Chapter Eight

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Make Love, Not War

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"Okay, here's the plan," Sokka whispered. "I'm going to move in. Swiftly. Forcefully. Now, what you're going to do, just as I'm going in for a messy kill, you come swooping"—he made a swooping movement with his entire body to emphasize this part—"down to rescue her for the win!"

Aang nodded vehemently. "Roger that, captain!"

"We'll meet back in this spot in oh-500 hours," Sokka continued. "Or at least, sometime before the bar closes. Maybe earlier if you mess up and she rejects you."

Aang's face fell. "Sokka, don't tell me stuff like that just before a mission!"

"I'm sorry, Aang, but you've got to face reality. It can be a harsh, harsh world out there." Sokka bowed his head.

He took a moment to inhale and exhale, bracing himself. "I'm going in!"

Aang watched with bated breath as Sokka stealthily made his way down along to the far end of the counter. (At least, he would have been stealthy if his bound-up leg did not emit a heavy 'thump' every other step.) When he had come up beside the target, a pretty girl in an Advanced Firebending Academy uniform, he said something to her in an exaggerated manner (as far as Aang could tell), and the girl rolled her eyes.

Sokka had made contact.

Bravely, Sokka pressed on, leaning into the target as he made another comment. Her vision now obscured by his intrusively close face, Sokka gave Aang the signal for the sneak attack: he flapped his arm violently at him from across the room.

To distract the target from Aang's answering duckotter call, he slipped back from her, grabbing Target's drink from her grasp. Taking the little pink paper umbrella propped in her glass and capturing her eyes with his, he seductively, outrageously ran the end of the toothpick along his bottom lip. Target's upper lip curled.

As Aang approached, Sokka invasively slanted forward into her again, now twirling the umbrella between her lips and his as he no doubt whispered some cheesy romantic line to her.

Aang felt a rush of gratitude. "Sokka, you're amazing! No one else cold set it up so well."

But then…

"I am NOT your forever girl!" Target shouted, grabbing back her drink and the little pink paper umbrella and shoving the latter up Sokka's nostril, all in a single fluid movement.

"Abort! Abort!" Sokka wailed, turning and running as the Former Target's Firebending scorched the barstool at which he had been seated so unwelcomely.

Aang and Sokka hightailed it out of the bar and into the hot summer night.

"Sorry, Aang," Sokka panted, clogging his unobstructed nostril with his thumb and attempting to blow the paper umbrella out the other. "Mission: Bait and Switch failed. Disastrously."

"Maybe we need to try another tactic?" Aang considered. "We've been at these schemes for a week, and nothing really seems to be working."

"What about that one girl? The one with the clackity-clacker?"

"Sokka, it's called a walker, and she was just an old lady I helped across the street!"

"Yeah, but she gave you her number, didn't she?"

"Because she wanted me to buy her groceries for her sometime! And besides, I might be 117-years-old, but I don't want to date someone 117-years-old!"—Shuddering, Aang was simultaneously horrified and disgusted.

"Hey, a date's a date," Sokka shrugged.

"No," Aang said flatly.

He dropped to the ground, cross-legged, and began to think.

"Aang, are you meditating?" Sokka asked, leaning against a streetlight.

"No, just thinking," Aang replied. "And I think there's something we're missing…?

"Like what?" Sokka asked, picking something out of his ear, examining it, then flicking it away.

"Well, dating involves two people, right? And it's important in consulting with another party to know that party's state of mind. How they think, what they're looking for, those sorts of things, right?"

"That makes sense," Sokka agreed.

"So far it's only been the two of us trying to force communication, but I think what we need to do is find common ground and meet on peaceful terms! No more scheming, no more invasions!"

Aang leapt airily to his feet. "That's it! Sokka, we need Toph!"

"Come again?"

"Toph can be our Ambassador to The Minds of Women! She can tell us how to approach girls, how to act around them, what to say, all that stuff! It's brilliant!" Aang triumphantly pumped his fists into the air, and the top of the streetlight bent back awkwardly from the Airbender's accidental force.

"Toph as Ambassador to the Minds of Women?" Sokka snorted with a laugh. "Aang, Toph's the only girl I know who doesn't act like a girl. Aside from Smellerbee, but I still have my doubts she's really a girl," he admitted. "Anyway, what does Toph know about dating?"

"A lot, actually," Aang said frankly. "She's been dating different people for a while now. No one serious, just a lot of guys she meets up with for dinner and stuff sometimes."

Sokka's face had dropped. "What's she doing that for? I thought she was all busy with her Bending matches, beating guys and winning money and stuff!"

"Yeah, Sokka, but it's not the only thing she does. A lot's changed since Katara and I…I mean, when you guys stopped coming to visit so much, I just made every moment of my life busy with work…I guess she got lonely." He shrugged.

Sokka took in this information, feeling guilty for his absence and Toph's loneliness, but still…

"Well, fine. Send her a letter. Tell her you need her help. Whatever," he said, inwardly fuming.

"Sokka, she can't read," Aang reminded him. "We'll just go see her tomorrow. It's not that far if we take Appa.

"Plus," he continued, "I'm sure she'll let us stay at her place if it gets late, so we could really put in some hours of practice at a club or something. Yes, this could work!" Aang exulted. "Soon, some lucky girl out there will be falling for me, Aang the Airbender! And then one day when Katara is out shopping along the Boulevard, she'll see me and my new honey smooching over a raspberry cream cake, and she'll be so jealous and want me back, and finally Katara will truly and forever be my Forever Girl!!"

The elated Aang soared up into the air as he unabashedly crowed his romantic optimism. "Sokka, the winds are changing! Good things are coming our way! Can you feel it?"

Sokka flicked away another bit of ear gunk without looking up. "Seriously, Aang," he said coolly, "you need to calm down."

For unlike Aang, he was not looking forward to hearing Toph's dating wisdom.

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To be continued…

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A/N:

Huzzah to failed Sokka/Aang shenanigans! It could have worked except Sokka can't help but be so outrageously wrong that it's funny! Lmao Oh, goodness…

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P.S.

I ship Tokka and Kataang, but I don't own Tokka and Kataang.