A/N/: Hey everyone! The last chapter was super long, so this one is on the short side. I hope you enjoy it!
It was fucking hot outside. The heat of summer was in full fucking swing, and Sokka was miserable. The old window units in his apartment had gone kaput just the day before, and he had to wait on his landlord to replace them. All he could do in the meantime was open the windows and shovel copious amounts of ice cream down his throat. Spirits, murder him now because he wasn't sure he could do this. The heat was just too much.
Sokka was onto his second tub of Misty Springs Oasis ice cream. The brand was his favorite. They had this amazing coconut sorbet that was to die for. He was currently scarfing down a tub of sabertooth moose lion tracks when the downstairs buzzer went off.
He groaned loudly, throwing his head back against the back of the couch. He did not want to answer the door. It was probably Jet or Hahn. The pair of them had been blowing up his phone nonstop for the last hour. They wanted him to go out and drink on a Sunday afternoon, and he didn't want to go. Zuko was done with work in a few hours, and he had every intention of hightailing his ass over there as soon as he was finished with his last appointment. He'd been looking for an excuse to see him again without sounding too desperate, especially after the events of last Saturday, and his broken AC was the perfect excuse.
So, maybe if he just ignored the doorbell, Jet or Hahn or whoever the fuck it was would just go away . But the universe never wanted to be on his side, now did it? The buzzer went off again, but this time, whoevers rude ass it was bugging him held down the button for a solid ten seconds straight.
Sokka groaned again and held up his tub of ice cream at eye level. He made eye contact with the little man on the carton that was holding two swords, his expression forlorn. "You wouldn't ever do that to me, would you double sword guy? No? I didn't think so," Sokka said as he set down the tub on his coffee table. "You wait right there for me, buddy. I'll be back for you in just a second."
He got up and crossed his small living area to the buzzer by his door. He held down the button, mentally preparing himself for whatever his idiot coworkers had to say.
"Hello?" he asked.
But it wasn't one of his idiot coworkers who responded.
"Sokka! Open up! Quickly!" Aang shouted from downstairs. Through his open window, he could hear the monk's voice filtering up.
Sokka smacked his forehead against the wall above the buzzer because of course it was Aang, and of course he was yelling at him through his buzzer when he could have just called . Rather than argue with him, though, Sokka hit the button to open the downstairs door. It took less than sixty seconds for Aang to reach his third floor apartment. The guy was seriously in some fucking rush. Sokka hadn't even gotten to snag another bite of his ice cream before there was a pounding on his door.
He opened it swiftly, and allowed his bald-headed friend to enter his personal sauna.
"Sokka! Thank the spirits you're home- Oh wow . It feels like a volcano in here!" Aang exclaimed as soon as the door shut behind him.
"AC went out," Sokka said as he threw himself down on his couch again. He plucked up his tub of ice cream, and set it on his stomach. It's frigid bottom felt wonderful against his scorching skin. "I'm dying, man."
Aang offered him an apologetic smile. "You could have always gone over by me and Katara. No sense in sitting around in the heat all afternoon."
Sokka shrugged. "I was waiting out Zuko's last appointment. Your place is too far from the shop," he said. "I'm only, like, three blocks away, so it would have been a waste."
"Have it your way."
"What did you need exactly, Aang?" Sokka asked, raising a single brow. "You, uh, seemed pretty adamant on getting my attention not more than two minutes ago."
"Oh! Right! It's time."
"Time? For what?"
"I talked to your dad. I asked him for Katara's hand in marriage."
"Didn't you already do that?" He was positive he had. He'd done it two years ago. Sokka had been present for the entire conversation.
"I mean, yeah, but I figured I'd ask again just to make sure he didn't change his mind," Aang said.
Sokka rolled his eyes. "As if he would refuse you, Aang. You've been dating Katara since you were fourteen."
"Well, I wanted to propose next weekend. I think. I'm not really sure," he said. "But it doesn't matter really. Not yet. I don't even have the ring. I don't know what to get her."
Right. The ring. Aang had told him he'd been looking to buy it back when he'd gone on his date with Zuko to the cabbage house.
"I thought you had already decided on what you wanted. You told me you had."
Aang shrugged again. "It just didn't feel right . I want to be perfect, and I just thought that wasn't it. It's not the ring ."
