A/n: This... was fun to write. I think the title says it all.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Happy Tokka Week!

Three Times Sokka Was Naked (And One Time He Wasn't)

One

Sokka's favorite part about visiting the Fire Nation was the bath. The food was good, too, but over the years (much to his father's chagrin) he had perfected his own recipes for fire flakes, fire meat rub, and a fiery goes-on-everything fire sauce. The people were fine too, though he could survive if their relationship were a long distance one—at tonight's banquet, for instance, he had to be on his best behavior lest Fire Lady Mai (with whom he usually had a nice sarcastic back-and-forth) skin him and hand his extremities out as party favors.

No, the best part about the Fire Nation was most definitely the giant marble tubs in the Palace bathrooms. Everyone loved them—everyone, even Toph, who usually had to be flanked by every handmaid available before she could be coaxed into the bath. The Fire Nation had always been two steps ahead of the world in the industrial growth department, and somehow since the war they had perfected the bathing experience. The steam-powered city piped in water hot enough to cook a saber-toothed moose-lion cub. The tub was laid into the ground, deep but not too deep, with textured steps so that the lucky user would not slip and crack his head open. While water poured from the fine-wrought bronze tap, one could add any number of soaps, scrubs, and bubbles that were housed in a well-stocked basket nearby.

Everyone in the group had a different reason to deny how much they enjoyed the bath. Aang didn't like to waste water. Katara didn't like bathing in such an open space—the room felt too exposed, she said, even after the looking glasses fogged and the candle burned down to a perfumed lull (which was funny to Sokka, as they had spent a year bathing outdoors). Toph simply didn't like to remove her healthy coating of earth. But Sokka had no such complaints. For the warrior who spent his time either in a straight-backed chair with straight-backed generals or training in the open courtyard with Toph and whoever else cared to join them, scalding-hot water was the only available remedy for aching muscles and frazzled nerves.

He twisted the faucet knob and tipped his head back against the lip of the tub. This was paradise at the end of the day. The bruise that sparring with Zuko had put on his leg throbbed in the heat, but the burn was one of relief. He scrubbed the dirt off of his hands and feet, then dunked his head and washed the dried sweat away from his face. Mai and Zuko's bath must be even grander than this one, though he couldn't imagine how it might possibly improve. This one could easily fit two, so maybe if they had one big enough to fit a whole gaggle of—wait, no, Zuko would never be okay with that plan. Maybe Mai. He made a mental note to ask her at tonight's party exactly how cozy their private bathing quarters could be—

At the sound of the door sliding open, Sokka jolted so fast that the soap he had been rubbing into his scalp ran promptly into his face.

"Ah!" he squawked, rubbing his burning eyes. A few seconds of frantic rinsing later, he blinked and saw that the intruder was already sliding the door shut behind her. "Toph!"

Toph did not seem surprised by his reaction, nor did she look at all uncomfortable in the white towel wrapped tight around her torso. Evidently Katara had persuaded the Earthbender to join them at the end of war anniversary banquet, because Toph was clearly in the pre-bathing stage.

"Hey Sokka."

"What're you doing here?" he cried, dumbstruck by the intrusion.

For one wild moment as she stepped forward, Sokka expected her to toss her towel and jump right into the steamy water with him. She offered a nonchalant wave before making a beeline for the wooden cabinet in the far corner of the room. An unnecessary flush passed down Sokka's neck.

"I need one of your towels, the ones in my bathroom are all itchy," she said, pulling the cabinet open and standing on tiptoe to reach one of the aforementioned towels.

"But… you're wearing one."

"The red ones are softer and we're out of those."

Sokka watched as she slid behind the vertical folds of the changing screen, and wondered how someone who preferred to sleep on the dirt floor outside could possibly have an issue with the condition of the royal palace's fluffy towels. There was a rustle of fabric as she tossed hers into a heap across the room. When she re-emerged, the only difference was the cotton weave's wine red color.

"You could have at least knocked," Sokka said blearily.

"What's the point? I already knew you weren't doing anything knockworthy," Toph said.

