Of Diseases
Aang sneezed. Katara winced. Zuko glared.
All in all, it was a very normal morning in Sokka's opinion. Since the Avatar had become sick those three days ago, a casual, if not bothersome, cycle had formed:
Aang awoke. Whirlwinds ensued. The rest of the group awoke. The sun rose. And then they all tried to eat breakfast. At the moment, the rest of the group slowly woke, Toph being the last as she now slept under the ground.
"This is stupid," complained said blind girl when the group's noise finally reached her ears. "Can't we just find him some medicine? Their's got to be something to help twinkle toes from blowing us off or setting us fire..."
The last comment earned them all a grunt from the grumpy prince who'd only just joined their happy entourage a little whiles after the destructive episode at Ba Sing Se. No one knew exactly what had occurred to the exiled prince since he joined his sister in their attempt to capture the avatar; only that Aang had suddenly left one night after a nightmare and returned later the next evening with said prince in tow, donning an unnaturally happy grin with torn clothes.
Zuko had remained with them since, much to Sokka's displeasure.
And to make it worse, the damn prince had the hots for his sister, he just knew it! Always showing off his impressive magical fire bending powers in lazy displays, always watching her and Aang's water bending exercises. It was enough to make a real man sick.
"I doubt it," replied Katara, snapping him out of his thoughts. "The avatar hasn't been around for a hundred years. For all anyone knows, Avatars don't get sick!"
"I weawy wish oou wouldn' alk abou me ike I asn't ere!" Aang said through his stuffy nose. The group winced at the scratchy sound. Poor Aang... It was probably Zuko's fault anyways. Before he had arrived, Sokka had protectively watched his sister and Aang get close for months, but only a few days after Zuko arrived, the goofy boy gets sick.
Defiantly a Fire Nation trick.
Now if only he could get the others to believe him...
But the others didn't, and they all shot glares at him when he suggested they barbecue the prince as an offering to the Spirits in return for Aang's health.
"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," coldly stated the prince with narrowed golden eyes. Smoke seemed to poor from his pale white nostrils. "But since your so keen on getting the avatar better, why don't you go get some wood to start a fire before we all freeze to death on this mountain!"
Sokka smirked and replied, "What? I thought you were a fire bender! Why would we ever need wood?"
The prince's eyebrow twitched in irritation. "And I thought you could get no dumber..."
Sokka's eye twitched, Katara giggled behind a hand, and Aang snorted fire through his nose. "Usual routine," Sokka whispered to himself as he moved obediently into the woods. Usual routine.
"Talking to yourself, Warrior?" asked the prince dauntingly before he left as well, off to meditate on a rock or some other large, bulky, sightly object. Sokka tried to follow, to show 'scar-face' a bit of 'Sokka styled' ass kicking, but was stopped as an Avatar induced Earthquake leveled the ground and him with it.
"Sorry Sokka..." sniffed the boy with large, watery red eyes. "Here I'll help you out!"
Before he could even state his protest, a large wind blasted him from the ground, throwing him into the sky almost ten feet into the air. Sokka winced when the nearby bird squawked angrily and plummeted back to Earth, landing on his rump on a really hard rock.
"Ow..."
The avatar was truly going to be the death of him if this cold, or flu, or pickle-eyed monkey-spider disease thingy didn't end soon...
Sokka walked into the silent campsite with the bundles of wood to see an already burning fire and stack of firewood next to it.
"What the hell!?!" he screamed angrily.
The birds in the nearby tree scattered, one in particular giving him a nasty look that reminded him slightly of a certain firebending prince...
Toph smirked at him from her place on the ground, blind eyes pointed in the direction towards where Zuko had gone. Where a large pillar of smoke and fire and... mud? Spouted upwards like Katara's first magic water power training sessions. Then he noticed-
"Where's Aang?"
Toph's smirk seemed to widen at the words, like she new some deep, dark secret. Katara made no move to answer, and even Aang and Momo were smiling knowingly. Something strange was going on...
