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“Oh, babe… sunshine… we’re changing that right now.”
Sokka twists his body, braces a forearm on Zuko’s seat as he smoothly reverses them out of the parking spot. From the passenger side, containing his frustration, Zuko stares a helpless hole into the side of Sokka’s face, and from his view of Sokka’s profile he can see the wry smile that carves its way across his mouth like the tires in the street beneath them.
There’s no argument Zuko can make, and both of them know it. No plans for the rest of the day, fully cleared so they could visit family. And Gran Gran had just run them out laden with bags full of her cooking.
He holds these bags cradled in his lap and curses Hakoda for bringing up the topic. Or Uncle for being a creature of habit and never taking him to Ikea.
All Zuko can do is exhale loudly from his nose; no amount of bartering or scathing looks can save him now.
“What’s so special about this place?” He can be annoyed, if nothing else.
Hands go still where they’re drumming, rhythmically, on the wheel.
“So you weren’t fucking with me and you’ve really never been? Not even against your will?” Sokka asks.
“Can you imagine me and Uncle shopping for furniture?”
“Fair point,” Sokka laughs, “but the image is pretty sweet.”
Zuko doesn’t get any answers out of Sokka for the remainder of the drive. Just vague reassurances and “a way for adults to play house” and “prepare for A Trip , you’ll understand soon.”
They pull into the lot, and Zuko expected something but it wasn’t a blue and yellow building the length of two city blocks.
He lets Sokka take his hand as he eyes the exterior. “For some reason I don’t think I’ll make it out of there.”
“No need to worry, babe! I’m an experienced shopper.”
“Oh, I know,” Zuko smirks.
“Okay, hey —”
Even as he enters unfamiliar territory Zuko relaxes at the ease of their banter. That territory is mapped, with extreme care, as much a part of their relationship as their fingers laced between them. Their territory is their apartment and their shared Netflix account and this, all thoughtfully built and all very much theirs, and Sokka could lead him into any unknown but Zuko trusts he won’t lead him, knowingly, into danger.
Maybe Zuko spoke too soon.
Ikea’s interior is entirely unassuming, at first. They ascend an escalator and Sokka rests his head on Zuko’s chest from where he stands a step below, checking his phone. Zuko is happy to card a hand through Sokka’s hair, enjoying the change of being the taller one for once.
Which means that Zuko is fully unprepared to emerge into a maze.
Sokka brightens immediately, energy bursting from his being, and meets Zuko’s look with his assured, brown eyes. “Come on, let’s look at the books on that built-in bookshelf!”
The moment they enter the first curated living room, Zuko’s anxieties melt easily away. He touches every throw blanket and snorts while Sokka reads the title off of each fake book cover (“Are they fake? Or am I just uncultured?”) He reads the product names too, laughing and exaggerating the Swedish, and enables Zuko to curl up on, and review, each couch.
“I love a good sectional but this green one’s kinda ugly.”
“How about the comfort level?”
“Our one off the street is comfier.”
When they wander into the next one, Sokka pretends to turn on the television. He settles on the edge of the couch, moving to toe off his shoes.
Zuko blanches. Blinks.
“Sokka!” He hisses.
“Relax, I’m wearing slides!” His boyfriend hisses back, laughs. Then, “love, it’s your choice of show tonight. I’m feeling either Lost or New Girl .”
He can practically hear the look on Sokka’s pretty face, the What’s a living room without a little life? Live a little, babe! A minute passes—Zuko standing, Sokka beaming stupidly at him—before the nerves in his belly cave and Zuko groans and joins Sokka. The grey couch under them is nicer and much comfier than the first. “ Pushing Daisies . Final answer.”
Looping an arm around him, Sokka replies, “Okay. Hey, we should make a pie this week. What do you say, sweetness?”
They weave their way through the living rooms and into the arrangement of work spaces, then—having admired enough office chairs—through that and into the kitchens.
Zuko vacations on nearly every kitchen island, appreciating the wooden and marble finishes, and distantly makes plans with Sokka to bake pies later that week.
Neither of them would admit it to other people, but they practically drool over the kitchen islands. They spend the most time among kitchen displays.
“Maybe a dark wood kitchen,” Zuko’s saying, “Bamboo accents. With these light fixtures?”
“A bar would be sexy,” Sokka adds.
“Very true…” Zuko hums thoughtfully.
He chances a look at Sokka. Who’s holding a bowl and display spatula.
