A/N: I am an OTP Sukka shipper, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate my rival ship. Which is why I adore Best Friend Tokka, and all the hilarious scamming madness that goes with it. Because who knows what could happen when Toph and Sokka get together for a little "innocent" fun?

Disclaimer: I own no one and nothing is this fic except for the nameless patrons and the Ba Sing Se pubs. I wish I did own them, because then I could join in. ;)

Gambling

Viewpoint: Sokka

Time: Approximately 2 years after the war

"Will you stop fidgeting?"

"I can't help it, these clothes are itchy!"

Even in the darkness I could see the gleam of moonlight off Toph's milky eyes as she glared at me. I was used to it though, so I just flashed her an apologetic grin. She wouldn't stay mad at me on a night like tonight.

Sure enough, she turned away with a sigh, hiking the hood of her rough traveler's cloak up over her head.

"Now, who's going to do the talking?" she asked me, whispering even though we were still a ways from the great walls.

"You are," I recited dutifully, drawing my own cloak tighter about me. I still didn't think it was entirely fair that she blamed me for our last disastrous attempt, involving two irate guards and the two of us being poked with spears in very uncomfortable places. But at the risk of being on the receiving end of her earthbending, I'd agreed to let Toph take care of things this time.

"Now, stand up straight and play along." Toph threw a hard elbow into my ribs to make sure I got the point.

There were only two guards on duty tonight, which was good. Sometimes there were three. Our personal record was getting past five—now that had been an interesting night.

Toph straightened her shoulders, and so did I. I plucked my hood nervously before Toph's hand shot out like lightning and smacked it away.

The guards reacted as good guards should; they stood straighter, gripping their spears, and took a few steps toward us to let us know they meant business.

I heard Toph cough quietly, clearing her throat and readying her voice. I kept my head down, ready to stay silent.

"Good evening gentlemen!" Once again, I marveled at how Toph could lower her voice to such a pitch that it sounded exactly like an enthusiastic young guy. "My friend and I are requesting entrance to your fine city this evening. The name's Pian."

The guards looked wary, but not suspicious. "And what's your friend's name, Pian?" said one.

"Uh, this is Gonshi. He can't speak, so don't bother trying to get him to say a word. He and I are here to see about buying an ostrich-horse for a friend of ours." I nodded along with her words, playing the mute.

I had to admit; Toph was very good at thinking on her feet. Her cover stories always sounded much better than mine.

Apparently it sounded okay to the guards too, because they lowered their spears, relaxing. "Sounds like everything is in order then. Welcome to Ba Sing Se." One of them whistled loudly, and the huge walls parted down the center, sliding apart so that we could enter.

Toph nodded amiably to the guards, or as amiably as you could when a hood hid your face. Then we both passed into the Impenetrable City.

As the walls sealed shut behind us, Toph's hand snaked out from beneath her cloak to slap mine in a triumphant high-five. We were in.

We started down the main street, which was crowded with unpleasant looking people, many wearing garb similar to ours. Only I expected they weren't nearly as nice under their cloaks. Or as good-looking, if I may say so myself. Toph was already scanning the places we passed.

"The Hungry Platypus Bear? No, we hit that one last month…."

"How about the Red Lion Turtle?" I suggested.

Toph shot me one of her you're-being-dumb-Sokka looks. "We got thrown bodily out of the Red Lion Turtle two weeks ago, Sokka. Remember?"

"Oh, it was that one? Well, it's kind of hard to see things like that when you have a black eye…"

Toph snorted and kept looking. I decided to be quiet again. My part would be coming soon.

Finally, Toph picked a small, dingy, but brightly lit place called The One-Eyed Turtleduck. I glanced up at the comical sign bearing the image of a turtleduck wearing a pirate's eyepatch as we ducked through the open door.

Inside it was noisy, like always. The bar was crowded with more of those unpleasant looking people from the streets, all of them drinking out of stone tankards. Toph and I, however, were more interested in the back of the place.

Several tables were scattered haphazardly against the back wall. These were full of people holding stones, sticks, cards, and dice, engaging in various types of gambling. Perfect.

I saw the glint of one of Toph's eyes as she winked at me under her hood, and we started toward the last empty gambling table. I used one foot to hook a few extra chairs over to the table, and then I reached into my cloak for our secret weapon. With the ease of long practice, I popped two molded metal dice onto the table, making sure they clattered audibly. Sure enough, heads came up around the pub as the telltale sound that all gamblers' ears are tuned for echoed out.

