Senses
Summary: She can't see, and he doesn't talk, yet they communicate in their own special way. Possible TophxLongshot. AUness.
Drabble. Warning: May be a piece of crap, or a waste or your time. If still interested, continue reading.`
She sensed him with her earthbending, yet he never made a single sound. At first, she figured that he wasn't the talkative type, which was okay with her. It was fine if someone didn't exactly want to start up a conversation about something. It was fine with her because sometimes she actually preferred the silence.
But it's been three days.
Three days of Katara tending to Jet's nearly life-threatening wound. Three days of Sokka complaining about the hot, hot, sun. Three days of Aang continually leaving the camp with Appa for a daily ride. Three days of Smellerbee making friends with Momo. Three days of silence on his part.
He hadn't said a single word to her, and she didn't know why.
Was there something wrong with her? Did she give off some sort of 'Do Not Speak With Me' aura? Was he afraid of her? She froze at that last thought. Was he afraid of her? If he was, why? Sure, she had some pretty awesome earthbending skills, but it wasn't like they were enemies or anything. Was he shy? No, he should've gotten over that after Katara had introduced them all to each other.
So why wouldn't he speak with her?
She leaned backwards on the soft, damp, earth. Her fingers and toes curled into the soil, feeling the grit of the sand particles as she sought them out. This was her element, all of this was. Sometimes, when she really stopped and thought about it, it would amaze her at how much stuff she had at her disposal to control. Could she bend that giant boulder? Yes. Could she move that hill? Yes. Flatten that mountain? Yes. Morph that tiny piece of sand? Of course!
Could she get Longshot to talk to her?
She sat up, unable to ponder this thought, because she felt someone walk into her little clearing. She quickly felt them out with her bending and found her senses tracing the familiar features of Longshot, the source of her inner stress.
"What are you doing here?" She aske, raising an inquisitive eyebrow over in his direction. She felt him turn to her, as calm and serene as ever. "This is my place. My area. I made this for myself, you know? I was trying to get away from everyone for a while, that's why it's so far from camp."
As usual, he did not reply. Instead, he nodded shortly and simply sat down right where he was standing.
"Hey!" She shouted, turning her full body towards him. "I'm talking to you! Are you deaf? I don't want you here!"
She felt someone else's presence enter the clearing. It was Smellerbee. "Toph?" Smellerbee asked. "You do know that Longshot doesn't talk, right?"
Toph froze. Damn, and she thought it was aggravating when people forgot she was blind.
~:~
It was later on, after Toph had mumbled a simple apology to Longshot before stalking off to camp, when Toph decided to go talk to Jet, who was well on his way to the road of recovery. She stepped lightly into the healing tent, smelling the wet, incensed smell, and feeling all the moisture and vapor that lingered in the air from Katara's healing sessions. She stopped next to him and slowly sat down, feeling him turn to look at her in his bed.
"Hi." She said, "I'm Toph." She felt like saying her name again was a bit necessary, considering that the last time she'd seen him, he'd been lying on the ground, dying.
He smiled weakly. "Jet." He returned, just as short and to the point as she was. "What do you need?"
"I'm a bit curious." She admitted, feeling a little nervous about what she was about to ask. Maybe she shouldn't ask him in the first place, it probably wasn't her place to know. "But why doesn't Longshot talk? I mean, he doesn't just not talk to me, he doesn't talk to anybody. At all."
Jet had stilled on the mattress, making it a little hard for her to sense him. Finally, he breathed slowly. "I don't know. He's never said a word to me or Smellerbee."
"You're lying." Toph said, smiling a little at how easy it was to tell.
He frowned before sighing. "I can't tell you, Toph. It's really not for me to talk about. Really, if you wanted to know, you would have to talk to him."
She just about screamed from frustration. "But he doesn't talk!" She exploded.
Jet shifted uncomfortably, wincing a little when she yelled. "Yeah, well, give it some time. He might."