He found himself rolling his eyes again. Of course Aang would have to make it complicated. "And you showed up at my apartment why?"
"I need your help. Duh," Aang said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I need you to come to the shop."
"Are you so sure about that, Aang? Shouldn't you get a girl's advice on this?" Sokka asked. "Suki would probably be a lot better at this than I am."
"Sokka," Aang said, taking hold of his shoulders. "I made her a betrothal necklace, and there is no one that I know aside from you that could possibly match it to a ring. You matched a murse to an Earth Rumble belt perfectly for spirits' sake!"
Now that was a dirty way to get him invested. All Aang had to do was bolster his ego with his ability to accessorize, and he was all in. And the worst part was that it worked. He had accepted Aang's challenge. They were now in his beater of a truck, heading to the little ring shop that Aang was convinced was the one . It wasn't until they were halfway through the Middle Ring that Sokka realized his most horrific mistake of the day.
"Aang!" he shouted as he slammed on his breaks as they approached a stop sign.
"What? Sokka? Are you okay?" he asked. "You didn't hit anything, did you?"
"No!" he lamented. "I forgot to put my ice cream back in the freezer."
Aang's hand fell onto his shoulder. "May your ice cream rest in peace."
Sokka sniffled a little bit. "Yep. He was a good man, that ice cream."
The shop Aang had picked happened to not be the shop . Tui and La, half of the rings in the place were more expensive than the worth of his organs. They had taken one look and high tailed their asses out of there. They'd gone through four other ring shops before they'd found anything remotely within their price range, and another two before they'd found something to match the necklace that Aang had made.
Aang had brought along what he'd made. It really wasn't a betrothal necklace in the typical sense. He had carved a large piece of turquoise out to act as an enhancer for their mother's necklace. Aang had known that Katara would never part with the heirloom, so instead of replacing it, he wanted to add to it. He wanted to add his love to their love of their mother. Sokka had loved the idea. The turquoise was the same kind of stone that their mother's necklace was made out of. Aang had done a phenomenal job in crafting it.
He'd done an equally good job in picking out the perfect ring for Katara. They'd found it in a local, family owned ring shop. Aang had decided to go there instead of one of the major jewelry chains because he believed in supporting the small business. In the end, the decision had been a good one. Sokka had deemed the ring Aang picked out appropriate for the necklace, and in the end, he'd bought it.
Sokka even teared up a little. The thought of his baby sister getting married was too much for him. He wasn't ready for her to walk down the aisle. No so soon. Not ever, actually. But he couldn't pick a person any better than Aang to marry her. He knew she'd be happy if she had Aang by her side, and that was all that Sokka could ask for.
By the time they left the little shop, it was well into the evening. It was past dinnertime, which was easily the biggest disaster thus far - aside from his melted sabertooth moose lion tracks. After that came the fact that the pair of them were thoroughly and utterly lost in a section of the Middle Ring that Sokka didn't know.
Aang sat in the passenger seat of his truck, his brows furrowed. "Sokka, don't you think cutting over the bridge would get us back to your place faster?" Aang asked.
He shot his friend a peeved look. He hated backseat drivers. "I am the keeper of the map! I know where we should go!"
Aang scratched his bald head in exasperation. "Uh. Sokka. Don't you mean the GPS?"
"Right! I am the keeper of the GPS! I know where we should go!" Sokka reiterated. "Besides, I patrol this area. What could go wrong?"
Well, apparently the universe really had it out for him because as soon as he'd said that, a lot of things went wrong. First off, his check engine light came on. That was just fucking lovely. Yet another problem in his life that had to be fixed. On top of that, his phone died. And there was no way he was going to admit to Aang that he needed him to pull out his own GPS. That would equate to admitting he had no fucking clue where they were. Which he didn't. They were lost. They were hopelessly fucking lost.
It was dark now, and Zuko surely had to be done with his last appointment. The artist was probably texting him to no avail, and that was a travesty in itself. Sokka started to get flustered. He completely lost track of where they were, where they had been, and where they had not been. After they went down the same side street for the fourth time, Aang finally decided it was his time to chime in.
"Sokka, you said you patrol this area every once in a while?"
Sokka clamped his teeth down on his lower lip, gnawing at it a little bit before he mustered up the courage to admit defeat. "Okay. I patrolled this area once, like three years ago."
