Chapter Eleven
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Cactus Juice Cameo!!
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Sokka sulked about in the living room for the rest of the evening, and Toph disappeared into her room for a thorough dose of alone time. Aang found his two friends thusly occupied when he returned.
Fortunately, Toph recovered from her injury quite rapidly over the following days, and as her health improved, so, too, did her mood. Sokka, on the other hand, continued his Sulk Fest and did little more than eat and gripe, which irritated Toph and drove her back to her quarters. Though wary about leaving the two of them alone in the apartment together, Aang also desperately needed to get away for a while, so one night later that week he told them he was going out for a bit to meet a friend.
Now this perked their interest.
"Who is she?" Toph asked, immediately understanding the shadowy reference to an appointment with a girl.
"It's Meng," Aang answered. "But we're just friends. It's not like we're going on a…you know…"
"Give me ten minutes to get ready," Sokka said, clambering to his feet, finally quitting after forty-eight straight hours his Cushion Comfort Fortress on the floor. "I have got to see this."
"You guys, it's not a—!" Aang began, alarmed by their assumptions.
"Can it, Twinkletoes. We'll tell you what it is when we see it with our own two eyes. Or, two eyes and two feet…or whatever. Come on, let's go before Grumpybritches finishes shaving off his stubble."
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"Oh, you brought friends!" Meng said, trying to sound pleased instead of disappointed.
"I didn't really bring them. They just kind of followed," Aang explained quietly.
Meng blushed as he leaned close to tell her this. "Yeah, well, what are you going to do, I guess? Haha!" And she laughed loudly.
"I know, right?" Aang said, smiling kindly, not noticing her awkwardness.
"Oh, now I have to impress his friends, too! Or at least not look like a moron!" she thought to herself anxiously.
"I recognize you," Toph said as Aang introduced them. "You're at the competitions a lot. You sit with the other floozies."
"Toph!" Aang cried, and Meng twitched angrily. "She's a groupie, not a floozy!"
"Last I checked the whole pack of them were just around to snag fighters to be their boyfriends," Toph shrugged, completely ignoring Meng's heart rate, which quickened heatedly with every word she said.
"Look, some of the girls are like that, but I'm not!" she affirmed. "I'm a groupie because I love the spirit of it all: the fights and all the hard work the fighters put in and watching them grow stronger and win more battles; and I love to be there for them when they lose because that's when they really need a fan to cheer them on the most!" She had to stop to breathe. Aang and Sokka backed away slowly, eager to stay out of it.
"You love the "spirit" of it all so much, then why do you only support the big strong men? What about the female fighters?" Toph grilled. "If you're not out to get yourself a boyfriend, then why don't you support your fellow woman?"
"Fine, then, I'll be your groupie! Happy?" Meng snapped.
"I don't care who you support," Toph replied.
"But you just said—"
"I was just pointing out that you're doing what all the other ring-around-the-floozies do: stand around the ring and be floozies," she said.
"But I'm not a floozy!" Meng turned to Aang, desperately seeking to prove herself, and repeated, "I'm not a floozy."
"Don't worry," Aang smiled. "I know."
"Whoze a floozy? Youze a floozy? Are you the flooziest? Hey, you know what's the quenchiest? Cactus juice! Drink up, everybody!" Sokka interrupted, lightening the mood considerably as he downed his third glass.
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Much later that evening, after a fun night out of catching up, dancing, and drinking, the four of them walked home. Rather, while Aang and Meng walked, Aang used his Airbending to both push Toph and Sokka along and to keep them upright.
"They can't really hold their cactus juice, can they?" Meng giggled.
"No, not really, and it's worse 'cuz neither of them knows when to quit. A monk, on the other hand, lives without such excesses," Aang said piously.
"I notice your cheeks are a little red there, too," Meng pointed out with an unabashedly broad grin. "And it looks to me like your friends aren't walking in as straight a line as you could make them walk."
Aang looked away sheepishly.
"Avatar Aang, I think you yourself are a little tipsy!" Meng laughed as he blushed furiously.
"It was just one drink! And half of one of Sokka's when he wasn't looking, but I was just trying to keep him from getting completely wasted, really! Hooh, this is so embarrassing! What kind of monk am I?" he agonized, mournfully clutching his face in his hands, the sudden movement accidentally sending Sokka and Toph soaring into the air, with great giggles from the one as the other heaved on the balcony of someone's house.
