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"All I'm saying is that when a play has 'dragons' in the name most people expect some fire. Maybe some smoke, an explosion perhaps. A little one!"
"Your newest attempt to get Kuei to let you use pyrotechnics will be just as unsuccessful as the last ones, Sokka."
"I will have you know he was on board every single time but Suki keeps talking him out of it."
"Yeah because Suki isn't an idiot and knows we'd get shut down immediately."
The two siblings kept bickering through their worn and comfortable argument. Sokka brought up their high school production of Pippin, as always, and Katara reminded him that their high school had been an ancient underfunded walking safety hazard and nowhere else would have gotten away with functionally setting an actor on fire, as always.
The two siblings broke off as a familiar face stomped into the diner, door jangling. The night outside was almost pitch dark, sans the distant streetlight and the shadow of pavement, the suggestion of a sleepy back road, the whisper of a half-burnt-out neon sign. Zuko slammed his boots together to knock the snow off of his feet at the entrance with true violence.
Zuko had grown up much closer to the equator, used to lounging around shirtless in front of box fans and frequent showers during the dog days of summer. He was not used to snow or cold. Each winter Zuko gained a new article of cold-weather clothing, which now officially included boots, a coat, a scarf and gloves. He'd lost his gloves a week ago though. As Zuko stomped sludge into the Jasmine Diner's welcome mat with utter malice, cheeks and nose flushed, Sokka caught a glimpse of Zuko's rather wet jeans. He snickered.
Zuko turned to glare. Sokka smiled prettily. Katara waved.
"Bitch," Zuko fumed as he stalked over. They were the only people here. The diner was already sleepy, but it went catatonic past 9 p.m. most nights. Even the one waitress had fucked off behind the service bar, maybe to take a break or catch a nap somewhere in the depths of the restaurant. "Fuck."
"Fell on your ass didn't you?" Sokka called a bit before proper speaking distance.
Zuko tore off his beenie and slapped it down on the booth table with a thwat. Katara gave him an unimpressed look and pushed the hot chocolate they'd ordered for him across the sticky vinyl. "You didn't break anything right?" she asked.
Zuko sighed deeply, collapsing into the booth Sokka was sitting at and wearily scooting closer so that their thighs touched. "Just my pride."
Zuko usually preferred to be by the wall, but cold winter days and nights made him all too happy to let someone else take the brunt of the faint cold leaching through the windows and drywall. Katara tutted.
"You'll live," She declared, picking at the spread of textbooks in front of them that she and Sokka had barely glanced at. Sokka's were full of equations and angles and trajectories and diagrams of bridges. Katara's were full of diagrams of various something-systems, skeletons and chemical compounds. Zuko unwound his scarf and unzipped his ski jacket to reveal a fading Muay Tai hoodie.
Sokka just snorted at him. He was wearing shorts, a Quicksilver t-shirt and his seal skin parka, though he'd shrugged the parka off and it was currently jammed between him and the wall. Katara had some long-sleeved pretty dress she'd likely pilfered from costumes.
"Weak," Sokka declared. Zuko grabbed his knee with his very cold hand. Sokka shrieked.
"Why do we have to come here anyway?" Zuko asked over Sokka's continued exclamations.
They came here because sometimes Sokka's brain just couldn't stop whirring and spiralling, a sportscar with bicycle breaks, pistons firing and frantic energy. Or because Katara got wound up so tight she needed to rant until the tension left her shoulders, lest it come out as spitting hot venom. Or because Zuko's fingers had started twitching for the cigarettes he'd thrown away months ago, or his cramped dorm started to feel like a cage. Or because Aang was needy and wanted company in the late hours. Or because Toph…they didn't really know why Toph asked them to meet her at Jasmine's sometimes. It was probably something to do with wanting to get out from under her parent's fingertips, even though they were all pretty sure being 17 and emancipated didn't mean Toph didn't have a curfew. They tried to hide their occasional late-night outings from her but she seemed to often just know. It was a bit creepy in Sokka's opinion.
Sometimes they just needed a place to study. Or sometimes they were simply awake.
Tonight was the latter, though they were pretending it was the former.
Katara huffed. "It's always open, never crowded, it's near campus, and the coffee quality to cost ratio isn't the worst thing I've ever witnessed. Please enlighten me with another place we could go?"
"I used to work here, it's weird," Zuko grumbled into his hot chocolate. "Thanks for this."
"Wow. It's almost like we met you here. While you were working."
The siblings had met Zuko when he was working here, slightly more maladjusted and slightly angrier, still reeling from cutting ties with his father and sister and starting to doubt whether he ever actually wanted the law degree he was starting to pursue or if it had all been because his father had wanted him to get it. They'd talked to him, often during dead nights like this one where Zuko was working the graveyard shift, and coerced him slowly and gently to quit his job and join them in their college's theatre club. It wasn't like he needed the money, Uncle had set him up just fine. He just needed something to fill his time, to occupy his body and mind. Zuko had finally agreed that returning to his old high school extracurricular would be slightly more entertaining than cooking hashbrowns.