~:~
So now she sat at the campfire again, listening as Longshot poked at it with a stick. Katara and Aang had gone to a spring for some fresh water, while Smellerbee and Sokka went hunting for some food with Momo. Jet was still in his tent, fast asleep.
"Are you a bender?" Toph asked finally, trying to break the silence between them.
She got a shake of the head from him.
"Oh." She sighed. "Do wish you were?"
A pause. Then he shook his head.
"Really? Why not?" She asked.
No movement. Then...A shrug of his shoulders.
Toph chewed the inside of her cheek. "But you should know. You have to know. Is it because you don't like benders?"
He shook his head.
"Is it because you'd rather shoot arrows all day?" She asked, frowning slightly, almost pouting.
He shook his head again, and she perked up just a little.
"Okay...Is it because you...Um...You don't want to learn how to bend?" She raked her brain for possible reasons.
He shrugged again.
"Do you think bending is bad?" She asked, blowing strands of hair from her face.
His hand flew up and made a 'sort of/maybe/kind of' gesture.
"But bending isn't bad!" Toph protested, sitting up straighter. "Aang bends and he's the Avatar! In fact, he has to learn all four of the elements to bring world peace! I'm a bender, and I'm not bad! Most of the time. Katara is a bender, and she heals people!"
No response. Then...a slow nod, as if he agreed with her, but he still seemed a bit reluctant.
"Did...Someone with bending...hurt you...or something?" She stammered, feeling as if she were grasping at straws.
A nod. A breakthrough.
She paused. "Was it the Fire Nation?"
A nod.
"I'm sorry. Did they kill your family?" She asked, feeling sympathy towards him.
A shake of his head.
Her eyebrows flew up. "Oh? What did they do, then?"
No response.
She grew a little angry. "I'm not going to play a guessing game with you, you know!"
He shifted forward, scratching his stick into the dirt in front of him. She struggled with her senses for a moment before figuring it out. 'They took my little sister, and my mother.'
She paused, feeling her own eyes widen a little. "That's harsh." She shook her head. "And sick. That just...wrong. What about your dad?"
He paused for a few moments before hesitantly answering. 'He was the one who took them.'
She gasped once she read it. "He...He was Fire Nation?" She asked.
A nod.
"What about you? Wouldn't that make you Fire Nation?" She asked.
He shook his head. 'I'm a Freedom Fighter.'
She nodded, understanding. "So you seperated yourself from him and his people, right? Do you know if you mother and your sister are okay? Have you found them?"
He shook his head. 'They're better off without me.'
"What the-?" She stopped herself. "Why would you think that?"
'I didn't keep them safe.'
She bit her bottom lip, inching a bit closer to him, but Sokka and Smellerbee's loud arrival startled her. She fell out of her seat, and by the time she looked up to say something, he was gone.
~:~
He was down by the stream, she could sense that, so she went down to him. When she stepped out from the bushes, and into the light, she felt him start. She tipped her head slightly at him out of confusion as he hurriedly scratched a message into the sand.
'I'm bathing!'
"Sorry!" She stuttered, feeling herself blush, even though she couldn't even see. "I didn't know! I'm sorry!"
She turned around and left. Maybe Sokka or Aang wanted to do something with her...Her talks with Longshot would have to wait...
~:~
The next time she met up with him, she thought it might've been a bit awkward, considering she had walked in on him...bathing. She stood still, expecting him to do something first. Which he did. He scrawled into the sand.
'I understand.'
"You understand?" She nearly shouted before remembering that their friends were trying to sleep. "You understand?" She hissed. "You do not understand! I'm blind! I can't see! You were bathing! You were naked! Do you know how embarrassing that is?"
'I talk with sticks and sand.'
She paused, confused. "So?"
'You'd be suprised at the reactions I get from people as I take my stick out and start writing with it. They seem to think that just because I don't talk, that I'm deaf, too.'
She smiled. "Really?"
'Really.'
"The same thing happens to me, too!" She threw her hands up. "Just because I'm blind, doesn't mean I'm weak!"
