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“Look, he’s here.” Toph points off to the side of the room towards the door, where Zuko has shown up, phone in hand and an expression of incredulity plastered over his face.
“Well, yeah!” Zuko says, showing the phone to Sokka. “You can’t just text me and say ‘are you okay with committing a small crime for the aesthetic’ and then not explain.”
“So you came to my house?” Sokka spins around in his desk chair, away from his sketchbook and towards his disgruntled friend.
“I applaud the dedication,” Toph remarks, hanging upside down off the side of the bed and listening to the television.
“Right. What the hell does this mean?” Zuko waves the phone in the air.
“Oh, I forgot. We need your help.” Sokka grins.
“No.” Zuko crosses his arms across his chest, narrowing his eyes.
“Technically you’d just be an accessory.” Toph rolls over onto her stomach and rests her chin in her hands.
“Still a no. Why don’t you ask Katara? She loves doing illegal shit.”
“We can’t ask Katara. We need someone who’s eighteen to buy us spray paint,” Sokka explains.
“He means buy him spray paint. I’m just the look out,” Toph counters.
“Is that supposed to be ironic?”
“Is that supposed to be an insult?”
“No,” Zuko responds, hands up in surrender.
“Come on, Zuko. Please?” Sokka stands up, coming face to face with Zuko and putting a hand on his shoulder. Zuko sighs, knowing Sokka’s not going to give up until he’s in on the plan.
“Yeah, Zuko. Don’t be a loser,” Toph cuts in, standing on the bed.
“Once again, hell no,” Zuko stands firm in his position, appalled he has to be the moral compass today.
“Fine,” Sokka turns to Toph.
“Plan B?”
“Plan B.”
“What’s plan B?” Zuko asks hesitantly, not sure if he really wants to know.
“Stealing.” Toph shrugs. Sokka nods solemnly.
“Oh my God. Fine. I’ll help.” Zuko resigns, turning on his heel back towards the door. Sokka and Toph high five before Sokka grabs his sketchbook with far too much excitement. Two post-its flutter to the floor. Zuko rolls his eyes at the borderline aggressive eagerness.
“Yes!” Sokka beams, already packing some markers and his sketchbook in a bookbag. He continues throwing in various art supplies, things Zuko can’t fathom the use of in a graffiti setting.
“Okay, I’ll buy your stuff, but if anyone asks, I didn’t know what you were using it for. And I’m not going with you.”
“Not going with us?” Sokka halts, bookbag half on his shoulder.
“No way. I’m not gonna get arrested,” Zuko continues as they make their way down the hall and out of the house.
“But that’s the whole fun part!” He speeds up for a second to get in front of Zuko, and continues to walk backwards in front of him.
“He is right. Breaking the law is the best part,” Toph chimes in.
Zuko climbs in the passenger seat to Sokka’s car, and Toph into the back.
“I don’t think so. My uncle would kill me.”
“Come on, I’ve been doing this for months and I’ve never gotten caught,” Sokka barters, starting his car and pulling out of the driveway.
“Right, and with my luck you’d break that streak the second I get involved.” Zuko shakes his head.
“It’s impossible for you to get caught,” Toph speaks up from her seat behind them, “because you have me keeping watch. I can literally see through buildings. And around corners. You’ll be fine.”
“Not to mention I’m never going to stop bothering you unless you agree to come along,” Sokka tags on, causing Zuko to throw him a glare.
“Alright,” Zuko agrees, “but just this once.”
Sokka seems way too hyped up. As if Zuko being there somehow made the entire experience better. Which doesn’t make sense to Zuko at all. He doesn’t understand why today is any different than the countless other trips he’s made out to different allies and tunnels and the undersides of bridges. Usually, Sokka will go alone, unless he wants to bring Toph with him to more risky areas, and Zuko has never been asked to buy them supplies before.
Sokka’s car slows to a halt in the parking lot of a Michael’s craft store. He pulls out his sketchbook as they walk up to the door and into the building. The smell of fake Christmas hangs in the air permanently, despite it being October. Glaringly orange flowers and decorative pine cone arrangements hang from every vertical surface, and bundles of plastic corn and fake pumpkins cover just about every square inch of shelf space. The entire store seems stale and dead. One might attribute that to being in a craft store in a small town on a friday evening.
Sokka pulls the battered sketchbook from earlier out of his bag and flips through a few pages. Splashes of bright pink and blue and green and orange burst off the papers as he flips through them with determination. Finally he lands on the page he wants, and proceeds to hold it up to the cans.
“What are you planning?” Zuko asks, leaning against the corner of the aisle. The farther away he is from the going on of the two vandals, the better. You can never have too much deniability. However… it would be a lie to say he wasn't curious.
“You’ll see.” Sokka brushes off the question, still carefully choosing paint colors. Zuko looks back down at his phone for a few seconds before looking up. His friend’s face was concentrated and focused on his paint, and he couldn’t help but watch him move around the aisle, searching for the right color.
“You’re staring.” Toph punches him in the shoulder, and he jumps in shock.
“Staring at who-- at what-- I am not.” Zuko looks back down at his phone, pretending to reply to some text. His face burns for a few seconds, embarrassed.
What are you embarrassed over? he thinks to himself. You didn’t do anything. Toph just likes to mess with you. Just… chill out.
“You guys ready to go?” Sokka asks, arms full of spray paint cans.
Zuko nods, and they start walking over to the registers. “Nice color choices,” Toph commends.
“Thanks, I--” He pauses before shoving her in the shoulder. “You always do this. Why do you always do this?” They bicker back and forth, Zuko walking slightly behind them.
