AU: Street Eden

[notanoptimist.livejournal.com]

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.

Comments

[fire-frays.livejournal.com]

Hana does her very best to look tortured, as well.

"Un-cle!" she protests. "Can't it wait Iroh's finished training?"

[notanoptimist.livejournal.com]

"But Iroh actually tells me when something's bothering him and why," Sokka whines right back, pouting at her. "I have to use a totally different technique to get him to talk. You're not going to try and mess up my system, are you? It's been working so well for all these years."

[fire-frays.livejournal.com]

Hana scowls at him. It's a special scowl that she didn't learn from either parent, but just seems to come naturally.

Then she's looking at her knees again.

"It's not anything new or important or anything."

[notanoptimist.livejournal.com]

It could be said that it's Azula's scowl except that, Sokka finds, it's hard to compare them without murder and soulless-ness behind Hana's eyes.

With his arm around her, Sokka just stay quiet, squeezing her shoulder rhythmically. He will do this until the end of time - or until she tells him.

[fire-frays.livejournal.com]

"Harry says that he used to get dreams if something really important or evil was happening," Hana starts.

It's a random place to start but it's what's made her think of it all again.

[notanoptimist.livejournal.com]

The squeezing continues. He may not have known Harry that well, but he knows Hana wouldn't have cared about Harry's dreams unless there was something else they applied to.

[fire-frays.livejournal.com]

"He says they're different from other dreams. Really vivid - all the sights and sounds and smells and stuff, it's like he's really there," she explains. Then she's silent for a long time, kicking the brick work idly, trying to figure out how to get where she's going.

"I get dreams like that all the time."

[notanoptimist.livejournal.com]

Well, that's... unexpected.

Frowning slightly, Sokka stops squeezing her shoulder, tilting his head to try and look at her. "And Harry's dreams... they come true?"

[fire-frays.livejournal.com]

"I think so," Hana says. "It's not like, y'know future dreams or stuff. They were about things this evil guy was doing at the same time. He wasn't quite clear on the details.

"And he started yelling when I asked him any more."

And then Hana had thrown fire at him and... it hadn't been pretty.

[notanoptimist.livejournal.com]

Sokka can guess. Which is why his concerned look has a hint of parental Oh God Not Again to it. But he'll lecture later.

"So you're worried your dreams are gonna come true, too. Are they like his? You're watching somebody do something?"

Honestly, by this point, the idea of someone's dreams coming true, premonitions, or transference... it's not quite mundane but neither is it a huge shock anymore.

[fire-frays.livejournal.com]

"No," says Hana. "I'm... I'm doing it. Fighting, mostly. But it's not here. It's... I don't know where it is. It's always somewhere different. But it's never anywhere like Eden."

[notanoptimist.livejournal.com]

He doesn't say anything at first but that's because Sokka is watching her, waiting for Hana to finish a thought. She's never shied away from fighting before - just training.

"...who're you fighting?" he prompts.

[fire-frays.livejournal.com]

It's not that she's shying away, she's just confused.

"Monsters," she says promptly. "Only they're not. Not like the ones we have here. They look like humans, but they're not that either."

She brings up her hands to her brows and makes grabby motions, incating a raised ridge.

"They're all bumpy."

[notanoptimist.livejournal.com]

This is about when Sokka goes still. Stock still, in fact - frozen.

"Hana," he says quietly, still watching her carefully, but there is something harder to his gaze, searching and intent. "Are their eyes yellow?"

[fire-frays.livejournal.com]

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



"...yes."

[notanoptimist.livejournal.com]

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."

[fire-frays.livejournal.com]

"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."

[notanoptimist.livejournal.com]

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?"

[fire-frays.livejournal.com]

"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!"

[notanoptimist.livejournal.com]

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.

[fire-frays.livejournal.com]

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?"

[notanoptimist.livejournal.com]

"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."

[fire-frays.livejournal.com]

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

[notanoptimist.livejournal.com]

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.

[fire-frays.livejournal.com]

"It's the rest of our family."

Zuko and Mel were exceptions.