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For weeks, Lin had been complaining about her eyes not focusing correctly on the smaller letters of her school textbooks and her teachers sent a note home with the young earthbender for her parent and guardian that said that Lin had been squinting a lot to see the words on the chalkboard. Naturally, Toph got worried, telling Sokka that they had to take her to get her eyes checked by a specialized healer, so they did so as soon as the weekend arrived. As it turned out, Lin needed reading glasses at ten years old, which both Toph and Sokka imagined could not be the worst thing in the world, but Lin proved it to be just the opposite.
The ten-year-old refused to put on her glasses for fear of anyone laughing at her and Toph just snorted and rolled her eyes at her daughter, saying, “Who cares what any of those pansies think? I bet you look great, Four-Eyes.”
Lin scowled at her mother and said, “I look better than you would, No-Eyes.”
Sokka had to slap a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing too loudly as they walked out of the healing clinic they were in and Toph scoffed, seemingly impressed with her daughter’s retort. He stuck his hand out for Lin to high-five after the winning dig at her mother, but she left him hanging, and he deflated. The little earthbender did look torn up about having to wear glasses at such a young age, but they really weren’t bad. They were very similar to those he had seen on many other people in the City; they were black, equal parts metal and plastic, and were round, fitting her face perfectly, in Sokka’s opinion. Frankly, he couldn’t see anything wrong with them.
“You look great, Linny,” Sokka said, rubbing her back as they neared their home. It was a cozy home smack in the middle of City Hall and the police department; very convenient for him and Toph.
“No, I don’t, Sokka.”
He sighed, then noticed Toph shaking her head at him subtly as she opened the door to their house. Sokka scowled, ignoring his girlfriend’s warning, and pipped up again, encouragement in his voice. “Come on, Lin! You look great!”
“No, Sokka, I look like a dipstick,” Lin said, stomping into her bedroom and bending her door shut. The councilman jumped at the sound of the slam.
“Lin!” Toph shouted scoldingly, then shook her head, facing Sokka.
“Tui and La,” Sokka muttered. “Every time I try to fix something I just make it worse, don’t I?”
He turned to look at Toph, who had an eyebrow raised, her arms crossed, and a smug look on her face. “I told you to shut up about it.”
His mouth fell open as he took two steps toward her. “You didn’t tell me anything Miss-Non-Verbal-Communication.”
“I shook my head,” she shrugged, a smirk still on her lips. “That should be enough of a tell-tale for you to keep quiet, Big Mouth. You know how snappy she’s been lately.”
It was true. Ever since Lin turned ten, it had been difficult to keep her attitude contained and Toph was lenient because she, as an adult, had the same snappy and back-talking attitude her daughter was displaying now. Still, Toph knew what buttons to push and which ones not to; Sokka was still trying to catch up on that end.
Sokka bit at his cheek and groaned, pulling a now cackling Toph into his chest. He couldn’t help the smile forming on his own mouth as he pressed a kiss onto her head, her arms lazily wrapping around his waist. “You’re something else.”
“I might be,” she said, moving her head off his chest to face him directly. She got on her tippie toes and pressed a long, simple kiss on his lips. It was crazy to Sokka how after being together for so many years, his stomach still stirred whenever they kissed. “But you love me all the same, so shut up about it.”
He chuckled, pressing another kiss to her lips that she smiled into. “Unfortunately so.”
Toph scowled at that and pulled away from him, an amused look on her face. “ Unfortunate , is it? Try being with someone who sticks his foot in his mouth with every word he says.”
“Rude,” Sokka said, pulling her into him again. She barely resisted. “But I’ll take it. Like a man .”
Toph snorted. “You’re a pain in my ass.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Go makeup with Lin. I’m not about to have her stay locked in her room all day,” Toph said, pinching some of the skin under his arm, making him let her go with a yelp. She walked toward the kitchen, presumably to find herself something to eat. “She’s probably going to give you the silent treatment. You know how she is.”
“Yeah,” Sokka scoffed, with a comedic eye roll for only his benefit. “Just like her mother.”
“I’ll go ahead and take that dig as a compliment,” Toph said, popping a piece of a cookie into her mouth as she leaned against the kitchen’s island. “Because it is a compliment.”
“Never said it wasn’t, Chief,” Sokka said with a chuckle as he reached over to her and snagged a small piece of her cookie. She shot him a look to wordlessly tell him to talk to Lin, then sent a spoon flying toward his head, which he was lucky enough to dodge. “I’m going, I’m going, sheesh.”
As he walked down the hall to Lin’s room, he heard Toph let out a laugh and he smiled before he raised his hand to give Lin’s bedroom door a knock. A groan came from the other side of the door and Sokka pursed his lips before saying, “I’m sorry for saying you looked good in the glasses Linny. But I was only telling you the truth.”
He heard some shuffling from inside the room, then the sound of the door unlocking. He opened the door slowly to reveal a scowling Lin. Instantly, he spotted her new glasses thrown on the ground, one of the lenses cracked, and one of the temples bent. Frankly, he was surprised that they weren’t pulverized.
“I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?” Lin asked, an edge to her voice. She wouldn’t look at him, and Sokka wanted to burst out laughing at how much she resembled her mother. Her eyebrows were in a scowl, her nose and chin were pointed upward and her lips were tensed up in a sour pucker.
Sokka wondered for a moment. Why was he sorry? He, frankly, was not, so he told her just that. “I’m actually not sorry. I think you looked great in the glasses and I’m not going to lie to you about that.”
Not expecting this, she turned her head to look at him, her eyes wide. Then, her sourpuss expression returned. “Stop lying.”
“But I’m not lying.”
“Yes, you are.”
Sokka shook his head. “I’m not. I can prove it.”
The ten-year-old squinted her eyes skeptically at her elder. “How?”
“Your mom’s taught you about changes in heartbeats when people lie, right?”
Lin nodded. “Yeah, but I don’t know how to read them through the earth yet.”
“Awesome,” Sokka said with a smile, sliding closer to her so that he could grab her hands in his and put them on the left side of his chest. “Now, tell me, Linny, am I lying when I say that I think you look amazing in your new glasses? Because you do look amazing in them. You make glasses look cool.”
He could tell that she wanted to laugh but was trying her best to suppress it when she said, “You’re not lying, but that’s because you’re Sokka. And you think everything I do is amazing.”
“This may be true,” he said, pulling her into him for a hug that she didn’t resist, much to his surprise. “But I would also never not tell you the truth about something that would make you look bad.”
“Really?”
“Really,” he confirmed, then looked down at her, putting his index finger below her chin to make her look at him. “And look, Lin, I know I’m not your biological father, but I want you to know that I would never do wrong by you, okay? And if I have done anything to prove otherwise, I’m so sorry.”
Lin’s eyes watered and he worried that he said the wrong thing for a moment, but her arms wrapped around his neck tightly before he was able to question it. Her watery voice rang in his ear, “You’re a great father, Sokka. You haven’t done me any wrong.”
Fighting tears of his own, he hugged her just as tightly as she was him. “I love you, Linny.”
“I love you, too… Dad.”
It was safe to say that Lin had to call her mother into the room to help a blubbering Sokka out to the room some moments later.