Hakoda wakes up the following morning, and there's a mug of coffee staged on his bedside table.
Hakoda's bedroomstillseems too big for just him—even after six years without Kya. A large bed once seemed like a luxury. Now it's just an emotional after-image in the middle of Hakoda's bedroom. An undisturbed blue afghan betrays emptiness, and Kya's absence is so conspicuous that her non-presence glows like a neon sign. It's the morning after the sixth anniversary ofthat day.The shallow within Hakoda deepens, and his bedroom feels abandoned. Quiet.
Hakoda breathes. The air smells like coffee.
The cup has long since stopped steaming, but it's still hot. A slat of syrupy wintertime sunlight peers in from a gap in the curtains. It illuminates a strip of the wall, turns it golden. Dust motes dance like embers in the sunbeam. Hakoda blinks blearily at the mug of coffee, then reaches out from underneath his heavy comforter to take the cup in his hands. Warmth bleeds into Hakoda's palms, and something in his chest thaws.
Almond milk, a scoop of cinnamon sugar. Not how Hakoda always takes it, but still his favorite.
A tinkling noise downstairs—like someone dropping a fork onto a glass plate—breaks the fragile silence of the morning. Hakoda recognizes Bato's deep murmuring voice through the floor. There's the unmistakable sound of his children's soft laughter, and Hakoda cradles the coffee mug close to his heart.
Bato left a flower cutting by the coaster on his bedside table. The hyacinth's stem is long and thick and bright green. The stalk is heavy with blossoms, a deep indigo color—like the ocean at night. Hakoda picks up the flower, twirls it in his wide hands. The sweet scent of pollen and nectar mingles with rich, spiced coffee. The flower has a slight curve to its graceful form, weighted down by its own petals. It curls inward like a spine. Hakoda rolls his shoulders.
He places the flower back on his nightstand.
Hyacinth—purple: a shared sadness. Expression of regret. Forgiveness, gentle.
Hakoda gets out of bed.
There's another flower waiting for him in the evening.
It's a Sunday, so Hakoda wastes all day in town with the kids. They drive together in the late morning. Hakoda's pickup truck—which is so old it predates Sokka—jostles them roughly over every divot in the dirt road leading away from the house, but Katara still argues with her brother over control of the radio and Sokka makes it his personal mission to only play the kinds of music that Katara can't stand. They're still so young, Hakoda realizes as he's signalling a left turn. He feels the inexplicable desire to hold onto them as time passes. He wants to anchor them here,now, and it's almost like trying to keep his grip on a rock in the middle of a river. The weight of time's passing current pushes against his chest as his children float downstream—Sokka's about to startpublic schoolnext fall—but they don't even seem to notice.
Hakoda shifts the column transmission into park outside the market, and shakes himself out of this strange headspace. He owes it to his kids to beawake.
They spend the afternoon down on the bustling harbor by the marina where Hakoda and Bato keep their ships docked. A tent market popped up for the weekend; Katara shoves Sokka as they chase each other through the throngs of people, a few sailors recognize Hakoda and call out to him in greeting, merchants smile indulgently at Hakoda's unruly children. An elder with a kind face sells Hakoda a sweet chocolate beet cake, and he splits it between Katara and Sokka.
The sight of his beloved son and daughter—their faces sticky from jellied cake—settles Hakoda. The salty ocean wind stings Hakoda's eyes, but a light drizzle kisses his cheeks like an apology. He'll be okay. Him, Sokka, Katara, and—Bato.Grief is water, his mother-in-law told him once.It sources and it flows through all things. It has a flood, and an ebb. It won't always be the guiding force in your life, but you have to let it dry. You have to move on.
Today, the grief inside of him drains—becomes more like a river than a sea.
The drive back to the house that evening is quiet. Acoustic music plays softly through the spotty car radio, accompanying a honeyed voice that croons about love and moonlight and other beautiful things. Sokka is snoozing in the front seat, his younger sister cuddled up into his side on the bench beside him. Hakoda is filled with affection for them, and he takes one hand off the steering wheel to gently smooth Katara's long hair away from her forehead. The stars blink away sleep up above. Hakoda drives extra slow on the gravel road heading home, careful to avoid holes where the road gives way.
The light is on at the house when Hakoda pulls into the driveway. Hakoda parks his truck behind Bato's hatchback. It's newer than Hakoda's long-bed truck, but not by much. There's a wooden canoe mounted to the top, and bumper stickers from his travels all over the back window.Acadia National Park—The Way Life Should Be!
Bato doesn'ttechnicallylive with them, but he's been Hakoda's best friend for so long that he's always around anyway.
