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Eventually, the Eden Team gets the car going, by the grace of Sokka's brilliance alone.

(Granted, he's not entirely sure what was wrong with the car still, as it had started up while he was busy kicking and cursing at the damn thing to just start already! ...but no one else needs to know that.)

Steph called first dibs on driving and Sokka and Mel had exchanged a glance and a quick, silent game of rock-paper-scissors to decide who got to sleep and who had to stay awake and monitor Steph's skills. The whispered argument Sokka started when Mel had rock and he had scissors stops abruptly when Steph looks over, but Sokka makes sure to kick his sister before climbing into the passenger's seat.

When his eyes aren't riveted to the window and the ruined buildings around them, he's glancing back at Mel and the babies. Partly to make sure they haven't been stolen to another world already, mostly to make sure no one's going to wake up, start crying, and wake everyone else up while she's at it.

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"Obviously they're not doing a good enough job," Steph points out, smirking. "Sorry, you'll just have to put up with me as well."

"Woe is me," Sokka replies, sarcastic as he rolls his eyes. As if they didn't spend every spare moment together in Eden anyway.

He doesn't seem to understand that this sarcasm could be taken in any other way than that.

Steph lifts an eyebrow at him. "Hey, you don't have to come," she says, suddenly serious again. Just in case he meant that. "I mean it. My mom's pretty much ... well, she's ... sick."

Junkie.

"And Dad ... honestly, I don't even wanna look for him. He can look after himself. He's good at that.

"You and Mel, I'm totally okay with you guys -- like, I dunno, you can just cruise around and do whatever you want, you don't have to come with at all."

A beat passes where Sokka's confused half-smile is focused on the dashboard. Directly afterward, it's focused on Steph.

"...did the fact that we decided to come with you just totally fly over your head or is this your brainsickness attacking again? It's not contagious, is it? These are tight quarters and if it gets airborne..."

"Yeah, but I made you come, jerk," Steph points out. "'Cos I need someone around to remind me just how brainsick I'm not in comparison, don't I?"

But she's honestly relieved - obviously it's been on her mind. Sometimes she just has to be told a few times, Steph does. She's not used to people who'll do things for her without first being pleaded with. She'd figured they probably just hadn't thought about it, and they'd change their mind when they did.

Sokka gets her widest brilliant smile.

Edited 2007-11-14 01:48 (UTC)

It's impressive! Sokka obviously thinks so because his first-response smartass remark pauses in favor of smirking at Steph and choosing a nicer one.

"I hate to break this to you, Steph, but you aren't nearly as demanding or evil as you think you are. There's not a whole lot anyone can make Mel do, and I like to pretend like I'm not too far from that, too."

They came because they wanted to. Nothing more or less.

Steph grins at him. "One day, when I'm a real boy, I'll totally be evil, and then you'll be sorry."

The Pinocchio reference probably goes straight over his head. She forgets.

"I guess I'll just have to put up with it till then."

From the funny dance Sokka's eyebrows are doing and the short and highly embarrassing (for him) glance he gives her body, she should be able to remember fairly quickly.

Even without the commentary.

"So... Robin has more secrets than just his name? Gotta say, at least this one is kind of interesting."

If fairly disturbing, from Sokka's expression.

Steph blinks at him for a moment, confused as to why he's looking at her and vaguely irritated at the mention of Robin (he's a distressing topic!) -- and then realises and laughs, hard enough that she has to slow the car to a halt.

"I'm just full of surprises," she tells him once she has her breath back, giggling still. "But that's not one of them, I promise. It's a movie, in our world."

"About girls becoming boys." Sokka's smirk is mostly to Steph's reaction, more than the explanation - though both are baffling. "Sounds like a real winner. Also, for the record, I'm really glad that's not one of your surprises 'cause... weird."

"No, there's this puppet, and he's made of wood but alive, and he's always wanting to be a real boy," Steph explains, still laughing, starting the car up again. "It's fantasy. It ... is totally bizarre if you didn't grow up with Disney, isn't it?"

She tugs the neck of her shirt out to glance down it, and then grins at him.

"Yup, still a girl."

