EPILOGUE
The following Monday, Toph could hardly wait for Civics. But Smellerbee came in just as Professor Piandao started the lecture, so Toph couldn't interrogate her. She tried messaging her, but she must have had her phone in her bag or something. By the end of class, Toph was practically ready to bust out of her seat and present a freaking subpoena for a play-by-play of Saturday night and Sunday.
She considered Saturday night to have been a flawless success, brief episode of physical violence notwithstanding. She'd ultimately succeeded at getting Smellerbee and Longshot to make out, and to add frosting and sprinkles to that already excellent cake—Toph was never shy about praising herself when she deserved it—Suki had stayed over with Snoozles and now officially needed a nickname, and Sweetness and Sparky had been texting each other non-stop. Toph had been doubly delighted when Sweetness breathlessly met her at the cafe on Sunday and related Sparky's messy breakup story—and wow was it a doozy—and how cool he'd been about Jet and how they were going to hang out later.
So Toph was feeling awfully pleased with herself, and Smellerbee seemed to see something of that in her face as she approached her after class.
"Hi!" Toph said, grinning with extreme avidity.
"Hey," Smellerbee replied cautiously.
"Wanna go work on our project?"
"Sure..."
"Great! Your place okay again?"
"...Yeah…?"
"Amazing! Let's go!"
They left the PolySci building in a flood of other students, and once they were outside and headed off campus, Smellerbee commented, "You're awfully chipper for a Monday."
"Why shouldn't I be?" Toph asked with genuine glee. "I had a freaking great weekend. Didn't you?"
Smellerbee cut her a sharp look, though the effect was lessened by her rather severe blush. "Why do you ask?"
Toph gave her another dose of her innocent face.
Smellerbee's blush mounted and mounted, and just like last week when she was first admitting her crush even existed, she broke exactly as Toph predicted she would. "Yes, okay, I had a good weekend!"
"Uh-huh?" Toph demanded, full-on jack-o-lantern grinning by now. She could feel her cheeks trying to stretch further than they actually could.
The suspicious glare was back, mixed with the embarrassment and happiness already warring for dominance on Smellerbee's face. "You already know, don't you?"
"But I want you to tell me!"
"How did you know!"
"You first! But I swear, I wasn't gossiping or nosing or anything. Well, maybe a tiny bit of nosing. But I'm happy for you! Now tell me!"
Smellerbee held herself on her dignity for another minute, but then her face melted into a giddy smile. "It was so stupid," she began happily. "I tried to stick up for him when some idiot tried to get him to drink after you left the beer pong table, but he got mad about that and went off on his own, so I went to dance, and then you know what happened when that asshole grabbed me. And honestly, I never thought Longshot'd do something like that. I've never seen him that angry before." Toph kept mum about Jet saying that wasn't the first incident of punching Longshot had done on her behalf. Longshot would tell her eventually. Or not, his call. "But still, I'm the one in the boxing club! And once Longshot did it, I couldn't get a shot in cause I'd just be hitting him while he was down! Whatever. So I went out on the porch cause it was empty and just kicked chairs and shit for a while, but then he came and found me and…" She trailed off, blushing furiously.
"Come on!" Toph implored. She knew how it all went, basically, but she wanted to hear it from Smellerbee. She wanted to know exactly how well her plan had worked.
"And we both apologized and stuff and… Do you remember that trick you mentioned about hiccups when we first got there?" Toph nodded eagerly. "Well, I hiccuped, and… reminded him what you said, and… that trick works."
Toph whooped and cackled. "I totally made that up!" she cried, and started laughing so hard it was difficult to breathe.
"What!" Smellerbee shouted.
"Totally! I made the whole thing up for you! The whole party!" At Smellerbee's flummoxed expression, she hastened to explain. Now that it was all happily tied up, she had no qualms at all with spilling the beans, all the way from having the idea for the party last Monday to overhearing the last part of their conversation on the porch.
Smellerbee gaped at her. "That whole party was for us?"
"Yep!"
"Did everyone there know?"
"What? No no no no. I knew, obviously, and Snoozles—I mean my friend Sokka knew because he hosted it, and I ended up telling my friend Katara, she was the one who pulled me away from pong. Oh, and Jet, because I had to make sure Longshot would be into it."