He basically co-parents Sokka and Katara—teaches them math and reading at home since the closest school is a forty minute drive in both directions. The kids adore Bato, and he's always attentive to their different needs. He takes Sokka out on his canoe so the boy can learn his own history—tells him stories and poems and engages his natural curiosity. They can spend all day out on the lake sometimes; fishing and conducting wildlife surveys and exploring the science of the woods surrounding the waterways. Katara doesn't have the patience for slow days on the water waiting for bass to bite. So Bato takes her on hikes—and together they go hunting. Sokka inherited the superior knot-tying—and thus trapping skills—but nobody has Katara's agility. She's got a strong physicality, and an appreciation for beauty and culture. Hakoda thinks it may be because of her waterbending, but the spiritual traditions that Bato takes great care to teach them come naturally to Katara. Hakoda's fiercely proud of his children.
He owes too much to Bato.
They met as young kids from the same village, and were inseparable in their teen years. Bato introduced Hakoda to Kya. When the three of them finally settled, it seemed only right that they do so together, in this little town on the water near where they grew up.
The house smells like roasted sweet potato, squashes, broiled cabbage and chives. Bato cooked a stew while they were gone: creamy tender vegetables and slow-cooked meat. Something warm and heavy that nourishes the body as well as the soul—perfect for a cold winter night. Although the sky outside is purpling and dark like a bruise, the inside of their home glows orange from the hearth. Alone, Bato stoked the fireplace and kept the stove lit. Hakoda inexplicably thinks of the coffee waiting for him that morning, how he didn't even realize he needed it until someone had given it to him.
He can'tstopthinking about it as he shepherds the drowsy pair of his kids in the door. Hakoda shrugs out of his thick woolen coat, hangs it on the hook by the stairwell with muscle memory alone. He's about the throw his car keys down out of habit, but stops just short.
The kitschy little plate was a gift from years ago. It's a wooden tray with a pretty shittily painted whale on the face. For lack of better utility, it has held nothing but car keys, junk mail, missing hair ties, and an empty lighter for its whole life under ownership of Hakoda.
Now, though—there's a flower there.
It couldn't have been meant for anyone else. It couldn't have been forgotten. It couldn't have been lost. The bluebell is placed very deliberately where Hakoda would see it, right when he got home. Blue flowers—the color of sunshine through a spring pool—hang like lanterns off the delicate stem. The shapely curve of the plant gives the appearance of a person bowing, or perhaps kneeling in prayer. Hakoda picks up the bell-shaped blossoms so, so carefully.
"'Kota?" Bato calls out in baritone. "Are you hungry?"
Bluebell—true humility, a declaration of friendship. Devotion.
Hakoda stops then, his eyes widening. His whole body stills.
Oh.Hakoda thinks.Bato is courting me.
Hakoda passes a flower shop on the way down to the wharf every weekday, and doesn't really think anything of it.
This morning he pauses to consider it. Briefly.
It's silly—he's nearly thirty-five—but Hakoda is having a new moment of awareness. Someone he's known for practically his whole life—who he tends to view as they were young, with grass-stained knees and toothy smiles—has revealed something private and mysterious about his inner mind. Somewhere in the hallway of Bato's personality is a door locked from the inside, a stairway leading to a wing of the house that Hakoda's never seen before. It remains maddeningly unknowable to Hakoda, who has neither a map, nor key, nor no real way of knowing exactly where he stands.
Except perhaps...
Hakoda had always let his affection for Bato simmer, like a pot of water on a low boil. He had known—always, somewhere—that they were neverjustfriends. That Hakoda has the capacity toloveBato, if only that seed within his heart was allowed to be nurtured.Spirits, hecould.Hakoda and Kya—and Bato, always strong and present—had invented a language together. They had the songs, the jokes, the silly anecdotes that always made the three of them laugh, even years later. They had a language that they built.Grief is love with nowhere to go.Hakoda mourns the language he made with Kya, and loves that Bato still speaks it.
None of Bato's flowers so far have been explicitly romantic. Somehow, they've beenmorethan that.
Hakoda does nothing but think about it all day, while he mechanically sets sail into the bay from the marina where his skiff is docked. The weather is surprisingly beautiful—the past few weeks the skies have been dark and unsure of what to make of themselves yet. The water below is choppy and nutrient-rich, and he pulls up nets of shellfish; blue crabs and Atlantic shrimp and sweet red lobster.
The ocean brine fills Hakoda's lungs with every heave of his shoulders. It only reminds him of Bato.
