HAPPINESS IN A BOTTLE
ohsoxalive
Pairing: Zuko/Katara, Sokka/Suki, Toph/Aang friendship, and over all gaang bonding.
Word Count: 4,000 +
Rating: K+
a/n: started a while ago. finished last night. trying to write something happy for once.
.x.
"…so, five days huh?"
It's a whisper as fatal as a disease, hanging in the air above their heads. The day was bright, the summer heat weighing down on their sweating foreheads. It's no wonder why they call it the Fire Nation. The intense temperatures could cook an egg faster than Sokka could eat it. (Which was pretty fast). Aang's soft whisper was followed by a beat, a pause, and then multiple sighs.
"Yep," Sokka bluntly replied, "Five days our little rag tag teams will invade the Palace again."
The Avatar wasn't really expecting a response, and it didn't really help the frown on his face.
"And this time," Sokka added, smacking a prideful pat on the little boy's back, "we will win."
As simple as that, everyone smiled. But it was that somber kind of smile, the one where they were either laughing at the cheesiness in Sokka's words, or the one where in the bottom of their bleeding hearts, those were the words they've been dreaming about for so, so long that it almost ached to think of it. All in all, they looked pretty pathetic sitting around the fire with old soup for breakfast (again).
"You know, we're starting to sound and look like old coots. It's pretty sad. And scary."
Toph propped her hands behind her head, letting her comment sink in.
For a moment, nobody said anything. Nothing but a nervous laugh, because it was downright true. The soup tasted bitter. Were they really acting like old people? Reminiscing and worrying all the time? That was just the thing. They had to. The world on your shoulders is a heavy reminder.
"You know…"
All eyes turned toward Katara.
"I think we need a vacation. Right before the battle."
The camp site suddenly felt stuffy, the very word—vacation—entering like a breeze and brushing against their cheeks. It tasted funny on their lips, and it wasn't the soup this time, but the foreign word leaving an anxious bubble in the very pit of their stomachs.
"…I've...I've never been on vacation before." Suki breathed with a rush across her lips. Her makeup-less face smiled, shyly, behind war torn hands as if the idea was a rule to break. "A vacation?" Toph whispered next, knuckles cracking and crystal eyes blinking between the pause, "That…that would be the best thing ever! Wow, an actually good idea, Sparky."
Sokka was going to add something (partly from being left out, partly because he had another name to call Zuko) but he was beaten to it.
"I think I know a place."
"Spill it, Princess Charming."
Zuko opened his mouth to continue, but stopped to scowl at the little earthbender next to him. She shrugged, contently smirking at his scrunched up face and racing heart. Poor Sparky, he hated being embarrassed. But, great for Toph, in her opinion. Finally, remembering the effect of glares on blind people, Zuko gave up. With expectant, hopeful eyes on him, he let his lips form a tiny smile.
"…How about a trip to the beach?"
"Now?"
"Yes," they all choired.
And they all smiled.
.x.
The ride there was almost worse than a battle with Ozai himself.
"Are we there yet?"
"But you promised I could sit in the front today!"
"I'm hungry."
"You arrogant UGH! It won't kill you to admit you're lost and have no idea where we're going!"
"We're not lost, so stop screaming at me! Give me that map you incompetent woman!"
"Guys, I'm hungry."
"This is boring."
"When is the vacation going to start?"
"Are we there yet?"
"I'm still hungry over here—"
"EVERYONE SHUT UP OR I WILL TURN THIS BISON AROUND RIGHT NOW!"
GRGRGHGH.
"What in Agni's name was that?"
"Sorry, that was my stomach. Katara forgot to feed me and—okayI'llshutupnow."
x.
Once they arrived (only two hours, twenty seven minutes later), things were much more peaceful.
"Hello-ooo vacation!"
Everyone jumped off the bison before Appa even had a chance to land. All six feet sank into the sand, a happy grunt rumbling from the giant furry beast. It was absolutely perfect, the hidden and isolated beach did not have a single other person on it, no one but them, perfectly safe for the heroes of the world. Fiercely, the sun beat down, shining brightly down at the hollering boys throwing off their shirts and three girls in red clothes and red cheeks.
.x.
"She's such a worry wart."
"Your sister doesn't understand the word vacation, honestly."
"He's right, Sokka."
"Hmm…then we should do something about it."
"Like what?"
"Well…"
"Stop trying to be mysterious and start speaking up and spill, Princess Charming."
"Don't call me that! Now, huddle up men, and Sokka of course—I've got a plan."
.x.
Even on vacation, Katara did not, would not, rest.
