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Published:
2021-12-30
Completed:
2021-12-31
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1,803
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2/2
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Be My Lover (All Summer Long)

Summary:

Sokka's feelings for Azula can’t be contained, and are finally revealed at the worst of times.
Written for CoffeePanda for the Sokkla GIft Exhange 2021

Notes:

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

The Earth Kingdom breeze is more than pleasant for the delegates, who all sit together in yet another meeting discussing the rationing of the Fire Nation arms.  This is something Azula knows. After a day of listening to stuff she does not know and stuff people refuse to inform her on, she finally understands the topic. But she is focused on something else. He isn't paying attention, instead, he listens to a joke the avatar tells him, and a smile appears on his face, along with a dimple. Most men in the Fire Nation don't have dimples. They are machines, like everything else on the motherland, and they never have dents. A few of them have bronzed skin, but none of them have blue eyes. She watches him with a mixture of feelings. Mostly curiosity with a trace of disdain. Then she hears his name. Sokka. The Kyoshi warrior with chestnut hair calls him. He turns and she kisses his cheek. Finally, Azula refocuses and puts in her valued input. She hears a bell. The delegates rise to go their separate ways. She looks back in his direction, and they lock eyes. She doesn't like the way he looks at her.

There's a party, following the meetings. The younger participants make a place for themselves in the Earth Kings backyard. Suki takes his hand, and leads him to the bonfire, where people dance. He gives her a peck on the mouth, asks if she wants anything to drink. She asks for rice wine. The line for rice wine is rather long, but Sokka would wait a millenium to see his girlfriend satisfied. As he waits patiently, his eyes lie on someone dangerously close to the fire. The way she moves her hips leaves him in a trance, but it's the seemingly endless flow of brunette hair that keeps his feet planted into the ground. It's not the allure of it that keeps him watching, but the power put into such control of one's body. A pair of lips is at his ear. 

"If you were watching the line you wouldn't have let three people cut you by now," Suki says. He smiles sheepishly. "What were you looking at anyway?"

The feeling never went away, even as he realized it was Azula who was in the fire. When he sees her, he stares longer than necessary and only with willpower does he ever look away. Sometimes, she joined Zuko on adventures with the gaang. She had ideas no one else could come up with, and no opponent ever got the better of her in combat. Once, she'd managed to steal back seven thousand yen from an organized crime group, to which Sokka responded with, "Good job."

"I mean, anyone who was there would've known to grab it," Suki said. 

"I guess," Sokka said, "but none of us even had a plan, that's why we let Azula go in the first place." He saw a shy smile from her lips. The situation was compiled with others when Suki confronts him.

"I want you to stay as far away from her as possible," she says.

"Why?" he asks. She stares at him incredulosly.

"Why? Because I see the way you look at her, Sokka!" she exclaims.

"I don't even look at her!" he yells. He feels in his gut that he is trying to convince the both of them.

"Of course you do! I've watched you look at her like you're in a trance since you saw her dancing at that party months ago, Sokka! That's how long this has been going on!"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You adore everything that, that monster says, does, and even thinks!"

"She's not a monster!" he exclaims, raising his voice. Suki steps back, and stares at the boy she's not sure she knows anymore.

"Oh? So what is she, Sokka? What is she to you?"

"She's just...Azula. But I know she's not a monster."

"I think we should take a break," Suki says, "at least until you can be honest with me." He can't even be honest with himself.

Azula is still yet to go to a party and thorougly enjoy it. But Ty Lee has promised to include her in conversations, so her hopes are slightly raised. The night consists of games and consumption, and Azula is about ready to go home when Ty Lee grabs her hand and drags her to meet some Kyoshi warrior friends.

"Azula," Ty Lee says, "this is Sakura and Aiko, they both said they want to meet you."

"They've already met me, technically," Azula says, tapping her foot. 

"Oh, we hardly remember that," Sakura says.

"Then I supposed there's nothing to talk about," Azula says.

"We could talk about how you want Suki's life," Aiko says. Ty Lee gasps.

"I won't even entertain that sentence," Azula says.

"Oh but you will. You've been trying to seduce her boyfriend for months now, if I remember correctly."

"Guys!" Ty Lee exclaims. "They're are playing truth or dare with rice wine!" The girls turn their heads to see the game.

Sokka can hardly look straight. The other players have made a point to gang up on him and make him say or do humiliating things or drink another shot of rice wine. Suki(or at least he thinks it's Suki) sits next to him and pats his thigh. 