Now it was my turn.

"Oho, come on Pian. None of these people are interested in that game." I chuckled heartily, tilting back my hood just enough so my challenging expression could be seen. I looked around at the patrons, still chuckling. "It's a hard game to win. They don't even know the rules, and they certainly don't have the money to throw into our pot…" I trailed off suggestively, knowing I had uttered the magic word.

There was a concerted scraping of chairs as no less than six tough-looking men and women jostled over to our table and sat down, glaring at me expectantly. Laughing inwardly, I sat down in an empty chair as Toph took the spot next to me. Now for the next phase.

From another inside pocket of my cloak, I pulled a bulging bag of coins. It clinked beautifully as I slowly loosened the drawstring and poured the heap of shining gold onto the table. It was so much fun to see the glowing looks of greed in the gamblers' eyes as they sized up how much the stack was worth. A lot, I can tell you.

"Now, ladies and gentlemen, the rules are fairly simple. Roll our dice, and if two come up the same, you win a portion of the gold. If you want to try again, then you can double your earnings. Or, you could lose it all. Are you in?" Toph always said I had the perfect kind of voice and manner for this task. She said I could have convinced Katara to gamble…although I'd never had any luck with that.

Five of the six nodded eagerly, but the last, a shrewd looking guy with greasy black hair and huge muscles, squinted suspiciously at me. "Wait a minute. What if your dice are loaded?"

Luckily, this was a question we were asked often, and one I was ready for. "Go ahead and look. As you can see, they're solid metal, not weighted. And even if one of us was, say, an earthbender, we couldn't cheat a bit. Solid metal." I repeated.

The metal dice were my idea. Even Toph said it was a stroke of genius. People had heard stories of earthbenders cheating with stones and rock dice, but metal was, for them, an untouchable element. Emphasis on the "for them".

The man tossed the dice from hand to hand, and then put them down with a grunt that I took for assent. Six players then. Not bad, not bad at all.

"Pian, would you like to start us off?" I turned to Toph.

Toph's hand scooped up the dice and threw them in the same movement. She made the subtle curl of her fingers look like part of the hand gesture, but I knew it was something more. Sure enough, the two dice landed with twin fours facing up.

Without giving any expression of triumph, Toph deftly hooked a small pile of the coins and pulled them toward her. Then she turned her face to the man on her left, indicating he should go next.

He rolled a five and a two. Looking sour, but not defeated, he pushed the dice to his neighbor. The woman, who was missing several teeth I noted, came up with two fives by some stroke of luck. Or maybe it was Toph. She liked to let our other players win once in a while so things didn't get suspicious, the same as we had to make ourselves lose sometimes so we didn't look perfect.

The game went on for a good two hours, the dice changing hands, clattering on the table. The pile of gold in the middle grew and shrank as people won and lost. When the time was right, I used my powers of persuasion to convince them to add more money of their own to the pot, to "make things more interesting". They were so caught up in the game that they did it. Which was where our profit came in. As Toph had pointed out, it wouldn't be nearly as much fun if we left with the same amount or less as we came in with. Toph carefully made sure things appeared even, so the game stayed relatively calm for quite a while.

I should have known it wouldn't last.

I should have known it wasn't good that the guy with the big muscles who'd questioned our dice kept going to the bar to get drinks. Or that he kept getting a little angrier every time he lost. Or that Toph slipped with her metalbending movement and made it just a hair too obvious.

As her rolled dice came up with doubles yet again, the angry guy slammed to his feet.

"You're cheating! I don't know how you can be, but you're cheating!" he roared, pointing accusingly at Toph.

Toph opened her mouth, no doubt to smooth things over as she had in similar situations before. But muscle guy did something unexpected. He lunged across the table and grabbed Toph by the front of her cloak.

I almost pulled my club out from where it was hidden under my clothes. Things didn't usually get violent this fast. I thanked the spirits her hood hadn't come off; they'd know immediately she was a girl, and they might even recognize her.

"Give me that gold now, buddy, or I'll break this table with your head! Or maybe I'll do something even less pleasant…"

That was when I saw he had a knife sheath at his belt. Great bleeding hogmonkeys…

"Hey, let go of me, mister!" I had to admire the fact that Toph didn't let her low, false voice slip even a situation like this. I saw her shadowed face turn toward me under the hood, mouthing, Get the gold.