“What are you—”
“Yes, chef,” Sokka quips. That determined furrow in his brow appears, and he pouts his lip in emphasis. He waves the spatula around seriously. “Five-flavor soup coming right up!”
His boyfriend nestles the bowl in his elbow and plucks a tea towel, theatrically throwing it over his shoulder. Zuko can just about detect the playfulness in the light dancing of Sokka’s brown eyes. But he’s convincingly good. Of course the bastard is.
“What is this, Hell’s Kitchen? ” Zuko deadpans instead.
“That would make you Gordon Ramsay,” Sokka retorts, the little shit.
Really though, Zuko plays along, following Sokka around the kitchen and watching him prepare imaginary soup. He barks out “two more minutes” even though they just started the charade, and Zuko leans across the kitchen island to “taste” the finished product.
(If he lays the praise on thick, just to see Sokka’s pleased smile, that’s nobody’s business but his.)
(Even if Sokka ribs him for it later.)
There’s never a dull moment experiencing Ikea with Sokka, and maybe Zuko’s beginning to understand the magic of the place. The dining rooms are like those of his upbringing but with much more character, and he can easily imagine his friends crowded around them for a meal.
“I can’t believe you’ve never been here. Toph loves Ikea,” Sokka tells him.
“Yeah?”
“Mhm. I came here with her once when she needed a ride to buy a bed frame. Now she’s a pro. And a menace. She literally acts like she lives here.”
Zuko chuckles. “Toph acts like that everywhere.”
“But here even the workers are in on it! She hounded me until I joined her fooling around in the children’s showrooms, and when we got into trouble she used her helpless card and got right off the hook. I think they thought she was a kid, too. Really, it’s not fair.”
“Not fair because they thought she was a kid?” Zuko smirks.
“And because she could keep causing mayhem!” Sokka’s gestures go looser before they start growing animated, the vibrant movements enough to make Zuko smile.
The energy washes over him.
He catches a hand mid-air and reels Sokka into a short, but thankful, kiss. Curling from the warmth of it. “I know you don’t really wanna be mistaken for a kid. You’re too much of an old man for that.”
“Uh,” Sokka flounders, “I’m—actually, you’re right.”
“‘Course I am.”
“Are you calling me old?” Sokka’s eyes narrow.
“Too late,” with a tug of his hand Zuko follows the Ikea arrows, leads Sokka forward, “I’m right.”
Zuko expects the old-man-muttering from Sokka and the view of the bedrooms. Gently mindful of his boyfriend he ushers them into an empty one, a cozy modern studio with a fold-out bed pushed to one side. Releasing Sokka’s hand, Zuko ambles over to the wall, eager to recognize a book on the shelf encircled by plants.
He glances behind him and smiles; Sokka doesn’t notice from where he’s grinning at the bedspread.
But the next time he turns, to show Sokka a cactus, Zuko doesn’t expect… that.
For the love of Agni —
“Why don’t you come join me hot stuff?” The way Sokka says it is so nonchalant, so enticing, Zuko is almost convinced.
“Sokka. Honey please put your shirt back on, we’re in Ikea. People are staring.”
They really are staring, and Zuko’s red for many reasons, but the embarrassment and the gay panic can’t agree on who’s stronger. There are children nearby snickering but his boyfriend is topless, lying comfortably on his side with a knowing look in his eyes. He pulled his hair loose, too, Zuko faintly and furiously registers; but Zuko’s much too fixated on his boyfriend’s bare shoulders.
Because Sokka loves him, he takes quick pity and chuckles (because he’s annoying) as he pulls on his shirt. The families grow uninterested and continue on.
Leaving Zuko — pink, blinking, and trying to figure out the appropriate response. Are you deliberately trying to embarrass me? Why exactly are you like this? What in Tui’s name just happened? I’ll never understand you.
He ends up saying, hating the fondness in his voice,
“Get out of the decorative bed, Sokka.”
Maybe at the very least, he understands Sokka’s urge to lounge. He takes Sokka’s place on the Ikea bed as he makes an effort to look less rumpled, smoothing down his shirt.
“I’m sorry. I had to,” Sokka says, low and laughing.
“You really didn’t,” says Zuko, but he can’t help the soft smile.
And because Ikea customers already saw Sokka shirtless, Zuko thinks, Well, can’t get much worse than that; so when he pulls his boyfriend to lie down next to him, the reasoning makes perfect sense in Zuko’s head.