Sokka laughs at that, slumping down comfortably in his seat again. "I dunno if you want to rely on that - there are a lot of fat guys that could probably beat you in the boobs contest."

As for puppets, Disney, and bizarre, Sokka just laughs again and grins at her. "Steph, my sister can get up after being thrown headfirst at a brick wall, my brother and nieces breathe fire, and this is the third time I've been pulled to another universe randomly.

"I can handle puppets."

She grins, eyes back on the road. "But I'm not fat. -- ooh, I did not just give you that opening, forget I said anything --"

It's clapping-hand-over-his-mouth time, apparently. Lucky she's good with driving one-handed.

Edited 2007-11-14 02:35 (UTC)

All she ends up doing is muffling laughter, anyway. Sokka's totally innocent!

Just ignore that his mouth closed when her hand slapped over it. He was... yawning. Yes.

"Oh, bite me." She grins -- and then yanks her hand away, just in case he thought that was an invitation.

"So -- assuming we don't find anyone, what do you want to do after Gotham? Back to Kansas?"

Ignore that his mouth opened before she yanked it away, please!

Still grinning, Sokka shrugs and glances back at the girls before returning to his usual slump. "Sure? I dunno, does it really matter? You and Mel have friends there?"

"Yeah, there were nice people there, but I don't really care. I mean, this is your third -- or fourth? -- world, my second, what do you think the chances are we'll be here all that long?"

She doesn't sound too bothered by it; perhaps because she's assuming she'll get to go with them, when or if they go.

"I totally want to meet your other you, though. Cause he's adorable. Plus, the weird factor."

Sokka shifts a bit, but it's unclear whether it's a reaction to her words or just an attempt to get comfortable, his eyes closing as the sun itself starts to dip behind the ruins of buildings. "M'not sure. We were in Apocalyptica a year and a half, almost a year in Eden... there's no real pattern. Shouldn't matter, though, might as well try and make the best of it while we're here."

However they manage to do that.

As to his adorable double, Sokka makes a small, not entirely displeased grumbling sound.

Steph laughs. "C'mon, he is. He's like ... a tiny, dorkier you, only without muscles. Not that you've got any either," she adds hastily, smirking.

"Whatever happens'll happen, then. But I'm thinking Kansas, just because it's safe there. I'd be really pissed if anything happened to any of us...

"Should we stop for the night soon? I don't wanna drive this road in the dark -- and I don't want you to, either, it's way too broken up." That thought makes her frown. Stopping bad. But dying because she was in too much of a hurry to stop ... probably worse.

"For someone who gets her ass beat by me on a weekly basis, you're surprisingly quick to admit I don't have many muscles," Sokka points out, cracking an eye open to glance at her and smirk. You hear that, Steph?! You're a WEAKLING! YOU SAID IT, NOT HIM.

As for stopping, Sokka frowns a little and starts to sit up to peer at the road. "I'm not sure if I want to stop. These windows aren't exactly hard to break and the engine's already less than perfect. I can drive if you want to sleep a while, I'll just go slow."

Steph looks slightly doubtful.

"...how many times have you driven a car? It's just there's the babies. I'd be okay to risk your neck."

Not true.

"Oh, I know," Sokka agrees easily as he sits up, apparently not bothered by her willingness to kill him. "I've only driven a couple of times, but that was on bare ground, not even a road. If you can do it," his glance to her carries an extra smug smirk, "then I know I can."

"I'm good for a couple hours more," Steph says, sticking her tongue out at him. "We'll be out of the city and way into the 'burbs by then anyway, maybe we can break into an abandoned house and get some real sleep. You can practice driving when it's daylight."

Bossy pants on!

It's a good thing Sokka is terribly used to being bossed by annoying girls, then, rolling his eyes. "Fine, fine. Mel's gonna be pissed if she wakes up just in time for us to sleep in a house for eight hours."

"Ffft, have you seen how exhausted she was?" Steph grins. "And we need to stop anyway to get more food for the girls. She can do that if she's not tired."

She looks over at him, a little less silly than usual.

"Used to pull kids out of way too many car accidents in Gotham. I just ... wanna be careful."