Title: Taang Month '14
Summary: Kicking off the month of April with 30 whole days of everyone's two adorable sweethearts. 30-day prompts created by aanglish on Tumblr. AxT.
A/N: So two cool things! 1) I finally set up a Tumblr! I think I figured it all out (for the most part). Url is the same as my penname (ariaslocket . tumblr . com), so if any of you are on Tumblr, feel free to follow me. I might post really short drabbles there that I don't feel like dragging over to Fanfiction (and other surprises!)
2) Tumblr user aanglish is starting this cool thing called Taang Month for the whole month of April. So I figured why not? Should be fun! There's one prompt everyday for the next thirty days, and I'll try my best to keep up and do daily updates (I will! This I swear!) But if you want to take a look at the prompts, head over to aanglish's tumblr. I'll be posting on my page as well. Oh, and think about doing some art or fanfiction! The prompts are really great! Thanks to the anon who tipped me off about it!
Disclaimer: Mm…nope.
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Day 1: Rejection
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College AU
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At first, she thought that Aang was just another one of those typical college assholes who just wanted a quick one-off with a pretty girl.
After all, that's all she had been running into lately. Guys who had befriended her the first weeks of school and were actually really sweet and interesting people until they decided to ask her out. Then all of the 'friend zoning bitch' speeches came out, and their personalities switched out and pounced just as quick as Toph's right hooks when their mouths got a little too dirty for her tastes. But that was to be expected. They wanted a girl who wanted to be casual. Toph wasn't that. And she resigned herself to the fact that she probably wasn't going to find anyone decent at this university after all. Oh well. Life went on.
That's why it was way too easy to shoot Aang down when he eventually asked her out to lunch. She already had her punching arm ready.
Except that Aang took it far too well. In fact, he didn't seem fazed by her blatant refusal at all. He shrugged, understood that she was probably busy, and said he'd see her in Philosophy.
Not what she was expecting, but it didn't matter. As long as he bit the dust, Toph could care less if he fell to his feet in sorrow and started writing her love sonnets. That was the end of it.
But Toph really wished that someone had told her that Aang was one persistent guy.
The next morning, she had stumbled into her Philosophy lecture after sleeping through her alarm clock. She burst into the hall in her pajama pants and a sweatshirt that she grabbed without looking, and her bun couldn't have looked any sloppier. Accepting that it was a start to a terrible day, Toph scanned the packed hall, hoping that she wouldn't have to sit on the windowsills towards the back of the room where the other students who didn't have seats sat.
Just before she was about to resign herself to a horrible spot, she saw a hand waving out of the corner of her eye. Sure enough, it was Aang, sitting in the middle of the right half of the hall waving her over to where he was sitting. His bag was taking up the seat next to him, and she had suddenly realized that he had actually saved her a seat. It was strange, because it was the kind of thing she expected from Katara who knew her better than anyone else on this campus. Not from a boy whom she had only spoken to casually in the middle of lecture about how absolutely boring their professor was.
As weird as it all was, a seat was better than no seat. So she shimmied through the row past other students and sat down next to the bright-eyed boy.
She pulled out a notebook and leaned her head towards his. "Thanks," she whispered with a small smile. Her vision was horrible, and even with contacts she needed to sit close to the front just to see whatever was written on the board.
Aang returned with a larger smile and pulled a power bar out of his bag and placed it on her desk. "Here. You probably skipped breakfast. And you're welcome." And nothing else was said. Aang turned back to the lecture and took notes until the class had ended. Toph didn't know what to say in response to the kind gesture, so she did the same.
Once all their books were collected and the rest of the students were filing out, Aang turned to her and asked, "Do you want to grab a bite of breakfast? I didn't eat much myself, and a power bar doesn't seem like it'll hold you."
Seriously? Toph exclaimed inwardly. He's asking me out again? I already told him no!
"Look," Toph sighed, trying to avoid looking into those gray eyes of his as she came up with a quick lie. "I have another class in like ten minutes and I've gotta run. Sorry," she added lamely at the end, even though she sort of regretted it afterwards. Why was she apologizing? He was the one who couldn't take a hint.
