Zuko lifted his hand, reaching out to the sleeping forms in front of him. His fingers got inches from them before he sighed and let his arm drop.
The firebending prince growled softly to himself and pinched the bridge of his nose. Aang had to get up for firebending practice. He should have been up hours ago… but… well… there were a couple problems.
Number one and easily the one that made Zuko pause, was the blind earthbender laying on top of Aang. Even if she hadn't looked so unbelievably comfortable snuggled so tightly against the Avatar, she probably would still hurt the former prince of fire for waking her up…
Two, was that Aang himself looked so comfortable… normally Zuko wouldn't care whether he was comfortable or not, training time was training time, but… Zuko knew just how hard the boy was actually trying, just how hard he was really pushing himself, and Zuko had never seen the Avatar look so peaceful and happy while sleeping…
Thirdly: Zuko wasn't exactly one to go all gushy and goo-goo eyes over something cute… But the two of them holding each other so close as they slept, a blanket wrapped around them, and Toph's face half hidden against Aang's neck with her hair loose… even Zuko had to admit it was impossibly cute.
But the biggest reason Zuko had yet to wake the sleeping pair was actually not present at the moment… thankfully.
Katara had been very adamant against waking the two benders this morning, mostly for the very reasons that Zuko was hesitant to wake them. The only thing was, when he had reached out to try and wake them up, Katara had told Zuko, on no uncertain terms, that if he woke the two younger members of the group up he would be in a very unpleasant position.
So, with the irate waterbender currently absent, Zuko had to take this chance to wake up his pupil for firebending practice.
And yet every time he reached out to wake Aang up, he choked.
Sighing, the firebender gathered up his courage and reached out and took a hold of Aang's shoulder, shaking it very lightly, "Aang… wake up."
The Avatar growled unpleasantly and shook Zuko's hand off, tightening his hold on the small earthbender and burying his face in her hair.
"Aang…" Zuko lightly shook the airbender again, "You have to practice your firebending."
Sadly, he got much the same result as before, making Zuko scowl. The firebending prince shook the younger boy a bit harder, raising his voice from the whisper it was before, "Aang. Wake up."
Zuko's hand snapped back when the small earthbender in Aang's arms growled, and he watched fearfully as she sighed and snuggled comfortably back against Aang. When they were still again, he relaxed, then cursed himself. Was he honestly scared of waking a little blind earthbender?
… who was he kidding? He was terrified!
But, he still had to wake Aang up… crap…
Zuko sighed to himself and tried his best to gather his courage again but also reign in his annoyance at the situation. After a moment, the former prince reached out and gave the Avatar's head a small push, "Aang, you have to wak-"
The former prince froze at the sound of Toph's growl and stared as she grumbled incoherently and shifted beneath the blanket. Movement made his amber eyes snap to the bottom of the blanket, and Zuko watched a dirty brown foot work its way out of the tangled cover.
Toph's foot probed around until her toes splayed out on the ground for a moment, and when her foot jerked up, Zuko scrambled to get away. Unfortunately, he was only able to turn around before the irate earthbender's toes dug into the ground.
As Zuko fell back to the ground, Toph wrapped her arms around Aang, smiling contentedly as she tried to snuggle even closer to the airbender beneath her, cooing happily as her cuddle-buddy hugged her back and buried his face in her hair.
Several minutes later, Zuko was finally able to crawl back over to the two sleeping benders. The prince groaned softly as he sat down beside them once again, knowing full well that trying that again wasn't going to work… he began to rub his face with his hands as he tried to think.
It was going to be even harder to get the two of them up now… with Toph curled up on top of Aang like a happy bunny-kitten with their arms wrapped around each other so tightly, Zuko's original plan of just waking up Aang and having him slip out from beneath her wasn't going to happen.
So… he had to get them up some other way…
Lighting Aang's foot on fire? No, giving the Avatar a hot-foot was a little extreme...
Wait… what about-?
No, that was mean even for him.
… but it would work…
Zuko groaned softly and pinched the bridge of his nose, at least one of them would hate him for this, but it had to be done.
He knew about their respective crushes, like everyone else in the group except for said crushes. Now, he didn't exactly want to do this, but… With a sigh, he leaned in and whispered, "Toph… Sokka's getting cold, he could use someone to keep him warm…"
The blind earthbender grumbled tiredly against Aang's neck, waving off the comment, "Go get Suki… Aang's comfey."
Zuko's eyes widened some as he pulled back. He hadn't necessarily expected that to work on her, but he had at least expected a more energetic reaction. He half considered trying again, but decided against it, she didn't seem to realize just what she was saying in her tired state… either that or she didn't care.