Hakoda ties off a loop knot to the boat hitch on the inside of the marina. He rubs his eyes, then grimaces. His skin is caked with sea salt and sweat. There's grit in his hair. He desperately wants a shower. He wants to see his children. He wants to be with Bato.
It's so simple, in the end.
The elders teach that there are two kinds of memories. There is the daily struggle to remember where we left our reading glasses, our car keys, our cellphone. And there is the deeper gust of longing that comes from the bottom of the heart. It comes suddenly, involuntarily, and without warning. Hakoda fears he may no longer love the dead because he has forgotten them, but then will catch sight of an unused blanket and burst into tears. To love again, even after he has no stomach for it? After half of everything he held dear crumbled like burnt papers in Hakoda's hands, his throat thick with the taste of ash. When the grief sits with him, its humid chill thickening the air heavy as water—more fit for gills than lungs. The grief that weighs down on him like a second skin, and Hakoda can only thinkhow can anyone withstand this?
But then, he can picture it. He could take Bato's face between his hands. He could sayyes. I will take you. I will love again.If only Bato offers.
Hakoda drives home from town in his shitty pickup truck. The voice on the radio seems to weep. Hakoda hopes that Bato will offer.
The opportunity comes only three nights later.
Hakoda is in good spirits. He hauled more than enough seafood and split his extras amongst the community. At the mid-week market today, Hakoda made sure every one of his fellow sailors received a fresh cod or salmon or Atlantic red to take home to their husbands, their wives, their mothers and fathers and kids. It's already the end of January, but the winter shows no signs of slowing down. The wind outside is deceptively brutal—a roaring fire in the hearth at the center of the house is only barely keeping the predatory chill from creeping into cracks in the windowsills and door-frames.
Bato left in the afternoon after Sokka and Katara's studies, heading a little farther up into the hills to check on his cabin. He lives alone in that lonely wooded house, spends the majority of winter with Hakoda and the children for health and safety. Still—there's a freeze approaching, and so Bato makes the trek to higher elevation to ensure that his pipes don't burst.
It's sundown now, and Bato should be back soon.
Sokka gets sleepy as soon as the day ends, but Katara seems to be more active under the moonlight, so they agree on a board game as an appropriate evening activity for the three of them to share. Hakoda choosesScrabble, mostly to humor his son. He's already accepted that he will be losing this round, and settles comfortably onto the shaggy rug in the living room to graciously prepare for his inevitable defeat.
Katara is reaching for the 'legal two-word scrabble combinations' list for the fourth time tonight when Hakoda hears the key jingle in the door. His children barely look up—they can be so competitive, sometimes.
Hakoda hoists himself up onto his feet with a soft groan. "You two keep playing," he waves them off, "I've got to speak to Bato about something."
When Hakoda turns the lights on and bathes the kitchen in yellow fluorescent lighting, he's only a little surprised to see that while Bato is struggling to juggle two large canvas duffles on only one good shoulder, kicking the door closed behind him with his large booted foot—he's also cradling a couple messy flower clippings in his hand. His injured hand. The flowers are diamond shaped, with three large petals on each head creating a lilac colored face. At the center of the blossoms the coloring turns dark—almost maroon—and then bright orange. The violets stare at Hakoda from across the room as intensely as if their honeyed centers were real eyes.
Bato finally shrugs off his bags, and they land heavily on the floor.
Violet—I will always be loyal.
"What are those." Hakoda's voice comes out a little too rough. Bato freezes, like he only just remembered the flowers himself.
"They're..." Bato's face looks stricken. He swallows heavily, looks away. "They're gifts."
"Gifts." Hakoda repeats. He steps closer to Bato, trying to catch his dark eyes. His chin is still angled down when he nods. "For me?" Hakoda needs to be sure. HeneedsBato to offer.
Violet—Faithful, modest, true.
"Hakoda," Bato says seriously. "I mean no disrespect. The flowers mean as much—" His voice catches a little bit, "—or as little as you want them to."
Hakoda reaches up with one hand to Bato's broad shoulder. He delicately brushes clumps of snowflakes off the thick fabric of Bato's parka.Everything you love you will eventually lose; but in the end, love will return in a different form.A different person, a different touch. Hakoda realizes suddenly that he's happy. He lets his palm rest against Bato's collarbone, feels the way his throat works around a gulp.
Bato curls his fingers loosely—hesitantly—around Hakoda's wrist.
Violet—give me a chance, and I will love you.
"You need only to ask," Hakoda murmurs. His hand migrates upward to cradle Bato's jaw. Bato cracks a nervous smile, and his head tips forward. He bows to rest his forehead against Hakoda's and breathes deeply, his nose pressed to Hakoda's cheekbone—and he does. Ask.