On a rock, among a scatter of boulders to the far west of the beach, the waterbender sat on the stony surface with several different bags, food, and clothes. To put it simply: chores. To the side, she neatly finished all the sandwiches and placed them in a makeshift (and ripped) bag. "It's gotta be perfect," she muttered, bending the beads of sweat from her shining forehead, "Wait—where'd the fruit go?"
Standing on the rock, she a placed a hand on her hip, another hand blocking the sun from her blue eyes. Less than an hour ago, most the boys had blushed at the sight of her and the white underclothes that gripped around her womanly body. It only lasted a few minutes before their attention span faltered and they remembered who Katara was.
She breathed in the silence, the beating rhythm of the ocean's tide—her element.
Then, suddenly, screaming.
To her surprise, it was her voice. Before she could have even blinked, three figures jumped from behind the rocks and grabbed her, her body dangling in the air as she struggled against their force. Aang held her by the legs, Zuko by her arms, and she could feel her butt hanging in midair, a blush creeping on her cheeks and her voice still on the verge of exploding.
"What are you doing!?"
Blue eyes flashing, she could see Aang smiling nervously as he gripped her legs, and if she tilted her head all the way back (against something hard called: Zuko's Chest) she could see the smug firebender smirking down at her.
"Don't worry sis," Sokka appeared in her line of vision, rubbing his chin in that very special way he always did, "We noticed you're not having fun. And that's breaking rule number one. Besides—this was Zuko's idea. So blame him. Anyways, we're here to make sure you stop being such a stick in the mud."
The next she knew was that she was screaming again ("Let go! Put me down, put me down, putmedown—") and then she was flying into an endless amount of sky, the hands of the Avatar and a Prince letting go of her mocha skin as they swung her with one mighty throw.
For a moment, all she could do was flail her arms and scream again, the breeze tearing at her somewhat laughing, somewhat shocked face. Her heart raced and raced, from the surprise, and partly for the fact she secretly enjoyed it.
Then, water.
She was safe again.
.x.
"It smells like Katara's cooking."
Zuko laughed at his own joke and Sokka added in, "Salty you mean? Sure tastes like it, too!"
Next thing they knew they were clinging on to their pants in fear of losing them as they faced a tidal wave that certainly wasn't normal nor small.
.x.
"Here Twinkletoes, like this."
Toph widened her stance, her toes digging into the unsteady sand she didn't trust. Arms like concrete in front of her; she stiffened her face and curled her fingers. "Rock like,Twinkletoes! Stop being a wuss, and be more rock like!" Aang mimicked her stance, and together the two of them punched a fist into the sand, immediately sinking into the ground all the way to their necks.
"I did it!" Aang cried, as he slightly moved his neck to glance at his sifu, "I did it!"
They snickered, necks slightly itching at the sand, but they kept still. Buried nearly all the way in the ground, a silence followed. And then Aang again. "…Why do you call me Twinkletoes?"
"Because," Toph scoffed, "When you walk, it's soft and…dance-y like. Being an airbender, I guess. You walk on your toes, alot. Therefore, twinkle and toes you are."
"Oh."
"Shut up now!" Toph whispered, "He's coming!"
And so they held their breath and sunk deeper into the sand, ready to pop out at any given second, and put their plan: Scare Sokka Until He Almost Wets His Pants into action.
.x.
"Toph! Join us!"
Aang waved an arm, grinning toward the sky as he motioned for the only person not wet to come in. The water reached up to his thigh where he stood, his shiny bald head gleaming in the light. Everyone was in the water except for her.
"Uh.." The Earth Rumble Champion mumbled, "Idon'tknowhowtoswim."
Her head bowed shamefully, but it lifted again when she felt a hand on her sun burned shoulder, a twinkling, soft whisper in his ear. "Come on, don't be scared. Rock like." She was about to remind that don't rock sink, but he didn't give her a chance to correct his metaphor.
Blindly, she was led to the water, smiling the entire way as she listened to the boy next to her whisper and whisper to her ("It's okay ,it's okay"). He sounded like the ocean, on and on, but there was a point when everything was drowned out by the endless water and she could feel nothing, nothing but desperation and tightness in her chest and the water at her hips and her grip on the ground rising away from her beloved dirt and into the vast blind ocean and—
Was that Twinkletoes holding her hand?
Yes, yes it was.
"Just trust me," He said, taking her hand, "It's not that hard!"
And he took her hand, keeping his infinite promise of always keeping her safe, keeping her up high into the air; because it was there where she felt like she was flying.
With Twinkletoes, she always lost her ability to be rock like.
.x.
She's so beautiful.
