My x-ray eyes see what you're trying to do to me
My bionic ears hear what you're saying about me
And I know that you're trouble.
Toph vomited violently over the side of the boat, wheezing and panting incessantly as she vaguely listened to the sound of her own puke hitting the crashing waves beneath the deck.
"Hey, Miss, are you - ''
"Fine!" the young earthbender exclaimed, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She spun over her shoulder with her head held low, determined to avoid any contact with this worker who had just watched her become seasick. How embarrassing!
The floorboards were unsteady and there was, to her utter dismay, no earth packed underneath, translating into nowhere for her to see anything.
Toph sighed in defeat, before calling out, "Sokka!"
Of course, footsteps came sprinting over as soon as the word left her mouth. The big idiot instinctively looped his arm through hers, allowing the smaller girl to lean onto him as he wordlessly led her insecure legs down the ship.
"How do I look?" she asked, swallowing another heap of vomit as she felt the forceful swaying of the ship.
"Queasy. Are you going to throw up again?"
"Maybe. Can we sit down?" Sokka naturally obliged, easing his friend to sit down, propping her spine up against the wall. The water tribesman sat down next to her, just close enough that their shoulders grazed each time she rocked her head back and forth between her knees.
It wasn't really a secret that Toph liked earth. She loved feeling dirt between her toes, bouncing off a solid rock, anywhere there was steady ground aiding her feet's eyes was somewhere she could call home.
So why, in the name of everything good and holy, did Zuko insist on paying for a boat to escort them back to land?
Once she and Sokka had announced to everyone that they would be travelling as a pair for an indistinct amount of time, gifts were literally being dropped on them from the sky. Ty Lee presented them a coupon to some spa in Ba Sing Se. Zuko offered to provide them various hardworking servants stationed for 'every city in the world' - ("You're the Fire Lord, not Queen of the Universe." Toph had scoffed, making the young man scowl in disagreement.), Mai had gifted them a colossal amount of money for their journey, claiming she didn't have anything better to do with it.
Katara and Aang urged them to lie low - and then proceeded to shower the two travellers with an assortment of fine robes and dress clothes to assist them in this mission.
Toph was wearing one of these very robes as the pair swayed back on forth on the stupid ship. The cloth was so itchy and tight-fitting that she would much rather have rather been naked, but Sokka had promised her that they would get rid of all the extravagant clothing as soon as they docked.
"Are you feeling better?" Meathead's voice lulled her outside of her mind.
"No," Toph replied, clutching her stomach. "Why would I be?"
She felt him shrug his shoulders nonchalantly beside her. "You haven't thrown up for a solid three minutes." Toph would have been eager to punch him in the shoulder, but was presently feeling too weak to do anything.
"Are you allergic to anything?" she asked.
"Um, sesame. Why?"
"Just to know what we should get to eat once we get to Ba Sing Se."
He rolled his eyes as she began to gag again.
"I hate being sick," Toph grumbled bitterly, stomping her right foot into the ship's wooden floorboards for emphasis. "More than anything, I - ow!"
"What? What's wrong?" Sokka was clutching her arm in an instant, examining the young girl's expression of discomfort and then trailing his eyes down her body to search for the cause.
"Ow, ow. My foot, there's something…" Toph's face was pained, making Sokka's heart race in concern for his friend. He crawled over towards her feet, gently flexing them and scanning over the pale, fleshy exterior before spotting a tiny but deadly lone splinter of wood sitting lodged shallowly inside her skin.
"Did you find it? Is it an animal?" Toph asked, curling her toes uneasily.
"Uh, close. It's a splinter."
Sokka wasn't going to lie. He was a little bit unimpressed with Toph's lack of ability to handle this kind of pain. Splinters had never made him cry out in agony, or even ever really hurt that much at all. Out of curiosity, he inquired, "Toph, have you ever had a bee sting?"
"What? No." She wiggled in her position, scowling. "What does that have to do anything?"
Oh, poor, precious, sheltered Toph, Sokka sighed, cringing as he was met with cruel, vivid memories of the Flying Demon attacking both him and Katara on various occasions filling his mind. They were lucky to be alive. "I'm going to pull it out now, okay?"
Toph looked panicked. "Wait!"
"What?"
"Is it gonna hurt?"
In response, he pulled the splinter right out and threw it over deck.
"Hey! Meathead! I asked if it was gonna hurt!"
"Relax, I already took it out," Sokka reported, a soft smile emerging as he gazed down at the young girl. Redness split across her cheeks, arching from the bridge of her nose and stretching out towards her cheekbones..
"Well, you could have told me that!" she spoke very defensively, turning her face away from him and crossing her arms over her chest.
"Sorry," Sokka grinned. "Slipped my mind."
"If we get another Joo Dee, I honestly might have to bury myself in an underground tunnel for the rest of my life." Toph said as she walked leisurely beside her best friend, a generous worker from their ship happily escorting their bags down the unloading dock.
"Thank you, sir," Sokka praised the man warmly, handing him a large tip. "Your service is greatly appreciated." The working man bowed low to both of the travellers before scurrying back onto the boat.
"Sweet land," Toph sighed dreamily, grabbing her bag from off the ground and she rolled her toes around in the dirt. "So, what's our game plan, Snoozles?"
Sokka swiftly unrolled the map he swiped from his backpack, eyes skimming through the different marks and sketches until he eventually found the correct trail to Ba Sing Se. "If we start walking now and keep heading north, we should reach the train station that goes through the wall in about an hour or two."