Speechless save for the surprised choking noise emitting from his open mouth, Sokka eyed her as she retreated to the door, the towel flapping just above her knees. An echo bounced back from the slap of her bare feet on the marble. It was only once he realized he was staring that Sokka came back to life.

"Wait, hold up a second!" he said.

Toph slowed and ceased with one hand outreached for the door, turned, and puffed her straggled hair out of her face. "What?" she said, with a hint of force behind her indifferent expression.

"You never barged in on me before," he said, only stumbling upon this epiphany as he said it. "Not in all these years!"

"I never needed a towel before."

"Yeah, well… you scared the monkeyfeathers out of me."

Toph sighed and shook her head as if his concern were the least sensible reaction he could have had to her invasion of his privacy. "Why is this even an issue? I'm blind, genius."

"It's the principle of the thing!"

"You're overreacting," she snapped. "I'm not exactly in the robe of modesty here, and you can see. If I don't care, then you shouldn't either."

Sokka crossed his arms in a uselessly pointed gesture. "All I'm saying is you can't just walk in on a guy when he's naked! It's… uncomfortable."

"All right, whatever you say," said Toph. She pushed the door open, stepped out, and offered him a sweet smile before she closed it again. "Besides, Sokka, you're always naked to me."

Her footsteps faded. Sokka dunked his head.

xXx

Two.

Sokka sat there for a long time, no longer enjoying the simmer of scented bubbles and soothing warmth, and tried to extract some meaning from what had just happened. He could not imagine why she would choose now as a suitable time for bursting in on him, after years of their unspoken accommodation of each other's privacy. Even more puzzling, he could not figure out why it bothered him so much. She was blind, as she had so astutely reminded him. And what did it matter anyway, the presence of a few strips of cloth? She could see right through them. Toph and Sokka once had a long conversation about the fringe effects of her "sight" (they had even made private jokes about it at the expense of several guards, a handful of politicians, and Long Feng), and though it was certainly an awkward premise, he had never given much thought to it as long as he was actually wearing clothes.

Comprehension crept over him like a cloud over a perfect summer sky. If Katara ever needed anything from him while he was bathing or dressing, she knocked and waited for his permission to enter—and when she did enter, she always held a hand up to screen her vision. With Aang he didn't really care either way, but Aang was too polite (and too patient) for his own good and only ever barged in when he absolutely couldn't wait. The problem, then, could not possibly be that Toph had walked in when he was naked, because it happened to him all the time to no consequence. It wasn't even that Toph hadn't knocked. The problem was that it was Toph who had walked in on him with the air of one casually shopping for groceries. The only person in his life who had ever been so relaxed in this manner had been, well, Suki.

Unsure of how to confront this particular turn in his thoughts, he rinsed off the last of the soap, drained the tub, and climbed out. When he opened the cabinet, the sight of an empty shelf made his shoulders drop. Slowly, he turned to face the fluffy white heap on the floor.

Sokka picked up her abandoned towel, gingerly, as if Toph's concern had convinced him that it had to be made of barbed wire. It was just as soft as all the others, some silky cotton stitching the he was sure cost a fortune. Skeptical, he dried himself off and wrapped the towel around his waist before venturing out into the bedroom that he shared with Aang.

Aang was out, but Katara was standing at the foot of his bed, laying out a fresh tunic and windpants. Unlike the rest of her family, she was donned in a gown and ready for the celebratory dinner in the ballroom. Whereas Toph concealed how much she actually enjoyed surprising people via dressing up, Katara reveled in it. She was happy to go, and something about the fast-paced rush heightened her spirits like it had during their traveling days. Then there was the separate benefit of being the Avatar's fiancé at these sorts of things; though she would deny that it made any difference, Sokka kept catching her fiddling with her engagement necklace and smiling like a fourteen-year-old with a crush.

"Oh good, you're out!" she said cheerfully. "I was starting to think you'd drowned in there. The laundry's done."

"I hope that means they've fixed the towel shortage," he said.

Katara straightened up from where she had been arranging and re-arranging Aang's clothes and turned to appraise Sokka. That silly little grin had been revisiting her face, but her expression faltered slightly when she caught sight of her slump-shouldered brother.