When they make it to the restaurant they’re both ready to lay down for real, but the promise of food and the next half fuels them forward. Zuko feels like a Sim in a pre-furnished game, where his diamond will turn red if he doesn’t get food in his body.
Especially energized, Sokka orders for them, as much Ikea food for Zuko to try as he can fit on their two trays. Meatballs, garlic bread, mashed potatoes, even some berry drink. He tops his tray with a crumbly-looking dessert for them to share and goes back for a pear-flavored drink while Zuko gets them seats.
Upon relaxing into his seat, Sokka eagerly tucks in. “Ugh,” he moans around a bite, “This is my kind of white culture.”
Zuko raises a questioning eyebrow.
“They’re Swedish meatballs,” Sokka explains. “Lingonberries are too, pretty sure? They’re in the jam and your drink. Oh, and the salmon is Nordic as well.”
All of the food is… pretty good, when Zuko makes his way through them. He enjoys Sokka’s pear drink more than the lingonberry, but really understands the meatball hype that Sokka mentioned. The crumbly dessert ends up being a blueberry crumble cheesecake, an Ikea food that Sokka has never tried before but comes to love. If the obnoxious noises he makes while eating it are anything to go by.
Fully sated, they enter the next section of the store at a relaxed pace. They wander among tableware, and colorful textiles, and Sokka lights up in the glow of the lighting display. Not keen on taking home migraines Zuko and Sokka hurry through it, but not without commenting on the myriad fixture shapes in passing. In the rugs section, they look at the expanse of rugs lining the walls with suspicion (knowing they’re probably expensive, and feeling too mistrustful to check).
They take their sweet time with the wall decorations and mirrors. Zuko tries to catch Sokka’s gaze in them. He has to look at all the plants, because his eyes go huge at the jungle before him. He makes Sokka promise that they’ll come back for a tree. (“We can, okay! I promise! But I get to name it.”)
It’s there in the Ikea jungle where Sokka has an idea.
“Oh, we do need a TV stand,” he mutters, “Now that we use the TV it makes sense to not keep it on the floor. Your Switch is homeless! She needs a home.”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” Zuko says. “How do we, uh ?”
“Mmm, I may have taken note of the ones you said you liked,” Sokka admits, rubbing the back of his neck. The hall opens up into a large area, rows of shelves reaching up to an industrial ceiling. “Here’s where we find stuff. I took a picture of the tag earlier, the aisle and bin numbers are on there.”
He leads Zuko to the location and they look at the boxes.
“Remember the black one you liked?”
Zuko purses his lips, shakes his head.
“Okay, lemme… here, I can pull up a pict—”
“Nah,” Zuko interrupts, and he can’t deny his smile. “I trust you.”
He can’t deny, either, how Sokka’s expression is like daybreak, the sunniest of blushes painting his face. How that energy washes over Zuko again like a waterfall when Sokka hangs off the cart they use to move their wares to checkout.
Zuko loves this man who lays naked on beds in public.
Even when people stare and they risk being removed from the premises.
Checkout goes smoothly, without Ikea exile or incident. They return to the car and Sokka holds the TV stand, leaving Zuko to hold the ice cream Sokka bought while he paid for their things. Because he loves this man (probably would continue to love him, even if they had been kicked from Ikea), Zuko holds the ice cream cone up to Sokka’s lips and waves him off every time Sokka frees his mouth to thank him.
“Thank you for paying for the TV stand too,” Sokka says when the trunk is closed and they’re settled in the car.
“Least I can do when you got me through there in one piece.”
“Eh. I toed the line a little.”
Notes that Zuko recognizes as The Orion Experience start to emerge from the car speakers, bursting through and melting into their bubble of comfortable silence. Zuko’s thoughts are backgrounded by Sokka humming beside him. He feels… domestic, like he’s not twenty-five and he hasn’t been living with his boyfriend for over a year.
“How are you feeling?” Sokka asks, bringing him out of his thoughts.
Can Sokka read minds?
“Can you read minds?” Zuko asks, flatly.
“No… what?” Sokka just laughs. “Remember, we can’t get too comfy. The experience is far from over. There are some things even I can’t do… Prepare to be pissed at Ikea instructions, baby!”
Zuko looks at him blankly.
He narrows his eyes at his boyfriend.
“Wait — We have to assemble the furniture?!”
Sokka ugly-laughs the whole ride home.