Work Text:
“Do these jeans make my butt look fat?”
Sokka has been feuding with the universe far too long to believe in anything as alluring and seemingly straightforward as a free lunch. Whether he accepts said lunch after a careful assessment or gobbles it down on base impulse, his bad luck inevitably extracts a price—so he always pays for his lunches one way or another.
And if free lunches are nothing more than treacherous illusions, he certainly isn’t naive enough to believe that an explicit invitation to admire the most delightful derrière to ever bounce out of the Fire Nation would come no-strings-attached.
In this case, it hardly matters what sort of deal the universe has offered him—it’s too late to refuse. The bargain has been struck. The transaction has been processed. The invoice is on its way. There’s no backing out now.
(He was already looking at his wife before she asked.)
“Uuuuummmmmmmmm…sorry, what was the question?” he stammers, feigning ignorance. Even with his eyes lingering on the her backside, he can feel her gaze shift, studying his reaction in the changing room mirror.
“Are these jeans flattering or not? Do they make my butt look too big?”
The answer to the first question is easy. Yes, they’re flattering. Incredibly flattering. Spectacularly flattering. Fanny-tastically flattering. So flattering that Sokka would like to buy her a pair for each day of the week.
But he struggles to think of an answer to the second question—made more precarious by the way it’s been framed—without risking utter catastrophe.
While his wife can be dangerous (especially with the miniature flamethrower hidden in her purse, a weapon of his own design—much less forgiving than the average can of pepper spray), he’s more concerned about derailing her earnest campaign to become ‘No-Shits-Given Azula’ than suffering horrible third-degree burns.
No-Shits-Given Azula doesn’t wear makeup. She dons thick prescription glasses instead of contact lenses. Puts up her hair into messy buns and ponytails. Passes over five-inch heels for comfy sneakers. Welcomes simple pleasures like bacon, sweetbuns, and two-percent milk into her diet. Snoozes for an extra hour—although 6 a.m. still feels unreasonably early to Sokka—before rolling out of bed to hit the gym.
(And, his personal favorite, she quit her job, told her father to do something extraordinarily unpleasant to an ostrich horse, then eloped with him all in the same day.)
The way he sees it, No-Shits-Given Azula gives a great many shits, but only over the things worthy of the shits she has to give: her health, her family (sans Ozai), her marriage, and her higher sense of purpose in life.
Did Sokka love Many-Shits-Given-About-the-Wrong-Things Azula? Yes. Does he love how much progress she’s made as No-Shits-Given Azula? Absolutely. Is he terrified that she might have a meltdown at the dramatic turn her life has taken away from obsessive perfectionism if he’s honest about how her butt looks in those high-waisted jeans?
(His nervous fidgeting probably speaks for itself.)
The best option seems not to answer at all—or give an answer that amounts to utter nonsense.
“Hmmm…now that is a very complicated question.” He clears his throat, musing ponderously. “If we’re going to fully unpack this multi-layered enigma, we first need to consider all the angles, specifically regarding your posterior proportions. How would you quantify ‘big’ in terms of your posterior proportions? Are you concerned with your current posterior proportions relative to your own previous posterior proportions, or to the posterior proportions of other people? What would you consider to be your ideal posterior proportions? Are those posterior proportions aligned with your physical health and spiritual well-being? Have you researched any scholarly articles or philosophical treatises to better inform the evaluation of your posterior proportions?”
He knows he’s made things worse for himself when Azula raises an eyebrow in the mirror and places her hands on her hips.
“I’m not looking for an absolute quantification of my posterior proportions,” she retorts, cutting past his gobbledygook like a chainsaw through cotton candy, “but a relative qualification. As for my ‘ideal’—that is my own status quo. Does my butt appear bigger in these jeans than it does otherwise? Does it appear bigger than it should? They’re the same question, easily answered with a ‘yes’ or a ‘no.’”
Sokka swallows hard, reaching into his carton of cinnamon-sugar mini-mochi. (If disaster is imminent, he wants to be ready with a belly full of the best pastries that Flameo Hotman Outlets has to offer.)
“That…uh…makes a lot of sense…” Pivoting to a new tactic, he shrugs his shoulders and flashes her a charming grin. “I’m just not sure how to make a relative qualification about the size of your butt, I guess. Maybe I should do some further studying, then get back to you?”
Sokka sees Plan B taking a nosedive the instant Azula spins around to face him directly.
Regardless of the incendiary weapon within arm’s reach, No-Shits-Given Azula has largely shed her imperious aura in the weeks since she wrote an expletive-riddled resignation letter, took a lighter to said resignation letter, and tossed it onto her father’s desk. (She emailed him a copy, too.) Without her heels, she stands only eye-level to Sokka’s chest, and her glasses bring the word nerd to mind, exaggerating the pretty golden eyes behind the thick lenses—burning hotter than her flamethrower, at the moment.
“You’re being evasive,” she snaps, little wrinkles forming on the bridge of her nose. “There’s not a single lifeform on this planet that has devoted more of its existence to staring at my butt than you, Sokka. If I held a knife to your throat and ordered you to write down every casual observation you’ve ever made over the years, you’d fill more pages than all the books in the mythical library of Wan Shi Tong!”
He rubs the back of his neck, cringing in shame. Plan C—claiming a full bladder and bolting from the changing stall—as well as Plan D, Plan E, Plan F, and Plan G suddenly don’t seem like such great ideas anymore.
There’s only one option left, and as he pushes himself to commit, the knot of tension in his gut slowly unravels, then collapses all at once. The proper response seems obvious now, having been there all along, and he mentally smacks himself on the forehead for not pursuing it sooner.