Especially under the sparkling sun, where her endless element surrounds her. She's got sand in her unruly hair, red eyes from the water, scrapes on her knees, a crack in her laugh, and she's so beautiful that it could knock him down harder than the crashing waves.
And he almost told her that.
The Avatar nearly told the waterbender just exactly how beautiful she is. It almost slipped past his lips while she held his hand and together they jumped the waves, teasing and taunting the water as they laughed over the rushing sea. Almost. Because it was then when he felt her hand lose its grip, her fingers untangling from his.
He could recall it all perfectly.
In the air, they giggled and grinned, raising their knotted hands together high into skies. But it was then, as they landed back down on the unstable and wet ground (reality) she gave him that upside down and twisted around smile that spoke so many words.
"Toph," she whispered awkwardly, "I think she needs you."
Glancing over his shoulder, he could see the earthbender struggling and fighting the water. "Oh," he nodded, squinting at the sun. Neither of them moved for a moment, until her sigh broke the sea and the silence.
He was pretty sure what it meant.
When she let go of his hand, he understood. She was letting him go, here on the wet and slippery ground called reality (she doesn't feel the same way) and when she gave him that smile he dreaded, she was desperately trying to calm the sea, to heal it back to safety, (it's a different kind of love he'll never understand).
"You're right. I should probably go help her."
He didn't get to tell her she was beautiful, but he wished he had thanked her.
Because Katara always, always is there to catch him right before he falls, and bring him back to life before the crash.
Even in heartbreak, she softens the landing before he gets too hurt.
.x.
"That was wickedly insane."
Katara glanced over her sandwich at Toph, raising her eyebrow at the comment. "The waves you mean?" She licked a drop of sauce from the side of her mouth, nodding in agreement. "Oh yeah, this whole vacation really was."
Toph raised her own eyebrow, stretching her legs out from the rock she sat on. "Huh? Oh right, right. Yeah, this vacation rules. But I was talking about Sokka's girly scream from when we scared him. Classic." She grinned deviously, her lips spreading wider as she heard a snort from said warrior.
"What do you expect?! Two heads suddenly popped out of the ground and screamed my name! I almost peed me pants! You would do the same thing too!"
Toph exchanged a high fives with Aang, everyone else laughing in unison.
"Hey Sugar Queen and Sparky…don't you two try and hide over there."
"Yeah, we saw you scream, Katara. Which caused Zuko to freak out. And you two to somehow crash into each other and then the waves knocked you both down. It was hilarious!"
"On top of each other," Suki added with a chuckle.
One Avatar kept quiet, but then solemnly turned to his earthbending teacher and started a new subject.
"How about that sandbending, huh?"
.x.
They don't question it when Sokka and Suki disappear for long periods of time.
But when they disappear, they are always in sight. They are gone, mind and soul, but their bodies are nearby, holding hands and laughing and picking up shells with biting hermit-snakes inside. When they all look up with frozen fear at the sound of Suki's sky tearing scream, all there is to see is her silhouette running from his, and the beautiful sound of Sokka's love sick laughs and water splashing from his hands. He has this look on his face that makes you forget he loves meat, puts on dresses, draws terribly and other ridiculous things thought to make up Sokka.
They all look away when their sun kissed frames press against each other with salt and sweat on the shore—where the earth meets the water, where their lips crash like waves and sand.
.x.
"So, what's this place called, again?"
Katara bends the water from right beneath her feet, fresh, salt-less and clear in her hands as she tips her chin up at the firebender next to her, hands in buried in his pocket.
"Ember Island. My family used to vacation in this house. We still own it, I think. But ever since my mom…" Zuko glanced back at the red, memory filled house behind them, a breath of the past stretching his lungs out and the sound of the waves against his ankles pushing it back out. There was no need to finish, not with this waterbender. "We don't go to it anymore. It's safe for us."
He's got his hands in his pocket and she's making shapes out of her water, but they're both lazily looking at the water. Zuko likes this silence, this chance to not have to make conversation awkwardly, this moment to notice her eyes are even bluer against the ocean. But, as he kicks the water, he feels like he owes her, and this beach is so cursedly hot that it makes him forget he's a prince, there's a war, and there's destiny looming. He just knows it's hot and the fresh air is empty of friendly words.
"..Is it like home for you here? Y'know…because it's blue..?"
Waves crash in the far distance, dying, dying as they near and rippling at their ankles in small pushes. He vaguely wonders if she's any part of that.
"Yes and no," she answer simply, hands on her hips now, Agni's sun on her cheeks, "My home is where—" Katara glanced over her dark shoulder, sparkling her oceanic eyes toward the rest of them further on shore, "—they are."
