~A~

What Fools Fear Makes of Us

~A~

"Aang, can I talk to you?"

The young avatar looked up at the water tribe boy and nodded. "Oh, yeah, ummm... I wanted to talk to you, too," he finally managed to get out around the guilt clogging his throat.

Sokka sat down next to his friend and said, "Go ahead. What'd you need to talk about?"

The airbender blushed, looking down at his hands as he twiddled his thumbs with shame. "I wanted to say I'm sorry about keeping that letter from your dad from you guys. That was a terrible thing for me to do. I hope you can forgive me," he tagged on, though the fact that both Sokka and Katara had in the end chosen to stay with him above going to find their father should have been answer enough to that.

"I'm glad you brought it up... this is what I wanted to talk to you about, too." He paused, and then sighed. "I can't speak for Katara, but for myself I forgive you. I have a question though," he said, looking at the younger boy quizzically and continuing when he nodded his willingness to answer whatever the query was. "Why did you do it? I mean... this just doesn't sound like something you'd do."

Aang exhaled and Sokka was taken aback at the sudden weary sadness that aged the boy's eyes until they seemed far too weighed down for someone of his years.

After a pause to gather his thoughts, the monk said, "I was afraid. I thought... that you guys would leave me and go with Bato. I didn't want to lose the only... friends... I had left, I guess, though I know that sounds bad." He winced and then shook his head – he'd almost said 'family' instead of friends, and he didn't want to presume. They probably didn't see him the same way. "The fear just... pushed me into making a really foolish choice that almost ended up forcing you guys to do the very thing I'd been afraid of to begin with. How dumb is that?"

Sokka was silent for a while as he thought about that, and then he nodded as though he understood. "What fools fear makes of us," he agreed. After a moment he slung an arm around the younger boy's shoulders and hugged him for a few seconds. "Don't worry about that again, Aang. We're not going to leave you – you're family now too, and if we'd decided to go see dad we would have just taken you with us."

The Avatar's eyes lit up and the teenaged warrior reflected on the fact that it didn't seem to take much to make the young monk happy. "Really?" he asked. "You really mean that?" When the older boy nodded, Aang grinned. "Thanks, Sokka. That means a lot to me. I'll try not to let fear make a fool of me again, but in case I fail, I'm going to apologize beforehand. So, I'm sorry if I get stupid anytime between now and... well, the rest of my life, now that I think about it. I'm pretty good at doing dumb things, and I don't think that's going to change anytime soon."

The older teen laughed as he pulled back and put a hand to his chin, looking thoughtful. "Hmm... a preemptive, blanket apology. Something like that might come in handy," he mused.

Aang frowned in confusion and tilted his head. "For what?"

At that Sokka grinned and once more slung an arm around the younger boy's shoulders with a conspiratorial air this time. "Well, for whenever we say something stupid and offend a girl. As guys, it's what we do, you know. Although I've never figured out why it's that way... it hardly seems fair that we're cursed to make fools of ourselves in front of them all the time."

Aang blinked. "So... let me get this straight. Fear makes fools of us, and then some weird force of fate makes us make fools of ourselves in front of girls." When Sokka nodded, he finished with, "Is there anything else we need to worry about?" in an odd tone.

"Yup. Puberty makes fools of us, too," he returned cheerfully, though Aang couldn't see what there was to be cheerful about in the current subject.

"Well, what's the point of worrying about not making fools of ourselves then? If it's going to happen that much, there really isn't going to be any time of the day that we aren't looking stupid in front of ourselves or someone else!" Aang dropped his head into his hands with a dramatic groan as the older boy pulled his arm away with a grin. "It's all a cosmic joke, isn't it? Our whole lives are a joke."

"Aww, it isn't that bad," Sokka chuckled. "Eventually we seem to outgrow it." A few memories of the times before his mother had died floated through his head, then... and with a small grimace he decided he'd better revise his statement. "Mostly, anyway," he tacked on ruefully just to be safe. Even dad didn't seem to be totally immune to the stupidity, if I remember some of the looks on mom's face sometimes... and the looks on his as he tried to dig his way out of the hole he'd dug himself into.

"Anything else I need to know?" Aang asked dejectedly in a muffled voice.

"Just that we make the biggest fools of ourselves in front of girls we li-" he stopped and gaped down at the boy in shock, and then jumped away from him to point his finger in his direction accusingly, "-you like my sister!"

The airbender groaned again, louder this time. "I've been making that much of a fool of myself in front of Katara? Aww, man!" Aang's head shot up as he said that, and he looked at Sokka with horror. "This is terrible!"

Both males went silent and stared at each other wide-eyed when what the airbender had actually just admitted aloud truly sank in.

Katara jumped in shock as Aang dashed through camp in a whirlwind of air followed several seconds later by her brother waving his fist around and shouting at him. She watched with wide eyes as they disappeared into the distance, and then she shook her head with a sigh.

Boys. They were all idiots. Loveable idiots sometimes, but idiots nonetheless.