Aang shook his head and adjusted the strap to his bag. "No, I understand. Don't worry about it. I don't want to make you late. I'll see you around I guess!" And after waving jovially over his shoulder, he was gone. No rude words. No hatred. No cursing. Just a I'll see you around!
Toph stood there with her bag hanging from her elbow, waiting for her head to make sense of what just happened before whispering into the quiet lecture hall, "What the hell is his problem?"
A couple of days later, Toph stood in her dorm room for the rest of the day after waking up with a migraine that drilled holes into her temples every time a loud noise or bright light entered her room. She had insisted to her roommate Katara that she was fine and just needed a good rest, but she sort of wished that she had told Katara to stop by the pharmacy and get her some painkillers. She didn't think she was going to get through the day with her head pounding the way it was. Besides cowering under her covers in the dark, Toph didn't know what else to do to make the pain go away.
After suffering for an entire hour, a gentle knock on her door got her attention, and Toph secretly prayed that it was Katara so that the girl could run and get her some painkillers.
But, no. It was Aang, smiling brightly with dimples and all, holding a plastic shopping bag in his hand.
"Hey," Aang said casually. "Um, Katara's in Chem lab with me and she told me that you had a migraine this morning. I was going to the store anyway, so I thought you might want these." He held out the bag for her, and Toph was in too much shock to do anything but take the offered gift. Sure enough, inside were two bottles of water, a bottle of Advil, and some snacks in case she got hungry.
Toph couldn't remember the last time a friend had personally come to her house or to her room bearing medicine and food. Usually, she handled that stuff by herself, so used to having to take care of her own problems alone. But, here was this boy who didn't have any obligation to be nice to her after she rejected him twice bringing her things to make sure she was feeling better.
She immediately felt like a burden. "You didn't have to do that."
"I know," Aang said simply. "But I did anyway." And damn it all if that sentence alone didn't speak volumes.
Toph didn't respond, so Aang filled the silence once more. "I'd ask you to have lunch with me, but I think you should rest and sleep that off. I'll see you later, alright?" Toph didn't do much else but wave him off as he walked down the hallway and jogged down the stairs, leaving Toph feeling a lot of different emotions all at once, not all of them bad.
It was after she had showed up to her Philosophy lecture again, sat in the seat that Aang had saved for her, and accepted the notes that he copied for her when she was suffering with a migraine yesterday that Toph realized that maybe she was reading this guy all wrong. So she went to Katara.
"You know, I usually don't condone Facebook stalking," Katara commented as she looked over Toph's shoulder. "But I've seen the way he stares at you. He's a great guy, Toph. Really. An absolute sweetheart."
Katara was the only resource that Toph had left. Katara was Facebook friends with most of the freshman class already—how she had managed that, Toph didn't want to know—and the only way that Toph figured that she could properly observe Aang without letting him know that she was actively doing so was unfortunately through sifting through months worth of statuses and looking through his albums.
There was nothing suspicious about anything she saw there, except that Aang didn't give off the impression of a self absorbed womanizer college stud who was just extremely desperate to hook up with Toph for a few times before moving onto the next defenseless college girl. There was something very…genine about him. Of course that was hard to accurately tell by just stalking—erm, researching him—on the Internet, but something about all the photos he had of his huge white dog and his father back at home, all of his friends at high school, and even all the twelve year olds he counseled at a summer camp a year ago just gave Toph the impression that Aang exuded a happiness and enthusiasm that was absolutely infectious.
"What if he's not, though?" Toph questioned honestly, being unable to resist the small smile at the sight of Aang's dorky selfie with the alma mater statue that he probably took on the first day of college. "People can be fake."
Katara nodded and patted her shoulder. "Yeah, they can. But you're not going to find that out for sure without sticking your head out a little. I mean, how are you expecting to find anyone worth it if you just say no to everyone for fear they'll be like everyone else you've met?"
"Ugh," Toph groaned in disgust. "Go write all that sentimental crap in your diary before you make me throw up."
