title; Neighbors
characters; Sokka, Aang, Toph
rating; K+
word count; 627

"Hey, Sokka. Wanna play checkers?"

"Can't. Busy."

"Looking for something?" Otherwise, digging through boxes and trash cans in the garage looked awfully suspicious—to anyone with a suspicious bone in their body. Luckily for Sokka, Aang didn't have one. "Maybe I can help."

"I need to find my old boomerang. If Katara threw it out, I'll—" Sokka had the foresight to stop short, remembering his audience. Aang was one of those 'religious nuts,' as he called them; the last thing he needed was a lecture on how violence was against God's Word or something. "Just look over there and tell me if you see it."

"Okay."

It was only a matter of minutes before inevitably Aang was talking. Like always. "What do you need it for?"

"It's part of my master plan," came muffled from inside a pile of old winter clothes.

"Oh." A beat. "What's your plan?"

"Aha, I found it!" Sokka displayed the old toy triumphantly before cradling it close in an uncharacteristic display of cuddly affection. "With this, I can teach Jet a lesson and he'll never know what hit him."

From what Aang could tell, the thing was nothing but a piece of wood. A dusty, dirty piece of wood. "What are you going to teach him with that?"

Sokka just gave him a look. "You do know what a boomerang is, right?"

He didn't say anything. He'd already felt humiliated for a week when he told Sokka he couldn't watch R-rated movies and the older boy had laughed so hard he'd peed himself—at thirteen.

"Okay, well, when I throw this at the back of Jet's head, it'll come right back to me where I'm hiding, and he won't know what hit him. Literally. It's brilliant!"

"That… doesn't sound like a very good plan." He persevered through Sokka's eye-rolling. "Won't he find out where you're hiding when the boomerang goes back to you?"

Even the master tactician couldn't deny the truth of that one. "Okay. So maybe the boomerang isn't the best route to take. I think I have an old BB gun lying around somewhere…" Another box was shoved into Aang's arms. "Take a look through this one."

"Sokka, wait. You don't want to hurt this guy, do you?" Aang looked traumatized at the mere thought.

"Of course I do. He's dating my sister."

The box Aang was holding fell to the ground with a thud.

Everyone knew Aang had a thing for Katara, including Sokka. Whoops.

"Oh, hey, buddy, sorry. If it's any consolation I didn't really mean dating dating, and I'm not sure Katara even wants to go—"

But it was too late. Aang had already taken off running.

# # #

"—and she's just perfect and pretty and I thought one day I'd ask her if she wanted some lemonade and she'd say yes and then we could go hang out at my church youth group or something and maybe—"

"Dude, you're twelve. Don't you have cooler things to do than worry about some chick going on a date?"

"She's not just some chick!" Aang huffed, pulling his beanie down all the way over his ears. "And what do you know anyway? You're blind."

"So? I've at least kissed a guy."

"Really?"

Toph smirked. "Well, I think it was a guy. I am blind…" It was hard to laugh when Aang sounded like he was going to vomit, but she managed. "I'm kidding. God, lighten up already."

Aang didn't even have the heart to tell her not to take the Lord's name in vain. All he squeaked was, "You're not helping much, Toph."

"Duh. I don't give a crap about your girl problems. I just came to get my skateboard, and your feet are on it."