Well, if it wouldn't work on her, it would definitely work on Aang.
The prince leaned in again, whispering so as not to irritate the earthbender into sending him flying once again, and started off easy, hopefully avoiding getting the benders mad at him, "Aang, Katara wants some help with dinner."
The avatar groaned some and buried his face into Toph's hair even further, mumbling something along the lines of 'Later… get someone else to do it…'
'Well… it's better than the growl she gave me…'
"But she's having trouble, and it's soooo hot that she had to take off her robes, and she needs an airbender to keep her cool…"
Aang's ear twitched visibly at this information, and even though he groaned and snuggled closer to Toph, Zuko knew he had the boy's attention. Now all he had to do was get him awake.
"I'm sure she would really appreciate the help… she'd give you a hug, and maybe a kiss on the cheek…" Zuko looked away and even though he spoke softly he said it as off-handedly as he could.
The young Avatar groaned softly and half sat up, and Zuko had to stifle a smile as Toph halfway slid down his chest till she squeezed him tighter and stopped herself with an unhappy sound, nuzzling the side of her face against his chest.
With Aang rubbing his eye sleepily with one hand and his other arm wrapped around Toph's shoulders, even Zuko had trouble not going 'Awww', but he banished those thoughts, he had gone through all this trouble for a reason.
"Awake?" The Avatar nodded slowly and rubbed the sleep from his other eye.
"Well, if you're done sleeping with her," Zuko nodded at the girl still mostly asleep against him, "You need to get to your firebending training."
For a moment, it looked like the Avatar was actually going to protest again, but the implications of Zuko's words finally sunk into his skull and Aang simultaneously turned beet red and froze on the spot.
The Avatar started to sputter softly, but Zuko held up his hands, "It doesn't matter and I don't care. Just be at the usual spot for training in half an hour." And with that, Zuko stood up and started to walk off.
When he was about to turn a corner, the former prince slowed and peeked over his shoulder. Aang still had one arm wrapped around Toph's shoulders, the other held up awkwardly as he stared down at her, completely tense and uneasy. But when the cause of his unease sighed happily and snuggled even closer to him with a smile, Aang melted, his eyes twinkling as he smiled down at her.
So Zuko smiled himself as he continued around the corner, personally wondering whether Aang would even make the deadline.
'Roku's pants she's cute…' the Avatar smiled at the small earthbender holding him close for a moment. Then the repercussions of what just went through his head hit him, and he gave his head a small shake to dispel those thoughts.
The airbender bit his lip as he gazed down at Toph, his brain desperately working to think of a way out of this situation. He had to somehow get out of Toph's hold and to Zuko's training, and he had to do it before someone else saw this. Like… like Katara! Oh no! What would she think if she saw them like this?!
He didn't want to wake Toph up, he really didn't. For one she was probably going to hurt him for waking her up, and it was going to be so embarrassing to do this… that and she was just so blasted cute curled up against him like that!
But… he didn't have much of a choice in the matter. Considering that she was holding him tightly and her legs were tangled with his own under the blanket, there was no way he was going to be able to get out of this without waking her up.
Gathering his courage, Aang took a deep breath… and flushed a bright red when Toph cooed happily in response, pressing her ear to his chest and rubbing her cheek against him, her face tilting up towards his and her lips forming a small content smile.
Aang tried very hard to ignore how unexpectedly pretty she looked, to ignore how pleasantly warm she was, and not notice how teasingly soft her lips looked. He swallowed hard, and pushed these thoughts from his head, he shouldn't be thinking things like that, not about Toph!
He took another, shakier breath, blushing harder but successfully ignoring her displeased sound as she snuggled against him even more.
Once he had calmed himself enough, Aang took a hold of Toph's shoulder and gave her a small shake, stuttering softly, "T-Toph?" The small earthbender groaned unpleasantly and buried her face in Aang's chest, tightening her hold on him.
The Avatar winced slightly and tried again, shaking her just a bit, "Come on Toph, we need to wake up…"
She growled at him, giving Aang an unpleasant squeeze as she grumbled against his chest, "Not now Aang… I'm comfy…" she snuggled closer to him with a sigh.
At the sound of his name instead of one of her many nicknames for him, Aang flushed brightly, especially considering the way she pressed closer to him, "T-Toph… we have to wake up…"
Toph groaned unhappily, trying her best not to be dragged from her sleep, "Later Twinkles… we'll wake up later… go back to sleep."