"What will you have me do?" The timbre of Bato's rumbling voice changes pitch into playfulness. It's achingly familiar.
"Oh, just." Hakoda sighs, "Stay. By my side."
Hakoda thinks that the plot of his life doesn't really make sense to him anymore. He keeps following what he thinks may be the arc of the story—yet finds himself immersed in passages that he doesn't always understand. Sometimes they don't even seem to belong to the same genre. He feels giddy, and young, swaying with his best friend in the yellow fluorescent light of his kitchen—a winter storm brewing outside. Some of the best evenings of his life have passed without him even realizing they're significant butthis.Hakoda stretches up on the balls of his feet to press a loving kiss to the corner of Bato's mouth, his jaw.
"Yes," Bato says. "I will do that."
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Katara can't believe all that's changed.
Sozin's Comet and the end of the war seem so long ago, yet she feels like she and Sokka left on Appa's back that fateful day to save Aang only a few months ago. It seems impossible that their tiny village has somehow grown into this industrial city. The Northern Water Tribe "Reconstructionists", Malina and Maliq, seem just a little too interested (and invested) to be selfless.
Not only that, but she and Sokka narrowly escape an encounter with the "Patriots" who stole Malina's briefcase. Katara can't believe that Gilak, who she remembers fighting alongside on the Day of Black Sun, would turn against her dad, but what disturbs her more is that what he's saying sort of makes sense. The Northerners do make her uneasy, and they do seem to be trying to turn the Southern Tribe into a cheap imitation of the north.
Katara remembers how upset Aang had been at the factories in Cranefish Town. Aang would know what to think about all this; as the Avatar, he always seems to come up with a happy compromise for everyone. She misses her boyfriend, but he's busy in the Fire Nation right now, and she can't ask him to abandon his duties just to comfort her. Sokka is no help, seeing as he loves machines and seems thrilled that the South is becoming more like the North.
She's glad to see Gran-Gran's little igloo still sitting proudly between two much taller buildings, right where it's always been. Katara is more than ready for a good night's sleep after they explain to their dad what happened with Gilak. Idly, Katara wonders what happened to their neighbors, Tiyuk and Miki, a young couple who made the best walrus-whale steak in the village. When Maliq stops them outside the igloo, she's ready to push him out of the way and march inside to talk to Dad, but they have to tell him the bad news about the briefcase.
"Sokka! Katara!" Maliq waves. His smile, as always, is very wide and very white.
"Is Malina okay?" Katara asks, despite her constant desire to freeze the guy's mouth shut. Malina had been knocked out during the attack in the restaurant, and even though she doesn't really like her, Katara might be able to heal her fellow waterbender.
"She's awake, thank heavens. She's resting right now in the hotel. Your father is in there," Maliq says, pointing at the igloo.
"Wow, there's a hotel?" Sokka asks. Katara gives him a look. This is not the time for off-topic questions!
"Were you able to get the briefcase?" Maliq asks, ignoring Sokka's question.
"I'm sorry, Maliq," Katara says. Before she and Sokka can explain what happened, though, Maliq storms off ranting about the South's lack of "rules and regulations" and its "poor notions of justice". Katara is a little offended on her tribe's behalf. Their legal system is loads better than plenty of Earth Kingdom villages, like that horrible Chin Village that almost boiled Aang in oil!
Sokka and Katara open the door to Gran-Gran's igloo. Katara aches from cold and exhaustion and the fatigue of seeing so many new things in one day. She's ready to turn in and find the briefcase in the morning, maybe after a good breakfast of salted halibut and sea prune juice. She can't believe all that's changed, but at least some things can remain the same.
But apparently not. Because lying on the bed is their dad. And with him is Bato.
And they're kissing.
.oOo.
Sokka can't focus on the tour.
This is unfortunate, because normally he'd be super into it. Giant factory? Cool. Awesome machines? Suitably awesome. Weirdly quiet Katara, for once?
Well. Maybe that's not so great.
"Katara? You okay?" Sokka asks his sister. She's staring at the snow as if it holds divine truth. Or maybe she's wondering how fast she can bend it into a snowball to smack Sokka in the face for annoying her.
"I still can't get the image of Dad kissing Bato out of my head," Katara says softly, so that Maliq and Malina can't hear.
"I know. But Dad's a grownup. He gets to-- ugh," Sokka says, rolling his eyes. "Now I've got that image in my head. Thanks a lot," he waves one hand dramatically, recalling how they'd walked in on Dad practically shoving his tongue down Bato's throat last night. Talk about weird.