'You're one of the strongest earthbenders I know.'
She blushed a little, suddenly thankful that it was night time and no one had lit a fire. She had heard that from many other people, and never had she reacted this way, but, for some reason, when he wrote it, she felt like a silly school girl who had a crush on some boy. "Thanks." She mumbled.
Something amazing happened.
He laughed.
~:~
Over the next few days, she couldn't get that sound out of her head. His laugh played over and over in her head, like a song did when it got stuck in her head. But this wasn't annoying, in fact, she had begun to think of it as one of the most beautiful things she had ever heard.
~:~
'You're awfully quiet today.'
She froze, feeling those letter scratched into the smooth, nearly untouched soil, of her clearing. "I'm thinking." She replied softly.
'Should I leave?'
"Nah, you can stay." She smiled, feeling him walk over and sit next to her as she layed back onto the soil. After a beat of silence, she spoke. "Do you think it's possible for two people to be more than friends...even if they're a few years apart?"
A nod, then, 'Of course it's possible. My mother was in her late twenties, when she married my dad, who was in his late thirties.'
Her eyes widened. "Wow."
'Yeah. Stuff like that happens all the time. Why do you ask?'
Lately, he had begun to speak to her with more elaborate sentences, which made her a little more excited for his responses. "Oh, well, you know..." She mumbled. "I was just curious, you know? Just thinking, is all..."
'You sure? It seems like you've been thinking about this for a long while.'
She paused, trying to come up with an excuse. "It was something that Katara asked me about."
'Katara's been busy with Jet lately.'
She frowned. He was right. "Then it must've been Aang, you know? He does have a thing for her."
A pause. 'He does, but I don't think this has anything to do with Aang.'
"How old are you?" She blurted, before she could stop herself. Blushing, she sat up. "I mean, Katara's sixteen, and Aang's twelve. Sokka's seventeen, almost eighteen, and he's dating Suki, and she's nineteen."
'I'm fifteen.'
"Really?" She asked, raising her eyebrows. "But you seem like you'e seventeen!'
'I'm not. How old are you?'
"Thirteen." She stated. "My birthday was a few weeks back, before we met up with you."
'Well, then. Happy late birthday.'
She giggled before stopping. Did she really just giggle?
'Toph...' He trailed off, unsure of what to write. 'You're only two years younger than me-'
"And you're only two years older than me." She interrupted. He stared at her for a moment before she blushed, looking down. "Sorry."
'It's fine. But, what I was trying to say, was that, even thought our ages are seperated by two years, I still feel like I have some sort of connection with you.'
"Really?" She asked, suprised.
'Yes. I feel like I could tell you anything.'
"Oh." She deflated a little. He only liked her as a sister. And why shouldn't he? It's not like he'd ever have a crush on her, and she most certainly did not have a crush on him.
'But, it goes further than that...'
"How much further?" She asked, paying close attention to everything he wrote.
"I...I like you." He rasped, voice coming out hoarse from lack of use. "A lot." He set the stick down, reaching over to brush some hair out of her face. "Kind of like how Sokka likes Suki, you know? Except...Minus the idiocy."
Her blind eyes widened a bit as she heard his voice, but all she could do was smile and think, maybe I do like him...
After a moment, she said, "I like you a lot, too."
~:~
That night, when they all sat down for supper, Longshot sat next to her, instead of by Smellerbee. They listened silently to everyone's conversations as they ate quietly. After a while, they began to scratch into the ground. Talking back and forth with each other.
Katara looked over at them. "What are you two doing?" She asked, raising an eyebrow at their closeness.
"Nothing." They both answered, voices intertwining with each others. They stood, ignoring everyone's looks of suprise at Longshot's speaking. They set their bowls down.
"We'll be going for a swim." Toph stated, smiling a little.
Longshot nodded. And they walked out of camp.
Katara blinked before smiling. 'She's finally grown up.'
So...how was it? Hate it? Love it?
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