"Jet knew? The whole time?" Toph just grinned. "I am so gonna muder him. But, wait, what did Jet say? Um, about Longshot?"
Her grin, somehow, got wider. "Just that Longshot never said out loud that he liked you, but… what was it? He said something kinda smart… actions are information too, something like that. And the way Longshot was always looking at you all sappy and stuff was more than enough information to know how he felt."
"He doesn't look at me sappily!"
"Oh yeah?" Toph said, amazed that Smellerbee could even think that. She'd been working against steeper odds than she even knew!
"I mean… does he?"
Toph raised her eyebrows. "Do you want me to translate his expression after you walked off the dancefloor?"
Smellerbee just looked at her, her face showing a mix of confusion and flattered ego and embarrassment and hope.
Taking that as an affirmative, she began, "Well, first and foremost, he was like, 'oh nooo, I fucked uppp' because like, yeah. But there was also 'what if she never forgives me?' and 'how do I tell her I just want to love and protect her for all time, feminism be damned?' and 'time to just curl up and die of shame I guess' and—"
"No way, he'd never think any of that!" Smellerbee protested, sounding halfway between horrified and amused.
Toph shrugged. "I'm just saying what I saw, man."
They were at Smellerbee's apartment building by then, and the conversation was put on hold while they went upstairs and Smellerbee let them in. And by some ironic alignment of the stars, or the will of some snarky god, or just plain dumb luck, the instant they walked through the door was also the instant Longshot came out of the shower. He was in a towel again, and his hair was wet and shining again, and his abs were somehow better than Toph remembered. And there was a very distinctive bruise at the spot where his neck met his shoulder.
He paled when he saw her, but blushed bright when Smellerbee let out an "Eep!" and Toph deadpanned, "We've got to stop meeting like this."
"Toph, oh my God!" Smellerbee exclaimed, and hurried to drag Longshot out of the room.
"Heh heh heh," Toph chortled, and took out her laptop and Civics book.
They were only gone a few minutes, and they both came out fully dressed (his sweatshirt covering the hickey) and very dignified, excep that Smellerbee was blushing from her throat to her forehead and Longshot had on a dreamy sort of look. And they were holding hands, and that made Toph grin all over again. She was such a freaking genius.
"I told him about the party," Smellerbee said, in a transparent attempt to steer the conversation away from whatever she thought Toph was going to say. Bold of her to assume Toph wasn't still on her self-congratulation train, but acceptable.
"No big deal," she said airily. "It was obvious you two needed a push."
They both scowled at her, but then glanced at each other and their faces went all mushy and smiley and lovebirdy, and Toph rolled her eyes. "I sure do like doing Civics projects on my own," she said loudly after a few moments. It was fun helping people get together, but the results were sometimes inconvenient.
"Uh, right," Smellerbee said quickly. Toph was politely not looking at them so they could say their goodbyes—only, because it was Longshot, goodbyes were not said aloud—but as he went past Toph to leave for class, he gave her a very distinct smile of gratitude. She tipped an imaginary hat at him, and then she and Smellerbee were alone again.
"We-he-he-hell!" she crowed, rounding on her friend.
"Oh no," Smellerbee mumbled, burying her face in her hands.
"Didn't waste any time there, did you? Did you even go anywhere yesterday? Did he give you one to match? Was it worth all the pining? Holy shit, if he's in track then his endurance must be—" She kissed the tips of her fingers with a flourish.
"TOPH!" Smellerbee shrieked, mortified.
"No no no, listen, I've been saving this since last week." She finally had her proper audience. She drew herself up straight. "When I first saw him, I noticed his nose was a lot larger than average. Then it turned out his ears were too. And I thought to myself, Now what are the odds that any other bits of anatomy might follow that trend, like, say, his dick? Well, I said to myself, that would be a… Longshot!"
"That was awful!" Smellerbee cried, appalled. "And why are you even thinking that about his… stuff?"
"Pure intellectual curiosity." But she grinned wolfishly. "So am I right?"
"Time for Civics!" Smellerbee declared, but her blush told Toph everything she wanted to know. There really truly was no better feeling in the world than being right.
A/N
It might be funny to eventually do something where everyone gangs up to interfere in Toph's love life, but I think they'd have a hard time getting around her 'coaches don't play' mentality, haha.
Anyway, hope you liked this! If you made it this far, I love reviews! ;)
E.I. signing out
