Summary: Toph has tried to keep her friends together for all the years since Ozai was defeated but she finds it harder and harder to do so. During a visit to the Fire Nation, she finds that Zuko may be the only one who knows her pain. Kind of drabbly but with a lot of double meanings and a happy ending.

Endless

In the Fire Nation, the sun never disappears from the vast ocean of culminate sky, whether it be past midnight and the locals are fast asleep or whether it is the crack of dawn and the night's insects are just finishing the last of their meal before seeking refuge and repose in the thick, humid forests.

So it didn't matter that five 'o' clock was a window overlooking the sea where the huge mass of orange gas in the sky, its warmth being the result of its fusion of hydrogen to helium; much like the fusion that he could see in her blind, pale green eyes as she sat at said window, staring at nothing in particular – much due to her inability to do so.

Years had passed, friendships had gone awry, love had dissipated…and yet she stayed the same, holding them together with her iron grip, her fingers slipping at the hold even as her nails dug into the hard metal. Her ferocity came from her desperation; a breathless need to keep them close together because her weakly beating heart couldn't handle the loss of everything that contributed to her growth, both physically and emotionally.

All he could do was watch her struggle from over the leaves of paper, amber eyes melting one with the molten sky and finding a once-lush oasis of blind orbs as they threatened to sink beneath the overflowing sea that seemed to rise higher and higher and force the greenery into dull, swamp-life.

Masculine fingers deftly move across the inky sheets, blotches of black and red at his fingertips, feeling uncomfortable through their strange dryness and odd grating.

And then the sound. It was slicing through the silence like a gush of wind but softer than the cry of a kitten. Still, the Fire Lord went about his task, believing it to be just a slip from her throat; an accidental release of pent up emotion only to be swallowed whole again as usual.

But she sobbed again; a heartbreaking noise that made him stop and close his golden eyes and just listen as they continued. When he looked up at her, the oasis flooded. There didn't seem much hope for life there anymore.

Tears drip from her eyes like dew from a blade of grass. Flaming cheeks and trail-marks were her completion.

The sun still blared hot in the sky, even as it sunk behind the puddle of the red sea like a blood orange dipped in its own juice. His heart constricted within his chest as if her own iron fist was holding onto it as her last hope of survival.

Don't leave, don't leave, don't leave…

Papers were left on the desk, abandoned and proud to be so. Ink jars tipped over to the edge, spilling their black and red contents onto the floor like rivulets of sin and forbidden thoughts. Actions spoke louder than any words scrawled in those inks could at this heady, heavy, humid moment in time.

Red robes swished with each step towards the broken female doll, all crumples and sticky cheeks, hair matted to skin in spider webs and strings.

Eyes meet, each akin to their own sight, one with a burning warmth like the flourishing coals at the bottom of a fire and the other with impossible blind precision as they locked onto their target.

Calloused, ink smudged fingers trail soft shadows across warm, damp skin, afraid to crack what has already been shattered. She knows his touch even though years have passed since she had felt him, at a time of war and blood and earth and fire. Memories of another girl, taller, regal and cold gold, plague her mind as the one who was blessed with his affection for a long time, a much too long time in her cottoned, delirious opinion.

And then there are lolled heads, rolled to the back as tongues sweep across bare naked necks through the sudden front created as the heat of the earlier day meets the wind of the coming night. It is a clash of storms; like lightning striking the land in bolts of pained pleasure on skin as cloth is stripped away and lips brush at wrong angles through the myriad of it all.

Wet tongues could course through any plane necessary to get to their destination and the frustrated sounds formed through their journey leaves the other prouder and stronger still. Masculine advances and feminine approaches leave lungs aching for air and bodies desperate for stronger, longer and lingering touches. Minds are clogged with contrasting reasoning and excuses and curses across dense cold marble as flesh is pressed harder into the ground and limbs are tangled in the mess of discarded clothing.

And maybe they know it and maybe they don't, that the whispered words are true and the moaned responses don't lie even if the harshness of reality threatens to tear them apart as the sun sinks behind the horizon, allowing a freshness of night to overcome the day.

And as it releases its final burst of energy before falling below, so do two emotionally and bodily drained forms in a collapse of damp hair and bruised torsos, lips still seeking their place on another's and tongues still divulging and stealing secrets and promises into the cavern of the other's speech.

And hope is still frail and hearts are still broken despite the filled crevice during a short hour. But one plus one will always make two and earth and fire will always clash and compliment…and then clash again. Iron will always need the flames to mould it and the only thing that will warm up to heat and accept it is cool, silver touch of metal.

The sun never disappears from the sky in the Fire Nation, because glowing torches and light are ever present through windows and gaps in concrete and across paper and ink to serve as faith through endless nights.

Don't leave, don't leave, don't leave…

I won't, I won't, I won't.


A/N: Toph and Zuko – even though their names aren't mentioned *looks again* AT ALL in this story, are in their twenties. This was written for Gossymer on livejournal as a response to a little something on her wish list. I hope she likes this! I tried to keep in with the whole spirit of Christmas coming up with faith, hope and love :D

Please review and tell me what you all think! :D