"Why'd it have to be Bato?" Katara asks. "He's, like, our uncle or something. It just doesn't seem right for Dad to date someone he's known his whole life."
"Look, I'm pretty sure that to us, nobody but Mom will ever seem right for Dad," Sokka says. "But maybe that's okay, because Dad gets to choose who's right for Dad."
Katara doesn't look comforted by it, but it's the best Sokka can offer. To be honest, he's not nearly as surprised as Katara. He remembers Chameleon Bay, the few precious hours he'd spent alone with the other Water Tribe men before Azula took Ba Sing Se. He remembers how Bato had stood just a bit closer than the other men to his Chief, and how before they attacked the Fire Nation on the Day of Black Sun, their father pulled Bato aside and hugged him tighter than anyone except perhaps his own children.
He remembers further back than that, how Bato was the one to take him ice dodging when his real father couldn't, how Bato had been the one to teach Sokka how to deshell shark-snails and patch holes in wooden boat hulls and sharpen his club-sword safely. How Bato had been nearly as much of a father as his true one, especially in the early days after Mom died, when Hakoda was in too much grief and Katara was too young and Gran-Gran was too tired. Of all the men, Bato was the only one that Hakoda had ever trusted to help him paint his Warrior's Mask after Kya died. The painting of the mask was traditionally a role reserved for wives, but Bato and Hakoda did each other's.
"But we don't get any say at all?" Katara asks, hurt shining in her blue eyes. "What if they get married, Sokka? He'd be our… our…"
Sokka sees the realization dawn on her. The realization that Bato was kind of already their parent, and that he couldn't replace their mother because he'd already carved out a space for himself years ago. He'd already become part of the family, long before they'd realized it.
.oOo.
The festival is beautiful, but Katara can only think about one thing.
She spots her father standing guard by the massive, ostentatious new archway gate (which looks suspiciously like the one on the eastern wall of the Northern Water Tribe city). He looks as sturdy and unbreakable as always, especially in his thick winter coat. Katara thinks back to the stereotypes she'd heard about, of men who loved other men; her father doesn't resemble any of them. She can't imagine him being fussy over his clothing, or having a pet poodle-monkey, or any of the other less-than-kind things she'd learned about in her time in the Earth Kingdom. Her father has always appeared a pillar of masculinity, and deeply in love with her mother. He'd been devastated for so long after her death.
"Katara! What are you doing here?" her dad calls.
"Thought you might want some company. Are you guys planning to stay here all night?" Katara gestures to the multiple pairs of warriors scattered in front of the wall, all decked out in their most intimidating spears and club-swords.
"At least until the festival's over," Hakoda says, his face stern. "Just in the last two days, Malina was attacked, you and your brother were almost kidnapped, and a secret army left me a threatening message in an underground cavern. We need to be vigilant."
"You're worried Gilak might attack the festival," Katara realizes. Maybe this isn't the right time to talk to her dad about Bato. But if she doesn't talk to him about it now, Katara knows she might never gather the courage to try again.
"Yes," Hakoda confirms. They make their way to a bench against the wall, where they sit. "Katara? You're worried about something, too. Tell me."
"It's nothing," Katara says, suddenly aware of how unimportant her concerns are compared to the very real danger of Gilak's forces. But Katara's been in plenty of life-threatening political conflicts; she's never had to worry about her father's love life. Weirdly, she's more comfortable with the former situation.
"It's about Bato," Hakoda guesses.
"Well… yeah," Katara admits. "Why didn't you tell us?"
"I should have, and I'm sorry about that. But I wasn't sure if you and Sokka were ready."
Katara can't help but ask. "But are you sure you're ready? Can I be honest?"
"Of course."
"I don't get why you'd choose Bato," Katara says. "I mean, you've known him forever."
"That's why I chose him, Katara," Hakoda explains gently. "I already know him at his best, and at his worst. And he knows me just as well."
"But don't you think if you were going to… you know, fall for him, it would've happened a long time ago?"
"Katara," Hakoda smiles, "did you fall for Aang when you first met him?"
"Well… no," Katara admits. "But that's different! He was just a kid! And also I was pretty distracted by the whole popping-out-of-an-iceberg thing!"
"It is different, but at the same time it's very similar," Hakoda says. "We were kids when we met, and kids when we became friends. It took a long time for me to consider us anything else."
"But what about Mom? Did you know you liked Bato even back then?" Katara has a terrible thought and almost gasps. "Did you not love Mom all that time, and actually loved Bato?"
"No, no, Katara," Hakoda says vehemently. "I loved your mother with my whole heart and love her still. I think I loved Bato back then, too, but I wasn't in love with him."