"Aang, it's okay. You're allowed to have fun, too. You're seventeen. You should be having fun," Meng said, gently lowering his hands, in effect lowering Toph and a green-faced Sokka as well.
"Why does everyone keep saying that? No, it's not even everyone. It's just Katara. Oh, it wasn't mutual, Meng! She broke up with me because she wanted to date other guys. Why would she do that, Meng? Why would she choose people she doesn't even know yet over me?" Then something occurred to him. "Maybe she does know people. Maybe she left me for other people."
"Katara would never do that, Aang," Meng said. "You know that. And I don't know why she made the choice she did, but I know it wasn't to hurt you. Why would anyone ever want to hurt you, Aang?" She bit her lip, bashful about this unintentionally tender disclosure of her feelings.
Aang was quiet for a moment as they continued to walk (Sokka and Toph alternately stumbling and lurching, and Sokka's cast clunking all the while) along the peacefully vacant midnight street to Toph's apartment. Then he said, "Thanks, Meng. I feel better. And I'm sorry to bother you with all of this. It's just been difficult lately."
They stopped outside Toph's door as Toph fumbled drunkenly with her keys.
"Ah, screw it," she said, and with a sloppy stomp cleared a hole in her wall and stumbled through. Sokka staggered after her, but not before she closed up the wall again; and bashing his face into the sudden barrier, he slumped to the ground, where he proceeded to pass out.
"I had a really good time tonight, Aang," Meng said, looking shyly at the Airbender as the soundtrack of Sokka's snoring crooned in the background.
"I did, too, Meng. We should do it again sometime," Aang said, taking her hand in his and swinging it back and forth playfully.
Meng laughed, but blushed all the same. "I know you're a little drunk right now, but—"
"And you don't seem drunk at all!" Aang observed belatedly. "How's that?"
"Oh, well, I've had practice. A floozy knows how to hold her cactus! I mean groupie! A groupie knows how to—" she stopped.
"Well, maybe I'm a little tipsy, too," she confessed. "But it takes quite a bit to get me as bad as that." She nodded at Sokka's hunched up figure, face on the ground, buttocks in the air.
Aang laughed. "I probably should let him sleep out here and learn a lesson, but he's already got a broken leg. Can't let him catch pneumonia, too."
Meng laughed with him, but she was distracted. He still had her hand in his. Meng slid it from his grasp.
"Aang," she began again. "You can say you were drunk and pretend to forget this later, but…"
And she kissed him.
The kiss was too brief for him to respond or return or reject or anything, and she mumbled a hurried "goodbye" and left before he even had a chance to blink. Startled, he stood there for a while, considering the girl, the kiss, and the situation. He didn't know what to feel.
But he knew he didn't feel bad.
A particularly loud grunt from Sokka interrupted his confusing thoughts, and with a sigh, he lugged him through the front door, using Toph's spare key hidden in the ground beneath the welcome mat. Upon entering, he found Toph sprawled across the floor right in front of the wall she had Earthbended open and shut. She, too, was dead to the world, and he dragged Sokka over to her. Leaving them to lie there asleep on the floor beside each other, Aang went to bed to escape the exhausting confusion of consciousness; but despite his current worries, he still found himself able to enjoy a small smile of amusement at his friends' expense.
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To be continued…
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A/N:
Yay to another fun chapter! I know Toph's the one who doesn't like to fly and be up in the air, but I have a hunch she loosens up quite a bit when she's got cactus juice in her system. And Sokka? Well, he loosened up a bit too much, ne?
In other news, I think I will be shifting over into Part 3 of this story soon. That doesn't really mean anything in terms of where I post the fanfic—it will all remain under this title—it's just a distinction between things that are going on and characters that are involved for the time being. Kataang's blocking force nearly completely in place, Katara will be returning soon, and I dearly conspire that we have not seen the last of darling Stonehenge. Oh, there are many places to go and people to see before it's all over, and I have no idea when that will be. I pray I may finish before I go back to school, but it's looking more and more like I'm going to keep going with this for quite a few chapters. Every time I sit down to write a chapter intending to do one thing, I end up focusing on something I suddenly feel needs development. I'm pleased with the results so far, but it's also making this rather epic compared to what I originally planned. Please bear with me, though, you awesome readers, you, and please leave plenty of reviews because I am a review whore and your comments are my writing aphrodisiac. You think I'm joking, but it's so true. /sighs with shame in light of her review whoredom/
Until the next installment!
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P.S.
I own…none of these characters this time. Oh, well. Maybe I'll just have to have a baby in here somewhere? I wonder?