Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender.


Chapter One: Toph

Since it's always a good idea to get a blind person drunk and delusional. Just because Toph was sight-impaired, though, didn't necessarily mean she was exempt from any of the side effects of the Cactus Juice. Her head spun like a top and the ground beneath her likewise. Since her senses were dulled, (or maybe they were heightened, Toph couldn't decide,) it was difficult to determine distance and feel her way anywhere. Plus, nothing felt like it normally would anymore. Zuko right next to her felt like he was standing on the other side of the courtyard. Appa felt like he was the weight of a small mountain, and Sokka literally seemed to float like an airbender among them all.

Toph was confused and pretty overwhelmed by the sudden change that was bestowed upon her by Sokka's 'treat.'

"What, what, IS this stuff?" She sputtered, unable to put words together.

"Like I said, a treat for you all, since I thought we'd all need something special," Sokka explained, coming to stand in front of her. "How do you feel?"

"Ahhhh! I feel so light now that you mention it, Sokka!" Aang said, standing up to stretch. "Wow! True meaning of 'airbender' over here! I feel entirely made by the stuff!"

"No, no no! Aang, don't leave! We, we were just talking about something...something important!" Katara called to him, though he was still standing right next to her.

"Katara dear, there's no reason to yell!" Suki cut in, pressing her palms to her ears.

"Spirits, Sokka! Seriously, what is this stuff?!" Aang inquired of him.

"Well, if you insist...It's this special foreign brew I got for a great deal called free! Reminded me of our scamming days, Toph!" Sokka said, clapping her on the back. Toph wasn't ready for it, and fell face-forward onto the ground, just barely able to brace herself.

"Oh no Toph are you OK? Sokka what were you thinking you could have hurt Toph do you have anything to say for yourself?" Katara said breathlessly, tears starting to suddenly well in her eyes.

"Whoa there, sis. It was an accident, wasn't it? I didn't mean for Toph to fall down and go boom!"

"Oh, I'll give you 'fall down and go boom,' Sokka!" Toph snapped at him, impulsively very angry and short tempered when just a few minutes ago she was listening very intently and patiently to Zuko. Toph staggered up and immediately launched herself at Sokka, who was just sober enough to dodge her in the nick of time. She tripped over her own two feet and fell onto the cobblestone again.

"Oh! Why do we have to be fighting?" Katara moaned, rubbing away a tear.

"Movin' like the wind, Toph!" Aang exclaimed, jogging in place since he couldn't sit still. "Who wants to go for a fly?"

"No one, airhead!" Toph spat, standing back up warily. Everybody and everything was a blur to her feet, and were those, shadows her blind eyes picking up?

Sokka's laughing and Katara's crying suddenly were very loud to her ears, not allowing her to think clearly about her potentially new sight capabilities. Toph wanted to scream.

Out of the blue, someone's hand found its way to her shoulder.

"Don't touch me!" Toph spat, shoving the hand away and sitting down where she was. She tried to bend herself a footstool so she couldn't see how much everything seemed off, but since her depth perception wasn't accurate, she accidentally thought her feet were where Suki was standing in front of her.

"Ouch! Toph! That was my foot!" Suki exclaimed.

"Sorry, sorry…" Toph trailed, trying to get her bearings. Tentatively, she attempted a second go at her footstool. She buried her head in her arms and focused on herself: her size, position, and location relative to everyone else. Though the cobblestone beneath her felt like sand in the wind, she was able to anchor to some of it and craft herself a suitable footstool.

"Having issues bending, Toph?" Suki asked, kneeling down close to her, talking softly so not spook her.

"Ohhh! Looks like the Avatar needs a new earthbending teacher! The great Toph Beifong can't bend!" Sokka jeered.

"Shut up, Sokka!" Suki and Toph chorused back. Katara broke down sobbing.

"It's OK. I'm not sure why you're having issues…Such a lovely night out, isn't it? This little concoction of Sokka's is making the stars look all the brighter…" Suki said in her attempt at comforting Toph.

"I'm blind, you people! Can't you see that?" She snapped, swatting away Suki. Or at least trying too. Toph only flailed a bit in the wrong direction, and ended up trying to gracefully turn her miscalculation into barely a successful attempt at standing.

"Immma take this crazy mind trip inside and away from all you idiots, if you don't mind!" She snapped, swaying.

Trying to focus on her seismic sense to get back to her room, she blocked out Katara's pathetic sobbing and calls for her to come back, ("We were having such a great time!"), Aang's nonstop chatter and movement, as well as Sokka's snarky comments.

Slowly, she took a step forward, reading the ground. Then another, and another. The closer she got to the nearest hallway, though, the further away her feet told her it was, and right as she decided to stupidly just wing it, she ran smack-dab into a support beam.

"SON OF A BITCH MY NOSE!" Toph hollered at the top of her lungs, furiously rubbing at her face to quell the pain that had spread throughout her from the impact.

