Disclaimer: I do NOT own Avatar
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Suki was back. No matter how many times that thought ran through my head it still made me sick to my stomach. Just feeling her outline next to Sokka made me want to leap over and start clawing. 'Who does she think she is?' I thought as I glared in the direction I knew she was sitting as our little group sat around the fire.
Once making our "daring rescue" as Sokka referred to it as, we had come back to the Air Temple to plan for what we were to do next. Only that the Fire Lord had just dropped a peg on my list of enemies, moving down to number two behind Suki.
"And then! And then they came back and did this really weird dance routine for us all!" I could hear Sokka shout out as he retold what we had been up to since Suki had last seen us.
"That must have been something to see!" Suki said with a tone indicative of interest, the others might have believed her but not me. I could clearly tell that she couldn't care less, the only thing that she showed as anything of interest was when she would "secretively" scoot closer to Sokka.
"I was! I mean I don't think I could have imagined Zuko doing anything more embarrassing!" Sokka proclaimed, earning a disappointed grunt from said Firebender at having to relive the memory of that dance. "Isn't that right Toph?"
"Yeah." I replied harshly, I really didn't want to be involved in any activity that Sokka had concocted to impress Suki. I would never admit it or ever say it out loud but I was actually very disappointed when I heard that she was still alive. When someone tells you that someone has been captured by Azula, surviving isn't something that pops into your head. But when I heard Sokka call out to everyone "Suki is back!" I truly wished she would have died.
"Well someone seems to be in a bad mood tonight." Sokka said in his joking tone. But I really wasn't in the mood for jokes, so I took my heel and tapped it against the ground. Producing a small mass of earth of rise up under Sokka butt, sending him abut a foot into the air finally coming back down on a now sore rump.
"Toph! That was totally unnecessary!" Suki yelled out at me, taking this opportunity to press herself again the object of my affections. Just hearing her talk to me like that almost made me snap at her, but I restrained my self by clenching my fists as hard as I could and biting into the side of my lower lip. "You could have really hurt my Sokka…" My eyes just opened as wide as they could when I heard her say that. "So apologize to him." I could feel Katara about to defuse the situation, knowing what she ad said might do to me, but it was too late. My anger came to a boil as I bit down harder, drawing blood.
"WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!" I screamed as I stood up. "You think you can waltz in here and tell me what to do? I do what I want when I want and to who I want!! Maybe if you weren't stuck in prison for so long you'd understand how our group works!!" With a slam of my foot dust covered the area as I stormed out of the chamber and far away, trying to find a place to retreat to.
"Stupid! So stupid Toph!" I yelled out at myself when I finally reached a secluded area of the temple, one of those wide open hanging fountain rooms. Now normally I would be tearing the room apart and throwing boulders half way across the ravine, but I didn't want them to find me. So here I am, sitting on the side of the fountain, my face in my hands, crying my eyes out.
'How could I have been so stupid, how could I have said that out loud? Sokka probably hates me now; all he's cared about since she came back was Suki. Suki, Suki, Suki!' I thought as I sobbed uncontrollably into my now wet hands. Gasping for air through my tears I curled up into a tight little ball on the fountain's edge. "Why couldn't it be me…?" I said a little quieter than a whisper.
I just sat there, as my tears dried and my head cleared a bit, it had been about thirty minutes and I was about to head back to my room when it happened…she showed up.
"You know that was a really insensitive thing you said earlier." I heard that disgusting voice say as I felt her come walking into the open room; even her way of walking made me sick.
"You take one more step and you're going off this temple." I snarled back at her, effectively making her stop her advance. Now she was about ten feet away and standing there smugly with her arms crossed. "How did you find me?"
"It wasn't that hard really…I just thought of the farthest place away from where we were, and lo and behold here you are." I could almost feel her smirk at me as she was saying this. "It's a little funny how the mind of a child works."
"SHUT UP RIGHT NOW!" I screamed back at her, my foot raised to open up a hole in the floor and let her fall to her death.
"Oh I don't think you'll do that. What would your precious Sokka think if you killed his girlfriend?" She said, sarcasm dripping from her voice. As much as I didn't want to, my cheeks flared up in a bright blush at hearing that. All the while seething with anger at my biggest enemy. "What? You don't think I remember what happened back at the Serpent's Pass? Your little wishful rescue kiss you gave me when you thought it was Sokka."
"I didn't mean to do that, it just happened."
"Fat chance. Now listen Toph, I want you to stay away from my man, and you've spent enough time with him."
"Like I'd do that, he's my best friend I'll never "stay away" from him. Besides, like I've said before, who the hell do you think you are?" I snapped back at her, I was using just about every fiber of my being not to let her drop.
"I'm going to be his wife, that's who!"
I couldn't help myself, just hearing that I snapped. But I didn't lash out at her; I did probably the last thing she expected. I started to crack up; soon I was literally rolling on the ground laughing. "What kind of person do you think Sokka is? I mean seriously, he's spent what? Like 4 days with you in totally?"