"Are you sure you don't want me to pull up the directions?" he asked. "I'm pretty hungry, and Katara is starting to sound pretty worried."
"You told her we were lost?"
"No," a pause. And then, "I mean, yeah. Sorta. But only because she kept asking me why it was taking us so long to get back! What was I supposed to say? You know lying to Katara never works! I've had to lie to her enough lately as it is with the whole ring thing!"
Sokka huffed out a sigh. He couldn't exactly blame Aang. Why would he have the guy sign his own death wish right before he could propose to Katara? That would have been anticlimactic as hell. No. He just had to admit defeat.
He glanced over at Aang. "Fine, fine. Look up-"
Sokka froze mid-sentence. He and Aang were stopped at a redlight. The road that they were on was deserted. Well, except for the gigantic man with a shotgun that stood on the street corner. A shotgun that was aimed directly at Sokka's beater.
"Aang! Get down!" Sokka shouted.
The pair of them had hardly gotten their heads down when the world erupted into a cacophony of shouts of horror, loud explosions, and shattering glass. Shotgun guy had actually fired at them! Sokka slammed his foot down to put the pedal to the metal, but his truck only managed to spin its tires with a gross squelching sound before he let off the gas. Considering the state of his window, he was sure that shotgun guy had blown out his front passenger tire, too.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!
He looked at Aang beside him. His friend looked shell-shocked, but overall, he seemed pretty okay. There was nothing that screamed an obvious gunshot wound. There were a few scratches on him from the window shattering, but the thick steel of the door had protected Aang from the brunt of the blast. That, and their distance from shotgun guy. A distance that was quickly closing as he marched his way closer to the truck while reloading his shotgun.
"Aang! We need to go! Now!" Sokka shouted as he grabbed hold of his friend's arm.
Thank the fucking spirits that his old beater of a truck had a bench seat because there was no way that he would have been able to get Aang out through his door otherwise. Not in time, at least. Just as he and Aang were scrambling out the driver's side door, shotgun guy was ripping open the passenger side door. Seeing that they were already fleeing the vehicle, the guy fired off another round. Shit! Sokka didn't like this guy. Combustion Man was a better name for him because this guy obvious wanted to explode their fucking heads with that shotgun.
They were lucky to have evaded that second blast. He had dragged Aang low enough to the ground and around the nose of his truck by the time the shells had been fired.
"Sokka! Do you know this guy?" Aang hissed as they crouched down by his front driver's side tire.
He shook his head. "No! I've never arrested him! I don't think I could even if I tried!"
"Then why is he shooting at us?"
Sokka glanced over the hood of his truck. He watched as Combustion Man shouldered his shotgun and reached for a more compact, long-range pistol on his hip.
"I don't fucking know, and I really don't want to find out! We need to fucking go! On three!"
A bullet from the pistol was fired, and Sokka shrieked a little. This would have been a different situation altogether had he been armed, but right now, he was fucked. He'd left his gun at home because he was off duty. What did an off-duty, well-liked cop need a fucking gun for? Obviously for crazy, out of the blue shotgun shooters like fucking Combustion Man .
"Three!" he shouted as he dragged Aang to his feet and made a run for it.
They'd hardly made it across the street when another shot rang out. This time, however, Combustion Man seemed to hit his target, which happened to be Sokka. He felt a searing burn in his left bicep. He shouted out in surprise, grabbed at the limb with his right hand. When he pulled his palm away, he saw that it was coated in the red sheen of blood.
"He fucking shot me!" he shouted to Aang.
Aang suddenly stopped beside him. "He shot you?" he asked, fury evident in his voice.
"Aang, now isn't the time for stopping!"
But apparently, it was. Aang reached into his pocket and tossed his phone at Sokka. He only barely managed to catch it as he ran across the street. While Aang fucking ran in the opposite direction. Sokka made it to the cover of a phone booth and stuck himself behind it. He poked his head out so he could watch, though.
Aang was running at Combustion Man, which seemed to throw the big guy completely off guard. Apparently, he hadn't been expecting a thin yet muscular bald man to come charging at him. Considering the loaded gun, Sokka hadn't been expecting it either. It took him a minute to start shooting at Aang, but Aang managed to evade his bullets. Sokka often forgot that just because Aang was a social worker it didn't mean he wasn't badass. Because Aang was badass. He'd trained with the monks and learned all sorts of cool shit before he ran away from home. And when they'd travelled the Four Nations in their teens, Aang had picked up different fighting styles from all over the world.
