Work Text:
Some moments, Sokka thinks, are just picture-perfect: he and his wife standing side-by-side, rolling out sticky mochi dough over the starch-dusted kitchen table in their igloo; Rina, just tall enough now to see over the top of the table (with the help of a step-stool), making an effort at doing the same with her rolling pin; her little brothers nearby providing moral support—Koda running around the table waving his hands as he hunts imaginary platypus bears (or pretends to be one? Sokka isn’t sure) while Roku sits under the table, busily slurping on his drool-covered fist…
…and a hand clapping over Sokka’s left buttock, giving it a firm squeeze.
“I didn’t realize you were wearing those trousers.”
Although she’s more than a head shorter than him and couldn’t do so without a step-stool of her own, Azula has a curious talent for whispering in a way that makes it seem as if her lips are right by his ear.
“Uh, yeah…” he breathes, swallowing thickly, “…when I told Katara she made them too snug in the back last time she mended them, she just made them snugger instead.”
“I’ll have to compliment her on her aptitude for ironic retribution, then.”
“Please do not. She’ll just keep making the trousers tighter until I can barely get them on.”
“I already said that I would. You don’t have to keep trying to convince me.”
With a respectable attempt at a flirty wink, she removes her grip from his cheek…
…or tries to.
He feels the pull on the seat of his pants, watches her eyes grow wide, and realizes that the sticky mochi dough on her hand has glued her palm to his backside.
Azula’s mouth presses into a thin line as they share a look of muted panic, knowing it’s only a matter of seconds before—
“OOGA!”
Glancing under the table, Sokka is greeted by a one-toothed grin of pure delight and a chubby, slobbery hand pointing up in giddy accusation.
“Dragonshite,” his wife curses under her breath.
Roku doesn’t possess the verbal capacity to repeat that word yet, but the one he knows is dangerous enough.
Coming to an abrupt stop behind them, Koda catches his mom red-handed—or, really, butt-handed.
“Oogies!”
Wincing, Sokka prepares himself for the trifecta. Sure enough, Rina’s rolling pin slows, her head whipping around.
“Oogies!” she chimes in, giggling deviously. “Mommy is making oogies!”
“OOGA!” Roku squeals.
Bouncing up and down like a rabaroo on cactus juice, Koda erupts in deranged toddlerish cackling. “Oogies! Oogies! Oogies!”
“Oogies!”
“Oogies!”
“OOGA!”
Rolling pin raised, Rina gently taps her mom on the shoulder.
“Bonk! Go to oogies jail!”
“Oogies! Oogies!”
“OOOOOOOOGA!”
“Bonk! Bonk, bonk, bonk, bonk! Oogies jail!”
Through it all, Sokka watches Azula remain almost perfectly stoic, maintaining a flat, unreadable Pai Sho face—save for the slightest of wry smiles that betrays her reluctant amusement. She finally manages to peel her palm off his pants, but it’s much too late to prevent what comes next:
The two of them run an orderly, civilized household, and that means allowing due process for oogies-related crimes. This one in particular goes well beyond the margin of tolerance.
“Alright, alright!” Sokka says, deploying his dad voice to cut through the cacophony. The kids settle down—well, mostly.
“OOOOOOGA! OOOOOOGA! OOOOOOGA! OOOOOOGA! Oooooogaaaa…”
Roku suddenly regains interest in sucking on his fist, humming contentedly as he does so.
“…let’s get started,” he continues, dusting the starch off his hands. “Court is now in session, Magistrate Dad presiding. Would the prosecutor for the progeny please read the charges?”
Rina stands ramrod straight—chin up, knees locked, feet together—all business.
“Mommy touched your butt.”
“Can you provide any evidence to support this crime?”
“Icky goo is on your pants, Daddy.”
It occurs to Sokka that there’s probably a doughy-starchy handprint on his rear end; he’ll need to wash these pants after the mochi are done.
“Understood. And do you have a witness?”
She gives a crisp nod and swivels her head to address her little brother.