"So then when did you know the difference?" Katara asks. She remembers how Aang had kissed her before the eclipse and then flew off, how she'd been so confused. How she'd spent the next few weeks wondering why every smile from Aang felt so precious and why every time they set up camp she found herself drifting near him and why, why, why. She can't imagine spending years and years like that. She thinks it's impressive her father hadn't gone mad in that time.
"I knew when he was burned in a skirmish with some Fire Nation troops," Hakoda says. "That burn was the reason he had to stay at that abbey in the Earth Kingdom, the one he met you and Sokka at. We sailed on without him, and I found myself constantly turning around to look for him, and feeling terribly nervous all the time waiting for his letters like some kind of frail noblewoman." He laughs. "The pieces sort of clicked into place after that."
"That long?" Katara asks. "But… you weren't together after Ba Sing Se, were you?" She thinks she would have noticed, what with everybody being crammed on the Fire Navy ship together.
"No, we weren't," Hakoda chuckles, "because I was too much of a possum-chicken to say anything until after war ended."
"I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but… I never really would have thought that you'd be… you know… interested in men that way." Katara recalls, again, all of the stereotypes she'd heard about in the Earth Kingdom.
"I know. I never thought so either," Hakoda smirks, "I thought every man appreciated his fellow warriors' muscles just as much as I did."
Katara makes a face. "Really, Dad? I just meant…" she shrugs, unsure how to finish the sentence.
"No, I get it," Hakoda says. "But to be honest, in all my travels I've found that those stereotypes are just that. There's stereotypes, and they're far from accurate. Don't believe the rumors you hear in the Earth Kingdom- I've heard that Sokka was the Avatar and that Momo could earthbend!"
Katara laughs. "Okay, so those are maybe our doing…"
"And Katara," Hakoda says more seriously, "You're old enough now that we can talk about these things. You know what it's like to be in love, right?"
Katara recalls how exhilarating it feels to fight alongside Aang, knowing without a doubt that they have each other's backs; how his smile, bright and wide, never fails to make her smile too; how he always compliments her like he's stating facts; how he bears the weight of his Avatar title gracefully; how he never, never pressures Katara into doing something she doesn't want, but always advises her well.
"Yeah," Katara says. Because she does.
"So you know that the right kind of love -- the kind that's real -- that kind of love is stronger than nation or gender or age. I love Bato as much as I loved your mother, and that doesn't change just because it happened later or because we're both men. Do you understand?"
Before Katara can respond, she hears a very familiar rumble. Glancing up, her eyes confirm it- it's Appa! And on his head is a bright spot of orange-and-yellow waving vigorously down at her.
When Aang jumps off Appa's head twelve feet in the air just so he can get to Katara a moment faster, Katara understands.
Mm mm mm... Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...
Today's the day, Sokka's decided. He's going to tell his dad that he's bisexual.
He comes to this decision after lying in his bedroll and staring up at the roof of his igloo for thirty minutes, like he prefers to do when he wakes up and there aren't any morning people - Aang, Zuko - around to bother him. He's just started contemplating how exactly he's going to go about this when speaking of morning people-
"Sokka! Get up, Dad's waiting for us!" -there's Katara. She's back in the South Pole while Aang does some work at the southern air temples, which they're in the process of making livable again. Her visit had just happened to coincide with Sokka returning from the Fire Nation - mostly on a vacation, if he's being completely honest. 'Ambassadorial duties' can encompass a lot of things.
"I'm up, I'm up," he mumbles, dragging himself upright and getting a faceful of his own parka, which Katara's thrown right at him. "Really?"
"I thought you'd catch it!" she laughs, not sounding sorry at all. He throws his pillow at her as he pulls the parka over his head; he'd learned the hard way not to throw snow at her - master waterbender and all that. Look, he's not at his best in the morning. They all know this.
A gentle water whip gets him in the back of the head anyway.
"Hey!" he exclaims, pulling his newly damp hair out of his face. "Now we're gonna be even later, unless you want my hair to freeze." He squints at his reflection and futilely tries to squeeze some of the water out of his hair. He'd learned that lesson real fast the first time he'd run out into the snow with wet hair and ended up freezing and snapping off a good three inches of it.
"If you'd just gotten up early like the rest of us…"
"It's beauty sleep, Katara, you wouldn't understand. It's bad enough that Zuko gets up with the spirits-damned sun; I don't think he's ever been in bed in the morning."
"Aw, poor Sokka, doesn't get to cuddle with his boyfriend," she teases. She takes pity on his sad wringing and bends the rest of the water out of his hair, though, so in the grand scheme of things it could be worse.
