shatterverse | (no subject)

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Sokka has gotten used to many things in his admittedly short life. He's gotten used to the fact that his sister can play with magic water, and also likely kill him with it should she so desire. He's gotten used to the fact that a bouncy twelve year old has more power than he can imagine and is meant to save the world he was born on. He's gotten used to the idea that nothing is as it seems and scrawny, nothing children should be looked at with as much suspicion as great hulking men with guns. Sokka has gotten used to the idea of space travel and grav thrusters and slipstream, he's gotten used to speaking the same language as everybody else but not being able to write the same one, he's gotten used to writing all of his work notes out in Chinese because pretty much everything in the last year was written in it and you couldn't depend on people to be around to take care of you. Sokka has gotten used to having a Firebender in his family, and a tiny young woman who is freakishly strong and twice as scary when she wants to be. He's gotten used to taking care of and absolutely adoring two tiny half-Fire Nation girls.

Who are, respectively, strapped to his chest and back by a cloth sling as he wanders down the Street of Eden toward his designated workshop-building, where most people assume he is hard at work trying to find a way out but he is, in actuality, carving loads of tiny toy animals for his nieces.

Sokka has also gotten used to the idea that while he isn't useless, there is a point where he has to recognize that he just doesn't know how to fix something, and needs to give it a rest for a while.

So with Hana and Loo babbling in his ears in their Baby Language, with an occasional Mama or Dada or Unca thrown in that he can actually understand, he walks on.

When the flash comes, Sokka ducks and curls his arms over the heads of the girls, because he's gotten used to sudden attacks. And when no explosion or other noise follows, he gets to his feet quickly, with a club in one hand and a boomerang in another, because Sokka's gotten used to being lulled into false security.

But when Sokka looks around and realizes he's left the Street of Eden and is in a place that isn't the Street, isn't Apocalyptica, isn't the Earth Kingdom, isn't anywhere in any of those places, he stares. Because despite doing it twice before, Sokka has not gotten used to this.

"No."

His reaction is, possibly, quite surprising.

"No! No, god damn it, no!" Glaring hatefully up at the sky, Sokka holds tight to the girls in the sling-- and then sits down abruptly, cross-legged, in the middle of a ruined road.

"I am going to sit here until you put us back! You can throw me to any world you want, but you can't make me get up!"

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Oh, great, thinks the more logical portion of Sokka's brain. First we have family members coming in remembering past and future versions of myself. And now there's an actual, alternate me RIGHT HERE. That's just great, universe, you jerk.

The less logical portion of Sokka's brain is telling him to ignore that promise he made to not get up, jump to his feet, and take several steps back with his club out and his free hand protecting Hana at his chest.

"It's mine, too! I mean, first! I had it first!"

Hana giggles and reaches for the boy in red again, earning a very soft glare from her uncle. Stop loving the imposter!

"You're too old to be me!" This Sokka not only has a Fire Nation emblem keeping his topknot up, but he also has a fantastic black shiny sword.

Which he is really not going to use on someone (or some THING maybe it's KOH) who's holding two babies, especially if the babies show such good taste. The one that's reaching for him gets given a bug-eyed stare for a moment before he returns his horrified gaze to the other boy's face.

"...and you messed it up! That's my face and you damaged it! What did you do?"

"I messed it up?!"

Oh, Other-Sokka, the trouble you get into with your mouth.

"What, you don't like the scars? Oh, but I thought they really brought out my eyes! SO I CARVED THEM INTO MY OWN SKULL, DO YOU LIKE THEM?!"

Panting heavily, Sokka looks down when a tiny hot hand curls in his hair and tugs, only to find Hana frowning at him and Loo on the verge of crying, pouting and starting to whine.

"...oh, crap." Sighing softly, he gives the younger boy another glare and makes sure to keep the club up between them.

While he pulls a tiny carved porcugopher from his pocket to dance in front of the girls' faces and make them smile.

"Quit making my nieces cry."

"I didn't make them cry! You made them cry!" Sokka yelps, and then his brain catches up with his ears and he stares at the tiny porcelain-pale babies.

"Those are not Katara's babies. Katara doesn't have babies. Katara better not have babies!"

THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS WRONG WITH THIS SITUATION. Sokka's brain hurts!

Uncle Sokka blinks as he looks up at the other one.

And grins.

Evilly.

"So what you're saying is, I'm Katara's brother."

HA-HA, CAUGHT YOU.

"NO!"

Beat. Suspicious, suspicious beat.

The sword gets put back in its sheath instead of pointing vaguely at the floor.

"...maybe.

"But I am more! And better!"

That's you, the logical part of Sokka's brain informs him, sounding very much so like Zuko, especially with the smug tone. That's exactly what you used to sound and act like.

Sokka wrinkles his nose and lets Loo hold onto the porcugopher, even if all she does is start hitting him on the shoulder with it.

