ZW 2009 Day 2: Blood
Good Deeds
Toph endures a moment of embarrassment while Zuko and Katara are dealing with Yon Rha. To console her, Sokka recounts an episode of Zuko's less than stellar decision making.
Sokka groans at the squickiness of it all. Stupid Katara. Stupid Zuko. Stupid revenge.
Toph perches on the edge of the fountain. Her bangs fall over her face and she wiggles farther off the edge. "This sucks."
Sokka makes a face. "No kidding. I'm the one trying to scrub blood out of your clothes!" His voice cracks on the last word, and Toph snorts.
"At least you weren't walking around ALL DAY before some pebbles-for-brains told you that you had blood on your clothes the whole time!"
As the resident pebbles-for-brains, Sokka can only scrub harder in protest. It's true he ignored it all day, but Aang could have said something.
Toph interrupts his thoughts. "When's Suki getting back?"
"Fruit gathering is a delicate process, okay Toph?"
She blows her hair out of her face. "Delicate?" There's an edge of mockery to her voice that Sokka is none too pleased to hear.
He pouts. With everything he's doing for her she doesn't have to pick on him. "Look Toph, Suki will be back soon to deal with your-" he lifts one hand out of the water and gestures wildly. "-lady problems."
Toph crosses her arms over her chest violently. She's silent for a moment, brooding as hard as Zuko. "Don't you know anything about this?" she demands, glaring at him more intensely than a blind girl had any right to, in Sokka's humble opinion. "You have a sister."
"Hey, I stay faaaaar away from Katara when this happens, okay. It's not pretty."
"Snoozles, you know your voice cracks way too much for anybody to take you seriously, right?"
"I can be taken seriously!"
She snorts sharply. "Sure."
Satisfied that he's carried the day, Sokka returns to the bloody cloth. "Listen Toph. You know how Katara treats Zuko? Well that's how she treats everybody when it's…her time of the month. You've seen it."
Toph grumbles that she has.
"So I run for the hills. You're lucky I'm washing this." Sokka straightens his shoulders slightly with just a tinge of self-righteous pride. "You might not appreciate it right now, but I'm really being cool here." She does secretly appreciate it, he's certain.
"Whatever."
Or not.
"Anyway," Sokka resumes. "I learned to stay away a long time ago. Zuko hasn't been so lucky."
Toph perks up, and Sokka launches into the Vignette of Zuko's Humiliation (or so it's called in his diary. Not that he has one. It's a journal, thank you very much). Because Zuko is a stupid jerkbender who doesn't get how to treat a Water Tribe woman.
Zuko hasn't been in the group long, Sokka realizes one morning when he hears the yelling.
"I'm sorry! I thought you were hurt!"
"What, did you think I'd been stabbed?!"
"Well…" Zuko hesitates. "Yeah?"
"Ugh, Zuko, you're such an idiot!" Katara's screeching is getting closer, and Sokka burrows deeper into his sleeping bag. The sun isn't anywhere near the center of the sky, and he doesn't intend to see it until then.
"Look, there was blood everywhere and I just wanted to make sure you were okay!"
Katara scoffs and storms into camp. Aang lifts his head from Appa's back and rubs his eyes. "Katara, what happened?"
She's fuming, and Sokka, once he dares peek out from the safety of his sleeping bag, thinks he might be able to see smoke rolling from her ears. "He pulled me out of the water while I was bathing!"
Zuko objects that Katara was bleeding, and what was he supposed to do, anyway? Katara screeches that there wasn't that much blood, and he could have asked whether she was okay before he started getting grabby. Zuko sputters that he panicked, okay, to which Katara replies that maybe he shouldn't panic if he values his life.
Meanwhile, the gears are turning in Sokka's head. "YOU SAW MY SISTER NAKED?!"
Zuko's face flushes as scarlet as his robe. "I didn't see anything!"
Sokka explodes out of his sleeping bag and hurls his boomerang in the same fluid motion. That's how history will remember it, anyway (in truth, he caught one foot on the sleeping bag, flailed his arms, fell on his face, nearly cut his nose off with the edge of the boomerang, and stood up with blood trickling into one eye from a cut on his forehead. But nobody needs to find out about that. Ever).
The boomerang strikes Zuko solidly in the back of the head (never leaves Sokka's hand) and Zuko tumbles to the ground in a heap of agony (steps back ever so slightly). Sokka shouts that he'd better not come anywhere near his sister again (squawks incoherently), and Zuko runs for the hills (crosses his arms and glances at Katara warily).
Mission accomplished, Sokka returns to his sleeping bag and commences a long morning nap. Zuko very conscientiously avoids Katara for several weeks, and Katara avoids Zuko with a similar dedication (on top of her usual frostiness, it's tense for everyone).
And if nothing else, Zuko is beginning to understand that touching Katara for any reason, particularly to rescue her, will not do him any favors. No good deed goes unpunished, after all.
A/N: I've never figured out how I feel about Sokka and Toph, so read this any way you like.