"Look you have been grouching up the atmosphere with your pessimism." Katara flicked Toph's forehead. "Cheer up a little, will you? Not every guy is out to get you. You can afford to trust someone for a change."
Toph scrolled further down Aang's wall. "Famous last words," she muttered quietly.
Still, it wasn't a terrible thought.
For three days after, Toph couldn't really put a finger on what she thought of him. Usually, when a girl turned a guy down that many times, he gave up trying and just left her to her own devices. But Aang's constant attention despite her reluctance to say yes to any of his offers for dates or hanging out or whatever it was he wanted was…nice. It felt nice. That's all she would admit to, because she couldn't explain this desire to run away scared and also take Katara's advice: stop moping and taking a chance for once.
Toph was sitting out on the steps of the library, typing away at her laptop when she felt a bag plop down next to her and a body sit to her left, one step down from where she was sitting. Toph smirked while she kept writing her essay, not needing to look up to know whom it was. "How do you keep finding me, huh?"
"Well, you stand out," Aang said simply.
Toph snorted and typed out a few lines of prose, waiting for the gratuitous flirting. "What does that mean?"
"Don't know if you've noticed, but you kind of scare people with the way you carry yourself," Aang admitted.
Toph snapped her head at him. "Wait, what?"
Aang laughed at her reaction and leaned his elbows on the step behind him. "It's nothing bad, per se. But you're very bold. The way you walk with your head in the air, the way you talk to people and look right at them, and all that sarcasm. It's a little intimidating. They're afraid you'll bite their head off. Or, you know…punch them across the face."
Toph scowled at the latter half of the sentence. "You heard about that?"
"Who didn't hear about that?" Aang remarked sarcastically. "You made a football player fall to his knees, and you were literally half his size. This campus isn't that big. Everyone was bound to find out about it."
Well, he was right there. To be fair, she wasn't very forgiving with her blows. She probably did frighten most of the freshman class with that display. Not that she cared all that much. Toph was used to being accused of being rough around the edges and unapproachable. It was her thing, and she'd been going with it since middle school. She wasn't about to change it to get approval. That wasn't the kind of attention she wanted.
Of course, a part of her always wondered what she had to do to get a guy to see her as a person they wanted to get to know and not a person they wanted to use as a means to an end. Either people looked at her superficially and pined after her like a pervert, or people ran away from her scared. Some impressions she could make. Aang was one of very few people who actually tolerated her thorny personality for this long and made spending time together with him…pleasant. That couldn't be ignored, no matter how much it shocked her.
Wondering if she should just keep her mouth shut and not bother asking dumb questions, Toph decided to go for it anyway. "So why are you approaching me?"
Aang sighed and stared up at the sky, staring at the yellow and orange leaves that notoriously littered the steps of the library at this time of the year. Toph caught herself staring and couldn't help but think that the colors suited him. "That kind of thing doesn't scare me," he finally told her with a noncommittal shrug.
It wasn't much at all. No romantic soliloquys, no corny gushing descriptions on how amazing and unique and interesting she was, and no getting down one knee and making a spectacle over his fascination with her. But somehow it wrapped up everything that he was perfectly. He wasn't afraid. Not of her, not of rejection, and not of taking a little wager with people who seemed to really matter. Surely if he could do that, she could take the challenge and do the same right.
Toph bit her lip and closed her laptop. "Um…" she hesitated. "I was, uh…going to get a sandwich before class. You can tag along if you want."
Aang didn't answer right away, instead choosing to smile up at the sky and keep his eyes trained away from her. "Is this the part where we switch scripts and I say no?"
Toph scowled and nudged his shoulder roughly. "You better not!"
But Toph was pleasantly surprised when Aang turned to stare at her with those wonderful eyes of his as he grabbed her hand and pressed a kiss against her knuckles. Warmth spread all through her arm, and she couldn't stop herself from smiling back at him when he said, "Sure. I'd love to."
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A/N: Give me a bit to get back into the swing of writing for these guys. I'm a little rusty and jaded from school. Hopefully the daily exercise will keep me sharp. Let me know what you guys think!