"Sounds good," the earthbender nodded. "Want me to carry your bag for you?"
"Shush, you."
"No, I'm serious." Her voice dropped a pitch below her normal playful tone. "Your shoulder's been hurting you, hasn't it?"
Sokka stared straight ahead, trying his best to avoid letting any super secretive information loose from his lips. "I'm fine, Toph. Katara said it's just a stress fracture."
She wouldn't budge. "So that means that you should rest."
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"Yes."
"No. I don't want you overexerting yourself, Barfy."
"Yeah, well, same goes for you, Snoozles."
Sokka skillfully swiped Toph's own bag out of her hands and slung it over his shoulder where it sat out of her reach.
"That's not fair!" she instantly complained, swatting relentlessly at his elbows.
"Life's not fair, shortie. Now, if you want us to make it to Ba Sing Se before another war starts, you better hurry up." Sokka knew he was being unfair, but was it really his fault if he didn't want to see her hurt anymore?
"I hate you so much," Toph grumbled, her feet finally beginning to shuffle forward. Sokka just grinned and tightened the bags slewn over his shoulders.
"What's your favorite fruit?" the warrior asked his companion, glancing down at her small form trudging along the land.
"Banana."
"Instrument?"
"Piano."
"Color?"
"Okay," Toph stuck her hand in front of his face, effectively halting the older boy. "These questions started out stupid, but now they're just downright moronic. It's my turn, Meathead."
Sokka shrugged, continuing to walk down the path leisurely. "Shoot."
"If you could bend any element, what would it be?"
He slowly raised his hand to his chin in a pondering manner as he lulled over the inquiry. After a moment of thinking, he said, "Probably... air."
She shook her head. "Nope. Wrong answer."
Sokka rolled his eyes. "Sorry, I meant earth."
Her face instantly lightened up. "Better. What's your favorite color?"
"Hm… probably white."
Toph furrowed her eyebrows. "White is… the absence of color. That's cheating!"
It was actually quite funny when Toph got angry, because she was so small and delicate-looking that no stranger would ever imagine she could even swat a fly and cause any damage. The tribesman couldn't help but let a chuckle slip out of his mouth as he gazed at her raging form.
"What? What's so funny?"
"Nothing," he said,. "You just look... really cute like that."
Toph's lips fell into an 'o' shape, and then tightened into a straight line. She didn't have a reply for that kind of compliment towards her appearance, it seemed.
"What? It's true."
She awkwardly turned away from him, effectively ending their conversation on a shrewd note and leaving Sokka with a headache as he leafed over what exactly he had said that was wrong.
I hate him, the young earthbender told herself, clenching her fists at her side. I hate him so much!
The only problem was that no matter how times she repeated these phrases in various forms and different levels of anger, the message just wouldn't sink in all the way. The real, honest truth was so much harder to handle; she couldn't ignore the boiling underneath her skin when he held her hand or the noise of her fluttering heartbeat whenever they spoke.
It wasn't like anything had changed, really. Honestly, she always had a crush on him, ever since the first few days they began travelling together as a team. Only back then she buried it the same way she buried everything else, only much, much deeper.
After a while, she had begrudgingly adapted. Toph could numb her affections for as long as she liked, but when night crept in and she slept alone in her little earth tent the systematic aching of her heart would keep her up.
He had never broken her heart, but there were bruises and tears all over it - none of them even his fault specifically. Her chest tightened when he talked about Yue, when he was with Suki, when he was flustered around Ty Lee the first few times. These words, these reactions didn't mean any harm but they invaded her mind like a venom and poisoned all of her thoughts, succesfully souring her mood.
It was apparent now, more than ever, that she had not thought this trip through well enough at all. How could she live with him - just him? How could she be comfortable with the fact he would never like her like that, that she was only his friend?
She used to accept it. She would never move on, and she could never forget, but she was prepared to live her own life beside him with the title of his best friend while he raised his family and kissed his wife, forever leaving her on the outside looking in.
Only now there was no wife to be seen, and the very slight femininity layered deep inside of Toph did nothing but fill her with delusions that it could be her every time she even attempted to drift off into sleep.
She had to act normal. She had to support him - maybe even find him a girlfriend. She wanted him to be happy...
"Toph?" his voice snapped her out of her thoughts, making her quietly grunt in mild annoyance. "Yeah?"
"You're being quiet."
The blind girl laughed bitterly. "Thank you, Captain Obvious." Yes! Distraction! Now I can get my mind off of...
He didn't seem to be in a very funny mood all of a sudden. "No, seriously. You know you can tell me if anything's wrong."
Everything came flying back at her - just like a stupid boomerang.
He was so caring, so sweet, so stupid, so annoying…
She absolutely hated him! Everything about him made her swoon - it was nauseating! She would throw up all over him if she didn't like him so much.
Her mouth tipped open, ready to curse him out for being such a perfect asshole. Ready to insult him, to punch him, to ask him to hug her or to hold her hand.
So she said, "Thanks."
Yes, this chapter is just conversation and set up for the next chapters. Forgive me.
This might be a little confusing, but everything makes sense in my head. Every new area they come across is kind of like a new arc, and every new arc will have a new song! So, the new song is Secret Identity by Wayna :)
The purpose of the songs is really just because I like to listen to certain music as I write, and I feel the lyrics can pertain to the story.
Also, I have decided that this story won't be canon to the comics or LOK, only TLA.
As always, thank you for your continued support and feedback on this story!
Have a great day.