps realizing that she hasn't said a word to him.
"Uhm ... are you alright?"
She can't help but grin.
(Though the smallest, tiniest part of her is annoyed at Suki for being right.)
"It's you. Didn't think I'd meet you so soon."
This isn't how he's imagined this to go.
And for a moment, he's not sure if he knows how to breathe, or what his name is, because he's awkward and not at all confident, and still his gangly, big-eared self, and he's spilled his drink over her, and he's not grinning, and this isn't how it was supposed to go, but ...
But.
At least she is.
Smiling, that is.
And here.
So he breathes in, because it seems he hasn't forgotten how to.
"I'm Aang."
"Toph."