"What towel shortage? Our linen closet has plenty," she said, in reference to the bathroom that she shared with Toph. "Especially the red ones—they're so soft!" She caught the dawning comprehension as it flickered over Sokka's face. "What is it, Sokka?"

He recovered himself, shook his head, and answered, "Nothing, just a little overworked. I hope they're serving something good tonight."

"If you're talking about drinks, then you're out of luck," she said, crossing her arms. Her smile morphed into warning disapproval. "After last year's disaster, Mai decided the party would be better off without an open bar. And just so you know, they'll be checking both you and Toph for weapons this time, so don't try any funny business."

"All right, all right," he said.

Last year's party had almost ended in total calamity when Toph and Sokka started a bar fight that began with a raucous song about gift shop pirates and ended when Sokka went after a particularly rude noble with a machete procured from under Toph's dress. Thinking back on the event, Sokka recalled that he and Toph had had a… a thing, even then. It was more obvious under the influence of fancy drinks garnished with little pink umbrellas, but the tone of, well, intense camaraderie had followed them around ever since. But anyway, as long as there wasn't going to be any open bar, Katara needn't worry about his lightweight tendencies for trouble. When he told her as much, she rolled her eyes and told him to get ready. She turned back to Aang's outfit, flattened out the collar with her palm, and left with the return of her smirk.

Sokka didn't dress right away. He dug the aforementioned machete out of his bag and shaved with it as he did every day (they had some nice razors here, but he was for some reason more likely to knick his chin with them than with his cumbersome weapons). He dragged a comb through his sopping hair and put it into a wolf's tail. Aang stopped in to get changed, at which point they chatted about whether or not there would be an even vegetarian-to-carnivore menu, and only once Aang disappeared once more did Sokka realize he was still in his towel.

That was when Toph appeared for the second time that night. And like the previous occurrence, she did not knock.

His very first thought was that whoever had wrestled Toph into that dress had done a magnificent job. His second thought was more of a realization that his hand was on the knot at his waist. And finally, his third thought was more a strange combination of boldness and panic that raced into his hands before he had the chance to stop it. With a flourish, the towel fell and pooled in a bundle between them.

Toph, whose mouth had been open before Sokka had reached for the towel, paused before saying in a nonplussed tone, "Cold in here, isn't it?"

"Don't tell me you think this isn't weird," he said.

"Yeah, nothing's weirder than a man getting dressed in his own bedroom."

Then, as if to prove her nonchalance, she stepped over the towel to pass him something that he had not realized was even in her hand. It was a shiny silver flask, topped with a miniature flame. "I ran off to the kitchen while Katara wasn't looking," she said.

He reached out, dumbstruck, and accepted her gift without speaking. The brush of her fingers would have made him jump were he not already frozen in place.

"Hide it in your shirt and it'll get past the weapons check," she said, offering him a grin that he could not bring himself to return.

Then, just as Toph had done almost no time ago, she turned on her heel and left him naked and alone, her long braid swaying out of the way barely in time to escape the closing door. His first thought was that whoever fastened the hundred or so buttons lining down the back of Toph's dress most definitely deserved a raise. His second thought was one of profound confusion. His third was resolve.

xXx

Three.

The morning that followed brought on a headache that had little to do with the banquet. Out of respect for the hosts (and fear of what releasing his inhibitions might bring), Sokka hadn't let the fine silver flask creep out of his breast pocket. If Toph had brought her own, she didn't let him catch her drinking from it. Aside from one suspicious giggle fit they had while interrogating Mai about her bathroom's capacity, nobody had reason to suspect that Toph and Sokka had smuggled in their own remedy for rigid parties.

Neither of them had mentioned the events prior to the gathering, despite spending the entire evening side by side. It was a side effect of being the "other" party to Aang and Katara, who were somehow a single entity even when entertaining guests on opposite ends of the room. At dinner, Sokka and Toph sat together beside the vacant seats of Aang and Katara (who hardly had time to speak to each other, much less eat). They meandered around the room, sampling teas and desserts.

