Author's Note: This is rated T for drinking and mild cursing. This is also one of my first fanfictions (And the second I've ever posted) So be kind? Reviews and likes are appreciated, accept this is here for your pleasure so if not that's fine! Read away!
I Promise to Never Lie
Toph had endured a lot of pain in in her life. Physical, mental, spiritual, all of the above. It didn't matter, because in that moment she had hit her lowest point. Always living her life with the mindset of being strong, to always push past her problems like the headstrong persona she tried so hard to radiate. But not on that hot night under the fire nation setting sun, she wasn't keeping up that persona then. Instead she was giving up, her heart throbbing as she felt gravity push down upon her heavy chest. She wanted to be strong, she desperately wanted any other emotion to envelop her other than the one she was enduring.
That wouldn't happen though. She had paid the price for this feeling of dread. So there she was, stumbling about her guest room within the Fire Nation Palace, tears flowing with no hint at faltering. Heat stung her skin, soft cloth grasping her flesh with thick sweat, all of it giving the earthbender a mighty headache.
The door to the balcony was swung open slightly, a deep red sunset floating beyond it's railing to warmly color the room. Any other night and one might might've considered the night beautiful despite the searing heat wave. But not that night. That night she turned to the wall, crying and cursing as her balled up fists banged against the red and gold wallpaper.
Her black bangs fell limply to hide her foggy green eyes, like a curtain to protect them from the reality of everything around her. A throbbing urge to numb the pain screamed in her head, and she brought the bottle of alcohol to her lips. The liquid sliced down her throat and stung her insides, giving her shivers as the slight buzzing evolved and got stronger.
The whole scene was like a horror movie. Not the kind that some people claimed to enjoy, but more like the kind where it was so painful that the only thing keeping you glued to watching was the naive hope that it would get better for the main character.
She screamed a wretched howl, swinging her body around in a drunken stupor, finding her small muscular body flinging itself into a dresser. She stumbled upon it, sensing with her buzzed and distracted earthbender senses that a few objects and a glass vase had fallen to the ground. She gave no effort to pick them up, only gripped the side of the mahogany dresser with her free hand, the other bringing the alcohol to her lips.
"...What's wrong with me…"
The words jumbled out of her mouth in a blurb of sound, the alcohol drowning out her voice. Tears stung her cheeks and mouth, drying out her already chapped lips from the heat.
Due to the numb of the strong alcohol, Toph hadn't sensed the presence of another being within her guest room. With her back to the doorway, her front pressed up against the dresser as sweat slid down her neck, she was oblivious to the tall Water Tribe man with the sunset rays warming his shoulderblades.
"Toph."
Her slouched shoulders shot up like lightning, the alcoholic beverage in her hand slipping to the ground and crashing into a pile of glass and liquid. She bit her lip to try and force the tears back into her eyelids, hoping he would leave her be.
"What do you want from me?" She demanded, not daring to show her face. She felt her heavy breaths get consistently more heavy, heat pushing down on her shoulders like rocks crushing her.
Sokka took a step towards her, and she frantically shook as she tried her hardest to get out of the situation.
"I want to know what's wrong. Toph, tell me what's wrong."
A hiccup escaped the earthbenders lips, and she forced herself to not say anything. He couldn't know she was crying. She hardly ever cried, crying in her opinion being a sign of weakness.
"Toph," He tried again. "You're my best friend. There has to be a reason why you're like this."
She swallowed hot air, the scorching oxygen stinging the dry mouth that craved more alcohol. Trying her hardest to keep her voice steady, the words, "I'm fine," fell out of her mouth like spit.
"No," Sokka began, taking another step towards the smaller woman with his toned arm that reached out towards the messy sight she was. "You're not okay. I know when you're lying to me."
"I told you," She snarled, turning slightly but hiding her face from his view. "I'm. Fine." Her voice is deep, almost like a growl, and most others would be tempted to back away from something so terrifying. But not Sokka, instead the water tribe warrior takes the last few steps towards her and grips her shoulders, forcing her small body to spin around and face him. He looks upon her limp black bangs, her tear stained eyes and chapped lips, red from biting and crying.
"You are NOT okay!" His voice is loud then, snarling at the same level of horror as hers. "Don't lie to me Toph Beifong! You promised you'd never lie to me!"
Toph can't take it any longer. With the combination of the heat, her buzzed alcoholic mind, and the amount of emotions that she's been bottling up, the twenty two year old woman snaps.
"WELL JOKE'S ON YOU SNOOZLES!" Tears poured out of her eyes and she pushes him away from her, stumbling forward only to spin around and push him again. "I'M ALWAYS LYING TO YOU!" She hiccups and wipes her nose with her arm before screaming out at him again, her voice loud and sharp. "ALWAYS LYING! EVER SINCE I WAS A LITTLE GIRL I'VE BEEN LYING!"
Sokka tries to reach out for her, and Toph doesn't know his hand is coming to grip her chin. She never really knows, only if it's registered by the earth. And in that moment, she couldn't see a thing.
"Toph…"He whispers, holding her chin in his hand. She snarls loudly in response to his tender voice, pushing his hand away before she stumbled backwards towards the bed.
"DON'T EVEN PRETEND! You know exactly what I'm talking about!"
Sokka bit his lip harshly, trying to find a way to take this calmly. "No Toph. I don't."
"YOU LIAR!" Toph jabbed a finger into Sokka's face, falling back onto the bed as the tears fell like streams. "YOU HYPOCRITE...You...you…" She turned away, her energy depleting. Burying her face in the small palms of her hands, she found herself falling into Sokka's chest, her black hair stuffed under the crook of Sokka's sharp jaw. Sniffling, crying, an obvious mess, Toph clung to Sokka's shirt and whispered almost to the point that Sokka couldn't hear her;
"I can tell when you're lying Sokka."