"It can't be weirder than your ex being your SM," Sokka butted in, eyeing Zuko's hot chocolate. He was drinking diner sludge coffee a couple minutes before 1 AM like a madman. Not that either Zuko or Katara could judge.
"Oh no," Katara said. "You started dating Suki while she was already your stage manager. That was a choice you two made. You both knew the risks."
Sokka groaned, "You are a cruel cruel sister. Oh!"
Sokka whirled around to Zuko. "The next show's been decided."
Zuko's face scrunched up in confusion over the rim of his mug. "What? Tonight?" He reached for his phone to check his E-mail.
"Not officially," Katara said.
Sokka waggled his eyebrows. "Sleeping with my boss a year ago has its perks huh Kat?"
Zuko choked on the hot chocolate. Sokka laughed and pressed a very obnoxious kiss to Zuko's temple, more sound than anything else.
"Oh," Sokka pressed a hand to his chest, "But you have my heart babe."
"Call me babe again and I'll hang you from the catwalk."
"Call Zuko babe in front of me again and I won't save you."
"Romance is lost on you two," Sokka groused. Then his eyes sharpened and he cracked a grin that everyone who had known him for more than a day knew was trouble. "Well, maybe not totally lost on you, Katara."
Katara picked up a creamer and threw it at Sokka as hard as she could. Luckily, she didn't have much room and the creamer had little time to gain momentum. Sokka failed to dodge, though he was unperturbed.
"Say, was Aang coming tonight?"
Katara threw her fork.
"Fuck!" Sokka yelled as the fork hit his arm and clattered onto the booth. "What the hell Katara? Jesus."
Someone cleared their throat. Everyone at the booth froze.
The waiter from earlier looked at them. Slowly, she tipped up Sokka's coffee with as much judgment as one could pack into the act of pouring liquid.
"Can I get y'all anything else?" She asked. She had some kind of red creases by her right eye.
"Can you do waffles?" Sokka asked.
"Waffles," She repeated.
"Yep," Sokka popped the p. Their little group had been frequenting this joint long enough that most of the servers had seen them in various states of sleep depravity. Some had even witnessed them at their worst, wearing all black with their heads on the vinyl table and energy drink cans bursting from their bags. They had long since lost all shame.
"...want any toppings?"
Sokka rattled off an order for them all. Chocolate chip with whipped cream and bacon for him, plain and strawberries for Katara and pecan for Zuko.
"Waffles, coming right up," She said with almost no enthusiasm.
She wandered back behind the counter.
The attempted homicide by fork already forgotten, Katara and Sokka met eyes, mirth lacing their smiles. They spoke in unison. "Thank you, Wa-"
"It was one time!" Zuko exploded. "One fucking time and you two will not let it die!"
"Because hearing you say thank you, drinks to that server made my tech week," Sokka sniggered.
"I hate you both, I fucking despise you."
Sokka hooked his and Zuko's ankles together under the table.
"You looooove us. And you loooooove your bestest boyfriend who is going to tell you what the spring production is going to be way before anyone is supposed to find out."
"What is it?"
"It's called Love amongst the Dragons. Neither of us have heard of-"
"Really?" Zuko's whole face had lit up, and then something complicated shadowed the surprise and joy.
"You know it?" Katara asked
"Yeah, I saw it once with my mother. She really liked it."
Katara touched Zuko's hand. "Oh, I'm so sorry."
"It's alright. Really. It's uh…it's a romance drama based on traditional Japanese theatre. You know the whole Noh and Kyōgen thing. Nōgaku I think it's called, when they're performed together. There are these little comedic skits during breaks that tie into the themes of the drama. It's all condensed though, obviously. I think it was written in the 80s."
Sokka hummed, mind already starting to mull over set designs. Those skits would provide a lot of interesting opportunities. Time to fully change and move set pieces for one thing, but their own possible small set pieces. "That sounds really fun actually."
"It should be," Zuko finished his hot chocolate. "It's about uh…"
The siblings listened intently as Zuko stumbled through an attempt at summarising Love Amongst the Dragons. The play was either deeply confusing in nature, what with the dragon emperor and empress and the something spirit and the two star-crossed peasants accidentally getting involved in the drama of immortals, or Zuko was explaining it very poorly.
The waffles were set down in the middle of this rambling retelling. There was a scramble to put away the sprawl of textbooks so there was space for them.
"Well," Katara said, drumming her fingers thoughtfully over her medical textbook. "I wonder if Kuai will want to play the aesthetics and time period straight or if we're going to put a spin on it."
"It may be more interesting to set it in more modern times, what with how it's a modern play on an old theatre style. Maybe focus in on a time period that relates to the themes or something," Sokka mused.
"Modern clothes are boring though. They're so easy," Katara complained.
"You'll regret saying that in a month," Zuko stretched out his hands, probably cramped from whatever writing or reading or whatever he did in his classes. "I think I have my mom's old script of it somewhere. I can maybe get a jump start on writing the prop list. Then I can spend more time thinking about lighting."
The door jangled.
"Aang!" Katara waved, grinning. Sokka gave her a look in between shovelling waffle into his mouth. It was either ignored or missed.