He glances back with her. There's mountains of water behind them, he knows it without even looking. He can hear them crumbling into even more water, mountains breaking and mountains collapsing. It's a world as big as theirs out in the blue, out in the blue of her eyes.
"How about you?"
Zuko opened his mouth to answer, but there was nothing there. It was empty like the land of water rushing around them. His empty mouth curved into an awkward smile, pink shoulders shrugging in the same direction that the waterbender's smile was going.
"Admit, you want to say the same thing I said. Admit it!"
Waves were chasing sun as Katara flung water at him, giddy sparks of laughter echoing into an empty sky of light, her voice ringing "Say it! Say it! You actually like us! We're your friends! Say it!" Zuko ran toward land, far far away from the realms of a waterbender in her element, tripping in sand and skidding on seashells. For the first time since she was a little girl, she used her hands and only her hands to actually splash the water at him. She felt normal—even if she was flinging water and giggling at the ex-prince of the Fire Nation.
"You're such a freak!" He laughed.
(This is the most fun he's had in ages, he knows, because he didn't recognize this feeling of laughing until it hurts and she's looking awfully pretty.)
.x.
"Who would have thought," Toph scratched the sticky layer of sand off her feet, "That the two people who don't know how to have fun…have fun together."
Even through the blurriness, she can feel Sokka narrowing his eyes in the protective way he's so good at, and Suki's hand brushing against his, a touch to calm him down. Toph doesn't know what the sunset looks like, but she knows it comes at the end of the day, and it's the fiery power in the sky falling down, slowly, each day and each night out. She can't see it, though. But this must like it. The way how only Suki is able to pull his big, burning, racing heart down, always. This she can see.
"Didn't you once say they were like a mom and dad of our group, kinda?"
Toph curled her fingers into the sand.
"Yeah…but sometimes I'm not so sure anymore."
The almost husband and wife didn't even hear her.
.x.
When they stretch their arms over their heads, the sky and moon joins them. The ocean licks their heels, hums a melody that will forever ring in the scratchy salt in their throats, sun burnt skin, and blends into the night sky.
They are beyond tired.
One red house awaited them, just a few, long steps over the sand dunes. The walk is heavy, the walk is heartbreaking. It's the goodbye to a day nobody wants to forget. It's time for bed.
"I-I wish we could have this every day. Forever." It's Toph who speaks first through chapped lips, a curtain of bangs damp and plastered and pushed to the side of her face. "Maybe…maybe you can," the Avatar mumbled to himself, words that don't come from his mind, but rather his heart. He reaches down into a bag, taking out an empty bottle. With the bend of his knees, he scoops that holy bottle into the precious sand, holds it out to a blind earthbender with proud hands, and gives a smile so light you would think he airbended the air around him to make it so innocent.
"How…incredibly cheesy...yet classy," Sokka raised an eyebrow, amused.
Toph ignored him for once. She takes it clumsily, fingers slipping for a grip on the glass bottle. She can't even see the sand, but somehow, there is a presence of dirt and Ember Island sand that radiates from the thing that she can feel it.
"We better get moving."
And Katara smiles at the line of their mix-matched family, so many colors and so many faces. One by one, she goes down that beautiful row of people that make her heart swell. "Goodnight, thanks for the great night, g'night," Whispers that follow the thrumming rhythm of a pleading ocean fade on her smile.
She starts with Sokka, planting a kiss on his forehead, a quick kiss that is more of a smile laughing on his skin than anything else. He pinches her cheek. Suki is right next to him (of course), to which she gives the Kyoshi warrior a hug that is friend to friend and a thank you for loving him. Toph, still holding the bottle of sand, doesn't move when Katara embraces her with a kiss on the cheek, but she does close her eyes, and she thinks of her own mom, but she can't remember the last time she did it for no reason like this waterbender.
Then, Aang.
She hugs him the longest. It's pity, it's sympathy, it's a love he doesn't understand. When she pulls back, she holds his face and gives a kiss that is not on the cheek this time, but rather, his forehead (just like Sokka). He accepts her apology by letting his hand linger on her shoulder, but does give her a smile in return, one for Katara, his best friend.
Zuko is last. In his mind, he is the least.
He can't look at her when her head meets his chest (yet again!), arms around his waist, and her lips sneaking up to his cheek. It's so simple, really, but it makes his cheek hurt and his hand do uncontrollable things like snake around her waist in return. He's happy, he really, really is.
They're just kids, he sees as he unwraps his arms from her, they deserve this.
To be happy.
Nothing makes him happier than the fact they finally are—and so is he, with them.