"Well…Sokka is a simple person." My eyes narrowed at her, here she was talking about how she was going to marry Sokka but then she insults him like this. "He's easy enough to control, just make him think he's in charge and he'll take pretty much any suggestion."
"You're horrible! How can you even say that? Sokka is a wonderful person and there's no way he'll buy your little act."
"Oh really? He seemed to buy it when we first met, and when we first kissed." She hissed at me, rubbing in that fact like salt in a wound.
By now I was on my feet and glaring straight at her, wanting nothing more than to engulf her in earth and let her suffocate. "Do you even like him?" I asked, still baffled at how the mind of someone like Suki worked.
"To tell the truth…not really. He's too obnoxious for me, but the benefits outweigh the short comings." My jaw just dropped as I heard that, the person I was competing with for Sokka didn't even like him! While I… "It seems you don't understand, let's see he's the son of the chief of the Southern Water Tribe, he's one of the Avatar's closest friends, he's now one of the friends of Prince Zuko...I marry him and I'll be set for life."
"You're sick!" I yelled at her moving closer to her, just wanting to hit her as hard as I could. "I love Sokka for who he is, not what he is or anything else! I love him with every fiber of my being and I won't let you take him from me!" I said as the tears started to stream down my face again, moving faster I pulled my fist up to slug that bitch as she dropped into a fighting stance.
"THAT'S ENOUGH!" A voice suddenly sliced through the air, causing us both to stop instantly and whirl around to see where is had come from. There leaning against the hallway door was Sokka, his heart beating with anger.
"Sokka!" Suki proclaimed in fear, running over to him she looped her arms around his arm and pushed herself against him. "I didn't mean any of that! She was putting words in my mouth!"
Violently Sokka ripped his arm away from her, then taking a step towards me and with his back to her he spoke to the bitch. "Suki, I never want to hear you speak to me, and I never want to see you look at me. Now please leave, we'll drop you off the next place we stop at."
I could only let a small smile grow on my face when she turned and ran away all the while crying, her dreams and plans crushed. "So how much did you hear?" I nervously asked him, feeling his gaze centered on me.
"I followed Suki down here…so…the whole thing." He said with a chuckle, just hearing his normal voice seemed to make everything alright. But regardless I was still frozen where I stood, so all I could do was feel his vibrations as he walked past me and sat down on the side of the fountain I had just recently been crying my eyes out on.
"Wow…" He said after a couple minutes of mind crumbling silence. "You think you know someone…"
"I'm sorry you had to find out about her like this." I said while I forced myself to turn around so he could at least look at me.
But then again I was met with his intoxicating laugh, it filled me with warmth as I couldn't help but sport a small smile. "No, you get it wrong. I'm not talking about her…I'm talking about you, Toph."
A gigantic blush spear across my whole body at what he was hinting at 'I love Sokka for who he is, not what he is or anything else! I love him with every fiber of my being and I won't let you take him from me!' What I had said echoed again and again in my mind, even if I wanted to speak I couldn't.
Seeing this, Sokka sat up from the fountain and slowly walked over to me. Putting his hand under my chin, his warm and soft hand, he tiled my head up so he could look into my sightless eyes. "Did you mean it?"
Two small tears then fell from my eyes as I tried my hardest to speak. "Y-yes…" Then the unthinkable happened, I felt Sokka's lips softly press themselves against mine. It was only for an instant but to me it felt like forever and I never wanted it to end.
When he pulled away he took his hand from his chin and whipped away my tears. "I had no idea you felt that way. You're a Bei Fong, the richest family in the whole Earth Kingdom, and I'm just some kid with a boomerang. Not in my dreams could I have imagined being anything but friends with you." Once more he leaned down to place a tender kiss on my awaiting lips. "I love you too Toph." He said quietly as he wrapped his arms around me
New tears began to fall down my face, tears of happiness. He likes me, he loves me! All of my dreams had come true; the person who meant more than anything in the world to me had just been kissing me and is now holding me. "What about Suki? Why aren't you taking that any harder?" I don't exactly know why I asked that, none the less it sort of slipped out.
"Well Katara had warned me about something like that when we met her, I didn't listen and look where it's gotten us." He said calmly, it really amazed me at just how his reactions to things could differ so much. One day he's freaking out over his schedule and now he's acting like this at being manipulated by someone who claimed to care about him.
Releasing me from his grasp, Sokka quickly snaked his hand into mine and tugged my forward and towards the hallway. "Come on, we better go explain all of this. I pissed at her, but I don't really want Katara to do anything drastic to Suki once she finds out."
As we walked I pulled myself closer to him and rested my smiling face against his arm. "I love you Sokka." I just loved hearing it out loud now; the culmination of my feelings being expressed verbally was pure bliss to me.
"I could get used to hearing that!" He chuckled before I elbowed him hard in the side. "Oh ow! Well we finally get the real Toph back…and I love you too." My smile just grew tenfold, not caring about what was to come, what lies Suki would tell, what the others would say, the war, the Fire Lord. Nothing but the feeling of having Sokka was on my mind.
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Hope everyone liked this; I was just suddenly inspired to write something like this and just churned it out.