"Oh hey, that reminds me," he says as nonchalantly as he can, focusing on binding his hair into his wolftail and avoiding her eyes. "I, uh, think I'm gonna come out to Dad."
"Really?!" He barely has time to turn around when he finds himself with an armful of Katara, beaming and squeezing the life out of him. He doesn't remember her hugs being quite that tight. "I'm-"
"You don't have to say it," he interrupts, but her grin is infectious.
"Nah, I'm gonna. I'm proud of you, Sokka." His chest goes tight hearing those words - in that moment, she's the spitting image of their mom.
"You have no idea how weird that is that my little sister is saying that to me," he says, and if he's fighting back a few rogue tears, that's none of anyone's business. He can't see her face, smushed as it is into his chest, but he can still somehow feel the eye roll.
"I take it back." Her squeeze says the opposite.
"Alright, alright, let me go, unless you've somehow learned airbending and can bend the air back into my lungs." She laughs and complies, whacking him in the arm - he never should've let her hang out this much with Toph.
"What if I had, huh? Maybe Aang taught me." Sokka gets an involuntary jolt of terror just from the thought of it.
"That's terrifying, please never say that ever again." He's not going to say 'you'd be too powerful' because he is not going to grant her that satisfaction, but he thinks it very loudly as he pulls on his gloves and grabs his weapons from their place beside the door. The war is over, but that doesn't mean they're completely safe, and even three years later, spending a year essentially on the run has made him twitchy whenever he doesn't have something sharp close at hand.
"So? How are you going to do it?" she asks as they duck out of his igloo, squinting at the sunlight reflecting off the snow after the dim light inside.
"Huh? Oh, I haven't gotten there yet. I'm thinking I might just wing it. Retiring from being the plan guy, you know? I'm trying something new."
"You're so dramatic - 'trying something new.' Stop letting Zuko practice his plays with you." He turns pleading eyes that are only sort of fake on her.
"But his monologues are-" He finds himself with a mouth of Katara's glove, and she has an eugh face on that he wants to take a snapshot of in his memory.
"Okay I'm gonna stop you right there, I do not need to hear that."
"But-!" Her grip tightens.
"Absolutely not." He's tempted to lick her, but the glove is in the way. Instead he blows a raspberry on her palm. "Are you five?" she yelps, but his mouth is free, so it worked.
"I hope not." The eugh face is back.
"I will push you into the ocean." They reach the docks at the far end of the circle of igloos still bickering and shoving at each other; Katara is definitely cheating, bending the snow around him to form weird shapes on his shoulders and feet. Dad and Bato are loading equipment onto one of the bigger boats, but pause to wave as Sokka and Katara come into view.
"You two ready?" Dad calls, vaulting over the side of the boat to draw them both into a hug.
"R-ready, yup, that's me," Sokka says. He could just say it now. Dad, I'm bi. He opens his mouth, then closes it again. It's not the right time, he tells himself, steadfastly ignoring the twist of nerves in his stomach that tells him that maybe there never will be a right time, and he just has to suck it up and do it.
"Just tell him," Katara hisses over her shoulder once they've been released and are trailing Dad onto the boat. Sokka shakes his head violently.
"Not now!" he hisses back. "What if it makes it awkward?"
"In what universe-" It's Sokka's turn to slap a hand over Katara's mouth.
"Shhhh! Dad's coming back!" She gives him a Look, but doesn't rat him out when he drops his hand and tries his best to look natural. Dad looks at him weird, so maybe he didn't succeed at that as well as he thought, but thankfully doesn't say anything. Sokka holds the pose until he's sure his dad has passed, then lets out a relieved sigh. Katara smacks him lightly over the head.
As the boat unmoors and the shore disappears into the distance, Sokka tries his best to lose himself in the work of sailing and fishing. It even works, for the most part, but every time he catches his dad and Bato looking at each other with the faces that Katara says look very much like the way Sokka looks at Zuko, he feels a little pang in his chest that he can't blame on the cold.
Despite Sokka's distraction, it's a good fishing trip. Especially once his dad starts making fish jokes - they are not "bad," Katara, "pick a cod, any cod" is hilarious.
It's only when Sokka makes it back to his igloo, hours later, that he remembers that he still has to actually tell his dad about the thing.
Logically, Sokka knows that he shouldn't be nervous. His dad is literally married to a man, and even if he weren't, Sokka brought the prince of the Fire Nation, who his dad didn't know wasn't evil yet, along to break him out of a high-security prison and he didn't have any problems with that. But he can't help it. He doesn't even know what he's nervous about, but his heart is still pounding out of his chest like a panicking rabbaroo. He can almost hear Toph laughing at him.