Sokka sighed and stroked a large hand through Toph's tangled hair, all long and falling out of her bun. "Let me tell you a secret," He whispered into her ear while pulling her tighter in his lap. "I can tell when you're lying too."
Toph stuttered under her breath, her lip quivering. She was like a scared child, confused and hurt, a child that needed someone to comfort her and hold them in her arms. She was never like that, never had she been the weak one. "Then you know why I'm locked away in here, drinking myself up until I pass out."
Sokka nodded. He knew, of course he knew. He didn't want to say it though, his breath hitched in his throat, stopping him from admitting it to himself. Toph read every body movement he made, despite most of the readings she was getting being fuzzy and slightly distant from the alcohol. All in all, it made the blind woman want to scream. He was scared. This man was regretting his decision. Panic rose in Tophs chest, and she slowly crawled out of Sokka's arms the more she realized that he was rethinking the entire situation.
Toph swallowed and turned away from her best friend, stumbling slightly as she attempted to get to the other side of the bed. "Nevermind Sokka. Just leave, leave if you're to afraid to admit it."
Sokka reached out for Toph's hand, holding it so tightly that Toph had to writhe under his grasp. "No Toph. I'm not afraid, I just want you to admit it. I don't want to say what you're thinking, I want you to do it yourself."
Toph snarled, throwing her hands up into the air, getting dizzy as she did so. And then she said it, her voice cracking as the words left her lips, words that didn't sound romantic in the slightest. They sounded hurt and angry, infuriated and pained.
"I LOVE YOU SOKKA! ARE YOU HAPPY?" She didn't dare attempt to read Sokka's movements and emotions then. She just wretched her wrist from his hand, and tried to get as far away from him as possible. "I love you! Get it you asshole? I've always loved you, since I was young and still traveling the world with you! I even loved you when I was with Kanto, when I birthed Lin. I've always loved you!"
"Toph-"
"And now you've just proposed to Suki, wonderful, beautiful Suki! So that's why I left that stupid dinner! To come in here and drink until I crashed! I left because I can't handle you being so damn oblivious to me and my emotions when I know all of yours!"
It was silent. Toph felt more hot, searing tears slide down her red skin, and all she could do was dig her nails into the inner palm of her hands to keep herself from earthbending a rock at Sokka's head blindly. Turning sharply, the woman walked with no knowledge or sight of where she was going towards the door, only to ram up into a wall.
Pain erupted in her skull, and she found that she was on the floor, dizzy and hurt. But it wasn't the dizziness that made her angry in that moment, or the combination of intense Fire Nation heat.
It was the laughter.
The loud, uncontrolled, hearty laughter that erupted from Sokka's direction, the kind that was on the edge of insane.
"Are you kidding me?" Toph yelled at the man, struggling to get up off the floor despite her drunken state.
"No!" Sokka declared between chortles, the sound of his chuckles and loud giggles echoing towards Toph's ears. "No- No I- Oh my Spirits- Oh my-"
"Spit it out idiot so that you can leave!"
"You- You- You were-"
"SPIT IT OUT."
Sokka laughed for a bit longer, before controlling himself. Taking a deep, heartfelt and relieved sigh, the tall man walked towards Toph. Her eyes widened, backing up as quickly as she could away from him, but he caught her in his arms.
"You're the only person in this world that can make me laugh like that Toph Beifong."
Toph should've taken that statement to heart, thought it romantic. Instead she scowled and attempted to leave his grasp.
"Does it matter? Let me go, I had a perfect, bitchy, dramatic exit from this argument that was going so well and it's completely ruined now because I ran into a damn wall and-"
"I love you too."
Toph's face froze, her heart fluttering and stomach soaring as she slowly registered his words. He loved her. He was engaged, and he was in love with her.
"You...are?"
"I thought we promised we'd never lie to each other."
"In the past 20 minutes we've admitted to lying to each other several times."
"Shut up." Sokka suddenly took Toph's hand and place it against his chest, right above his heart. "Now," He began, placing her hand palm flat against the toned muscle. "Tell me what you see."
Toph was silent, and at first her stubborn nature butt in, refusing to feel his heartbeat. But then she felt it, the soft thumping pattern under his shirt and skin, and everything about her wanted to refuse the earthbender inside of her and fly.
"You aren't lying," She whispered, keeping her hand on his chest to only join her other hand along with it. "You really do love me."
"Yes," Sokka declared. "Now, I'd like to rebirth a contract."
Before he could continue or even let Toph say anything in return , Sokka's lips met Toph's in something that would only be known as a kiss. It was so shattering, so sudden, that Toph melted under it, her eyes fluttering closed as her mind screamed. It was hard to describe, a moment in time that went by all too fast but fantastically all too slow. And when it all finally registered, the fact that her childhood crush was kissing her, that the spark she'd always dreamed of was really there, that she really was being held in Sokka's arms, and all she could do was kiss him back.
As Sokka let Toph's lips go, Toph found that she missed the sensation of his lips on hers.
"Toph Beifong," Sokka whispered as he rested his forehead on her sweaty one, curling a long lock of black hair around his finger. Their breathing was heavy and quick, Sokka's large palms wrapped up in her long black locks, the bun completely gone. Taking one last deep breath, Sokka declared his contract. A contract he would never break until he was long gone, dead in the ground."I promise to never lie to you ever again, as long as you promise to always love me. Do you promise?"
Toph nodded, placing a kiss to his nose. "I promise."