Back in the car, back on the move across town. This time, they stop in the parking lot of a CVS.
“Here?” Zuko inquires, confused. “Where are you supposed to paint here?”
“No, we just park a little ways away. Safer, y’know?”
“I guess. Safer than that is, I don’t know, drawing on paper like a normal person.”
“Okay, nerd.” Sokka pats him on the shoulder as he turns off the car. He gets out and grabs his bag of new paint from the backseat next to Toph, and slings his book bag over his shoulder on the other arm. Toph hops out of the backseat too. Zuko follows them through a dark alley.
“We have to hurry,” Sokka says as they duck under a fence, “it’s going to get dark soon.”
“Wow, maybe we should just come back tomorrow.” Zuko kicks a rock. Toph kicks his shin.
“Okay, we’re here.” Sokka stops and looks at a blank, grey wall. The wall is dirty, blank other than a stormproof metal door on the far left side and a crack across the middle. But to Sokka, it’s a fresh canvas.
“Wait… where are we?”
“Uh… nowhere specific,” Sokka evades the question, setting his stuff down. Zuko furrows his brow, looking around. Outside the alley, he can see the buildings across the street.
“Wait.” Zuko’s eyes widen. “This is the McDonald’s! The one you’re not allowed to be at!” There was an incident. One he obviously wasn't present for, but an incident nonetheless that has since made late-night fast food runs a major pain.
“Quiet down then,” Toph seethes, elbowing him in the ribs.
“This is playing with fire, Sokka,” Zuko warns from the shadows he chose to stand under. He keeps hidden as best as possible. No way is he going to be seen here.
“What’s your problem with that? You love fire. You’re a pyromaniac,” Sokka says, an unwavering smile pasted on his face.
“Okay, just because I can bend fire, doesn’t mean I--” Zuko stops and shakes that thought out of his head to focus on what’s more important. “Whatever. You’re just going to get in trouble. Even more trouble than you would have at any other building.”
“Sucks for me, then.” Sokka pops the cap off a metal spray can. A yellow stream of paint shoots out the nozzle and onto the wall. Zuko slumps his shoulders and sighs. Great, now he’s stressed for two people.
“I’m going to go be the lookout from out there.” Toph gestures around the corner.
“Can’t you see around corners?” Zuko asks. His tone is accusatory, but he doesn’t want to admit to himself what he’s accusing.
“Uh. Can’t hear you, already gone.” Toph waves him off as she moves around the corner, leaving him and Sokka alone. Zuko sits down on the dirty pavement beside a crushed Coke can and Sokka’s bag.
Sokka’s discarded sketchbook lay open on the ground, colored pencil sketches glowing in the salmon light of the setting sun. Zuko picks it up to look at the drawings. He’s exceptionally careful not to mess anything up. Sokka wouldn’t notice, he’s too deep in his work.
Nothing drawn in the book seems to have anything to do with anything else. Every sketch is completely random, but most of them are detailed and drawn well. Quick doodles of real people are thrown in with some of the other drawings of animals and fictional characters and flowers and trees and fish, a lot of fish, a weird amount of fish, why does he draw so many fish?
“So do you just draw Toph every time she’s mad at you?” Zuko breaks the silence, looking down at the book, where a drawing of Toph takes up half a page with her scowl.
“Hm?” Sokka responds, turning around. He sees the drawing. “Oh, no, she’s just always like that. I don’t think she’s aware I’ve ever even drawn her. Most people aren’t.”
“This one,” Zuko says, pointing at a small portrait, “kind of looks like… Aang with hair?”
“It is,” Sokka admits. “I didn’t think anyone would be able to tell.”
“No, it’s good,” Zuko assures.
Sokka works in silence for a few more minutes, and Zuko continues to flip through the sketchbook. Each page brings something new and unexpected. He doesn’t understand how one could have so many ideas, so many things to put down on paper. He could spend hours looking through these, trying to pick apart the processes of Sokka’s mind. So many things, people, and fish swim around the pages that Zuko zones out just a bit, until he flips a page and comes face to face with, well…
About a million depictions of himself.
It takes him a second to take it in, but with the scar and the hair and his exact nose, it couldn’t be anyone else. Green pencil sketches of his own face stare up at him from all over the two-page spread. He blinks a few times and almost says something, but… doesn’t. Instead he looks over all the drawings, seeing his own face with new eyes. His side profile, a lot of grumpy frowns, a smile or two mixed in. It’s strange, to say the least, to see himself from an outside perspective. He’s looked in mirrors before, of course. He’s seen pictures. But this? This is different. This isn’t just how
the world sees him. This is how Sokka sees him.
He flips the page over after staring at those drawings for too long.
More fish. Yeah.
“Done.” Sokka stands back, jogging backwards to admire his work from a distance.
“Already? It’s been hardly forty five minutes.” Zuko closes the book and checks the time on his watch.
“Just look at it.”
Zuko stands up to check out the painting. For the second time in the same day, Sokka’s art takes him by surprise.
“That’s a turtleduck.”
“Yeah.”
“You drew a turtleduck?”
“Yeah.”
“What the hell goes on inside your head?” Zuko raises an eyebrow at Sokka, who’s still gleaming with pride over his new piece of work.
“Hey!” Toph runs around the corner, out of breath. “The manager is coming out to take out the trash. Time to make a break for it.”
“Already?” Sokka asks, snapping a picture of the newly vandalized wall. He shoves all his things in his bag, including the cans of paint. Heavy footsteps approach the corner, and Sokka grabs Zuko’s arm as they run back towards the car.
“See?” Sokka turns his head behind him as they dodge pedestrians, street signs, and a fire hydrant. “I told you this was the fun part.”