Combustion Man couldn't keep track of where Aang was going. Not until he was right on top of him. And when said that, he meant it literally. Aang had spider-monkeyed himself to the guy from behind and was grappling onto him in an attempt to fight him off. Combustion Man was too big, too sluggish to keep up with Aang. Maybe they had a fighting chance, here. Maybe they'd survive this encounter.
Combustion Man struggled with Aang on his back. Aang actually managed to grab hold of the arm that was holding the gun. He was attempting to wrestle the gun away.
And Sokka was literally standing there doing nothing. Aang had given him his phone, and he was doing nothing . He scrambled to unlock Aang's phone, and he quickly searched through his contacts for a person that he knew was there.
He clicked the name and let it dial. The person answered after the second ring.
"Hello, Aang. It's unusual for you to be calling me this late," he said. "Is there something wrong?"
"PIANDAO!" Sokka shouted.
"Sokka?"
"PIANDAO! Aang and I are in trouble!"
A gunshot rang out, and Sokka's eyes darted to Aang. The gun was facing the sky, thankfully, and not at his best friend. But the struggle had taken Aang and Combustion Man all the way across the street now.
"Sokka? Was that a gunshot I just heard?"
"PIANDAO! Call dispatch! I have no fucking clue where we are, and some guy is shooting at us!"
"Sokka call dispatch! They can trace the call!"
"Right! Fuck! Okay bye!"
He disconnected the call and immediately dialed 9-1-1. While it rang, he briefly wondered why the fuck he and Aang were reduced to a single shared braincell when they were together. But his thoughts were quickly disconnected when the emergency operator answered.
"9-1-1. What's your emergency?"
Another shot rang out, and Sokka desperately searched for the gun. It was aimed at the ground now, but it looked like Aang was going to get it out of Combustion Man's hand.
"Hello?" the operator asked.
Fuck. He'd forgotten about the 9-1-1 operator. His head was starting to spin. A quick look at his arm showed him that it was bleeding way too much. It hurt a fuckton, too. He could hardly lift it from his side. He was running purely on adrenaline right now. Shit. He probably nicked something important. Not good. Not good at all. He needed back up now.
"Fuck! Hi! This is Sergeant Sokka of the Ba Sing Se Middle Ring PD! I'm off duty. My friend and I are being shot at!"
"What's your location, Sergeant?"
"Honestly. No fucking clue!" he shouted.
Suddenly, the gun skittered out of Combustion Man's grasp and across the street toward Sokka. He made a dash for it.
"Sergeant, I'm tracing the call. We will send available units to your location. Please, stay on the line."
"I'll try!" he shouted.
Combustion Man seemed to notice that Sokka was going for the gun because he backed into the wall of the nearest building. Aang, who was on Combustion Man's back, hit the wall with a sickening crack and fell limply to the ground. Sokka was terrified for his friend, but he was also terrified for himself. The big, lumbering guy was running after the gun. Thankfully, Sokka was the first one to reach the firearm.
He got the gun into his hands. It felt too large. It felt foreign . It wasn't his firearm, and he didn't like holding it. But he had to make a quick decision here. If Combustion Man got the gun, he and Aang were dead. If Sokka shot him, he'd have that decision on his conscience. Sokka hated making these sorts of decisions.
Sokka took aim. "By order of the Ba Sing Se MRPD! Freeze!" he shouted. But Combustion Man kept barreling toward him. "I said freeze!"
He wasn't stopping. He wasn't fucking stopping. Sokka needed to make this decision now . He couldn't hold back. He had two options. He could shoot the guy to incapacitate or he could shoot to kill. He chose the most obvious of the two, and aimed at the guy's knees. He took aim, steadied his hold on the gun with his one good arm, and fired.
A/N/: Hey everyone! Thank you so much for reading. This officially marks the half-way point in this fanfiction! I'm halfway to the finish line, but there's still so much stuff to come! I'm so excited. I really hope you guys are liking how it's going. Please, let me know!
As always, thank you to my amazing beta readers Sissy921 and MyZinger.
Thanks for reading!