"He's with Zuko," answered the elderly, knowing voice of the exiled prince's exiled uncle, Iroh. It was only due to his respect for the agreeable firebender that Sokka didn't completely obliterate the bothersome prince. It had absolutely nothing to do with fear, as Katara continuously misnamed it.
That was when the words hit him...
Aang... poor, sick, good Avatar... was with... Zuko... evil, torturous, bad prince...
His eyes bulged and he ran to save his friend before any of the traitorous supposed allies, could say a thing. Exactly how the people could leave Aang alone with the complete bastard that had it in for his sister was entirely beyond him. But would make certain the exiled prince didn't hurt the avatar. Or worse, make him sicker...
Breaking through the forest, he entered an clearing seemingly empty of trees, grass, life in general... Except the two individuals standing in the middle, one sneezing fires and the other dogging each blast while making flaming shields for those he couldn't miss.
"Zuko!" whined the boy in a tone like none Sokka had ever heard from his friend. Clearly, the firebender had put a spell or something of the sort on the boy, playing with the Avatar's mind to make that tone of... longing?
"Control yourself avatar, or you'll be sick for all that eternity you purportedly live!"
Sokka frowned and settled into the bushes. He wasn't eavesdropping, not really. He was just protecting his younger, more innocent friend from certain individuals with incredibly bad taste. Honestly, who in their right mind grew hair as long as the other boy did and then cut it all off? Plus their was that unsightly armor that undoubtedly clashed with the dead looking facial scar.
"But I'm trying!"
"Their is no trying to it, Avatar. You either do or you don't. The weak don't. Are you weak, Avatar?"
"Well no... I don't think-!"
"No!" interrupted the prince, dodging a sneeze, though falling at the earthquake. "Answer the question without all the maybes and the thinks. You don't think here. You feel. This is fire, it's destructive. You are destructive. You must release your darker emotions and reign over them. Otherwise you shall be spitting up fire balls forever."
Sokka grinned at the confession. Finally, the exiled prince had conceded his responsibility in the matter, now all Aang had to do was accept it and torch the prick's fiery backside.
"Ugh... I'm trying!"
Sokka could almost see the smoke puffing out the dragon's ears in dangerous clouds. He prayed silently he was far enough away that should the prince decide to 'let off some steam,' it would flay the Avatar and not himself.
The prince, however, did neither and turned to leave. Sokka silently cheered and begged the spirits the man would fall of a cliff on his way back. Or better yet, trip and fall of a cliff, screaming like a girl while as he plummeted madly to his doom.
'Gaaahhhhh' the imaginary Zuko screamed, arms wailing madly, eyes wide and tears forming like a pathetic baby...
However, all such dreams were dashed when the Avatar moved from his spot on the lifeless ground, and grabbed hold of the pale white hand in his own marked blue-arrowed one. And then the other hand moved to a shoulder and before he realized anything had happened, the two figures were intertwined in a strange looking hug.
Sokka blinked quite a few times before the inkling of a positively gruesome thought entered his mind.
"Zuko-"
The older boy cut the other off before another word could be said, joining their lips together as mother and father had once done. As Aang and Katara were supposed to do...
He felt a scream of outrage climb up his throat, and was just about to express it when the hands that once held shoulders and waist began to move. Hands that Aang was supposed to move against Katara...
He backed up and ran as fast as he could all the way back to the campsite.
Zuko smiled arrogantly as he entered camp with the Avatar trailing silently behind him. The water tribe moron was glaring at him in a most stupefied fashion, as though wished to both murder him and kiss him. It almost disturbed the exiled prince...
"Hey Sokka," commented Aang as he to noticed the moron's torn thoughts. "Why's there a huge hand print on your face that looks like it came from Katara?"
"Because..." answered the moron in a voice that seemed unnaturally high for the wimpy warrior. "It's a wonderfully normal day. Normal, you know? As in sick avatars and cranky women and me cooking myself a burnt dinner."
Zuko truly hoped that whatever the idiot had caught wasn't contagious. Stupidity wasn't something he needed.
Looking back towards the avatar with bruised lips and red eyes, he wondered if he hadn't caught the disease already.
The Avatar sneezed. The Water-girl winced. And Zuko glared darkly, his hair on fire again.