"Yeah, all right, whatever." He sighs and looks around them again, ruined buildings and mountains of rubble, light a more colorful version of Apocalyptica. At least there's a sky here. "Listen, you better start walking around, looking for people that've been here a while 'cause I have no idea where we are or how to get back where we were."

The younger Sokka stares at him, raising one eyebrow so high it practically meets his hairline.

"What? Are you kidding? I'm not turning my back on you, face-stealer! Not until you get me back to Katara and the kids!"

The older Sokka's expression is matching the other one's fantastically.

"...what the hell kids do you have with Katara?"

"...bzuuuuhh? Okay, I'm pretending you didn't just say what I think you said," Sokka informs him, eyes very wide. "I was talking about Toph and Aang! What kind of creepy weird world are you from -- and why are you still pretending to be me!?!?"

"Because my face is attached," Sokka explains, very slowly as he pulls on his nose and, remarkably, it does not detach. "And I'm not pretending to be you. I don't know why you were getting so weird about scars anyway," he continues, frowning a little at the red and gold silk. "You're not looking exactly Tribesman-y either."

"I am in disguise," Sokka informs him loftily, touching the little Fire Nation emblem that's pinning his hair up. "Which you would know, if you were me! You look like you think I like wearing this filthy stuff."

Sokka's brow stays arched as he gives the outfit another look. If he's in disguise then they're probably in the Fire Nation, and silk is definitely nicer than the cotton stuff they got in the Earth Kingdom, and it's probably a lot cooler to wear, too.

Plus, it matches.

"Don't you?"

"...don't I like dressing up as a member of the nation that killed my family and destroyed my tribe?"

It would be so much more sarcastic if his voice didn't squeak quite so. This Sokka hasn't quite grown out of that yet.

"Sure, I love it! It's my favourite thing in the world! I just loooove the Fire Nation, don't you, face-stealer?"

Sokka sighs. He'd feel abruptly guilty for the way he'd treated Zuko their first few months in Apocalyptica, if he wasn't perfectly aware that the Fire prince had deserved it at the time.

"Look," he tries instead, annoyed with the entire situation and lowering carefully back to sit on the ground, pulling a catseal carving out of another pocket to offer to Hana when she starts whining, "if I was a face-stealer, wouldn't I be doing something a lot more evil-like than sitting here arguing with you?

"Anyway, I doubt the person who wore that particular set of clothes was in the raid."

"That's not the point. And we can't both be me!" Sokka insists, folding his arms and glaring down at the ... Sokka's increasingly feeling that maybe he isn't an impostor after all. "I'm me! I'm sure of it! I've been me my whole life!"

"I never said I was you," older-Sokka points out, flinching when Hana decides to experiment to see which is more resilient - her catseal or her uncle's necklace. As he reaches up to block his neck with his palm, Sokka's smirking down at his niece, rather than his younger double further down the street. "I definitely would've remembered having to dress up in Fire Nation clothes. Or learning to carry a sword, that's got to be a good story."

He looks up at the younger boy and frowns a little. There's no easy way to say, 'Actually, we're both Sokka, I'm just from an alternate reality than you are is all.'

"Fire Nation clothes suck," grumbles the Sokka wearing them. "Who are you, then?"

Curse his uncanny intellect and ability to cut straight to the point.

"Well... Sokka," the older one admits, still frowning slightly. "Just-- not you. It's... really complicated. But I'm not stealing your face or anything."

Sokka looks at him with one eyebrow still high in the air.

"Look, it's complicated and I'm too pissed off to sit you down and explain cross-dimensional travel, all right?!"

"BAH!" Hana punctuates for him.

And then slaps him in the face.

"Smart baby." Sokka is Not Smirking. No, really.

"...all right, other-me-but-not-really-it's-complicated. What have you got to be pissed off about? I'm the one who just got exploded into -- into -- this place looks like somewhere in a volcano or something! And my sister's disappeared."

Catching Hana's hand and giving her the best scowl he can muster (it's barely even a frown), Sokka looks up at his younger counterpart with an honest scowl. "Do I look at home to you?! Does this look like the Southern Water Tribe?! This is the third time I've switched worlds and I'm not moving until whoever keeps kicking me around puts me back in the last one."

"AH!" Loo agrees, and Sokka manages to catch her hand before she can choke him with his own necklace.

"Them, too."

"Yeah, because you look so much like a tribesman," Sokka says, scowling. "What even is that thing you're wearing? And whose kids are they? You didn't let Aang kidnap a baby again did you?"

"They're my nieces-- and no, they're not Katara's kids, their parents are my adopted siblings." Sokka sighs and the next time Loo reaches to smack him, pretends to bite her little hand. It looks awful, but the baby squeals like it's the best game ever and proceeds to try and shove her hand in his mouth.

Since she's the one strapped to his back, she's having trouble.

"Excuse me if leathers didn't last that long," Sokka grumbles, eyeing his counterpart's silk robes again. "I've been away from the Four Nations for... almost two years."