The collision took all the previous fight right out of her. She couldn't believe it, but tears started to well in the corners of her eyes from all the anger she felt. Whatever Sokka had given them had taken away her only source of reliable interaction with the world around her, and it was terrifying, flying blind.

Much to her dismay, no one else had seemed to realize that she was struggling. Someone must have said something horrifyingly funny and at the perfect time, judging by the ear-splitting laughter of her companions, allowing them all to forget Toph right when her moment of greatest need struck. Irrationally, Toph's drugged up mind thought that they were all laughing at her, and that's why no one (according to her feet) was coming to assist her.

The great Toph Beifong, in that moment, felt so weak, alone, and hapless. Never had she felt such great and depressing emotion override her confidence and pride in her ability, and she had put up with her parents for thirteen years telling her how fragile and unfortunate she was to be blind.

Yes, being blind had its downsides, but most of the time it was nothing she couldn't overcome and/or work around. Toph knew what Appa and Momo looked like, though she couldn't tell you any fur patterns, and she could pick out a single person a mile away. She wasn't typically blessed with the patience to play therapist for someone, but her feet were experts at picking up feelings through heartbeats, and she had friends to help her translate papers and tell her all the detailed stuff.

Or so you thought.

Toph, for the first time in her life, took pity on herself and tried to cry her way through it like a 'normal' person did. Her senses, already enhanced by trying to make up for her loss of sight, were not helping her in her attempts to forget where she was, who she was with, and her current challenges. Toph could still feel the Firelord's beach house, a sprawling structure that weaved in and out and all over the damn island, and her clumsy so-called 'friends' staggering about, giggling and snapping at each other.

A hand, almost as if the air around her had materialized it, gently rested on her shoulder. Toph jumped a bit, surprised that someone had in fact come and was paying attention to her.

"Toph?" That voice saying her name made her stomach flutter a bit, thanks to the Cactus Juice only maybe, since Toph felt something else deep inside her heart making her smile at Zuko's gruff, yet oddly soothing, voice.

"Are you alright?" Zuko sat down next to her, carefully wrapping his arm around her slumped shoulders. He drew her into a half hug.

Toph shook her head and viciously wiped away her tears. She couldn't let this newest addition to Team Avatar see her, the self-proclaimed toughest of the group, cry like a kid and think her weak. Never would she ever let something as stupid as getting upset over running into a post show her insecurities, drug-induced or not.

She rested her head on his shoulder and quietly spoke.

"I can't get to my room."

Zuko, almost as if he didn't hear her, continued to stay put and gently rub circles on Toph's back.

He let his mind wonder about the small girl beside him, and think of the things that he typically hated thinking about, since his relationships with other people made him all squirmy on the inside. But he couldn't help it. There had been respect for Toph that he had built up over the past few weeks after getting to know her, and only just now was he able to put a finger on that particular feeling he got when he was around her.

Zuko sat in his trace for what seemed like an eternity to Toph, though it had only been a few nanoseconds.

"Sparky!" Toph yelled into his ear, afraid that he had become hard of hearing. "Please assist me to my room now, will you?"

Yes, Zuko thought. I've finally got her pegged…

"Yes, Miss Beifong. I would be more than happy to show you to your living quarters for the time being…" And in a flash, Zuko picked up Toph bridal style.

"All secure?"

Man, is he strong… Toph noticed as she nodded yes.

"Then let's goooo!" He shouted, running with her into the beach house. Toph giggled. She liked this less broody and more prone to laughing and joking around Zuko.

"YIP YIP!"

Zuko zoomed through the house with ease, carefully maneuvering his way around corners and up stairs so Toph couldn't get banged up, purposefully taking 'the long way' to her room.

"Wheeee! Faster, Appa! Faster!"

They were flying through each hallway and laughing so hard that Zuko couldn't believe that A: he hadn't tripped up by now, and B: he was still able to have blissful moments like these when he was a kid again.

And to share it with his little sister…

Trying his best to imitate animal noises, Zuko slowly jogged his way to Toph's room which was, incidentally, Azula's old one.

"Phsss. This is your captain speaking. We are coming in for a landing…" And Zuko kicked open Toph's door, bobbing and weaving this way and that for dramatic effect before plopping her down on her bed.

Oh, did Toph laugh…

"Can you be like this more often, Zuko? It's not like you're too brooding and mopey and pessimistic but you're brooding and mopey and pessimistic…And you know how to goof around almost as much as Sokka does…It's not like we don't need you're reality checks but you're so, so different when you don't seemed to be weighed down and I know I love it…" She was cut off by a gentle finger to her lips.

"Say no more, o' little sister of mine. Your wish is my command…" And with that he tucked her in bed tightly, and ever so lightly, kissed his own hand and in turn placed it on her cheek.

"Nighty night, sleep tight…"

"Don't let the bed bugs bite, big brother."


A/N: And that was my first attempt at writing brotherly!Zuko and sisterly!Toph.

Eh...Not perfect but it's something for right now. The writing style is throwing me...

R+R as always though :)