Afterward Sokka and Toph somehow convinced one another that, due to the party's celebration of interracial togetherness, they ought to dance at least a little bit. Sokka thought that this was probably a bad idea, given that the very suggestion of holding Toph even remotely close now made his brain swish around in his head, but he nevertheless followed her out to the center of the floor. His frantic heartbeat he attributed out loud to the extreme amounts of caffeine in the tea, as a countermeasure against Toph's ability to read his life signs from a mile away—she'd told him once that she could pick his, specifically his, out of a crowd. He had gotten used to the idea of Toph being so in tune with him at all times. Last night, as she led him through the movements of a complicated dance, he did not think her talent very convenient. Actually, the only thing more annoying was that she seemed neither convinced of his caffeine excuse nor concerned that he would need one.

The party was the source of his throbbing temples. His current anxiety, nailed further into his head and heart with every footfall toward Toph's room, was from his newfound bravado. His legs wanted to stop outside the bedroom, but the knowledge that she would sense his hesitation gave him the strength to open the door and slip inside.

Toph was sitting alone on the small cushioned couch, a steaming mug weighing in the cup of her hands. He would have thought her solitude somewhat strange, could he not hear the music wafting in through the open window. So the parade had begun. He was counting on Aang and Katara and Mai and Zuko and everyone else to be there instead of here.

"Morning, Toph," Sokka greeted her, in an effort at maximum aloofness.

"Hey Snoozles," she said. "How's your head?"

"Fine. How's the show?" he asked, in reference to the faint sound of drums and horns from outside. The parade was too loud for Toph to care for up close, but she enjoyed music and listened from afar every year.

"Pretty good, actually. Better than last year."

Sokka eased the door shut behind him. "Mind if I join you?"

When Toph waved a hand at the empty spot next to her, Sokka nodded and began to stroll across the short space between them. He had to tug at his heavy limbs to get them going, resulting in an exaggerated slowness that did not visibly disturb the Earthbender, if she even noticed. Sokka stopped again once he reached the short table standing between he and Toph, upon which sat the kettle of tea, a second cup, and a bowl of beef jerky strips. It was almost as if she had been expecting him.

Somehow he had enough feeling in his fingers to find the knot at his waist and unfasten it. Sokka shrugged out of his tunic, folded it in half, and dropped it on the floor. He kept his eyes trained on Toph, who paid him no heed as he unfastened his boots and pulled them off one by one. With a few quick gestures Sokka yanked the string belt of his pants out of its bow knot, loosened the waist, and dropped his pants.

Toph took a sip of tea.

"A little warm?" she asked sweetly.

"Nope," said Sokka in return, finding it easy now that the verbal barrier was broken to pull the cloth of his underpants down as well. He stepped out of the ring of clothing around his feet. "I just thought, since it apparently makes no difference to you, what's the point of wearing clothes at all?"

Toph smirked into her teacup. "Your logic is flawless as usual, Sokka."

"I know, right?" As he made his way around the table, he stretched his arms up over his head and yawned. "I mean, they're just so uncomfortable, you know? And nobody should have to feel uncomfortable."

Toph snorted at his comment, unmoved by the casualness with which Sokka deposited himself next to her on the seat and propped his feet up on the table. She leaned forward, picked up the second teacup by its brim, and passed it to Sokka, who in turn held it as far from his naked lap as possible.

"If you want to experience 'uncomfortable', you should try wearing chest wrappings sometime," Toph said.

"Oddly enough, I've actually done that before."

"Really?"

" Long story."

"Ah. Well, no worries," Toph reached over and patted him lightly on the thigh. Sokka winced as a stream of hot tea dribbled down his arm. "I'm sure I'll hear it sometime."

Sokka watched, open-mouthed, as she grabbed the bowl off the table and offered it to him with a smile. "Jerky?"

Even if he had had an hour to think up a response, Sokka would have been just as speechless as he was in the split second before he heard the squeak of the door. But he didn't have time to find his words, just as he didn't have time to process his visceral response to the sound of an unexpected visitor—the flush of red streaming to his face, his hand letting go of the teacup in order to grab the bowl of beef jerky and place it squarely over his lap. How everyone minus Toph jumped at the sound of the shattering porcelain, followed by Katara's terrified shriek as she looked up to find her stark naked brother sitting adjacent to Toph Bei Fong. Aang's eyebrows almost shot clear off of his forehead.