“Koda, did you—Koda, stop picking your nose! That’s gross. Did you see Mommy touch Daddy’s butt?”
He doesn’t answer—not with words, at least. Instead, he jumps as high as his legs can manage (not very), little hand reaching out in an attempt to recreate the incident. Sokka ends up getting slapped just above the back of his knee.
“Okay. We have evidence; we have an overly enthusiastic witness. What does the accused have to say in her defense?”
Arms crossed and hip cocked, Azula levels a look at each of her three children in turn—Rina poised with hands clasped behind her back, Koda spinning around in circles fast enough to make a dragon dizzy, and Roku gurgling into his knuckles.
Then her eyes land on Sokka. Her brow furrows, lips slanting into a smile (but the sort that she can effectively disguise as a scowl).
“Very well,” she quips. “Given the overwhelming testimony against me, I plead guilty and surrender myself to the mercy of the court.”
Sokka nods his head gravely, drawing in a deep, dramatic breath. “The court sentences you to three minutes in oogies jail.”
“Bonk!” Rina titters, breaking character to wield her rolling pin again. “Mommy is going to oogies jail!”
“Oogies! Oogies!”
“OOGA!”
Azula exhibits immaculate composure, head high and hands unwavering as she reaches behind her back, then her neck, to untie her apron. But when it falls, so do Sokka’s eyes—and he finds himself facing a problem of his own.
It’s not her choice of top, per se; she picked an old crimson tunic she wouldn’t mind getting messy while baking, a perfectly logical thing to do; rather, it’s the fact that the tunic is at least six years old, tailored to fit her before she had Rina; and despite a self-imposed workout regimen explicitly intended to keep her in ‘conqueror-of-Ba-Sing-Se-shape,’ she still carries salient vestiges of her three pregnancies—namely, the two stretching taut the fabric of the tunic between her clavicle and sternum.
Sokka swears that she lingers there in front of him, moving in slow motion, tempting him. Excessive staring was established—by Sokka and Azula themselves, of course—as ‘oogies behavior,’ beyond licit ‘Mommy-Daddy affection,’ to keep the kids from being scandalized by the sort of activities which precipitated their conception. But given how the upper section of her tunic’s front appears to be under the same agonizing strain as a man being tortured on the rack, he’s starting to worry about ending up on the wrong side of the law himself.
“If you need me,” she sighs, pivoting on her heel, “I’ll be in jail.”
“Oogies jail!” Koda specifies.
As she steps away from the table, Sokka makes the mistake of watching her go—which, as much as he hates seeing her leave, he does love doing. And thanks to her own uncanny intuition, Azula clearly knows he’s watching, because her hips swing into an exaggerated sashay as she makes her way across the kitchen.
Sokka tugs at his collar; the room has risen at least ten degrees, and no one is firebending. At this rate, she’ll melt their igloo, then thaw the whole South Pole.
Arriving at the threshold of the sitting room, Azula gracefully dips backwards, dropping herself bum-first in the old peach crate nestled into the alcove. She necessarily leans her shoulders against the wall, making a show of crossing her legs so that her feet dangle over the parchment pasted to the side of the crate:
TIME-OUT & OOGIES JAIL
The crate was originally intended for the former purpose—and is still big enough for Rina or Koda to sit in comfortably—but Azula can barely squeeze her hips inside, and her legs are left hanging over the edge. (Whenever he’s incarcerated himself, Sokka always opts to stand.)
“Can we make the mochi now, Daddy?”
Realistically, there’s no way they could share the crate. Not even their combined geniuses are capable of overcoming the unyielding constraints of space-time. But that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t give it a shot…
“Daddy…?”
…especially with his wife wagging her eyebrows and curling her finger to beckon him over.
“Daddy!”
Maybe if he tried sitting down first so Azula could lie across his lap—it wouldn’t be easy, but assuming their weight didn’t bust the crate, that arrangement might just work. Sure, he’d have rough wooden slats digging into his back, but such discomfort would hardly matter when he could bury his face in a pair of full, soft—
Something taps his arm.
“Bonk! Go to oogies jail, Daddy!”