“I’d gladly write a library about your butt without any deadly threats…but…yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry. I was being evasive there. To be perfectly honest…” Sokka sucks in a deep breath, then takes the plunge. “…my relative qualification of your posterior proportions in those jeans is that they’re…bigger. But in a good way! It’s noticeable, but not ridiculous. High-waisted jeans do that. And it doesn’t change the fact that you look like you’re in great shape—because you are! Those jeans are flattering, really. Very flattering. I love your butt in anything, everything, and nothing, ‘Zula. I’ll always love your butt, no matter what its proportions are—but I definitely wouldn’t miss the chance to see it in those jeans more often.”
By the time he cuts off his rambling, Azula’s eyes are wide as headlights, her jaw slack and lips parted. She just stares at him, apparently catatonic.
He won her over with his wit and candor before they started dating, and he hopes that she’ll appreciate it now, even if it takes a while to talk her down. He did manage to dissuade her from committing several felonies the night she learned Ozai passed over her for CFO, the position he’d promised her for years, so Sokka has some confidence that he can handle whatever comes next—whether it be sarcasm, skepticism, or sobbing.
But the silence lingers. He starts to fidget again, holding his breath as his wife’s eyes remain fixed and unreadable. Like it has a mind of his own, his hand snakes into the paper carton he’s been holding the entire time, and presents her with a sugar-coated nugget.
“Want one?”
The corner of Azula’s mouth quirks up, and she blinks for the first time in what feels like minutes.
“Sure, why not?” She plucks the mini-mochi from his fingers and pops it into her mouth. “…since you just endorsed my fat butt.”
Sokka wheezes, balking. “You don’t have a fat butt! Seriously! It’s a cute butt! It fits right in my hands!”
“Well, those are some big hands. My butt must be fat indeed.”
“It’s not fat! I swear—Tui’s Truth!”
“I suppose I can blame all the processed carbohydrates,” she sighs, mouth twisting. “I never used to eat those. They need a warning on the package that says, ‘Side effects include a fat butt which your husband pretends isn’t fat because he tries to spare your feelings out of love until you press him and then he gives you an honest answer to the unfair question you asked him in the first place.’ I really should file a complaint with the FDA!”
Azula’s smile, demure and bashful, makes it clear that her tirade serves as acceptance of his apology—and an apology of her own for lobbing a ‘Do these jeans make my butt look fat?’ grenade at him.
Sokka releases a long, relieved sigh. If the price of admiring his wife, convincing her to buy a flattering pair of jeans, and helping her take another step towards full realization of No-Shits-Given Azula is simply a few minutes of high blood pressure, he’ll pay anytime.
“Wanna hit the food court?”
“That sounds wonderful. Assuming my fat butt can still squeeze through the changing room door, of course.”
🍑 🍑 🍑
“These mini-mochi are exceptionally delectable! We should come here every weekend.”
Sokka agrees. Flameo Hotman Outlets’ mini-mochi are exceptionally delectable—and if he didn’t have his hands full, he would be digging into the carton himself instead of watching Azula gulp down one after the next, her cheeks swollen with dough.
As they venture through the parking garage, he struggles to fish the keys out of his pocket, constrained by the eleven different shopping bags hanging from his hands and forearms, the straps and ties biting into his skin.
“When you said you threw your whole wardrobe in the dumpster, doused it in gasoline, and tossed in a match…I thought you were joking.”
“Ongflee abfoud nifngety-fgour pergent,” she garbles around the half-chewed wad in her mouth.
No-Shits-Given Azula has somewhat less expensive tastes than her predecessor, but Sokka still shelled out a lot of yen to replace the ninety-four percent (or a small portion of that, more likely) of his wife’s incinerated wardrobe. He can’t complain, really—the bags currently cutting off circulation to his extremities are full of styles that suit her, rather than the corporate creature her father wanted her to be: sweat-shorts, cardigans, fur-lined boots, a windbreaker, and her now-favorite high-waisted jeans.
“Wanf gwon?”
A mini-mochi hovers in front of his face, pinched between Azula’s finger and thumb. And while he does want one, what he really wants is a free hand to take a picture of his wife in her glasses, cheeks bloated, mouth coated in cinnamon and sugar.
“Sure!”
Chomping the mochi out of her hand, Sokka finally manages to summon the car keys from the depths of his pocket. With a few clicks, he unlocks and pops the hatch, deposits the bags in the back, then circles around to open the passenger door for Azula—waiting for his cursory display of chivalry with ladylike patience while gulping mochi with childlike fervor.
Jumping into his own seat, Sokka turns the key in the ignition and shakes his head, content with the price he paid for a day at the mall with his wife—a spike of blood pressure, about two hundred thousand yen, and some fading red indents on his palms and arms.
“That was a pretty good day,” he chuckles, pulling out of the parking space. “Gotta say, when we first started dating, I never thought in a million years that I’d ever get to see you in mom jeans. It really is a good look for you, though.”
A few fond, thoughtful seconds pass in Sokka’s head, absent-minded enough that the sound of Azula’s hard, successive swallows in the seat beside him are only distant.
“WHAT WAS THAT?!” she snaps, mouth finally clear. “WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?!”
He slams on the brakes, turning his head slowly while leaning away towards the window. Azula rips her glasses off her nose, fists clenched and eyes hot with fury—blurry, unfocused fury, if he had to guess.
“Well…I said, when we first started dating, that I never—”
“DO YOU THINK I LOOK LIKE MY MOTHER IN THOSE JEANS?!”
Cringing, Sokka exhales in a hoarse, defeated croak. He eases his foot off the brake and sets course for the nearest bakery on the way home.
If he’s going to pay for that comment, he’ll need some more mochi.