I thrust our drawstring bag under the table and started subtly sliding the massive pile of gold toward the table edge. Luckily the other players were either watching the confrontation between the muscled guy and Toph, or moving to help.

With a quick movement, I decided to get it over with. I shoved the entire stack off the edge and into the bag. It was heavy, which was nice, but not actually my main concern at the moment. I had to get Toph out of there.

She wasn't going to make it easy, as usual. When the angry guy wouldn't let her go, she locked one hand around his wrist and squeezed hard. He grunted in pain and loosened his grip, dropping Toph onto the table with a huge crash. Which drew attention to the table…the empty table.

"Where's the money?!" shrieked one of the female gamblers, staring in disbelief at the place where the gold had been. "We've been robbed!"

Uh-oh.

"Um, Pian?" I started backing up, only to run into a solid mass as several large, ugly men closed off my escape. Now was where I usually preferred to use smooth-talking. I mentally crossed my fingers that Toph wouldn't start.

"Listen gentlemen, we're very sorry we can't stay, but I need to find whoever made off with our gold. If you could kindly step aside…"

"Hey bud, when was the last time you took a shower? You heard me, back off so I won't have to smell you anymore!"

And there she goes. For the love of the spirits, why?

I turned and saw Toph stalking across the table, fists clenched, her hood miraculously still on. "That's right. My name is Pian. You know what that spells when you switch the letters? Pain! You want to mess with me?"

Many of the large patrons of the place did look like they wanted to mess with her. Toph could easily have thrashed them all within seconds, but that would probably involve destroying the One-Eyed Turtleduck, and then we'd never get back into Ba Sing Se. Or at least we wouldn't for a few months.

So I decided to use our old fallback.

"Pian, RUN!"

Making sure the money bag was attached securely to my belt, I whipped out my club and took a swing at the guys blocking my path. They stumbled back, surprised, and I charged through the opening, hoping that Toph would follow me.

I heard the smack of her bare feet on the wood floor and knew she was, so I didn't break stride. Then I turned around and saw that Toph wasn't the only one following. Apparently our players were more angry than I'd thought at losing.

"Well…this…is…a…first!" Toph panted as she drew level with me. "Never…been…chased…before!" She sounded more excited than scared. Ah, Toph. I guess I couldn't ask for a better partner-in-crime.

"Left!" she shouted, swerving down an alley. I skidded after her, the money bag jingling loudly with every stride. I stuffed a hand under my cloak to silence it; it was way too easy to follow us with that racket.

"So," Toph said as we ran, still managing to be conversational despite the situation. "Suki's going to kill you, you know."

"Nah. She always yells, but she never finishes because she starts laughing."

"There's the gates!" Toph pointed ahead, where our shortcut alley was going to let out right in front of the entrance to the city. I was so lucky Toph's earthbender sight could see all the best escape routes.

As we both threw ourselves into the home stretch, cloaks billowing out behind us, the knot of cheated gamblers still on our tails, I couldn't help it. I started laughing. It was just so much fun, sneaking around with Toph, getting into trouble. My travels with Aang were to blame, I was sure. Now I had to make an effort to keep my life from getting boring. Toph joined in with my whooping, wisps of black hair escaping from the edges of her hood.

We burst through the gates, ignoring the surprised shouts of the guards and the colorful, roared insults of our pursuers as they were forced to stop at the edge of Ba Sing Se.

As we jogged out into the open plains, home free, we slowed our running to a steady trot. I checked the money bag. Still there, still full. Excellent.

"Yes," Toph punched the air with one hand. "Another successful run, my friend." She banged triumphant fists with me.

With adrenaline still jittering through my veins, I grinned. "Same day, same time next week?"

"Bet on it," said Toph firmly. Then she shoved her hood back, and I saw the wide smile on her face, and the mischievous gleam in her green-gray eyes. "You know, I have an idea."

"What?" I pushed my own hood back, looking down at my small, tough-as-nails companion. Whenever Toph looked like that, I got terrified and excited at the same time.

"Next time," Toph said wickedly, her feet drumming steady rhythm on the ground next to mine, "Let's bring Zuko."

I loved writing this one. And if you're upset that Sokka and Toph are stealing, they're doing it Robin Hood style. I've got it all figured out. They give it to Aang so he can distribute it on his Avatar travels to help towns and villages that were ravaged by the Fire Nation rebuild. It's for a good cause. They just like the scamming part. :D