There was no way Toph hadn't felt Aang and Katara arrive on this floor—or heard them coming down the hall, at the very least. The two intruders stared at the other pair, one of whom stared right back with the same astonishment painted across his face. Toph took a particularly loud sip of tea.

After about ten seconds of being frozen with shock, Katara found her voice. "What the—why are you naked?"

Toph turned her blind eyes to Sokka for the first time and said in apparent surprise, "You're naked?"

Sokka's jaw dropped. As Aang hid his amused blush behind his hand and Katara launched into a tirade about basic decency ("What if one of the maids had walked in on you? What would they have thought?"), it was all Sokka could do to whisper "traitor".

xXx

(And one time he wasn't.)

Sokka stepped into the steamy bathroom and closed the door behind him. The light sound of trickling water stopped the moment he appeared, but no voice called out in sharp protest. He could not see Toph through the blindfold fastened over his eyes, but he imagined that she went as still as he had the first time she barged in on him.

"Hey Toph."

No answer. Sokka threw his arms out in front of him and began shuffling across the marble floor, cutting through the foggy air with dramatic gestures to keep from smacking into the wall.

"I just need a towel," he said. "Unlike in your case, our bath actually doesn't have any, much less extra fluffy ones."

"You're wearing a blindfold."

"Yes, I am. Now you understand how I felt!"

Toph's sigh reached his ears next. But to his immense surprise, she didn't sound bored. The ring at the edge of her voice when she replied "Sure, whatever you say" was definitely disappointment. Sokka stopped halfway between the towel cabinet and the door, turned in the general direction of the tub where Toph sat up to her neck in bubbles, and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Okay, I don't get it," he said. "At first I thought I was dealing with one issue, but now I'm pretty sure there's actually something else we're getting at."

"It's a good thing you're so smart," said Toph.

Sokka sighed. "Toph, are we—? You know…" He gestured vaguely at the space between them. "Do we really have a thing, or have I just been making it all up in my head?"

There was a pause. Sokka picked at a loose thread in the sleeve of his tunic, avoiding eye contact despite Toph's blindness and the strip of fabric tied on his face.

"Could you have waited to ask me about this, or was me being naked in the bathtub part of your plan the whole time?" Toph deadpanned, but there was a hint of a smile in her voice.

"So there is a thing, then!" said Sokka, so loudly that his voice reverberated off of the walls and back into his ears. "You could have been a little more subtle."

"Come here."

"What?"

"I don't believe that you're actually wearing a blindfold."

Though Sokka hesitated at the prospect of taking one step closer to the woman to whom had had just confessed his feelings (however roundabout the confession), eventually he obeyed. Still shuffle-walking, he felt his way over to the edge of the grand tub, bent over with his fingers wrapped around the cool brim, and waited. He heard the splash of water before her wet hand found his face and touched the blindfold he'd fashioned out of his belt. Her fingers sought his eyes, roamed over his ears, followed the line back to the knot beneath his wolf's tail. After a moment, she clicked her tongue in approval. Her hand moved to his upper arm and squeezed.

"I have been bouncing 'subtle' off of your thick skull for months," Toph said. "But that's okay. I actually prefer it like this."

With one almighty jerk, Toph pulled him right off his feet. Sokka yelped in surprise, throwing his limbs out in a valiant attempt at regaining balance, but his effort did no good. He plunged, fully clothed and blind, into the scorching hot water. A pair of hands grabbed the thrashing warrior and yanked him to the surface. Sokka spluttered and gasped as he found the air, stunned by Toph's audacity and the realization of what she had just done.

"You see," said Toph, grabbing the tied ends of the blindfold in one hand and tugging it loose, "subtle isn't really my style."

The blindfold landed in a wet heap across the room. The rest of Sokka's attire promptly followed.

xXx

Fin.

A/n: Thanks for reading! Feedback is always appreciated! :D See you tomorrow!