Aang beamed at them, walking right over without having to knock snow off of his surprisingly clean sneakers. He was wearing his signature orange jacket covered in bright handmade patches. Katara had recently added red tassel things in place of hood strings. It was garish, possibly hideous, and yet everyone secretly loved it. He was carrying a large flask-like water bottle and some kind of knapsack slung over a shoulder.
"Hi, guys!" Aang had the superpower of being constantly cheerful no matter what the hour.
Zuko was eyeing his shoes. "Why are your shoes so clean?"
"Oh," Aang said as he slid into the booth next to Katara. "I took an electric scooter."
"You what?!"
Aang blinked at Zuko, nonplussed. "Yeah?"
"You know how icy it is out there right now? How much snow is piled up everywhere?"
Sokka finally swallowed enough to speak. "Ha! - Hi Aang - Zuko eats shit on his own two feet but Aang rides a fucking scooter here and is totally fine. Classic"
Zuko glared at Sokka for a moment before reaching out and grabbing Sokka's coffee mug. He slammed it before Sokka could take it back, made a face at how much sweetener Sokka had put in it and daintily placed the cup back down again. Sokka scoffed in offence.
"Sorry I was a bit late, Me and Gyatso had a really long phone call."
Aang had grown up in a kind of hippie commune thing no one else totally understood, but Aang and an older member named Gyatso were super close. Even when Aang had left to study philosophy they called each other at least once a week. It had occasionally been a point of tension between Aang and the rest of them, especially Katara, who all had far worse relationships or far more sporadic contact with family. Aang never stayed mad long though and no one could stay mad at him.
"Want us to order you some food?" Katara asked
"Nah, I brought some Kombucha and some homemade sha phaley."
Aang proceeded to set the thermos down and opened up his knapsack, which was also stuffed with nuts and various other nibbles. Not being one to throw his old ways and beliefs to the wind, Aang had swiftly moved out of the dorms and in with a bunch of people really into self-sustainability. This included a lot of home cooking and garden-grown vegetables. And Kombucha, which no one else at the table particularly liked.
"Thank you Aang, this is very sweet of you," Katara said.
'Sweet!" Sokka cried and grabbed for a sha phaley. "Thanks, man."
Both reactions made Aang smile wide.
"Soooo… what's going on?" He asked, then pointed at a now slightly syrup-stained piece of graph paper where Sokka had started jotting down notes and designs. "Is this some kind of secret production meeting?"
"The fruits of Sokka's poor romantic decisions," Katara intoned.
Aang frowned. "What's wrong with Zuko?"
Katara and Sokka cackled. Zuko looked skyward in a possible plea for guidance or revenge.
"Suki," Katara corrected. "She's told Sokka what the next production is going to be."
"Mhmm," Sokka said around a bite of sha phaley. "Love Amongst the Dragons." Sokka proceeded to give an even worse summary than Zuko had.
"Oh! I think I've heard of that one. Sounds fun!"
"Do you have an idea who you want to go for?" Zuko asked.
Aang shook his head, "probably not the emperor or empress. I don't think I could pull that off. I think I should get my hands on a script before I say for sure though." Aang tilted his head. "Jet's going to go for the whatever-it-was spirit though, and he'll be an absolute nightmare if he doesn't get it."
Sokka groaned. "You're right and I hate it."
"If we go with the traditional setting the actors are going to be an absolute nightmare about the clothes, what with all the pieces. Remember when Jet would keep just throwing his quick-change costume pieces everywhere and kept hanging things on the fire alarm? We almost got shut down."
"You almost killed him backstage over that if I remember right Kat."
"This show has a ton of swords in it," Zuko blurted out in the air of someone just remembering something horrible. "I know Jet stole those hook sword things closing night three shows ago. Though none of the other actors could behave like adults around them either."
Sokka let his head thunk onto the table for a long moment. "We love you Aang, but you are the one and only good one."
Aang beamed at the compliment. "I do try," He said.
"Oh, Kuai or Suki might come and talk to you about this show before it's announced," Sokka peeled himself off of the table that had who knows what on it. "Suki said something about wanting to confer with you about certain things, not sure what."
"Noh plays often incorporated Buddhist and Shintoist symbolism and themes," Zuko mused. "Kuai might want your opinion on how to best portray all of that."
"I hope so! It would be really cool to talk about that with him."
"I bet you could probably go and talk to him about it even if he doesn't ask."
"Well, I think that's everything really unless we've missed something?" Sokka said, carefully folding and tucking away his sketch. They all shook their heads.
"To another show," Katara picked up her mug of water.
"May we not reach new records of caffeine ingestion," Sokka raised his empty coffee mug.
"May we remember these days as some of the best," Aang added, because he was a sap and a bleeding heart.
"It was the best of times it was the worst of times," Sokka muttered to himself. Zuko snorted
"May I find the willpower not to strangle Jet," Zuko poured a little bit more kombucha into his mug before lifting it.
"Amen," Katara chimed in.
"That's not how toasts work."
"Oh shove it."
They tapped their cheap unappealingly coloured mugs together and drank. Or mimed drinking.
"Now," Sokka put his mug aside. "Who wants to time me to see how fast I can eat everything currently on my plate?"