playinginsand | AU: Street Eden

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AU: Street Eden

People who have known Sokka since he was fifteen, sixteen, or even seventeen have often shared a common hope - that he will, eventually, calm the hell down about his work. Or at least cut down on the questions and excited babbling.

At thirty-four, Sokka is dangling from the roof of one of the two-story buildings in Eden, sitting in a sling constructed entirely of scavenged blankets, replacing a broken bulb in one of the lights they'd long installed on the street. The source of the blood they found on the walls from the beginning was known now and, honestly, they all felt better knowing there was light on the street in the middle of the night.

So.

Dangling Sokka from a roof, replacing a bulb and checking out the wires. Possibly whistling. Though it might be a yowling animal of some sort. As Zuko likes to say, Sokka couldn't carry a tune in a bucket.

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Hana is distinctly not lookg at Sokka right now, but she can feel him looking at her, and swallows.

"...yes."

He doesn't freak out, as the freezing might suggest. Especially since she doesn't look particularly surprised by his question - more resigned.

Doesn't mean Sokka can help lifting a hand to rub his eyes, though. All wounds heal, but not every memory fades.

"So in your dreams, you're fighting lurks," he says quietly, eyes on the street below them, "and you're worried they're going to come here, but you're not in Eden in the dreams."

"No," Hana agrees. "I'm in all sorts of places, but there're always more poepl than we've got. And I'm never 'Bending, but just, well, hitting them and using stakes like Mom used to have. And...

"I don't think they're about things that are going to happen. I think they're about things that

have

happened."

Now comes the hard part. This all sounds-- somewhat familiar, vaguely, like a candle twenty miles away in pitch darkness. Sokka can even pinpoint where he might have heard something similar: Buffy. He can even guess that Harth may have mentioned dreams once or twice, though he'd spent most of his interactions with the lurk doing his best to ignore every word out of his mouth just as much as every hiss.

But he remembers Buffy trying to start a conversation about Mel, years ago, and backing off when he thought she'd toed the line. And he remembered perfectly that night on the wall, when Harth's knees were crushed and Sokka's club was stained with blood. He remembers the last night he ever trusted his bloodsister and he remembers every argument brought to the table in the meetings that followed.

Including the one from Giles.

But despite all of these things, these lights, flickerings of candles in the dark, Sokka's never been one to offer a scary idea when he doesn't know it's true.

"...what do you think?"

"I don't know!" Hana snaps, waving on arm in frustration and letting off a quick burst of flame. "I just know that I've got them and Loo hasn't, and she thinks I'm spun!"

It's amazing, the things you can get used to. Sokka doesn't even flinch when flame bursts, only glances to it to reassure himself she's doing it with the hand not between them. When she gets frustrated, her uncle sighs and ruffles her hair again, smirking at her. "Well, you are, tiny, always have been. Just consider these further proof.

"And," he continues quickly, not wanting to be threatened with flame himself, "I wouldn't worry so much about how they're like Harry's - if lurks show up here, we'll be ready for them. But figuring out what they're s'posed to mean, especially if they've been happening for that long, yeah, that'd probably be a good thing."

Sokka does not have a good innocent face. It comes from years of no experience being innocent.

Hana's silent again in post-outburst sulk. Then she's silent because she has nothing to say. Then she's silent because she doesn't know how to say what she wants to say.

Eventually:

"Am I gonna go bad?"

"Hell, no," Sokka replies easily, snorting and glancing with her with a smirk and a raised brow. "You said you're fighting lurks in these dreams, not becoming them. Besides, if your thief of a mother and bastard prince of a father haven't done your genes in by now, I'm really not seeing anything that can do it."

"It's not their genes I'm worried about," Hana says quietly.

The smirk fades and Sokka blinks at her, eyes narrowed. Namely because he's worried when she's worried. "So what is it?" he asks, quiet in return.

"It's the rest of our family."

Zuko and Mel were exceptions.

They were also her parents.

Sighing deeply, Sokka squeezes her shoulder again, using his free hand to rub at the scruff on his chin. "Your aunt and uncle were psychotic. Harth wasn't nuts until after he became a lurk - your mom always said that. And Azula was a nutbag because your grandfather was a nutbag.

"...and you will not tell your father I said that."

Hana laughs sharply at the liberty at talking about her grandfather like that.

"So what do they mean?"

"The dreams?" Hair ruffling has turned into hair stroking, Sokka going quiet as he considers. Katara would be shocked to hell to see him now, he knows, sitting there and trying to interpret a dream.

But... Hana asked.

"So, you're... you're not in Eden in them, fighting lurks. So where are you?"

"All over," Hana says.

"But sort of in the same place. I think sometimes it's Mom's world. Where she was born. But then, it's a massive world if it is."

"All kinds of buildings? Real tall, can't see the sky?"

A working theory is still a theory, right?

"Sometimes."

She sighs, and rubs her head, trying to think of it.

"OK, one time, I was on a ship. On an ocean, like you and Dad described. And then lots of times it's just villages with buildings the size of in Eden, but then, there're lots of tall buildings, like what I think a city would be like.

"'Scept... there's a couple of cities that are the same city, but different. Some buildings are the same, some are different, and sometimes it's more crowded and stuff.

"I think it's different times."

Sokka remembers a particular point in Apocalyptica where he worried he'd have the wraps on his hands torn to shreds by now, picking at them like he did when he was nervous. He's getting that same feeling now - only this time, it's about having no beard left by the time Iroh hits sixteen.

Doesn't stop him from continuing to rub at his jaw, though.

"Hana," he says quietly, eyes stuck on the street, "are you... are you you in these dreams?"

Hana gives him a slightly irritable glance.

"It's not like I get a mirror," she says. But then she sighs. "I don't think so. Maybe?"

Sokka catches that glance and sticks his tongue out at her. "We'll, you'd know if your hair was the same color, with it flying in your face all the time."

RUFFLE.

Hana at least isn't as particular about her hair as her sister, who keeps it tied tightly back for training. But she's still a vain teenage girl and it's still a NO RUFFLE ZONE.

So she ducks and pushes Sokka's hand away.

"No," she says finally. "I'm not me. I'm someone else."

He grins at her, despite the ducking and pushing. If Loo or Iroh pushed and ducked, he'd be worried. Hana's been trying to get him to stop showing physical affection since she was five.

It falters, though - that grin, that is. But Sokka grips the edge of the roof rather than going back to rubbing his beard away.

"...I ever tell you about Buffy?"

"Buffy?"

Long pause, and Hana thinks. The name sounds vaguely familiar.

"If this is an ex-girlfriend, I don't wanna know."

"Right, because I regale you with tales of my love life all the time." Not never, but rarely enough that he can eyeball her with a raised brow. "Buffy was a girl in Apocalyptica. I got on with her all right, but your mom wasn't a fan."

And Mel liked everybody.

Hana doesn't really know that, not remembering her Mom that well at all. But Sokka does get an appraising glance. She's fairly certain Mom would have a good reason.

"Why not?"

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