shatterverse | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

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!"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"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."

Sokka eyes Hana dubiously again. She's still giggling at him like he's family or something.

"...hmph. Hmph.

"Well, if you think sitting here till we go home will work, then you're --"

Beat.

"--That's not such a bad idea!" Sokka promptly flumps down into the street next to Sokka, dust rising.

"... Is it working yet?"

"Be prepared for a wait," older Sokka informs younger, smirking a little when he flops and grinning when Hana starts whining and making grabby-hands for the boy. "I don't actually know how to order myself back. I just figure the Sokka Comedy Hour has got to be a lot less entertaining if I'm sitting in the dirt."

"The Sokka Comedy Hour is never less entertaining." Sokka sounds slightly offended. "The only thing better is the Sokka Haiku Hour."

Sokka blinks and then frowns, confused. "When did I ever write haikus?"

"Ha!" Loo agrees and politely asks her younger uncle if he would like to see her porcugopher.

The sound it makes when it connects with his head just makes her and her sister giggle some more.

"Maybe you didn't," Sokka informs him, rather smugly, "but I once haiku-battled an entire roomful of women and very nearly won! I guess I'm just better tha--OW."

He glares at Loo, looking betrayed.

"Stop that, deceivingly cute child."

Loo might be upset except that Older Uncle is kidding her cheek and that makes everything better. "Her name's Loo," Sokka informs the other, quite smugly, and then pats the twin at his chest. "This is Hana. They're easier names to say than Deceivingly Cute Child One and Two.

"If you almost won, then you technically lost, didn't you? So how does that make you better?"

Spirits, he's glad Zuko isn't here, if only because he finally understands how fun it must have been for him to bait Sokka when they were just a little bit younger.

"It's not my fault the bouncer was bigger than me!"

Grumblegrumbleflop. Sokka thumps his head against the ground, making the little fire nation sigil fall out of his precarious hair-tie.

"Besides, I would have won. Are you telling me you never developed a stunning gift for poetry? You should try."

Sokka tilts his head to examine the sigil when it falls and, after a short glance to make sure he won't get flailed at for doing it, reaches to pick it up and examine it. "Poetry was never really a lesson I got around to, no," he replies, a little intrigued and a lot amused. "Is that something you do a lot? Haikus?

"...and swords? ...Explain how those are connected first."

Sokka is too busy sprawling on his back and watching, alternately, the sky and the chubby small hands that keep reaching towards him, to do any serious flailing. Although he does watch the other him warily.

"They're not connected. Besides my innate incredible talent for both."

Eyedart.

"Sort of."

Eyedart.

"Why are you touching that? I don't even like looking at it!"

"Because I haven't seen one in a few years and I'm curious," the older one replies tolerantly, frowning at the sigil. "And I think I'd know if I had an innate talent for the sword.

"I'll give you haikus, though, I have no idea about that."

Sokka flops back on the ground and lifts a hand for Loo to play with, dangling his fingers for her.

"I'm just naturally brilliant. I'm a genius. Don't feel bad. Maybe only one of us could be me, and I was it."

He regards the sky.

"Are we gonna sit here for long? I wanna EXPLORE!"

Loo is utterly delighted with this new development and screams her pleasure as she makes grabby-hands for his fingers.

Uncle Sokka gives Not-Uncle-Sokka a look, one brow arched high. "I'm not ready to move yet, no. But feel free to walk around. Not like I'll be hard to find again if you feel like yelling some more."

"I didn't yell. Nobody heard me yell. There was no yelling!"

Sokka lets Loo get hold of his fingers, grinning at the little girl.

"...you can't prove it, anyway."

Loo likes new-Sokka's fingers quite a bit. Nom nom nom, mm baby spit.

Uncle Sokka is busy pocketing the porcugopher and catseal toys again, shrugging. "Hana an' Loo'll back me up. Who wouldn't trust those faces?"

Sokka leans over to whisper dramatically in Sokka's ear.

"Don't look now, but they can't actually talk."

Sokka arches a brow and then reaches back to poke Loo's nose. "Loo-Loo? Who am I?"

"Unca Ska!" the little girl exclaims, throwing her arms around his neck to strangle him.

"See?" he points out to the other boy - voice choked, just a little bit.

"Okay ... so, deceptively cute Loo, who am I?" The younger Sokka sits up and looks at the girls expectantly.

"Un--"

Loo blinks, one arm still around her uncle's neck, the other hand reaching for the younger one. She looks between them both several times.

And then begins to cry.

"Crap," he uncle mutters, reaching back to jiggle her sling a little and bounce her, making soft cooing sounds. "Seriously, you've got to stop making them cry."

"Why is she crying!?" Sokka yelps, eyes wide. "There's two! And there's two of them! They should be happy!"

"Don't yell at her!" Sokka snaps back, frowning as Hana starts to wake and whines softly. He sighs sharply and reaches back to lift Loo out of the sling, sitting her in his lap and kissing her face until little sobs turn to little giggles.

"She just got confused is all. She's a baby."