"Uh… it's kinda already later Toph…"
The small earthbender seemed about to protest yet again, but what Aang had said penetrated her half-asleep brain. She suddenly pushed herself up, her hands planted on Aang's chest as her wide eyes stared blankly at him, "W-w-wait-! How much later are we talking about here?!" her pale cheeks were quickly turning a rosy pink.
Aang winced, and answered meekly, "Uh… halfway to noon later?"
"Eep!" Toph almost fell out of Aang's lap as she scrambled away from him. Both benders cheeks bright red by this point, and they ended up staring at each other from several feet away, Aang bashfully and Toph wide-eyed.
Toph seemed to collect herself just a bit and pointed a shaky finger at her counterpart, speaking with an equally shaky voice, "T-T-This-This never happened!"
Even as Aang nodded fearfully, Toph continued, crawling towards him and pointing at him threateningly, "I mean it! This never happened! If you tell ANYONE about this you are dead meat Twinkletoes!" She punctuated her sentences by jabbing her finger in the Avatars chest that she had so recently been cuddled up against, "You hear me?! Dead. Meat."
Aang nodded enthusiastically, eyes wide with fear, "G-g-got it!"
The short earthbender growled before standing up and stomping off angrily, the earth trembling beneath her. Aang stared as she went off and (cursing himself for this later) yelled out after her, "W-W-Where are you going?!"
She spun around and stomped her foot angrily, sending the Avatar flying into a nearby pillar. As he slid down, Aang could hear Toph shouting, "I'm going to train! Don't you DARE follow me Twinkles!"
As he slumped to the floor, Aang gave the retreating earthbender a thumbs-up and a weak, "Gotcha!"
Aang went to train with Zuko, and spent most of the day there, thankfully though, the firebender didn't bring up the scene from earlier and focused entirely on their training. Though this didn't make it any easier for Aang to forget it.
Toph wasn't at lunch, and Aang was terrified to find that EVERYONE had seen him and Toph sleeping together. Sokka teased Aang mercilessly all through lunch, and the Avatar was more than a little grateful when Zuko dragged him away for more firebending.
No one saw Toph until dinner, and when she stomped in angrily, Sokka made one attempt to tease her. It's safe to say that this did not end well for the Water-Tribe warrior, who became an example to the rest of the group of what happened to anyone who tried to bring up what they had seen this morning.
Unsurprisingly, the rest of the usual dinner conversation went on without the slightest mention of Toph or Aang.
But, as everyone fell asleep, Sokka only able to sleep soundly after an intense healing session with Katara, two members of the group found themselves unable to find the way to dreamland… once again.
Toph felt dreadfully cold, despite the fact that she knew without a shadow of a doubt, that it was warmer tonight than it was last night. She couldn't get her blanket to wrap tightly enough around her, she couldn't find a comfortable enough spot on the ground, she couldn't even bend a good enough spot! A small voice in the back of her head said she knew what the problem was, but the blind earthbender didn't want to listen, she really didn't.
Aang wasn't doing much better, now he felt cold, wide awake, and his arms felt very empty. He had tossed and turned, firebent himself warmer, and even tried hugging his pillow to his chest! None of it was working! He had eventually dropped his head back to his pillow and curled up on his side. He knew what the problem was, and unlike Toph, he was willing to admit it to himself. He wanted someone to sleep beside, to hold close and tight as he slept.
Also unlike Toph, he was too scared to do anything about it.
He was surprised when a soft warmth plopped down behind him and a pair of arms wrapped around his waist from behind. And as the small body pressed up against his back, he could hear Toph growl out softly, "Not a word Twinkles. It's cold out and you're warm."
The Avatar didn't say a word, just smiled to himself as he lay his arms over hers, letting his fingers play with her knuckles.
Neither of them said another word, but not a soul would be surprised when they ended up cuddled up to one another in the morning, arms wrapped tightly around each other.
And as the two benders drifted off to sleep, Toph pressed as close to Aang's back as she could be, the same thought drifted through their drowsy minds.
'Maybe, just maybe, this isn't so bad…'
A.N.): WOO! Got that done finally. Well, I've seen the finale, and it was Kataang... and I'm pissed... BUT! I've got about four more ideas (sadly this was the cutest one) that I'm going to write that are straight up Taang! I'm still working on my other Avatar fanfic, and I'm already started on the next chapter, I've just had less time to write than normal.
So, till next time!
And please, please, please, tell me what you do and don't like about this story, the only way I get better is when people point out my mistakes so I can learn from them.