If Only I Could Capture the Color of Your Smile
Or, Five Things Aang Wishes He Knew About Toph Bei Fong, And One He Already Does
One.
Once a few weeks have past, the awkwardness has been brushed of, and they finally reach the comfortable stage where he can contemplate her without feeling too creepy, Aang can't help from wondering why Toph works so hard to conceal the fact that she's a girl. Of course, there's only so much she can do—she can't change the arc of her hips (nor, he soon realizes, would he want her to) or the softness of her smile. But Toph labors impossibly hard to convince them all that she's just one of the boys—they should be expecting her to develop chest hair any day know—yeah, just ignore how pretty she is, and everything else, too.
It doesn't bother him that Toph is so purposefully boyish (though it doesn't improve his self esteem to realize that she acts manlier then Aang does) but it puzzles him. It makes him wonder—about what, exactly, he can never put his finger on.
Privately, Aang supposes this all might be a little easier if she would stop pursuing the thankless (and ultimately useless) task of concealing the obvious—and maybe Toph could afford to be a little less aggressive, too. The bruises from yesterday's sparring matches are certain to last well into next week.
Two.
Aang asks himself, time and time again, how Toph could stand the sight of him (figuratively) after experiencing the force of his unjust anger, as rampant and senseless as the winds that rip through the desert sand. There are times when he nearly apologizes, yet halts, for fear of resurrecting some ancient anger that had been discarded, but not entirely lost, at the scene of the crime. It only serves to intensify Aang's self-loathing; his heart writhes with the brunt of it; and he demands to know how anyone—namely someone so strong—could bear the presence of anyone so appallingly weak.
He never quite gets around to solving that one; he never pauses to think that a lesser man, a weaker man, would not be troubling himself over it at all.
Three.
Although Aang intends to stand as her guard throughout the entire feast, lest Toph have the nasty of all nasty foods, sea prunes, forced upon her, his tongue becomes entirely accidentally lost in Katara's mouth, and without the Avatar's wisdom to prevent the mishap, Toph unwittingly happens across a bowl of sea prune stew.
He expects to spend the rest of the night holding her hair back as she pukes (as a fellow foreign dignitary to the Northern Water Tribe, it would be his duty), until he discovers, with mingled awe and disgust, that Toph tried sea prunes and likes them.
As she scrapes away the last bits of stew, and reaches for another bowl, Aang suppresses his gag reflex and recalls that it could all be a hallucination; the fish he had for lunch did taste a bit strange…
It is self evident that when it comes to understanding Toph's love for sea prunes, Aang fails spectacularly.
Four.
By the time he is fifteen, Aang is really, really wishing he knew why she likes Sokka so much.
Oh, Aang's not jealous. How could he be? Toph and Sokka are two of his closest friends in the world; he would never. But seriously—quite honestly—why does she blush when circumstances draw Sokka to clasp her hand? Why does she save the loudest laughter for Sokka's cheesy jokes? And why does Toph smile at Sokka the way that she does? Oh, it's unintentional; of that Aang is positive. Toph would never consent to such a gentle, gossamer expression on her face. But why Sokka? Why Sokka; why Sokka, who will never wish to capture the vivid color of her smile?
Aang wouldn't properly know, he has never wished to do so; being the boyfriend of a beautiful girl himself (a beautiful girl who, to Aang's dismay, is increasingly drawn to Zuko), it wouldn't be appropriate, but as Toph's friend, he fervently yearns for her to turn to someone who would rightly deserve her dazzling grins.
Five.
Somewhere between their seventh round trip in five years from Northern Air Temple and Ba Sing Se, Toph decides that she will continue traveling with Aang for an undetermined amount of time. Being Toph, she doesn't tell him this until they're in the Fire Nation capital, and rescues Aang from the secret terror of believing that his last companion will soon desert him. Initially, he is too consumed with relief to wonder why she'd consent to travel with him for years more, as far as he can tell, but as he's come to learn over the years, there is never a shortage of things Aang wants to know about Toph Bei Fong.
Days later, in the lethargic heat of Fire Nation jungle, of this, he does ask her; Toph socks him in the arm, a habit that has not faded with time. "What, Twinkle Toes, you honestly think you could get by without me?"
Aang's rely that she didn't really answer his question is cut off by the whistle of an object moving through the air and an arrow tip fast approaching in his peripheral vision; even his reflexes aren't sharp enough for him to do anything but blink. For two seconds too long, it feels like the end. (He forgets, sometimes, that it never will.) Without the time required even to earthbend, Toph leaps forward, dragging him to the ground, and strikes an earthen projectile toward the vigilante in the trees as she falls. She hits him directly in the chest, and he drops his bow from the trees with a clatter.
He feels that the story answers Toph's question better then Aang ever could.
And One He Already Does
He has no idea in hell how or why Toph manages to put up with him, with all of her whining about his effeminate ways, and her particularly fierce anger when it comes to his safety.
"Be careful next time, you idiot!" she snaps, stomping about camp as Aang delicately bandages his various scrapes. "You would've been killed if it wasn't for me!"
"Thanks for that, by the way," Aang answers pleasantly, wincing as the binding chafes a particularly deep wound.
She continues grumbling. "Yeah, well. You sure are lucky to have me around, you know that?"
"'Course I do," Aang replies quickly.
Her shoulders fall, and she relaxes just a bit; Toph exhales sharply and requests, "Just look where you're going next time, Twinkle Toes, okay?"
His ears register Toph warning him to take care of his own girly little butt in the future, but Aang sees the worried expression on her face, betraying a compassion Toph doesn't often speak of, and his heart, by one way or another, picks up on a very queer translation: I love you.
And just like that, before he can ask himself yet another question about Toph Bei Fong ('Why the hell would I think that?'), he's pushed over the edge: his heart bursts, and it's immediately clear to him that he's not wrong, he can't possibly be wrong, because it's been leading up to this for too many years: the final answer. Aang stares at her, dazed and awestruck, and incredibly, unimaginably happy.
Clearly having noticed his near vegetative state, Toph asks amiably, "The hell is wrong with you?", halfway smiling. "Did I say something, Twinkle Toes?"
He begins to shake his head; then, suddenly, he is nodding. "Yes, actually, I think you did," Aang beams, and he doesn't even care if she thinks he's insane, because either way, Toph keeps smiling; he recalls how he used to wish that Toph would find someone who'd bother to treasure her smiles like they should, and as he revels in the beauty of her grin, he realizes that he knows the perfect man for the job.
A/N: This is a weird little thing, innit? =) Fair warning: I may or may not keep this up; I'd prefered to have posted it on LJ, but since I'm not allowed 'round there anymore by my parents, I'm not sure how long it'll be sticking around the Interwebs.