"Sokka, truth or dare?" Zuko asks. 

"Truth," he slurs.

"Tell us about all the girls you ever loved romantically," Aang says. The crowd leans in, and Suki rests a head on her boyfriend's shoulder.

"The first girl I ever loved, well she was charming and beautiful and selfless, but then she became the moon so that had to end. The second girl I ever loved, she's still here." The crowd cooes. "And she's been with me since we were kids on the battlefield. We're still kids, but we're a little safer now than we were then. She's pretty, and sweet, and could kick anyone here's butt, and I still love her." The crowd cheers, and Suki grabs him into a kiss. He doesn't fully close his eyes, and they meet another pair, amber and distant. Maybe filled with some semblance of hurt. He's completely out of his own control. 

"I want to go home," Azula says to Ty Lee.

"And the third girl," he says quietly, to himself more than anything else, "well, she's like a dream to me. Unnaturally powerful, irritably brilliant, and probably the most stunning face I'll ever lay eyes on in this lifetime and the next. Sometimes, she'll say something. And I'll pretend to not hear it a thousand times just to hear her say it a thousand and one." He doesn't realize that by the time he finishes his statement everyone around him is silent. Suki gets up, a tear falling down her cheek. 

"It's her, isn't it?" she asks, pointing to Azula. "Well, it's okay, because I've known for a while now. That's why I'm seeing someone else. Find yourself a way back, you jerk!"

For weeks after that night, Sokka is an outcast. HIs friends run to Suki's side, rightfully so, and his sister only speaks words of pity to him. 

"Maybe with some reflection, and a well thought out apology, you could get her back," Katara says one night after supper. "Do you really want to go back home without her?" He doesn't answer. "Good night, Sokka."

Azula, who said and did nothing, still bears the blame. Slut, she hears behind her back. Even her brother and friends ask her to confirm the false idea that there was anything going on between the two. 

"You did nothing wrong," Ursa says, brushing her daughter's hair. "It's not your job to make anyone happy. You don't care for him anyway, do you?"

”Well…”

Chapter 2: Chapter 2

Summary:

The aftermath of Sokka's confession leads to something great.

Chapter Text

Sokka wonders if Suki was telling the truth about finding another boyfriend. Any moment he's around, she has to run because said boyfriend is taking her somewhere nice, or wants her to spend the night. It just feels obnoxious, like she's trying to prove something. Until the afternoon that Suki enters the palace past midnight, with Haru holding her hand. The gaang, who all happen to be awake, stare in shock. 

"So I'll see you tomorrow?" he says.

"I really hope so," Suki replies, before kissing him passionately. She then faces her friends. "Thanks for staying up for me. We should all get some sleep."

"How are you feeling?" Aang asks once she leaves.

"I wish I could be upset," Sokka says. "But at least she's not mad anymore."

"Of course she's still mad," Katara says. "You humiliated her for Azula of all people. I'd be pretty upset if my boyfriend announced to the world that he preferred a diabolical princess to me as well."

"I was drunk," Sokka says, gritting his teeth. 

"But we all know that's how you feel, even when sober."

"I never did anything about it! She cheated on me!"

"Well you guys are over now," Aang says. "Are you still not gonna do anything about it?"

Azula can go without many things. Sleep is not one of them. Still, as the daughter of the most hated man in the world, being alert even in slumber is a skill she picked up. So when her door creaks open in the dead of night, she says, 

"Leave. Immediately."

"Azula." Her eyes snap open. It's him.

"Close the door behind you, you've ruined my reputation well enough," she says, lighting a flame in her hand.

"And I'm sorry for it, I promise." After a moment's hesitation she pats the spot on the bed besides her. 

"You know the Fire Sages are questioning my virtue now? And why shouldn't they, I have a boy in my bed in the dead of night," she whispers.

"I never meant for all these things to happen. But I'm not sorry about what I said. I'm sorry I didn't look you in the eye when I said it, and I didn't tell you in a clear headspace now."

"So do it, then. Tell me that you adore me."

"No, that's not what I said. I said I'm in love with you, and I'd do anything to hear the sound of your voice."

"Much better," she says almost inaudibly, scanning his face.

"What would the Fire Sages think if I kissed you right now?" he whispers along her ear.

"I don't care." She grabs his jaw and captures him in a feverish embrace. Sokka doesn't know if it's the room or her skin but the heat makes him delirious. He nibbles at her bottom lip and soon enough their kisses are open mouthed until she finally pulls away. "You get one chance," she says.

"That's all I need."