Sokka straightens his shoulders and looks right into his reflection's eyes in the mirror. I can do this.
"Bi, I'm Dad." Fuck. "Tui and La this should not be hard!" he berates himself. "Bi, I'm Dad? Really? That's what he's supposed to say." He flops back onto his bedroll with a huff.
"Hey Dad," he says, still lying flat on his back. "Uh. Boys." Oh, come on. He raises his head and glares at himself in the mirror. He's a war hero. He (and Suki and Toph) took down the Fire Nation's entire airship fleet by themselves. He's dated literal royalty. He is currently dating the Fire Lord. So why can't he get his stupid mouth to cooperate? He staunchly refuses to remember that the first thing he said to Yue was 'do you want to do an activity?' or that his first attempt at asking Zuko on a date had gone so poorly that to this day his guards are only sort of joking about thinking it was a poorly executed assassination attempt.
Just say you like guys, Katara had told him. "Just say you like guys. Just say you like guys. It's gonna be okay." He starts pacing around the circumference of the igloo - maybe not looking at himself will do it. Honestly, he's pretty sure that any of the things he'd managed to blurt out so far would work, because he'd gotten his sense of humour from somewhere, but he wants to do this right.
"I. Like guys. Dad." Oh, whatever. Close enough, right? There's no use in putting it off any longer. It'll just prolong his suffering. It's all going to be okay.
"Just say 'you like guys,'" he tells his reflection sternly, then nods to show himself he's got it. Before he can change his mind, he shoves his way out the door and strides over to the large chief's igloo in the center of the ring. He knocks on the side of the entrance and sticks his head in when he hears the call of "come in!"
"Sokka!" Dad says, looking up from the wood he's whittling and smiling, rising to wrap him in a hug. Sokka leans into it, fighting the urge to let himself slump. He can almost forget why he's here, up until his dad releases him and takes a step back. "Did you need something? Or are you just here to keep your dad some company?"
"Oh, um, yeah," he says, scuffing the toe of one boot against the floor of the igloo. Just like that his heart is going again, so loud in his ears that he's pretty sure his dad can actually hear it. "Dad?"
"Yes?"
He panics.
"Y-you like guys!" Wait. What?
Later, when his face has stopped feeling like he's just eaten too many fire flakes and Katara is done making fun of him, he'll laugh about it, but right now, Sokka is just frozen. His dad stares at him. Blinks. And then lets out a very, very long sigh.
"Sokka, you were at the wedding." Sokka splutters, waving his hands in front of his face and wishing very hard that he could bend time. He hasn't managed to get an actual word out of his mouth and his dad is starting to look somewhat concerned when Bato sticks his head through the doorway connecting the igloo's two rooms.
"Koda," he says, eyes comically wide. "You like guys? Why didn't you ever say?" Hakoda drags a hand across his face. Sokka thinks vaguely about spontaneously bursting into flames.
"Sokka," he says, gesturing at Bato, "my husband. Bato," he gestures to himself, "your husband. Now that we all know each other-"
"Dad I'm bisexual!" Sokka blurts in one long rush. Dad stares at him. Bato stares at him. Sokka bravely resists the temptation to turn tail and flee.
"Hi, bisexual," Dad says after a long moment, one side of his mouth twitching. "I'm Dad." Sokka's jaw drops.
"A PUN?!" he yells. In the background, Bato's forehead makes acquaintances with his palm. Laughing, his dad pulls Sokka in against his chest and hugs him tightly. Sokka goes, feeling like all his bones have liquefied.
"I'm sorry," he says, still chuckling. "I just couldn't help myself. I shouldn't have made fun-"
"It's okay, Dad," Sokka mumbles. He thinks his heart rate might be coming back to earth - which is nice, he wasn't planning to die at nineteen from a heart attack. "It was kinda funny."
"Oh, don't get me wrong, it was. Don't give me that look, Bato, you played along. But Sokka," Sokka makes very reluctant eye contact to see a serious expression on his dad's face. "I am proud of you. For telling me, and for everything." Sokka smiles.
"Thanks, Dad." Dad smiles back and hugs him again, and Sokka gives in to the impulse and drops his forehead to his chest.
"I mean, not like it wasn't obvious."
"What?"
"Oh, nothing. Bato, I can see your polar dog eyes from here, c'mon." A minute later Sokka finds himself being squashed between Dad and Bato. He decides he'd misheard that comment. Katara had always said he had selective hearing.
As Sokka disappears out the door of the igloo, Hakoda turns to Bato with a wry grin on his face.
"How long d'you reckon it'll take him to tell us he's dating the Fire Lord?"