Chapter Fifteen

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The Depths of His Despair

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Toph and Sokka were no longer on speaking terms. Toph was, of course, mad at Sokka for lying to her and trying to run her life for her; and Sokka was upset because of, well, everything. Not only had she let Stonehenge lie on top of her like that, but also she did not even appreciate Sokka for kicking the guy's butt and protecting her, as she should have, he insisted. And she had even asked the jerk to go to he stupid party with her! And she'd told him not to talk to her, and she'd left him trapped by the idiot's Earthbending all night!

Sokka irately related these affronts to Aang when the latter finally glided in the next morning and freed him from his earthly bindings.

"Why didn't Katara get you out?" Aang asked, helping a stiff and sore Sokka to his feet.

"She took her side!" he growled vehemently, not even referring to Toph by name now. "Put a blanket over me, then went inside to go back to bed, but of course a big gust of wind would blow it off me and leave me here freezing my butt off for hours! Do you think she knows Airbending? Because I bet she did it!"

"Sokka, calm down. You guys have had arguments before. I'm sure this will all blow over," Aang said as Sokka picked dirt out from under his toenails.

"No, Aang. What she did is unforgivable. I've been nothing but a good friend to her, and she keeps rejecting me anyway, so she wants me gone, I'm gone." His eyes suddenly assumed a lackluster quality as his volcanic anger hardened within him. "I'm getting my stuff and going back to the Northern Water Tribe."

At a loss for words, Aang followed his friend inside and watched solemnly as Sokka gathered his belongings scattered about the living room, making no attempt to quiet his actions, and possibly even trying to make them unnecessarily loud.

"Sokka, come on," Aang pleaded gently. "I mean, if Katara and I can be friends, then surely you guys can—"

"Friends? You think you and Katara can just be friends?" Sokka spat. "Be realistic, Aang. You and my sister can never just be friends. This whole get-a-date thing is your sorry attempt to make her jealous and try to win her back, but what you need to do is just get over it because women don't know what they want, and they'll step all over you when you try to be there for them!"

"Don't lash out at me because you still haven't moved on from Suki after all these years, Sokka," Aang glared, trying and failing not to let his upset friend rile him.

"Don't talk about things you don't know anything about, Aang. I stopped loving Suki a long time ago," Sokka said sullenly.

"Then what is your problem!" Aang shouted.

"I don't have one. She's the one with the problem."

" 'She?' Sokka, just say her name!" Aang shouted. Then it suddenly occurred to him just what Sokka's problem was, and the realization about his friend blew over and startled him like a wakeup call.

"Sokka, you…" he began, but Sokka had already turned to go out the door.

Aang chased after him into the street, where they saw Katara and Toph returning home after buying fruit for breakfast.

"Aang, where have you been?" Katara asked, slightly irritated as she and Toph stopped and waited as the boys approached.

Aang did not answer as he watched Sokka coldly stride past Toph without a word or any acknowledgement of her existence. The message not lost on Toph, her expression crumbled furiously as she bit her lip to keep from crying.

"Oh, Toph," Katara murmured compassionately, taking the girl's hand.

"Why is it that people in love hurt each other so much?" Aang wondered, rushing forward to hug the heartbroken Toph.

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Sokka passively settled back into his Northern Water Tribe dwelling and resumed his daily schedule easily enough, but for the next several days he declined to socialize outside of his work, opting instead to sit at home by himself and stew. He was getting very good at it, he decided, and wondered if he should just go ahead and quit his job to continue to improve upon his absolute inability to do anything at all. He seriously considered this one night when a knock came at his door.

Too busy doing nothing to be bothered, he didn't answer it. Besides, he still had more dirt to pick out from under his toenails. "The stuff gets into you and just won't come out," he mused as the knocking continued for some time and then finally ceased.

The next night the knocking began again.

"Sokka, I know you're in there," called Katara.

"No, I'm not," he called back.

"Damn it, Sokka, open up!" she yelled.

"Y'can't make me." He stuck his nose to his thumb and wagged his fingers at her, tongue sticking out.

"Wanna bet!" she shouted, and a cannonball of water blasted through his door.

"Woah!" Sokka cried, scrambling aside as she shot another rock-solid orb shot through the entrance.

"Okay, okay! You win!" Sokka shouted.

"That's more like it," Katara said, reaching through the first hole in the door to unlock it.

"Aw, Katara, why'd you have to go and put two holes in my door then?" Sokka whined as his sister crossed the threshold.

"Because you pissed me off," she retorted, putting her water back into her pouch.

"Oh, gods, Sokka, it stinks in here!" she choked, covering her nose and mouth with a hand. "Are you showering?"

"When I need to," he replied coolly.

"Well, you need to," Katara decided for him. "Go take a shower, and I'll be waiting for you when you get out."

As Sokka slouched off to clean himself, Katara took stock of the young man's abode and its cleanliness as well and found it seriously lacking. When Sokka emerged from the shower, he found her cleaning up spilled substances, dirty clothes, empty drink containers, and food he'd left out, among other vile things.

"Sokka, this is ridiculous," she said. "You need to get a hold of yourself."

"I don't need your help," Sokka grumbled, glaring at her.

"Fine," she said and dropped the armload of junk she'd picked up to throw away. "Suit yourself. We were going to do this the easy way, but now we'll just have to settle for the hard way."

She strode over to his bureau, rummaged through what clean clothes were actually still in it (which were, unremarkably, his nicer things) picked a couple items and threw them at him. "Get dressed," she said brusquely.

"For what?" he asked, looking at the clothes in his arms.

"We're going to Toph's party."

"What?! Oh, no, I'm no—hey!" he shouted as she threw his shoes at him next.

"Sokka, if you value your life and your worth as a person, then yes," she glared, "you will."

Sokka met her glare, but he could tell she was much more adamant on the matter than he.

"Fine," he groused. "I'm sick of eating noodles and canned soup anyway."

"Good," Katara said, a brief smile coming to her lips. "Because this?"—she gestured around the room—"is not happening again."

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To be continued…

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A/N:

Hehe You know a guy's in love when his life completely falls apart. Same for a woman, too, but Toph has plenty of drama-rama coming up herself, and I need to spread out the drama a bit, so nothing becomes too one-sided. All must be balanced out, I say!

Happily, I feel a bit better today, but to make sure I get into the writing mood, I'll probably watch some Avatar AMVs on Youtube. My current favorite is this one here:

/watch?vYY9AX2SWxLE

which I SO recommend!! It's absolutely beautiful, and the song choice? Freakin' perfect! Several vid-creators have used this song, but I've liked this person's take on it best so far. Weee!

Anyway, things will be picking up shortly on the fluffy front, just please give it some time because wherever I take the story before then, it's because I have an artistic inclination as a woman and a writer to develop things…however they develop! How will they develop? I honestly don't really know right now, but I will figure it out soon! lol

As always, thank you so much for reading, I hope you're enjoying it, and I humbly request that you leave a review please!

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P.S.

Do I look like I own Avatar??

I do??

Why…thank you! Heehee!

But I really don't. Waaah.