Sokka fiddled with his ivory choker agitatedly. He hated how early he had to be at these galas, being the chairman. Technically, Toph was supposed to be there before even he was, but she always managed to delegate the pre-gala tasks to some underling that she trusted implicitly. Today it was a clean-shaven man in his late twenties named Wan. He wore his metalbending uniform well, and was clearly very well built underneath it. He stood two or three inches taller than Sokka, so the chairman of the city council found himself looking up at the young policeman as the security details were recited to him.
"We have two bending officers at all exits," said Wan, "and then we'll have the chief in here with the council, as well as me, the deputy chief, and four nonbending officers."
Sokka nodded and elicited a stately grunt. "Do we expect any trouble, Wan?"
Wan didn't quite shake his head, but made a dismissive gesture with his face.
"I doubt it Mr. Chairman. Things have been pretty quiet in general since Quon Li's trail."
"Alright then," said Sokka, "thanks for the taking care of that." He swept the decorated hall up in a glance.
"Is the bar open yet?"
Sokka was nursing an early whiskey by the time his friends arrived, well ahead of the start of the gala. He knew that all of them would have to go out later and pose for the reporters, but it was a kind of tradition that Zuko and Aang would come by earlier so that they could all catch up properly before the proceedings began.
Toph hung back during the greetings between Sokka and Zuko, letting them revel in the reunion.
"You look bored as hell," Zuko said to Sokka, grinning widely.
Sokka dropped his shoulders and blew out a massive huff of breath in an exaggerated gesture of exhaustion.
"I've been here for hours! And for no particular reason either."
"You should really start delegating," said Toph, folding her arms and smirking. "I've never looked back!"
"You've never looked at anything, Toph," said Sokka. There was a moment of brief silence, and then all of them were laughing.
Sokka bought them all a drink, except for Toph, who as a rule only hit the hard stuff after the dancing started, and they spent half an hour chatting, catching up, and just appreciating being together again.
"How's everything looking, Wan?" asked Toph, standing at her best viewing area, which was a stone slab raised above the carpeting of the ballroom near the west exit. She had requested its inclusion in the construction of the building, warning that if they didn't include it, she would simply raise it herself and risk ruining the grand appearance of the place. Her reasoning had been that any metalbender would need seismic sense above all the noise of the galas and banquets they were planning on having, sighted or not.
"Looking good, chief," Wan replied. "It's pretty quiet outside, and there's nothing but the usual signs of merriment in here."
"Good. In that case, I'm going to go and get some dinner. Come and call me if you need me for anything."
Wan fired off an unseen salute, and replied in the affirmative.
Toph plopped down into the seat Sokka had saved for her, plate laden with buffet items, ten minutes later.
"Food any good?" she asked.
"Oh yes," he said.
It was a ritual with them; him saving her a seat, banter about the food, and Toph's first beer for the evening, drawn by Sokka and perspiring at her place by the time she sat down.
The way he ate, one would most certainly not have believed that he was the city's highest ranking official.
"You eat like a pig chicken, Sokka."
"How would you know?"
"I can hear you slurping away. All these years on the council and you still have no manners."
"Speak for yourself. You call yourself a Beifong?"
They chuckled, and finished eating in companionable silence. After the meal, Toph got them each another beer, while Sokka watched Aang and Katara flirt in their strange, delicate way, both of them blushing even though they had been married for decades. Zuko and Mai were already dancing; considering that dancing had been mostly discouraged in the Fire Nation in their youth, they danced well. Both of them had been training in martial arts from a young age and moved gracefully and lithely over the dance floor.
Toph nervously ran a finger down the outside of her icy beer glass.
"Sokka," she said quietly.
He turned away from the party at the unusually solemn quality of her voice.
"I'm sorry about the whole Quon Li thing," she said.
"It's okay, Toph –"
"Let me finish. Sorry." She sighed. "I guess I was so frustrated at the thought of him walking free because of my own ineptitude that I took it out on you. And that's not fair, to either of us. I've hated that we've barely spoken the last couple of weeks, I've hated that we didn't go out for drinks last weekend like we usually do. And I've especially hated that it was all my fault. I'm really sorry."
She took a large gulp of beer to try and kill the giant lump that had risen in her throat while she was talking.
"I appreciate you coming to headquarters after our argument to try and smooth things over, but I still haven't been a very good friend to you, especially since the end of the trail. And I should know by now that you would never let someone like Quon Li get off easy if you could help it."
"Toph, it's really okay."
"No, it's not, Sokka. You're my closest friend – I shouldn't ever push you away."
He moved his chair closer to hers, took her right hand off her beer glass and held it in his own.
"I knew things would be okay," he said, "because I realised that you needed to deal with your anger about Quon Li in your own way. I missed you – a lot – but I knew you'd eventually forgive me."
Toph smiled. "Me forgive you," she said with a slightly wet huff. "Like that would ever happen. You were only doing your job!"
"Well, do you forgive me?" he asked. She freed her hand and punched him in the arm in response.
"You wanna go dance?" she asked.
"Sure! Let's show these other noobs how it's done." said Sokka.
Toph didn't so much dance as use vague earthbending stances to scope out where everyone was, and when she was with someone she trusted implicitly, such as Sokka, she would actually sometimes rest her feet on top of his and let him guide her along for the slower numbers. The first time they'd danced at a gala years ago, Katara had been thoroughly delighted, exclaiming that she looked graceful and ladylike, and had talked Aang into giving it a try. Aang, having been instructed in earthbending by Toph herself years previously, knew her well enough to be a good dance partner, but it was always easier and more natural when she was with Sokka, who had once saved her life by clinging to her fingers over a burning landscape, even when the odds were totally against them.
As she stood up and took his hand, she could pick out Aang's light footsteps out of the crowd; obviously Aang and Katara had joined in the dancing while Toph had been apologising to Sokka. While they were walking towards the dance floor, Toph reflected on how much she had always liked holding Sokka's hand. Being blind, she was used to touching certain people as a point of reference, for guidance on surfaces where her feet were impaired, and it was something she had gotten used to and come to terms with early in life, but it was something of a necessity. Human touch didn't mean to her what it did to seeing people - except with Sokka. She wished she could be touching Sokka all the time.
It wasn't that his skin felt better than other people's skin, or that there was anything physically different about touching him, it was that it was touching him. She always felt special and loved, and her longing to be closer to him was amplified by it.
When they were a great deal younger she'd had a crush on him - a typical prepubescent, red-faced, heart-thumpingly enormous crush - but she had gotten over it fairly easily. She had always liked Suki, and she thought that they'd made a cute couple, and she had moved on. She hadn't been hurt that Sokka hadn't chosen her; he and Suki had fit together well - it had come naturally. She hadn't rejoiced when they broke up - she had been heartbroken at Sokka's heartbreak, even though splitting up was something that both he and Suki had needed to do - and by that point she had been pretty serious with Lin's father, so her friendship with Sokka had become something pure and untouched.
After Lin's father had been gone a long time, and Sokka and Toph had started their terms in office, they had spent so much of their time together that it didn't really ever feel as though anything was missing from her life, but Toph had to admit that whenever Sokka touched her - whether it was a quick hug, a pat on the back, a guiding hand - she would feel this gap in things; as though there was more than friendship, and both of them were too busy, too enamoured, and too fond of each other to ever acknowledge or explore. She would recognise that gap, fold away that semi-knowledge of what she and Sokka could be, and just enjoy being touched by him. That was how it had been for years.